Mineral: Plastic Ekphrastic

Craig Walker, Mineral's frontman and co-lead singer, has previous form in Irish rock music. As the main guy behind 1990s band Power of Dreams, Walker was adept at creating taut, widescreen guitar pop/rock. Following a trip-hop trip with Archive, Walker returns with Mineral, an Irish-French unit that fuses power chords with psychedelia, funk with pop, electronica with esoterica. In lesser hands this might just have been a sloppy mishmash of styles, but Walker and his cohorts (Thierry Fournie, Damien Li and co-vocalist Sophie Armelle) tie the threads together expertly across a batch of 10 songs. There isn't a duff track, but the standout is Atoms, which for 13 very interesting minutes illuminates the links between early Pink Floyd, The Beatles and several other reference points you hadn't necessarily thought relevant. facebook.com/mineralofficial
Download: Atoms, Love Divine, 1989