Indie folk artist Angus Legg released debut EP A Long Time Gone this week.
Angus gradually released 4 tracks from the EP over the last year which gave a taste of what to expect, and the final record pulls together Angus’s deeply personal storytelling into a moving collection of songs.
Heavily Celtic inspired, A Long Time Gone draws on a range of traditional instruments like Mandolins and Penny Whistles as Angus explores his heritage. This is most clearly felt on May All of Your Friends Be Artists. An emotional tribute to Angus’s late father, who wrote the song before passing, it sees Angus take some of his father’s original vocals and weave them into a duet on this track. There’s a no more perfect way to highlight the threads of legacy and connection that dominate this entire EP. The final line of the song also provided the EP’s title.
Opening track What Did You Start in Me? suggests notes of hope with its jangly plucked strings. I really enjoyed how the vocals and the different instrumental parts weave in and out of being the focus in the track. The song’s theme is also aspirational looking at the early days in a relationship and centered around the repeat vocal motif “What did you start in me?”
The mood abruptly shifts as you move into 12th of May – the story of moving overseas and leaving behind a loved one, and with that, much of the hope that the opening track oozed. Even the first notes of 12th of May give a sense of the forlorn nature of the storytelling. I like how this one settles into a more pop-inspired sound and I think it’s these small musical details that stop the EP feeling depressing.
The EP continues in this fashion, switching between glimpses of optimism and stories of regret, sadness or loss. Napier Street tackles both these emotions head on. In many ways it’s a happy song reminiscing about great times with friends, but there’s this undercurrent of Angus being mournfully nostalgic (“by the time it got dark, we got old”). And this theme of grieving or missing what is no more feels like a central thread holding this EP together. While it takes different forms: the breakdown of a romantic relationship due to distance, the passing of time or the grief of losing his father, Angus’s yearning for what once was hits you time and again.
It’s a bittersweet release, as Angus has shared this will be the end of his musical journey for a while. Although, his acknowledgment that the project has “started to take a little bit more than I have to give.” is unsurprising. It’s a deeply personal, emotive and at times heavy journey and one he’s been taking for quite some time. Angus will celebrate the record’s release with one final live show at The Bergy Bandroom in Melbourne on Sunday July 12 (Tickets here).