Album Review: Radio Songs by Dave Rowntree

Blur’s drummer breaks his solo duck with an assured album that, while largely electronic, beats with an analogue heart Dave Rowntree is a man of many disciplines, which makes the fact that Radio Songs is his solo debut all the more surprising. Alongside his 'day job' as drummer with Blur, Rowntree is proficient as an animator, TV soundtrack composer, qualified lawyer, and, more recently, a member of Norfolk County Council. For his first opus as a solo artist however, Rowntree goes back to his childhood and the house where he grew up - specifically the kitchen table where he would build radio kits with his father, the pair listening to worldwide broadcasts on the newly assembled apparatus.

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Dave Rowntree is a quiet, steadying influence in Blur. The long-time drummer has softly inputted to the band's work for years now, all while growing his shadow career in the soundtrack realm. 'Radio Songs' is his first full solo album, and it's an intriguing work of autobiography, balancing his private passions against a very English sense of pop that reminds you of Robert Wyatt , Wild Beasts, or even his day job.

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