Alistair Aktas is a musician from Solihull, in central England. He studied as a classical musician at the Birmingham Conservatoire but then in his early twenties he stumbled upon a vinyl copy of Nick Drake's final album, Pink Moon, which inspired him to teach himself the guitar. Since 2016, he has performed every year at the annual Nick Drake Gathering, held in the Warwickshire village of Tanworth-in-Arden, where Nick Drake lived. Aktas also released The Sky Is Singing which is a ten-song album.
The album is stripped back and relies on acoustic guitar picking and vocals. That’s really about it. The opening song “Carillons” displays some beautiful guitar picking skills. It starts a bit soft and somber and goes into a section with faster guitar picking which sounded fantastic. The picking style reminded of the artist William Tyler. “Chorale” is where we are introduced to vocals and his singing style has a ’70s folk flavor. It sounded somewhere between Nick Drake and Donovan at times. The singing style also has this medieval like quality that’s at least portrayed in movies and TV. That was some of the imagery that was going through my head. The album continues with“Scylla and Charybdis” which continues to showcase his signature sound. It’s soft and intimate but still has movement. There are a lot of great lines on this song which are poetic and interpretative. One of my favorites was “There the fiery lightning flash, /There his bones were turned to ash, / Beneath the bough the waters rend, / How long 'til I sail again?” “My Hands Do Tell” continues in this style. “Repose” felt darker than what came before. Something about the strumming style and execution here gave it that quality to my ears. The album is full of guitar picking but “Patron of the Gloam” displayed some of his best delivery. It’s a warm and inviting song and one of the highlights. “Stuck All With You” is a solid one and “You Do Yourself No Favours” has some darkness in the foundation but I also found it warm and beautiful. “Portrayal” contains very fast and intricate chord progressions while the closer “Goodbye” has a meditative quality to it. My main critique was that I did feel I wanted a little more instrumentation sprinkled in to give the songs more colors and tones. I don’t think it needed much but maybe a wind instrument here and there. Overall, I thought this was a good album. Aktas is an exceptional guitar player and I found myself gravitating towards those patterns just as much as the vocals. Take a listen.
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