Rough Trade Exclusive with a Bonus four Track CD featuring I Saw The Days Go By (acoustic version) On The Day You Died (featuring Richie Thomas on sax), There Goes My Fantasy and Phantom Limb. Currently celebrating 20 years piloting his revered record label Bella Union, Simon Raymonde has scaled another personal peak, a new collaboration with drummer Richie Thomas. They’re called Lost Horizons, and their stunning debut album, Ojal?, on Bella Union, is a rare sighting of two gifted musicians who, for different reasons, have been largely absent from music-making for the last 20 years. Yet the record is proof of a telepathic relationship through music, established when the pair first became collaborators and friends in the eighties. Ojal? also incorporates a heady cast of guest singers. Some are signed to Bella Union, such as Marissa Nadler, former Midlake frontman Tim Smith, Cameron Neal (Horse Thief), others are long-time favourites of Raymonde’s (Liela Moss of The Duke Spirit and Ghostpoet), or newer discoveries (Beth Cannon, Hilang Child, Gemma Dunleavy and Phil McDonnell). And then there is the incomparable Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission, one of Raymonde’s most beloved artists, in her first collaboration outside of The Innocence Mission and solo recordings. Together, the Lost Horizons ensemble has created an hour of exquisite, expansive and diverse spellcasting, from facets of soul (Bones, featuring Cannon, and Reckless, featuring Ghostpoet) to dreamier invocations like She Led Me Away (featuring Smith) and Ojal?’s lengthiest trip, The Engine (featuring Hilang Child). There’s the odd louder, faster detour, like Life Inside A Paradox (featuring Neal, with Sharon Van Etten on backing vocals), but the dominant mood is a deep, rich melancholia.
