BELLA616 // 12 May 2017

a work of fragile magic, a hypnotic combination of beautifully breathy voice and exquisite lyrical imagery, gorgeous melodies and similarly soft-spun instrumentation, centred on his thrumming acoustic guitar and the verdant presence of velvet strings. Stratton’s arrival ends what Bella Union boss Simon Raymonde calls “a very long search.” Inspired by the female songwriters he’d signed, such as Holly Macve and Marissa Nadler, he’d “struggled to find a male artist that I could truly be excited about, that was at least the equal of the above… Someone of the calibre of Elliott Smith, Cass McCombs and Justin Vernon.”