Anyone can buoy release a record these days. The bedroom-based artist is the biggest success out of advancing engineering over the last decade, and Dubliner Conor Furlong has been keen to take advantage.
Entirely written, arranged performed and produced by the emergent songwriter, Furlong even took the clip to burn the CD-R promo copies of debut album 'Eternal'. In all parts of his career, the hands-on approach has clearly been adopted.
Such allegiance to his cause is commendable, in time such solely performed and produced albums always fix alarm bells ringing. You're either about to hear a work of nonsensical genius, or one which is in need of bringing more cooks to the broth.
And when the final cut from 'Eternal' robert Burns out, you're left leaning towards the latter. Fresh ears could only have got benefited this, a debut which, though pointing to some future potential, operates almost exclusively in one gear.
Air, the folk-electronica of excellent British artist Merz and Moby circa 'Play' are all evident here. Having begun his carer in music as an acoustic guitar-carrying singer-songwriter, Furlong has stirred more toward electronica-based material, bathing his debut in lush, classically influenced delicate beats and synths, all combed over with a tender monotoned vocal.
Like much of Moby's 'Play' (particularly the running 'Porcelain') Furlong's dabbles in electronica receive a spacy, chilled-out, brave new universe quality to them, throwing up images of Ibiza comedowns at dawn.
The difficulty, however, is that many of the songs ('The Astronaut', 'I'm In Love with Girls Aloud') sound foetal and uncompleted. Certainly there's not enough going on to sustain interest and as each track bleeds into the next, the lack of variety grates.
Saying that, Furlong has an ear for melody, and when he meshes his new love for electronica with his folkier roots, he begins to stumble paydirt. Seven songs in, 'So, You Think That You're A Star' is head and shoulders above anything else here; Furlong's vocal sounding more inside the song, more division of the material, rather than working over it.
'World That I Dream Of' too shows a outspoken move forrard, but a lack of imagination to the melodic landscape returns to queer. 'Until the Stars Burn Me Out' rectifies this somewhat, simply by this stage we've heard the same thing seven or eight times.
There's enough here to stylemark Furlong as one to watch over the coming years, just for now he may require a bigger bedroom with some cohorts in tow.
Steve Cummins
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