Andrew Weatherall – We Count The Stars (2016)

I’m not a great lover of electronic music, and when I first heard this song my initial reaction was that I wouldn’t give it a fair review, but I endeavoured to approach this work without any bias if that is indeed possible.

The track has downbeat quality, with its mockney type vocal, which probably isn’t put on due to his upbringing in Windsor, not a million miles away from the capital. The vocal lacks in enthusiasm, similar in style to the electronic hit, ‘Getting Away with It’, but then I think that is the point. It’s not meant to sound all bright and cheerful. It’s like Weatherall and his mates are all in a trance gazing into celestial spheres, like John Lennon when he took acid accidentally in the studio and had to escape to Abbey Road Studio’s rooftop, telling George Martin how wonderful the stars looked. Then again I’m only surmising.

The funky guitars that are more present on the rest of the album, particularly on ‘Frankfurt Advice’ and ‘Kicking the River’, are lacking here as you would expect from this more chilled out track. The intro suggests some space-age exploration until the snare drum kicks into a hypnotic groove with ad-libbing muted trumpets, as played on ‘All That’s Left’. I really like the lyrics to the chorus. They are quite deep and suggest that the singer is regretful of his sins, or his regret, but counts the stars as a form of escape, or perhaps he is talking to God for some redemption while the ‘others’ he refers to just look lost. However, that being said, lyrics are generally open to interpretation. I particularly like the latter half of the song, which for me conjures a feel of an altered state of mind, which is nicely portrayed by the sexy sounding backing singers.

Overall I think it’s a great ambient track, not meant to dance to in a club but to chill to within the safe confounds of your home or a mate’s gaff. I said at the beginning that electronic music is not really my thing, but I quite enjoyed the atmosphere of the track and the way it made me feel.

Enjoy ‘We Count The Stars’ and much more Andrew Weatherall on his Soundcloud.