Melodic and skewiff, Orkney Islanders Half Cousin are the latest in a growing line of satisfyingly odd songwriters with a good line in unpretentious and unkempt tales of the small town.

’Country Cassette’ sounds for all the world like Flat Beat Eric being ritually battered with, in no particular order, bits of driftwood, a trombone, a beardy-wierdo’s stolen squeezebox, some discarded car bumper and a lead pipe. Junk-funk anyone?

And yet, on top of the neck-crushing munch, there’s quality windsweepin’ 60s sweetnex of vocals, arpeggiating acoustic guitars, squalls of sublime organic face-freezing ethereality. It all makes for a gloopy, tousled mulch of sonically tangled seaweed and naked, alt.dork electrolyte distraction.

And they can do the singer songwriter thang too – B-side Flourescent Jacket is the accomplished, and extremely natural, sound of a group discovering that their nascent voice can be both dynamically direct and tenderly true.