Scottish-born, Yorkshire-bred Shona Foster left the desolate beauty of the Moors behind her and travelled south. Arriving in Brighton, she set about bringing to life the songs that would characterise her unique musical direction.

Shona’s work defies easy categorisation. When you hear it, you’ll know that Frank Zappa was bang on when he said that writing about music was like dancing about architecture.  We could talk of haunting melodies and enchanting rhythms or about how an Ella Fitzgerald/Tom Waits/Tim Burton collaboration might sound – but that still wouldn’t even be close.

For Shona, the songs spring from the fertile ground where truth and experience meet fantasy and drama – daydreams and imaginary soundtracks made real. What may start as the merest hint of melody is then lovingly crafted by singer and band until the piece has reached its fullest potential.  The result is a heady mix of symphony hall (violins, clarinet, flute) and local junkyard (pipes, oil cans, old bicycles).

The exotic and the everyday in perfect harmony.

Pause.

A man, a musician: forever slipping loose of all constraints, mutating and shape-shifting along the way.

At a time when so much music veers blindly between chin-stroking obscurity and arms-in-the-air emptiness, the Black Holes & White Noise EP is here to light the path to a brighter, deeper, more complex future.

Listen closely and you’ll hear something playful and alive in amongst the robotic beats, glitchy synths and tonal soundscapes. It’s there in the sleazy bass throb of ‘Biscuits’, the elastic funk and warm keyboard swathes of ‘Sinew’ and the Hydra-headed melodies of ‘The Chase’. This is an organic machine; its heart pumping blood instead of oil.

A contradiction perhaps – but not the only one: This Pause never stops.

I’m not sure there is a word that means ‘the fear of standing still’ but if the condition does exist, then Sam Walker obviously has it pretty bad.

An in-demand drummer/percussionist playing with intimate groups and grand orchestras alike, he developed his growing multi-instrumentalist, multi-track tendencies in bedrooms, garden sheds and a self-built studio. The first fruits of these sessions were handed out to a lucky few under the name The Muel.

In mid-2009, Sam hooked up with producer and friend Andy Dragazis (Blue States, The Pipettes) with the intention of taking the project in new and exciting directions. The result, ‘Once at Everywhere’, is an exquisite record ranging from sinister fuzz bass and steel drum grooves to honest, heartfelt, cinematic pop; this is a journey through endless landscapes and shifting time-zones.

Sam’s voice is equally hard to pin down. A contradictory thing, it’s simultaneously burnished and bruised, other-worldly and intimate, doleful and hopeful. Likewise, his lyrics – usually impressionistic rather than literal, cover both the personal and the political with wit and hard-won wisdom.

Although he still tours solo, Sam came to realise that the big sound of ‘Once at Everywhere’ would work better in a band setting. Joined live by two willing conspirators, the group keep the melodic strength of the recordings but infuse them with raw grooves and dirty energy. As you would expect, each show is different. Sometimes gently acoustic, sometimes raucously funky, the core three-piece is often joined on stage by string sections, brass ensembles, even choirs of kazoo players.