‘Rested on easy laurel swamp oak, Dreams must mean the most, They must always mean forever, Fixation guides us all’ (Out And Alive)

Having previously recorded in the guise of His Clancyness and Brutal Birthday, Sprecato (Squandered) is the first release under his own name by Jonathan Clancy, who also runs Bologna-based Maple Death Records.  And working with a collective of fellow-minded instrumentalists, the Canadian Italian singer songwriter has crafted an album of darkly enticing, cosmically inclined folk.

The backbone to the compositions is Clancy’s own richly nuanced vocals and warmly strummed guitar.  These are then layered and braided with a broader palette of instrumentation from eerie flute to assertively serpentine saxophone, by way of skeletal piano and looping, noise infused electronics.  Meanwhile, the underlying rhythms segue from the languorously acoustic to the more driving, clinically programmed.  The song structures are lushly detailed, intriguingly constructed, rarely evolving quite as you would expect, and the skill in weaving each of these elements into such a cohesive whole is captivating to watch unfold.

Both sides of the album are conjured into life by two shorter, insidiously contagious tracks, the hauntingly beautiful Castle Night and the joltingly compelling Fortunate.  What follows in each instance is an entrancingly evocative dreamscape, the hazy, blurred lyrics reinforcing a sense of frustration at the opportunities wasted, both real and illusory.  Clancy sweeps from the beguiling I Want You to the mesmerising A Worship Deal, with its thrillingly discordant, saxophone fuelled climax.  Then from the ethereal Had It All to the swirling dissonance of Out And Alive.  It is a journey that provokes a sense of deep-seated comfort and spectral unease in almost equal measure.