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Perhaps sensing a best-before date drawing close, Dougall bowed out from the band in 2008 with ambitions towards launching a solo career. Two years later and she’s tipped her hand with Without Why, a debut which has felt a long time in coming in spite of the not-insubstantial amounts of hype which have preceded its release. As a re-examination of what it means to be a pop writer, however, you’d have to say it’s been worth the wait.
An adult-oriented record of a very organic sort, Without Why is free of the crass signifiers that moniker sometimes brings to mind. That nothing on here lingers long beyond the four-minute mark signals an overall pop-ness of intent. Likewise Lee Baker’s production, which is as clear as a bell and sympathetic to a tee. But it’s also a more complex beast than that, drawing on Brit-folk greats like Sandy Denny and the chiming grace of Felt songwriter Lawrence Hayward for its ambitious blueprint.
Take Stop/Start/Synchro, for instance, which combines celestial harpsichord with a choppy, Motown-ish rhythm section. What’s nice here is how the hooks aren’t welded shamelessly on – rather, the song is allowed to breathe and develop towards its wrenching lyrical climax, neatly evocative of that maudlin feeling that comes at the end of a relationship: “I was once beautiful to you”. Even Another Version of Pop Song, apparently conceived of as a bridge between Dougall’s songwriting work with The Pipettes and her solo material, contains not a single sugar-coated chorus lick in sight, instead emphasising a two-note guitar riff in subtler and more affecting ways.
Find Me Out is beautifully realised, all lowing strings, fluttering percussion and just-so touches of double bass. Third Attempt’s brushed, gossamer arpeggios don’t even bother to crescendo – the pop equivalent of leaving your socks on during sex – but the track is revealed as courageous, the lyrics capturing a moment of uncertainty which resurfaces throughout: “Was this person not the answer, really just a question in disguise?”
Tracks like Watching and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra-esque Goodnight steal a march on still-less familiar territory, marking out Dougall as a serious talent and Without Why a beguiling portrait of an artist unbound.
--Alex DenneyFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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