Maps

We Can Create (Mute)

By Jonathan Shipley
Published: June 3rd, 2007 | 12:22pm

James Chapman, essentially the meat and bones of the Northampton, UK based band Maps, is keeping some good company on his new atmospheric, quietly powerful album We Can Create. It is Chapman’s debut full-length album (after a few EPs including 2006’s Start Something) and was produced by Valgeir Sigurosson who has worked with Bjork and was mixed by Ken Thomas who has worked with Sigur Ros. In other words, Chapman has created something meaningful right out of the gate with some folks who know a thing or two about atmospheric indie rock.

”Glory Verse” begins almost complete barren, as if in a spacey vacuum of sorts, just a slow voice and muted sounds before developing into a symphony of melancholic swoons and swabs of electronics, reminiscent of a slow Hans Zimmer melody or something from Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Chapman lists My Bloody Valentine, Kraftwerk, Boards of Canada, and Sparklehorse as some of his influences, and throughout the album you can pick this up. “So High, So Low,” one of the better songs on the album, has the feel of ABBA with better technology and more interesting lyrics. “Liquid Sugar” floats sweetly through drum beats and subdued harmonics.

Currently on tour with Blonde Redhead, Maps is at once luscious yet spare, somber though exuberant. Chapman, and his crew of musicians, perhaps won’t need a map to find listenership. They might find it right off the bat with this album of infectious hooks and mesmerizing melodies.