Coastal Study #1 by Birds in the Brickwork (Review)

I’m pretty much a sucker for anything Ben Holton and Rob Glover commit to tape. There’s obviously their work together in Epic45, one of the chief proponents and exemplars of the “nostalgist” movement, but Holton and Glover also have a number of side projects under their belts. Case in point, Birds in the Brickwork, an art project that Holton started during the pandemic while recovering from severe back injuries.

Inspired by a desire to find beauty in the mundane, as well as nature’s resilience — the project’s name came from discovering a bunch of starlings nesting in the walls of a flat — Birds in the Brickwork’s catalog features collections of Holton’s photography accompanied by soundtracks that he’s composed. Previous releases have taken inspiration from long walks through British suburbs and business parks, but as its name implies, Coastal Study #1 goes a bit farther afield, with photos and songs that capture the Welsh coast.

Over the decades, Holton has established himself as a master craftsman of delicate, nostalgia-suffused dream pop. And that’s certainly the case with album highlight “Houses Facing Seawards,” with its intricate guitar melodies and Vini Reilly-esque filigrees that instantly set you in a reflective mood. Other songs, however, like “Private Garden” and “Always, The Sea,” rank among the most purely ambient songs in Holton’s oeuvre, though their drifting, amorphous nature does nothing to blunt or diminish their emotional heft.

Unfortunately, the postcard edition of Coastal Study #1 that features Holton’s photography is already sold out. But I suspect these sublime arrangements would work well for perusing through any photographs you might have lying around, breathing life into the still images and unlocking more than just a few memories for you to explore.