Lost A Letter
From The Alphabet
By
Amos
It is always a pleasure to review anything on the Plague
label, and I expect this one to be no exception. Lost A Letter From The
Alphabet is the new offering from Amos. Now I have not had a lot of time
recently to grab the lowdown on the man himself, so that will have to come
another day.
This one has been hinted at for a little while with Plague
sending out a cryptic postcard to get things flowing. If that wasn’t enough,
the promo that came later via email really set things up big time and, I’m
gonna share a few bits from that, which you might have seen if you have
preordered this one on Bandcamp.
So, Amos gives us this:
Lost a letter from the alphabet is more than an album to
me.
It’s a big hello like Trigger Happy. It’s a zipline
shortened in the Chiang Mai rainforest.
It’s a splash of rusty lemonade. It’s a night on the town
then back to the crown plaza.
It’s a 6-year hollibob on the Hoole drag. It’s a boiled
sheep's head in Istanbul.
It’s a double shot with a celery stick. It’s a secret
field full of little hills.
It’s a measurement too small. It’s a knotted stomach
about to burst.
It’s a copperhead snake rushing past me. It’s a portion
of Eton mess and elderflower gin.
It’s a chocolate éclair in a miniature hero's box. It's a
false sling for the fling.
It’s a cables length from Granary Wharf. It’s a broken
nose on a drinking binge.
It’s a game of charades in the pharmacy. It's a rushed
drink in a neutral bar
He also says this about the whole process of recording the
album:
LALFTA was recorded in a pretty unconventional, chaotic
manner. Eldritch sent me bare-bones drum patterns - essentially click tracks -
and I laid verses over the skeletal framework. He then warped them after I
spat, creating this wild, backwards-in-time feel. Dark, moody, and packed with
the trademark travel-laced imagery I’ve always been drawn to. I almost didn’t
release it. There was a real question of whether it should stay buried under
brochures, but Plague Records is the perfect home for this misadventure.
For everyone that listens to the album, he gives us these
words of wisdom:
I do hope you fall madly, inconveniently, desperately in
love with the multifaceted flavours and audio-tangents alive through this
peculiar piece of me. It took well over a decade to summon the right spirit to
my sofa - and longer still to blag it into writing. Given the subject matter
and the surrounding fuckups, I fluff the pillow to perfection and pray I never
need to make such a true-to-life recording like this again. It's a one-off game
of hide and seek with the soft toys that had to become hard nuts overnight.
Singular. Sulky. Sometimes cursed. And when I look back on my pungent shelf of
durian in years to go, I imagine this one will hum the loudest - buzzing with
tiger-stripe hoverflies, too stubborn to stay.
Now, this is a lot more promo stuff than I usually put into
my reviews but, I just felt that all this perfectly sets up the album and
giving it to you here will help set up the review for you all to enjoy.
The album is produced by Palmer Eldrich and features design
and layout from Rich Brown (Bee Graphics). The cover artwork is a detail taken
from the painting ‘Hotel Linda’ by Jake Clarke (b. 1966).
So, now we are all set up, join me as we hop on for a new
ride to who knows where, but I’ll do my best to give you some thing to
visualise along the way.
We begin our journey with Kaput/Neutral which has a
sound that has a jazzy edge to it and flips from the drum and vocal sample
heavy sound on the intro to a far jazzier, organ heavy sound. The opening to
this one might make you think its over before it even starts but, after that
transition Amos takes us on something akin to a worldwide journey in just a few
minutes. Using complex wordplay that elicits visuals in your head that hit like
you accidentally hit fast forward on the TV, which takes you through nature,
travel and personal insights at a dizzying speed. After such a whirlwind trip
we land back on our feet to find ourselves Infront Of Enemies. The beat
here has a far more soulful vibe to it with strings seeming to come forth,
giving this a more laid-back vibe, like sitting by the pool and musing over
your travels. There is a feel that this one is like the experiences you might
have in a hotel while holidaying or just passing through. There also seems to
be something teasing you from in-between the lines that has you leaning toward
different personal experience whether you’re traveling or just walking out the
front door each day. Hoodies/ZaaZaa drops in with strings and piano
merging together over a chilled beat. The piano puts you in mind of the pouring
rain which works well with the title as ZaaZaa is a Japanese onomatomania used
to describe the sound of heavy pouring rain or water. The beat switches midway
through allowing the beat to come forth and the piano to ceased, replaced by
horns. Amos takes us to Japan, allowing us to experience the tourist culture
before giving us visions of certain situations you might find yourself in,
finding yourself getting close to someone before realising that it can be
nothing more than a phase of pure joy.
Vanish/Jai Yen (Jai Yen meaning Cool Heart in Thai
culture) comes in with a big synth sound that puts you in mind of a sound
backed in dance tracks. When the sound switches this time, it brings the tone
down with flute and guitar notes giving this a sound that teases the far east.
Here we find Amos looking at whether people really understand the nature of
true love in a world where so many spend more time telling the world of their
love through digital platforms and less time actually expressing love in its
true form. Amos then gives us a more personal expression of his own lived
experience from a time when phones were far less important and used just for
connecting one-to-one. Sorry/Unforget begins with a more funk fuelled
sound where the guitar takes the forefront. This is followed by a transition
into a sound that has a jazzier vibe as horns are the standout sound, bringing
a more chilled aspect. This one seems to look more at connecting with someone
in a deep way, from a first meeting to a realisation of what that connection
might mean. That feeling of what that deeper connection is explored in the
second part of the track in a simple way that makes you connect with the true
meaning of love and the emotions you feel when meeting or leaving them. Tired
Ruins hits with a sound that just tugs at your nerves making you feel
emotions you’re not sure you want to feel. This one explores the situations
that can lead to loss of a loved one and is the kind of story that you can
easily associate with if you can follow the narrative. Not much more to say
but, there are many of us who understand what it is like to make poor decisions
and lose someone we never meant to hurt.
Mistake/Dessert brings us to the mid-point of the
album with a sound that begins with a piano heavy sound over a nice drum beat
that will get your head nodding. Following that the sound switches to a sound
that is multi-layered with bass, guitar, and keys all coming through, bringing
a more chilled edge. Amos sets the scene for what is to come as he asks if you
have ever made a mistake? He goes on to detail a story that might just lead to
one of those mistakes. From there, Cross-Country Lost gives us a sound
with a space beat, mixed with synth and guitar notes, giving us a sound that
carries us long as the vocals speak. This one seems to merge experiences from a
multitude of journeys that span at least one country, if not more. We are
immersed into aspects of different stories that all become one, blurring the
line between reality and dreams. Just as you are trying to clear up what the
reality of this is Again & Again brings a guitar heavy sound that
has a deep funk vibe. The story in this one is hard to unpack but, there is a
real sense that it looks at some of the challenges we face in life. Those
challenges and boundaries are similar to those that can arise during a journey.
The unpredictable nature of anything we do, or places we go can be littered
with detours and more that have us tired and questioning which way we should go
and if indeed the destination we choose is the right one.
Weeping features laid-back guitars and drums that
give this one a reflective edge, but also one that has an infectious vibe that
will get you moving. As you listen to this one you realise that this one looks
not just at crying, but at the power of tears as a physical expression of love
in its purest form. When you truly love a person and you lose that person or
know you are having to leave them, tears can be such a powerful way to show
just how deeply that love was. Gazump has a sound that mixes guitars and
synth sound to create a sound that seems to just open your mind allowing the
words to sink in that bit further. The meaning of Gazump is either to swindle
someone or, in the property world, to come in with a higher offer on a
property. As you keep those meanings in mind Amos brings aspects of both of
those into this track. The love aspect also comes in to, and you might need to
over this a few times, but even then you might find yourself questioning
exactly what Amos is saying and so, I’ll leave this one to you to decide as it
had me going round in circles, never quite grasping exactly which way to go.
So, perhaps Amos has Gazumped me here?
Xanadu brings a refreshing sound of guitars and organ
notes, before rounding off with a brief, but heavy, drum beat. This is another
one where we take the meaning of the word and see how it works with the track.
Xanadu means a place of beauty, basically, and here you get this real feeling
that what Amos is referring to is the fact that so many of us spend all of our
time focusing on the details that we miss the broader picture. It is better to
look at the beauty you want to create before looking at the finer details. We
move to the penultimate track Final Paradee which comes with a sound
that has a nice head nod beat that is paired with strings that give this one a
sound that sounds like it comes from the far east, giving this one an emotive
edge. Paradee is of French origin and means to show off or display, and you get
the feeling that this one is giving Amos the platform to do just that, to
display his wordplay. There is this incredible mix of mind-bending metaphors
and similes, mixed with visions of food and more from around the world that almost
puts your head in a spin. The album rounds off with Quafftide, where a
Piano sound carries us along as we listen to Amos. There is also a moment where
Eldrich mixes up the vocal sound which seems to vibrate your very being for a
few seconds. Quafftide is an outdated 16th century word that would
refer to ‘drinking time’ or rounding off a hard day with a drink, and you get
the feeling that this is exactly what Amos is doing. He is rounding off the
album in a way that that let’s you know he works hard at what he does, but he
also has the capability to love what he does and to breath that love into the
core of this project.
There is little more that I can say about this album except,
WOW, that was some ride. It took all of my interpretive strength to even get
the vibe of what I was listening to, which is no mean feat when you have a
whole lot of stuff going on away from the music. But this one draw me in and
taxed me in a way that was both enjoyable and exhausting.
Amos has an incredible way of working with his subject
matter, no t only mixing in travel aspects but, delivering his messages in a
way that has you hooked and wanting to back over them to see what you have
missed, and you will miss bits for sure. It is rare that I find myself taxed by
what I am hearing because the wordplay is so complex, in fact, the only other
emcee who usually does that is the one and only Junior Disprol. So, know I add
Amos to that list, because he might not deliver his vocals at speed, but what
he does do is make them so complex in nature that you come away thinking that
might have been hard work but, damn it was an truly stunning piece of work.
You also have to give a huge amount of credit to Palmer
Eldrich too who has crafted some top-notch soundscapes that are rooted in Hip
Hop but, also embody aspects of sounds from around the world and other genres
too. Sometimes those sounds seem completely at odds with what you expect, but
everything just seems to work so well and the sound he has created just bring a
depth and essence to the album that would not be there with any other sound.
So, I think I will leave it there because the only way you
are going to get the best experience of this album is to give it a listen, and
I can’t recommend it enough that you do that. This is definitely an album not
to miss in 2026 and is going to be high on everyone’s lists of top albums of
the year.
Lost A Letter From The Alphabet is released through Plague today and is available as Digital and physical release with Limited Edition Vinyl and Cassette versions, so don't sleep.
My huge thank to Dan at Plague for giving me the chance to
bring you my take on this superb album.
So, enjoy and I’ll see ya next time.
Steve.
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