Thompson, Zach - Algebra Parable / On Platt's Eyot

While ‘Algebra Parable’ often found its footing in freewheeling, classic balladery, ‘On Platt’s Eyot’ truly captures the breadth of Thompson’s artistry.

Produced by Nye Banfield, it's full of deftly rendered metaphors and almost painterly imagery, calling back to the vibrant poetry at the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s.

However, Thompson’s work also forever stretches such comparisons, moving between intimate folk and freewheeling jazz at a moment's notice. Lead single, ‘On Shardeloes Road’, is the perfect example of the former, a rolling, ruminative track whose symbolic lyrics bounce between the universal and the local, resisting any straightforward interpretation. As Thompson himself puts it:

“Shardeloes Road is an unremembered stretch of land populated by a constantly refiguring horde of red-eyed somnambulists measuring their sunflowers, reading their letters of fire in hollow voices, diligently punching holes in the tower of song.”