Bantam Lions – Short Stories

Over the last decade, Bantam Lions (AKA Liverpool producer Mike Carney) has devoted much of his spare time to “playful experimentation”, channeling 30 years of musical inspirations and adventures to create electronic music that sits somewhere between hazy nostalgia and far-sighted futurism.

Along the way, he has crafted dozens, if not hundreds, of snapshots of this personal musical journey. Some of these have appeared on his previous 12” singles for Scenery Records, while others have been featured on cassettes from the admirably experimental Cleaning Tapes and Videogamemusic imprints.

Now, he’s gathered together some of his favourite moments to create Short Stories, a debut album – and Scenery’s first long-form release – simply over owing with page-turning musical narratives.

Listen carefully to the album’s 12 tracks, and you’ll begin to understand the myriad twists and turns associated with a lifetime’s worth of musical obsessions. Some may detect echoes of afternoons spent daydreaming to electronic futurism in the sparkling, intergalactic breeze of opener Now’s The Time, or messy mornings after spent listening to early ambient house and IDM in the fluid electronica of Passing Doubt, the dreamy Journey To Fon, or the Boards of Canada style bliss of Golden Circle Sun.