On his third studio album, the self-produced
A Bag of Eyes,
Seamus Fogarty continues a trajectory from artful folk toward increasingly complex palettes and song structures. Wreathing rustic sounds like fingerpicked banjo and field recordings with airy synths and electronic noise, he likewise mixes boot-stomping folk dances with dreamy, improvisational atmospheres within the set. Setting the tone is "Shapes," which opens the proceedings with nearly two minutes of minimalist patterns of acoustic guitar, strings, and what sounds like keys and accordion before heavily reverbed, harmonized vocals drop in. The song then locks into a tuneful melody and rhythmic 4/4 time-keeping based on the opening section's established tempo and drone-like elements. The dreaminess continues on the more straightforward second track, "Old Suit," which combines similarly contrasting timbres. While much of
A Bag of Eyes consists of an often-fascinating blend of the catchy and the experimental -- "Bus Shelter Blues," for instance, puts a shimmery spin on druggy folk-rock -- some entries swing further toward one of the other extreme. The improvisational, sometimes-cacophonous "Nuns" and instrumental tracks "Wake Up Felix" and "Interlude" fall on the exploratory side, while the lively country-rock ditty "Jimmy Stewart" lands squarely in pop territory. Inspired by the actor's apartment-bound character in
Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window ("Did you ever feel like Jimmy Stewart, sitting staring out the window, making stories up about the neighbors? Well, I have"), "Jimmy Stewart" features contributions from singer/songwriter
Meilyr Jones and multi-instrumentalist
Euan Hinshelwood, among others. Recorded in London, Kent, and East Sussex with various musician friends, other performers here include
Fogarty's partner and prior collaborator
Emma Smith and
Leo Abrahams, who co-produced 2017's
The Curious Hand. The results are mostly knotty and easy to get caught up in, though it closes on a spare arrangement of the traditional folksong "My Boy Willie" -- on which
Fogarty still leaves his distinct mark.