Third installment in NZ underground godhead Alastair Galbraith's Second Mark series, a kind of dismantled scrapbook challenge of whispered musings, squalling violin and lo-fi guitar fog. As with spiritual brethren Peter Jefferies, Galbraith's music often oscillates between profound naivety and a sinister erriness (the sacred and the profane?), suggesting bigger ideas through thumb-smudged song structures that you can never quite grasp hold of. The result might infuriate some, but it encourages repeated listens as you try to divine Galbraith's intentions. The flow of Seconds Mark III actually reminds me most of those early Devendra Banhart albums on Young God (before it turned into 70s kids TV presenter comedy hour) which were allegedly recorded down the phone, resulting in a series of intimate sketches and fragments that play like Galbraith's in the room beside you, intoning off-kilter observation directly into your ear. As with much of his early work, he remains a tricky iconoclast, but one so at ease with his own oddness you're beguiled by such obtuse vision.
