Double LP
A winning feat of licensing know-how and curation from the Efficient Space and Time Is Away teams in getting together this latest collection of off-grid sounds and previously unconnected threads. Hard to see Searchlight Moonbeam as anything other than the logical extension of the shows TiA have been pumping out for years on NTS, though getting such a thing past the production stage is no mean achievement - joining these tracks together aesthetically is one thing, tracking down their creators/owners another entirely. We've seen a lot of compilations like this the past ten or so years, windows into the unknown and that part of the record shop where the knees will no longer let you bend. They're billing this one as a 'narrative compilation', probably to separate it out from others in the field, but the story here is really a fairly universal one: the search for self through the expressions of others. Searchlight Moonbeams tells of Time Is Away's specific interests in the music of the margins, but it's also a relatable tale of fandom regardless of how arcane its curiosities might be. There's something quite comforting and generous in that idea.
