Lichen Slow - Rest Lurks (LP)

Some collaborations feel like a punt. Rest Lurks feels like two lifers finding a shared quiet place and letting the songs breathe. Lichen Slow pairs Malcolm Middleton, best known for Arab Strap’s mordant wit and his own wry solo catalogue, with English songwriter Joel Harries. The result sits in that sweet pocket where folkish guitar figures meet cooling synths and soft drum machines, a late‑night conversation carried by two voices that know how to leave space.

The record arrived in 2023 on Rock Action Records, Mogwai’s reliably tasteful home base, and it sounds like a label match made in heaven. There’s patience in these arrangements, a careful ear for atmosphere, and a sense that every little click and hum earns its place. You can hear the project’s remote origins in the way parts interlock, as if instruments were posted back and forth until the song found its shape. Yet nothing feels stitched together. The mood is consistent and unforced, like dusk light through a kitchen window.

Middleton’s baritone brings familiar weather, rueful but tender. Harries answers with a softer grain, almost confessional. They trade lines and harmonies in a way that nudges the stories along without grandstanding. When the drum machine sneaks in, it doesn’t jolt you out of the chair. It just sets the kettle, keeps time with the guitar’s gentle pulse. A few tracks flirt with a fuller thrum of bass and synth, but restraint is the default. That restraint is the hook. It draws you closer.

What makes Rest Lurks linger is how it deals in small truths rather than sweeping gestures. The lyrics come off like notes scribbled after long walks, or the sort of thoughts you say out loud only when the room is safe. The pair lean into tiny everyday details, a sideways joke here, a stung memory there, and the intimacy does the heavy lifting. You can picture these songs working in a pub back room or on a festival afternoon when the wind drops and everyone suddenly listens.

Fans coming from Arab Strap will recognise the dry humour and the empathy for messy lives, but the temperature is different. Harries opens windows where Middleton might once have drawn the curtains. The guitars often sit clean and close, sometimes fingerpicked, sometimes strummed in a steady hush. Keys glow at the edges. A few numbers swell towards something like a chorus you can actually hum, then back off before things get obvious. It’s a neat trick, and it keeps you replaying to catch the moment again.

There are cuts you’ll end up championing to friends. The opener sets the tone with steady patience and an earworm of a vocal line that sneaks up rather than shouts. Midway through, a lean, propulsive track brings the album’s quiet locomotion into focus, a reminder that understatement doesn’t mean sleepy. The closer feels like a promise to be kinder to yourself, not neat or tidy, just believable. It’s the sort of sequencing that rewards a full sit‑down listen, which is where Rest Lurks really shines.

On vinyl, the record’s soft edges and low‑end murmur bloom. If you’ve got a decent set of speakers, the programmed percussion tucks under the guitars in a way that digital sometimes flattens. Rest Lurks vinyl is worth the reach, and if you’re crate digging in a Melbourne record store, this is the kind of sleeve you clock twice before heading to the counter. Lichen Slow vinyl sits nicely alongside the more reflective corners of Scottish indie, and it’s an easy recommendation if you like to buy Lichen Slow records online and want something that will actually get spun, not just filed. If you’re building a shelf of Lichen Slow albums on vinyl, start here. For anyone hunting through vinyl records Australia wide, it’s a sleeper favourite waiting to be found.

Rest Lurks doesn’t chase a grand statement. It trusts the songs, and it trusts your patience. That confidence, the shared humility of two musicians with their ears on, turns a gentle collaboration into something you’ll carry. Put it on late, let the house quieten, and let it do its work.