Although Felt fans Alasdair MacLean and bassist James Hornsey started collaborating while in their teens and formed their first band in 1991, the debut Clientele album didn’t appear until 2000. Between then and 2010’s mini-album Minotaur, the Clientele released five albums, each a crepuscular treasure. Although several members came and went from the quartet, and the arrangements on some albums expanded to include strings or a horn or two, MacLean’s hazy, melancholy vocals and crystalline guitar picking made the LPs remarkably consistent.
Alone And Unreal compiles 10 album tracks plus one recent single (“On A Summer Trail”); it’s neither better nor worse than any other Clientele album, but it’s an excellent primer. The real treat for fans, though, comes in the deluxe edition, which includes a 10-track “lost album” from 1994, The Sound Of Young Basingstoke. Although the production is a bit thin, the songs, some of which resurfaced later, are as shimmery and inviting as the ones chosen for Alone And Unreal.
—Steve Klinge
