Twinemen: Cooking Vinyl

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)

The death of Morphine's MarkSandman four years ago was hardly surprising. I interviewed him once and he was barely there. I think we headed the interview "Enter Sandman", we might have put "Exit" on it.

Morphine made beautifully moody, often gloomy, acoustic-framed and sometimes slightly funky-jazz rock and after Sandman's death the other two members — saxophonist Dana Colley and drummer Billy Conway — recruited singer Laurie Sargent and it was business as usual under the Twinemen moniker. Morphine addicts will love this debut which has those same eerie, cafe-noir qualities.

The final track Who's Gonna Sing is a lovely tribute toSandman whose watercolour scribble art adorns the cover.

Sargent keeps her vocals within the muted downbeat ethos, and if slightly more folky than before (on Harper and the Midget Sargent sounds like early Rickie Lee Jones), this finger-click and knuckle-cracking outing is bound to satisfy those whose tastes run to beat poets, bitter coffee, grey days, and cigarette smoke at night curling towards a flickering fluorescent light.

Oh,andM/morphine.