Race the loser

"In this album's opening moments, you're thrown. Here are ambient electronics, and a pulse like a heartbeat. Here's Martin Green's accordion sounding far from traditional, next to a processed drum sound gurgling and fading ... Race the Loser ends as it begins, which makes it even more impressive: an album for alternative music lovers as much as folk fans, brimming over with intoxicating, mesmerising music".

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"A trio of rooted, masterly and open-eared musicians ready to innovate ... Here's another chapter in Lau-land; their exploration of ambient soundscapes further to the fore under the production mantle of Tucker Martine (REM, Sufjan Stevens, Laura Veirs, The Decemberists). The cult of the producer is increasingly prevalent and Lau obviously recognised something in Martine that would tease out their love of electronica (...) without stripping them of their roots. Thus, the slow-build shivery melodic washes, the minimalist percussive loops, the deconstructed sounds, the wheezing Wurlitzer - maybe even something suggestive of the serenity of Sigur Ros' expansive sonic landscapes ... For me, Lau's melodic and dynamic twists and turns are on the same scale as Vaughan Williams' soaring lark; wild, seablown soundscapes which never fail to move me".