“How can I trust you when I don’t even trust gravity?” asks ‘The Great Adaptors’, the sixth track on Totemic. In many ways it’s one of the key lines on what is a pretty magnificent debut LP by Keeble. Running through its core are themes of distance, disconnect, and shifting perception, and it’s here, at just around the minute mark, that everything coalesces into what I think is one of the standout moments of the record. That it’s delivered in such an obscenely outrageous manner makes it even better too. It’s one of those rare moments when the right words and the right melody come together at the right moment. Delivery, message, medium, everything elevating everything else. The subtle ascending chord under the word don’t. Those swelling strings. The way he drags the absolute arse out of the last syllable. Fuck! By this point you’ve already been through five tracks that touch on everything from clinical 80s guitars, Ed Miliband-quoting SFA-meets-Robbie pop bangers, wobbly synths galore, and maybe one of the best songs you’ll ever hear in the shape of ‘Return to Centre’. The good news is you’ve still got another four-and-a-half tracks to go until ‘Decibels’ brings things to a close, like a dimmer switch slowly turning the lights out. Not just any dimmer switch though, but rather one with a deceptively-filthy bass crawling around and keeping things ticking over.

As anyone who read the Introducing piece I shared a few weeks ago will know, Keeble is the moniker of the ridiculously talented multi-instrumentalist and producer Lance Keeble. He also happens to be my best pal. With this review, I wanted to avoid things descending into hyperbolic drivel but I’m struggling a little. I’m also well aware that I used the word ‘magnificent’ in the second sentence of the review. But, look, the truth is I’ve been living with this record for several weeks now and it’s still hitting as hard as it did the first time. There are moments that are still making me grin at the audacity of it all (“caged up like a do-oh-og“) and others that just make me kinda die with envy. I know it’s a cliché that we bloggers fall into, but every listen keeps on revealing new details I hadn’t picked up on before. I must have written that exact sentence, or sentences with very minor adjustments at least five times now in different reviews, but it’s so true. A cheeky little reverb or a ridiculously well-thought-out guitar part here, or a synth note so right that it would make James Murphy nod in solemn approval there.

For years and years I’ve told anyone who’d listen that this guy, this ‘normal’ guy I know from Benfleet, has got genius in him. In another dimension he’s lauded as one for sure. Like, universally lauded at that. And, hey, if you think I’m talking shit, then I’d recommend putting on headphones and listening to ‘Return to Centre’. That’ll tell you everything you need to know. I can remember welling up a little years ago when he casually played it in embryonic form on my old mini piano like it was nothing. Oh yeah, I have this thing I’m working on but it’s nothing special, y’know? Yeah, right. Anyway, to hear it all these years later in this final form made me full-on cry on first listen. Like the very best stuff, it’s a masterclass in restraint, and made all the more impactful by what’s not there. Lance mentioned in that interview piece about working quickly and not overthinking or second-guessing things. In lesser hands, this song in particular would become a bloated, string-laden mess. It would keep getting bigger and bigger, whereas if anything it’s bigger for being smaller. I hope that makes sense… and let’s not even talk about how good the refrain of “take a moment, you’re a component, part of a greater whole” is.

I don’t really know what else to say. I try to avoid describing what music sounds like when I write these things because I’d rather you (presuming someone is reading) went off and made up your own mind. To my ears, there are elements of vintage Super Furry Animals, Radiohead, Beck, Cocteau Twins, Grizzly Bear, Prefab Sprout, Ray Davies (‘Gradient Sky’, looking at you) and Bowie’s Young Americans, but it’s so much more than all of that. I should also point out that he does everything on this. Guitars, vocals, bass, keys, percussion, production. All of it. Literally everything apart from the Rory McQueen artwork.

TL;DR: If you like dry drums, silky-smooth backing vocals, existential dread, wonky guitars, being alive, shit loads of reverb, more existential dread, songs that feel like you’ve known them since forever, even wonkier synths, even more existential dread, and drastic pitch shifts that sneak up out of the blue, then Totemic might be right up your street. To paraphrase ‘Luvvedup’, these are crazy days indeed.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. All that’s left for you to do is listen. Put some headphones on, stop scrolling through Instagram, and listen. Oh, and maybe scroll down for a wee track by track with the man himself.

Totemic track by track with Keeble

Planes
This one came quickly, I guess it’s about spirituality and how we ascribe importance to certain fleeting feelings. It’s a positive song about throwing away what doesn’t serve us.

Caged
Written on piano, an ironic song about waiting for something that’ll probably never happen, the chorus is an apathetic cry for change. A sort of anthem of powerlessness.

Bruiser
Kind of a send up of masculinity, but also functions as a song of liberation and personal strength through hard times. Ed Miliband’s famous conversation with Jeremy Paxman provided the inspiration for the coda.

Return to Centre
A song about finding peace through bouts of mania and depression, written over a number of years, I finally got round to recording it, opting for a simple arrangement.

Wilderness
Written out of necessity, I needed a dancey number in the middle of the album. It’s about how we carry personal totems through life, comforts, sometimes addictions.

The Great Adaptors
This was once the opener for Totemic, I wrote it in a secluded spot in the woods, building the melody using voice memos on my phone, jotting down lyrics as I went. It’s supposed to be tongue in cheek, hope that comes across. The tempo is 69.69 bpm.

Inertia
Definitely Beck and Radiohead inspired, written on guitar, lots of cigar breaks, very dry drums.

Gradient Sky
Came suddenly as a piano riff, it was a good 20bpm slower in its initial form. Lyrically it’s about an epiphany I had during a difficult summer. Sometimes observing nature, the beauty of it can really ground you.

Luvvedup
A simple love song I guess. Wrote it on acoustic in my garden.

Decibels
Based on quasi neo-soul chord progression written on piano, it’s an ambiguous song with sisyphean imagery. I wanted this kind of ornate instrumentation, like a lost soundtrack to a 60s sci fi film.