My record collection
[327] Cheval Sombre - Mad Love (promo CD)

This is the third copy of Cheval Sombre’s second album Mad Love, this time a promo CD in a plastic wallet with a plain black and white insert.

Cheval Sombre - Mad Love (promo CD)

I can’t actually remember but I think this must have been sent to me by Nat at Sonic Cathedral ahead of the album’s release. I’m not sure there’s too much more I can add so let’s look at what other folk had to say…

Although Kember's trademark floaty production sound is omnipresent at the forefront throughout, its Porpora's disconsolate vocal performance that steals the show. Even when Mad Love gathers an upbeat momentum, as on the terse rhapsody 'I Fell In Love', a crescendo of weeping violins steal the pleasantries before a lonely voice declares insidiously "Don't matter to me if she stays".

Dom Gourlay - Drowned in Sound (November 2012)

It will take one listen to grasp the loping feel and defeated sentiments of Mad Love, and a few dozen more to reveal the hidden importance of all the parts, the pacing and changes. Porpora has managed an album that is at points a tiny bit distressing, yet it offers sweet refuge from the uneasiness he himself creates.

Barnaby Smith - The Quietus (November 2012)

A continually evolving amalgam of influences and sonic oddities, it slowly creeps into the subconscious, unsettling and calming as it works its magic. The trance like state it provokes is not the most comfortable admittedly, but then love is not always an easy ride.

Sam Shepherd - musicomh.com (October 2012)

Definitely a beautiful album but its hopelessness is never-ending, like a friend telling you their relationship troubles for hours and hours.

Rebecca Schiller - NME (October 2012)

The languid mood is captured perfectly on ‘Walking In The Desert’ – which sounds like the best song Dean Wareham’s never written – on which Porpora sings “I’m tired of looking around”, and then again on the 10 minute ‘Couldn’t Do’ which vibes on a one-chord riff and spacey electronics yet doesn’t outstay its sleepy welcome.

Andrew Hannah - The Line of Best Fit

• Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/018
• Artist: Cheval Sombre
• Title: Mad Love
• Notes: promo
• Format: CD
• Buy ‘Mad Love’ on Bandcamp

Previously in my record collection:

• [013] Cheval Sombre - Mad Love (LP)
• [097] Cheval Sombre - Mad Love (CD)