Hirta – Soft Peaks (Half Painted Door Records) – Another album we’ve been enjoying rather a lot of the last couple of months, the rather quiet rather moving debut official release from Scottish-American multi instrumentalist, Alistair Paxton, Soft Peaks is a warm and welcome bit of sunshine cast our way during a cold dark winter, a rather lonely set of spells that yes, indeed does retain an air of optimism across its ten rather glowing pieces of restrained music. The album was self produced and recorded in 2025 in sessions split between the Hudson Valley town of Nyack, NY and rural Bovina in the Western Catskill mountains culminating in both vinyl and digital releases on Paxton’s own label, Half Painted Door.
Soft Peaks feels quietly strong, I want to say delicate but it never it is, quietly intricate, beautifully tasteful, hints of folk, of traditional flavourings, of nostalgia, charm without ever feeling backward or twee. Songs and tunes full of character, of hope, everything placed just right, that knack of knowing just when another strum is needed, something crafted, clever but never too clever. Elegantly honest, inviting, welcoming, a positive less is more, no distortions or distractions, everything just right.
And it is an album that reveals rather than lays is all out there on the surface; it feels like there’s always going to be more to hear in the words and the (never too) intricate acoustic finger style guitar, in the plaintive coaxing of the quite drums. Some of it feels like crafted focussed quite indieness, some of it comes with a light coating of psychedelia, the country/folky side of the Byrds, Red House Painters maybe, certainly of that quality. Soft Peaks is a fine balancing act, a fine fine album, an album that knows what’s right and what’s wrong, an album that knows where it belongs, a softly spoken rather friendly album that invites you rather than pushes or demands from you, that reminds you what’s important, that gives you just enough of what you need to be warm, safe and hopeful, a rather beautiful album, and album that sounds like he looks in that sun-drenched photo, a rather recommended album.
THE ORGAN 