Damon Gough is an artist of paradoxes. His work is never stronger than when it's at its most fragile; his appeal never greater than when he seems least concerned about how many people might be listening. "One Plus One Equals One" has widely been seen as him retreating a way from the polished excesses of the failed experiment "Have You Fed The Fish?", yet there seems to be less calculation in Gough's re-start than there might at first appear.
True, the opening title track does seem to be something of a manifesto, Gough's first words being "Back to who I was before". And sonically, much of this fourth LP is in keeping with the pottering home-studio eccentricities of his Mercury Prize-winning debut, "The Hour Of Bewilderbeast", an intricate collection of unevenly interlocking elements that give the whole that eccentric character. But this is much more than a retrenchment, and it certainly isn't a retreat.
The record is dedicated to the memory of four people, and it's in this context it seems best understood. Joe Strummer and Elliott Smith are useful touchstones, songwriters skilled at picking up and burnishing hitherto insignificant detail, while Gough's grandfather, Will, and his friend Matthew Lanyon seem to have provided the ineptly sketched one with the thoughts and moods that suffuse this gently persuasive LP. It is the inscription on Will's grave stone that provides penultimate track "Takes The Glory" with the album's defining sentiment – "To live in the hearts of those that you loved is not to die" – while a photograph of Lanyon as a child, given to Gough in lieu of a birthday card, seems to underlie the album's mood of heart-felt introspection.
Aside from an experimental reverse vocal effect on "Life Turned Upside Down", there are no technelectronica touches from producer Andy Votel, and the only sign of any breakbeats are those played, almost Rotary Connection style, by drummer Alex Thomas during "Four Leaf Clover" and "Logic Of A Friend". Nor does Gough indulge himself in homages to his idol Bruce Springsteen, though there is a reference in "This Is That New Song", where he sings of guiding tears to a river.
Instead, what he delivers is what he does best – songs derived from deep within his personal frames of reference, distilled into an essence that makes them durable and universal.
