A one-man psych-folk vanquisher from Aberdeen, Alan Davidson - aka Kitchen Cynics - has cultivated wry acoustic apologues and warm machine parables since the 1980s. He has propagated a slew of cassettes and albums and CDRs, while live alliances include Damon Krukowski (of Damon & Naomi) and Masaki Batoh (of Ghost).
Kitchen Cynics' mythological, prosaic and deadpan narratives map the universal and the personal: the sea and lasagne and fossils and love. Recalling Nick Drake, Syd Barrett and Roy Harper, Davidson's elemental inflection and elegiac emblems - as evinced on current album, Tunnels (Barl Fire) - are a timely reminder of his fate as a treasured, exceptional outsider idol.
These are his all-time top ten records.
1: Roy Harper
2: Laura Nyro - 'Map To The Treasure'
3: Tom Rapp - 'Island Lady'
4: Kevin Coyne - 'Blame It On The Night'
5: Lal Waterson - 'So Strange Is Man'
6: The Kinks - 'The Way Love Used To Be'
7: Bridget St John - 'Ask Me No Questions'
8: Syd Barrett - 'Dominoes'
9: Joni Mitchell - 'Blue'
10: Ivor Cutler - 'Beautiful Cosmos'