Star Quality- Speculations For Guitar And Voice is a collaboration between soprano singer Eleanor Westbrook and avant-garde guitarist Keir Cooper. It’s a ten-track album which flirts and shirts between the playful, alien, and the jaunting ‘n’ jarring.

The album comes presented in a glossy four-panel digipak- taking in a white backdrop, grey text, and white text within a red box. Inside we find a two-page write-up about the collaborations and credits. It can be ordered directly from here.

We move from chillingly moody strums ‘n’ picks meets edgy wailings of “Of Now And Then”. Onto the glitching ‘n’ plucking guitar meets cascading/ layered warbling’s & lightly hissing breaths of “Modern Translation”. Though to the languishing-yet-layered strums meet operatic gymnastics of “Love And Comfort (Baby)”. Finishing off with the cut-up wails ‘n’ moans, skipping vocal pitches, and strum ‘n’ dart of “The Time I Gave Up The Stage”.

Star Quality certainly is a distinctive and highly original sonic blend. I do hope this isn’t a one-off, and these two collaborate again- as I’ve never heard anything quite like it.