Luke Daniels: Revolve & Rotate review – modern morality tales and intriguing instrumentation

Luke Daniels is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who has appeared on film soundtracks and with the Cara Dillon Band, but is now an impressive singer-songwriter. His new album matches modern morality tales about greed with reminders of his skill on guitar, piano and zither banjo. And there’s an unexpected new addition. The Polyphon is a 4ft-high mechanical disc-playing music box, developed in Germany in the 19th century, which sounds like a combination of tinkling, high-register keyboards and glockenspiel. Daniels has written the first new music for the machine in 132 years, using digital technology to add in vocals or other instruments. Here he includes a series of drifting, unexpectedly complex instrumental pieces for the Polyphon, which is also used to provide backing for the traditional Canadee-I-O and a self-written story of contemporary survival, Fifteen Hours in a Supermarket. An intriguing, original set.