C Duncan on Pink Vinyl Pink Vinyl from C Duncan is available for home delivery with Vinyl Records London, only £23 +P&P Glasgow039s classically trained multiinstrumentalist and singersongwriter honours that idea with tremendous reserves of panache and feeling on his ffth album, It039s Only a Love Song, released through Bella Union on 24th January 2025. Flushed with swooning strings, enraptured images, classicist melodies and dreamy harmonies, it039s a record of orchestral pop romanticism at its most sublime one from the heart, warmed by a deep ache of constant yearning.An expansive beauty of an album, the record is made all the more extraordinary by its homegrown gestation. Duncan wrote and played most of it himself at his home studio he also did the artwork in Helensburgh, an experience suited to his sense of care and craft. 34If you want to spend ages working on one tiny sound and then do a broad sweep of something else, it doesn039t matter because the time is yours. I039m not paying for studios, which works for me because I go from having intense periods of working to spending ages making a snare drum sound a bit nicer. It039ll take days to do, but it039s good.34The result is Duncan039s most lush release, and a fresh peak in a dazzling creative arc. Born in Glasgow, he played in school bands before studying music composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. His haunting debut album, Architect 2015, banked a Mercury Music Prize nomination its follow up, the Twilight Zone inspired The Midnight Sun 2016, reached the shortlist for the Scottish Album of the Year. A tour with Elbow then beckoned, after which Duncan recorded the richly melodic Health 2019 at Elbow039s Salford studio with Craig Potter. Another entry on the shortlist for Scottish Album of the Year came accompanied by effusive reviews throughout his career, Duncan has banked raves from The Guardian, NME, MOJO, Uncut and others, alongside much love from BBC Radio 6 Music. Besides support slots with Belle amp Sebastian and Elbow, Chris went on to fll sizablevenues in his own name, including London039s Union Chapel and Scala. Another careerdevelopment beckoned in 2020 via a collaboration with Bella Union039s SimonRaymonde for the Lost Horizons project on the song 039Circle039, prefguring the effortlessseeming breeziness of Alluvium. It039s Only a Love Song is his next great leap forward, aheartfelt valentine to romance with its head in the heavens and its sweep in thecinema stalls. Alongside The Carpenters and Scott Walker, declared infuences rangefrom Michel Legrand to Bernstein039s West Side Story and the flms of Jacques Demy,whose The Umbrellas of Cherbourg boasts music to make hearts sing. 34It039s almosthyperromantic, which I love,34 explains Chris 34That way in music where you get to apoint where your heart can039t actually take anymore.34 Radiant and rapturous, It039s Only aLove Song takes you right there.