This former chef and member of indie-adolescents Snug has extended the range of ingredients, progressed from bass guitar, and long since raided the musical larder (playing piano/keyboards, guitar, banjo, drums, and kitchen sink). At the age of 23, it was alleged he had a backlog of 300-plus songs. They’re not all searingly original, but this sort of youthful industry should be warmly encouraged. Harcourt is an obvious disciple of Tom Waits, and the marriage of his dreamland Americana and England’s South Coast is sometimes an awkward alliance. Other self-confessed influences include comatose jazzer Chet Baker, incendiary blues showman Screamin’ Jay Hawkins—and, later, Perry Farrell, the Beasties, Gravediggaz, and At the Drive In. With a widening palette and application that sometimes sees him write two or three songs in a day, his career should be an interesting one. Maplewood sounds like a work in progress, indeed Heavenly Records put out the original four-track recordings straight from the rural idyll of his grandma’s Sussex house. Here Be Monsters was recorded in a studio proper, some of the earlier songs are thickened and enriched, and the earlier promise is realized. Some wag has called Harcourt the Fortnum and Mason’s version of Badly Drawn Boy, but he’s not necessarily upmarket, more of a supermarket perhaps. He should rely on his own fertile soil, mulch his influences more thoroughly, and become an organic shop of real character, just like Damien Gough himself. His live performances are populated by an army of soft toys, with Kermit clinging onto the microphone sound promisingly dotty, but tales of piano trashing seem a bit egotistical and pass