"If you didn't know any better, you'd think this record came out 30 years ago, and that some archivist had recently blown the dust off some old acetates to discover this lost masterpiece." - Music for Robots

"I feel like I get a rosy glow in my cheeks when I listen to this record. Even with the odd and dark subject matter, Broughton’s presence is remarkable." - Indie Workshop

"The Complete Guide to Insufficiency is basically flawless. It could easily be one track with five parts; the tracks blend together so seamlessly that skipping around would just kill the experience." - Tiny Mixtapes, 4.5/5

"David Thomas Broughton's debut ought to catapult him somewhere near the head of the bearded class" - Pitchfork Media, 8.4, Recommended Music

I like David’s voice. It is rich, purposeful and funereal and as old as the Yorkshire Dales. If David had lived in ancient Greece he would have been hired as a professional mourner. Probably. There is humour, pain, incisiveness and soul in his singing. And there is poetry in his words.

There is an ever-present atmosphere of hazy, unquantifiable surreality and an unsettled ambience that cannot be manufactured in a studio. At times it feels as if this music is coming to you from somewhere that is not of this time, like a lost piece of celtic music recently unearthed that upon hearing disturbs you by its uncanny relevance to the here and now.

A unique voice that will divide opinion: especially your own.'
- Whisperin' and Hollerin'

'British entrant into the New Weird Americana movement brings some freeform Animal Collective folk sounds to Leeds. A brave record being recorded in one continuous take in a church hall in Leeds starts by building layers of folky guitars gradually morphing into a kind of mannered folk/blues. The second meditation (a more fitting term to use, as these are not songs as such) moves up and down the fret board looking for a jumping off point, a wordless vocal and guitar knocks accrete, gaining form through repetition, the vocal’s unconventional deep resonance somehow like that of a monk vowed to silence finding outlet in his own head, nor meant for consumption, not meant to be heard, the inner speech usually hidden and repressed. The guitar cycles round a two-note riff as the cloistered vocal chants ‘I wouldn’t take you to an execution’ until waves of electronic noise invade the cathedral like space gradually drowning out the vocal, a descent into madness. The more straightforward ‘Unmarked Grave’ seems almost exotically mundane in its conventional structure and vocals. The conventional however is just a cul-de-sac to be explored, ‘Walking Over You’ flirting with it again, the singing approaching just that, singing, and with simple acoustic picking even incorporating some whistling and vaguely Eastern tuning to twist the whole thing off-kilter. There is some double-tracking on ‘Ever Rotating Sky’ that allows the vocals to harmonise and allows the title to be used as a melodic counterpoint to the lead vocal line and a descending guitar arpeggio; this is the most melodic piece here, simple drums and shaken percussion adding further layers of complexity as the music locks into one of those grooves that seem at once impossible and inevitable - tape manipulation throws obstacles but the strength of the rhythm pulls everything back on track before the end. An excellent start for a new label.'
-Americana UK

'Having built up a strong fan base over the last couple of years on the Leeds live scene, oddball folk wonder David Thomas Broughton releases his debut album, ‘The Complete Guide To Insufficiency’, on new label Birdwar Records. 2004 gave birth to quite a few experimental and inspiring folk artists; Devendrah Banhart, Jody Wildgoose, Gravenhurst and now, David Thomas Broughton seems to be progressing the scene even further into the new year.

Broughton’s work is largely based around layers and loops of circling, hypnotic guitars and his weirdy, off-kilter possessed vocals. He writes mantra-style songs that are both heartfelt and emotional, yet offer a dark twist. At only 5 songs over a duration of 40 minutes, the tracks are long, stretched and sprawling, like Can if they’d tried their hand at folk music. Due to the overwhelming response Broughton’s live sets attract and the realisation his magic is best showcased when displayed in it’s raw state, ‘The Complete Guide To Insufficiency’ was recorded in one complete take at Wrangthorn Church, Leeds to capture the jagged minimalism of his somewhat unique performances. But it is this rough around the edges recording style that adds much character to otherwise boring studio production, and alongside his own twisted-folk vision, is what helps set Broughton apart from his peers.

Remarkable, like a timeless classic or an obscure LP you discovered in a dusty second hand shop.
- Angry Ape

'Over the course of five songs and almost forty minutes of music, The Complete Guide to Insufficiency introduces the world to David Thomas Broughton, a singer-songwriter who could well become one of the most interesting and compelling figures of the neo-folk movement. Simply put, The Complete Guide is the darkest, most beautiful, enthralling, and rewarding album I have heard since Devendra Banhart’s difficult-yet-powerful Oh Me, Oh My. It is the debut record from both Broughton and Birdwar records (both of which may have a website at some point) and sets a high benchmark for both. Broughton has a lot of things in his favor: a great story to accompany this record (it was recorded live in one sitting); a voice that seems like a mix of the best elements of Vashti Bunyan, Nick Drake, and even at times an older David Byrne; a knack for difficult lyrics; and a skill with melodies that can sustain long and repetitious songs. So, basically,he could be unstoppable. If anybody ever hears this record.

The album is brazenly lo-fi and rather astonishing in both concept and execution. Reportedly recorded in one forty-minute take in Wrangthorn Church hall in Broughton’s home of Leeds, England, Complete Guide is supposed to capture the feel of Broughton’s live show. While there are moments where you are left wishing he was working with somewhat more advanced machinery or recording techniques (especially the last minute or so of “Ever Rotating Sky”), the album has an eerie and magical quality that a studio could never really convey. A great example: the pealing bells at the end of “Unmarked Grave” could well be the Church’s and not an intentional part of the recording, but either way they fit the track perfectly. Broughton’s voice is extraordinary and engaging; while the guitar work is fairly basic (especially next to finger-picking contemporaries like Banhart and Six Organ's Ben Chasny) and the production values are low, his voice drags the listener in. There’s so much emotion here, but also something indefinable its mixture of love, weariness, and hope. His voice is by no means classically great, but it has character --- and I don’t mean that in the Joanna Newsom by-character-I-mean-really-scary sort of way, but rather that, for a young man, Broughton has a voice that seems a bit prematurely worn, a bit travelled, and certainly lived in. It’s hard to come up with many immediate comparisons, though he’s clearly falling in with the neo-folk movement in terms of his unique phrasing and delivery. Listening through The Complete Guide to Insufficiency for the first time a month or so ago I was struck by the pure lyrical peculiarity of it.

Broughton’s writing is out there, but not in a way beholden to Oldham’s biblical wrath, Magnum’s historical curiosity or Molina’s sexual tension/existential crises. More than anything, Broughton, in his particularly dark way, seems concerned with the corporeal and tangible. On “Unmarked Grave” he sings, “My body rots / While she is weeping / I remain forever sleeping / Rest my bones from the daily chores / Rest my bones forever more.” There seems to be a bit of Whitman in some of this, especially in Broughton’s preoccupation with the sexual and violent. “Execution” references sex shows and “Ever Rotating Sky” is seemingly about rape, leaving just a bit of social stigma about the whole thing.Still, Broughton never seems to be doing this merely to provoke; he's sincere to a fault, never coming across as being weird for weirdness’ sake. Think of Magnum’s semen-stained mountaintops as a point of reference, even if In the Aeroplane was a much larger and more involved song cycle. That’s another part of the appeal of Complete Guide: the idea of the great song cycle. Broughton makes a convincing case for the coherence of the album beyond the single recording session involved. The opening plucked chords of the beautiful, reassuring “Ambiguity” set the tone well, as do Broughton’s lyrics: “How much love / Can a boy contain in here / How many contradictions / Can a girl possess up there / All these questions / These questions are too ambiguous / Try to narrow down your search.” It’s hard to follow what he’s singing about all the time, but the music flows perfectly through the chanting of “Execution” the simple guitar and quiet resignation of “Unmarked Grave” the melancholic and especially dark “Walking Over You” and into the gorgeous finale of the epic “Ever Rotating Sky.” And it's "Sky" that really ties the whole album together; even though you can practically hear Broughton reaching over to cue up the drum track and set the loops, there’s something deeply moving in its triumphant, repetitious climax --- as technologically imperfect as it may be.