This solo album from MARC LAURICK is an easy half hour listen. From the opening of The Golden One, with its slow lazy barely played instruments, it suddenly takes flight around Marc's semi spoken semi sung lyrics that are accentuated by the subtle brass in the background before eventually the guitars take us off into Television-type territory as Marc tells us someone is naked on the shores of Eldorado. This draws the listener into a cocooned world of noises and intrigue.
Lavender Gray, the second tune, uses brass stabs in place of guitars to great effect while we all sit down by the canal and the backing vocals operate as another instrument. It's clever in how musically involving it is while still sounding quite simple. While We Have Not long To Love marries what sounds like a ukulele being plucked like it's a harp with deadpan vocals and and a simple strummed guitar to great effect.
Cockle Creek has an almost sepulchral feel to it: very laid back and then the whistling begins like they are trying to get the cockle pickers back in safely. Tiger Mountain, meanwhile, is pretty much as close to The Vaselines as you can get without it being The Vaselines!
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October Horse is very restrained and it's almost like every note has been carefully structured to be as full of meaning as the lyrics about the fall of Rome are. As the end of the Empire approaches this isn't chaos or anarchy, merely the end of it with little or no fanfare.
The LP closes with Veronica, another downbeat and carefully disturbing tune. The bonus 9th track then drifts in gently with running water and an almost nursery rhyme-esque piano part to finish of a very cool and interesting album.
China Seas Recordings online
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