When coloured glass fragments are held up to the light and rotated between mirrors in a pretty tube, hours of fun and pleasure are guaranteed. Sir David Brewster knew this and in 1817 he named his resulting invention "Kaleidoscope", giving it the Greek words kalos (beautiful) and eidos (forms).
The beautiful forms of SKY LARKIN'S second album, KALEIDE can be rotated and pondered for hours too. The record's sparkly fragments and cunning arrangements seem different on each turn. The longer you look and the closer-in you focus, the more fascinating it becomes. A brief glance won't do. This is not an album for rapid appraisal or instant gratification. Take your time. Keep it on your playlists for a month or two. Its treasures will reveal themselves in their own good time. Science and art are happily balanced, and wonderful engineering make their partnership a delight for the ears. John Goodmanson and the band, working in Seattle, have produced an album that will be there in my top one or two for 2010, itself a year of serious resurgence and quality in independent music.
It was recorded in Seattle in March this year. There are twelve new songs, spanning just over 40 minutes. Single "Windmills" is the (relatively) brash opener. It sets a pattern for densely abbreviated lyrics rapidly shifting guitar sounds and showers of non-sequential development. Katie Harkin's soul-burrowing voice comes out of the mix in shrieks, purrs, layered harmonies and (elsewhere on the album) startling interjections from quieter fringes. The band are sticklers for hard working attention to the details. Given that this is a trio the listener has to do a lot of listening to keep up.
Tile tune "Kaleide" seems to be a love song. I think it’s a love song. For all the emphatic phrases "Reckless!" "Trick of the light!" and so on, Harkin keeps her emotional control pretty close to her chest. Those guitar shifts give her away though. Just listen to that rasp on two small chords in "Tiny Heist". No one else would bother. But what a treat. Drums (Nestor Matthews) and bass (Douglas Adams) are kept just as busy in working the variations.
After "Landlocked", with its racing intimations of a Malkmus guitar line, surging bass and array of sections, the album hangs for one of those euphoric moments as track five ("Anjelica Huston") arrives. The first synth chord seems to burst in half way through itself. The minimal lyric is repeated in waves of shifting moods. "As the train pulls out of the station the light hits your face like Anjelica Huston" (that's all). So I search Google images for "Anjelica Huston" and flick through them, getting a sense that Katie Harkin is doing some unconscious self-identification. Height would rule out a remake of the Morticia character - but the physiognomy is eerily close.
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Spookiness is hard on Anjelica's heels. "Spooktacular" is Sky Larkin at their most disposable student indie whimsicalness. But it's fresh and noisy, it clears the air and it gives drums and bass a fine gallop around the paddock. The contrast with the following Casio-tinged "Year Dot" is marked. The song might open like an old-style computer game, but the love affair inside it is genuinely affecting. "As our eyes overflowed, I said "I told you so."
But you still have five more songs to go - the album is barely half done, and there are a hundred good ideas already piled in. Tracks 8 through 12 are in the same restless, shifting mould, never content to let a theme repeat itself unchanged. Harkin's voice (especially in "ATM") gets the same treatment - coming at the listener from left or right, solo, multitracked, delayed, whispered, buried, bruised or isolated.
Is "Shade by Shade" the filler? Or have I simply missed its secret weapon yet? This is the kind of album where you really couldn't be sure. "Guitar and Antarctica" is classic Sky Larkin - Earth Sciences and Guitar Love united, mind-body dualism be damned. This is holistic granary art if ever there was such a thing. Jeremy Fucking Clarkson would bloody hate it.
And then the teasing end: "Smarts", sounding like a glottal-stopping spaced-out London stage-schooler in a big frock. What a star.
http://www.weareskylarkin.com
http://www.wichita-recordings.com/
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