Some musings from Alan Dearling
This is most definitely not your ‘normal’ music album (whatever that means). It’s thematic – linked to sweets – the confectioneries – ice creams – field recordings – ice cream vans – drills and electronica and musical meanderings. It’s well weird, but is built on the pedigree of previous works by Dave Clarkson, which include the ‘Pocket Guide to Wonderland’, featuring the sounds of ‘faded fairgrounds and coastal ghost towns of the British Isles’.
From the very opening sounds it is like entering into a musical fairy grotto! A veritable musical magical fantasy world, a phantasmagoric prism of sounds. While I was listening through the album for a second time, I scribbled the following:
“Sweet dreams & ice creams
Dentist drills & musical trills
Electronic programs and ice cream vans.”
Is it musical? Yes, sort of, in a very strange way. Some rather lovely sounds, layered with many gulps, slurps and warped sounds of an imaginary Old Curiosity Sweet Shop. The field recordings provide the tapestry of sound, distant voices, plinking, tinkling, ‘Liquorice Pipes’ of organs repeating, looping, bending and blending into ‘sweet’ sounds. It’s often ghostly, disembodied, a work of considerable imagination. Full of the quarks and magician’s charms conjured up by Dave Clarkson. It’s a beautiful piece of sonic engineering. I know magic mushrooms are not a sweet confection, but they still came to mind as I was listening to the sounds of a ‘Melting Mivvi’ ice-lolly. This is music from a parallel universe, one where ‘3 Blind Mice’ is belting out from a passing ice cream van.
As for ‘Drowning in Pop’, the track titles themselves are part of the patina. They are very evocative, as in the final track, ‘Ghosts of Childhood’. ‘Sugar Rush (Speed of Life)’ sounded mind-bending on my BBC monitors. Warp Force 10! Not so sure about the dentist drills of ‘Decay and Loss’, but they do indeed fit with theme and provide a backdrop for the slightly Eastern-tinged, musical sweet-meat.
It all depends how far you like to experiment, for this is experimental music. Created on what Dave calls, “Sweet electronics…in Bournville, the Wirral and Manchester” and even “gulps and burps (Patsy Devane).”
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