MEMORIALS
All Clouds Bring Not Rain
Fire Records
Floating the idea of a different kind of “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” even while holed up in a French barn surrounded by forest, the duo of Verity Susman and Matthew Simms set about making an experimental-pop pastiche of hazy, soft-focus abstractions and vivid, orgasmic eruptions. Nico might have been there, at least in spirit.
Stereolab, too, as well as fellow sound manipulators Broadcast, along with every sort of psychedelic, folk and prog, dub and krautrock ghost imaginable, plus a coterie of astral-jazz explorers and soul refugees and garage-rock burnouts from the ‘60s. They must have left the place a day-glow mess, as All Clouds Bring Not Rain mixes up all those wonderfully weird medicines, meticulously squeezing all the immersive, analog, electronic warmth out of old gear strewn about an avant-garde playground of retro-futuristic fantasy.
“I dream of nothing, and nothing to do,” sings Susman, the supernatural chanteuse better known for fronting genre-bending post-punks Electrelane, in “Lemon Trees,” an alluring, lazy reverie that awakens slowly to find itself lost in cosmic murk and thin distortion. There’s work to do, however, for MEMORIALS, as a hurried “Watching the Moon” rushes in with kaleidoscopic harpsichord, fuzzy guitar, and snappy drums, “In the Weeds” breeds spacey funk and organ-fueled chaos, and a buzzing “Cut Glass Hammer” oozes dizzying, yet danceable, synth-pop that follows Goldfrapp into spacious wonder.
Eyes still closed, body swaying from side to side after such a hypnotic experience, MEMORIALS – Wire’s Simms being the audio eccentric at the controls – stumbles woozily into the flanged, Flaming Lips-like explosion “Mediocre Demon,” an aural collage streaked with swooshes of beat patterns and bass groove trying mightily to tie down a trippy cacophony that’s busily morphing into a frenzy of Pharoah Sanders’ spiritual skronk, bird chatter, and ethereal vocal melody. “Bell Miner” continues in that vein, veiled in dreamy ecstasy, while a drum kit gets bashed into hoary oblivion. For clarity and contrast, unusual ballads like the watery “I Can’t See a Rainbow,” the spare and intimate piano reading of “Reimagined River,” and a slowly turned “Wildly Remote” are quite moving and lovely, all heart and full of human longing.
When a spinning “Dropped Down a Well” breezes past The Left Banke, MEMORIALS’ love of ‘60s baroque pop breaks free, albeit with a sped-up urgency. Which begs the question: Are there so many ideas packed into All Clouds Bring Not Rain that it runs the risk of becoming an amorphous, overly complex hodgepodge of mismatched sounds? Not a chance. Instead, everything is rather neatly arranged in a compelling and endlessly interesting ways.
A new headphone masterpiece has arrived.
