Broken Hands for Brilliant Minds – Remember The Past, Respect The Future
This is yet another project from Clint Listing, the man behind, As All Die among others. There are 6 tracks on this one, and it comes in a nicely conceived folding paper envelope thingy. The disc opens with, “M1,” a simple bit of modern ethereal sounding synth ambient, woven with quiet melody and bleeping electronics. Militaristic timpani type percussion open the second track “Above The Horizon” with muttered low vocals and minimal ambient textures in the very distant background. These swell forward and a lonely melody emerges. It’s a despairing, isolated feel through out, that works really well in its relative simplicity with just the right amount of dramatic effect provided by the drumming. “Pickles & Pears” is next up and just breaches the 10 minute mark. A melancholy piano line rings out amid delicately warped electronics, and synth tones, that provide a head swimming sort of mood around the more concrete nature of the piano. This almost has a silent film feel to it, or at least that’s where my mind wanders when listening. The grainy black and white feel of some absurd silent, surrealist film flickering and sputtering against the wall in a smoky room. The musical premise doesn’t change over the length, but the feel created again carries the simple approach with capable hands. “In The Trust Of Children” again uses reverb laden drifts with an elusive melody to reinforce the reflective loneliness that saturates this record. This particular track doesn’t really have the foreground element to hook you like the previous two, but still works pretty well and pieces of the melody do move up here and there in the mix. “M2” comes in at nearly 12 and a half minutes, and has a similar feel as “M1,” but with a darker overall tone and richer low end. “The Elfman Project***” is a bit of a hidden track, buried deep in what registers as a 28 and a half minute piece, all of which is silence until about the 20 minute mark. This is the most animated of the tracks, as everything is louder and not quite so still, again using similar themes as the rest of the record in the collision of melody and drift, but with a more immediate drama to them this time, more uptight and neurotic than lamenting. I enjoyed “Remember The Past, Respect The Future,” particularly tracks two and three. – Scott
ODD HALO
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