Some sort of obscure, magical ritual this is; surely an engaging one, as this Tam Lin LP tries to immediately hypnotize you as it begins. It does succeed, indeed, as you’ll likely be asking yourself what is happening throughout the entire album.
A frantic magical world of mystery
Some sort of obscure, magical ritual this is; surely an engaging one, as this Tam Lin LP tries to immediately hypnotize you as it begins. It does succeed, indeed, as you’ll likely be asking yourself what is happening throughout the entire album: bits of spoken word are constantly rambling about what seem to be completely unrelated images, experiences or just completely random facts or thoughts.
While this kind of narration usually leads to a complete loss of interest from me, the one thing that can save it are the delivery of said bits, and the images themselves; these images are indeed interesting and rather memorable, as there’s various sketches that really stick in my head—for better or for worse, I suppose.
The intro surely is one of them. It reads similarly to one of those Facebook posts I used to be terrified by when I was 14, one of the “If you do not share this blessing within a picosecond, you’ll never experience serenity and will perish eternally in the ninth circle of hell“; well, this track isn’t quite as daunting, but it does specifically beg to share with exactly six friends in order to have the best day of your life tomorrow. Listening to it for the first time while eating a pizza did make me question whether its hypnosis was strong enough to drive me away from the food and share with six people—the music, most certainly not the pizza—but unfortunately I opted to continue living a normal life the day after.
Regardless, as silly as this intro may seem, it does end up being rather memorable, actually thanks to its lack of seriousness. And, if it wasn’t clear by how I tackled this first piece, the whole album is rather fun and engaging thanks to its extravagant imagery.
As far as the music goes, it’s quite the opposite, it’s rather unnerving and dark. There are a lot of uneasy drones, almost texturally revolting glitches (in “Baby Chime,” for example), and an overall unpleasant and ominous atmosphere, as if the apparently narration on top was actually the vision of some psychopath.
This happens in “Underground Flow,” one of my favorite pieces both musically and lyrically. I really like the idea of dreaming that you can’t dream anymore, almost paradoxical in it of itself, but also gives off this sense of being completely stuck, not being able to dream while actually dreaming. And this idea of being stuck continues in the rest of the track, as the narrator seems to be getting more and more bothered by everything suddenly going on around him, being stuck in the water, and seeing familiar faces on unfamiliar bodies, and children running around, and… flapman T-posing and spinning on them, surely a common occurrence. The narration does, in fact, get more intense as all of these impossibly odd images stack, and so does the unnerving ambient accompaniment, creating a rather chaotic event.
“Chat Bubbles / Ennervation” operates in an almost opposite fashion, it seems to be some kind of ecstasy instead, as the bleak and bewitched voice over a smooth and ethereal ambient instrumental tells of less worrying things and events—I especially like the way he says “Furniture in the dark,” it’s oddly soothing and is one of those lines that really sticks in my head.
Back into unnerving territory ::
“Baby Chime” then goes back into unnerving territory, with the aforementioned slimy and wet glitching vocals. They make up one of the best instrumentals of the LP for sure, and the spoken word does match the weirdness; I especially like the description of an impossibly tall, dark silhouette, so tall that it feels like it’s arching over our poor narrator.
The second half of the piece shifts into this odd commercial, or what seems to be at least, with this very catchy and consumer friendly line “The phone slips right off!“; right off from where or for what purpose we shall not know, but it does that very convincingly indeed! There’s also a series of features that seem to be completely made up, but I suppose as long as they sound complex enough, consumers will be engaged—if you can’t understand it, it’s your fault for not being up to date with new tech, really.
The last two pieces are, unfortunately, a bit lacking. “Dead Arm” is especially unremarkable, because even if I do really enjoy how tight and manic its last part gets, the first two or so minutes are really unmemorable, they lack any kind of emphasis on the spoken word and the images presented are so excessively unrelated and overwhelming in number that it’s kind of hard for any of them to really stick. That being said, the glitching and noise in the second half actually make up one of my favorite instrumental parts of the whole LP, oddly enough.
“Canary Wharf Soundwalk” is also a bit forgettable, but it does manage to stick out thanks to its use of field recordings. No spazzing noise here, no psychotic dreams, just the sound of birds chirping, steps, people talking, almost as if the narrator suddenly woke up and started describing what’s actually around him. I especially like when he says to listen to the hum of the lift, and right when he says that a buzz kicks in, giving off the idea that there’s no surreal experiences anymore. The narration is also a lot more sparse and tranquil, really does convince me that all of the excess has come to an end. That being said, musically speaking this isn’t one of the better tracks on the record, it’s a rather comforting ambient piece but there’s not much else to it. It does work as the closer of the LP, but it’s not as engaging as the rest of it.
Either way, if you want to dive into a frantic magical world of mystery, this LP is indeed for you. If you also want to be tricked into buying a new phone that slips right off, or if you want to imagine a certain flapman T-posing, you may find something that can suit your needs in this album, as well as many other things you may have not thought of but will suddenly realize are cool, once they’re printed in your head.
Surely an engaging record, and even if it can be a bit hit or miss with its mysteriousness, it does always come up with something interesting to ever prevent boredom.
bluelightnospaceflattime is available Flaming Pines. [Bandcamp]
