| After a few listens to Come Here When You Sleepwalk you might be asking what the differences between Mark Mitchell's Clue to Kalo and SuperScience projects are, because, on the surface, they're pretty much identical. The idiosyncratic melodies, beats slightly less hyperactive than an agitated child, and Mitchell's twee vocals pushed behind it all are present in both. But, what lies just below the surface of Clue to Kalo's reluctant pop is a yearning desire to be heard, not just emotionally, but beyond being a prolific mp3 producer. It's not just Mitchell's stronger vocal presence, but the heavier reliance on song form: with SuperScience, songs were brief notes to lost loves, and it's on that sentiment that Clue to Kalo spins tunes brimming with love and loneliness that could fill volumes. It's that emotion that pours out of "Empty Save the Oxygen" which opens with front porch string pickin', to which Mitchell adds his delicate folky warble and drum machine clicks and cymbals, and slowly morphs into demure lo-fi electro. "We'll Live Free (in NYC)" toys with vocal and guitar samples as melody, while real percussion is mulched and fed through a battery of filters, and the effect conjures images both ethereal and android - something beautiful grounded in circuitry. Both aspects have their territory on the eleven minute "Still We Felt Bulletproof." Mitchell singing behind the electric piano, joined by a simple mechanical beat, is quickly overrun by a swell of machine sounds playing a kind of techno-soaked torch song, with the vocals pulled in for occasional color. Science by any other name wouldn't be as sweet, Mr. Mitchell. - E/I |
2XLP/Out Of Print