| Far from the total abstraction championed with more or less success by the majority of electronic musicians these days, Mitchell weaves beautiful melodies on soft sounds, building proper songs and captivating instrumentals. Hailing from Adelaide, Australia, twenty-three year old Mark Mitchell has been gently establishing his blend of electronic folk for a couple of years, with a series of CD-R's and celebrated live performances around the world, with The Wire declaring his performance as one of the highlights of the 2001 Sound Summit Festival in Newcastle. Following a first album released as SuperScience (Love Like Life In Miniature) in 2000 on Australian label Surgery, Come Here When You Sleepwalk is Mitchell's first worldwide release. While the ever-excellent Mush Records, home of cLOUDDEAD and Boom Bip, have grabbed this album to distribute it in the states, the European release is handled by the equally brilliant Leaf label. Understandably compared to Dntel's first solo album, Life Is Full Of Possibilities, released in 2001 on Plug Research, Come Here When You Sleepwalk also evokes the naive expressionism of Boards of Canada or Mum. His music seems however based on more organic instrumentation, with elements of guitars and piano finding their way into the dreamy sounds capes. It has to be said that when crossing over from the comfort of the studio to the live environment, Clue to Kalo becomes a trio, with laptops and turntable enhanced by a variety of real instruments, bringing a whole new dimension to the project. Alternating with instrumentals is a series of delicate pop songs reminiscent of early Badly Drawn Boy. Mitchell's voice is as soft as his melodies, and seems to melt over the compositions. With tracks such as "Within Reach of My Own Arms," "We'll Live Free (in NYC)", "Still We Felt Bulletproof" or "Do You Know That Love Can End?" providing some of the most intense moments of this album, Come Here When You Sleepwalk reveals its beauty little by little as each layer becomes more obvious with each listen. This first album from Clue to Kalo offers a rather nice alternative to almost anything purely electronic, with refreshing melodies and sonic constructions, and will charm its way right into the listener's heart. Come Here When You Sleepwalk proves to be a collection of genuinely simple, straightforward and human compositions. - The Milk Factory |
2XLP/Out Of Print