- JUNIOR MYSPACE WHORES
With a new and fast-growing Myspace account, a distributor for America (Mush), Japan (& Records) and back home in Australia (Spunk), and rave reviews on the influential internet sites stylusmagazine.com and cokemachineglow.com, Clue to Kalo should feel rather cosy regarding the scope of their latest albums distribution, One Way, It's Every Way. I asked Mark Mitchell (yes, our names are exactly the same), the sole driving force behind the moniker, if he has seen any significant change in his fanbase after these reviews were published: "I don't really know if anyone's bought the album based on those reviews, but it's nice thought to think that someone was turned onto it who might not otherwise have heard it," Mark answers modestly, and slightly less excited than I anticipated!
His second release is an eclectic cluster of electronic laptop tweakings, wistful guitar playing and psychedelic accordion arrangements, with the odd banjo thrown in here and there for that charming sensation that banjos always bring to the table. Now, a banjo next to a sample will always have critics crying out "Folktronica!" but Mark sees his music in a different light: "I can see certain aesthetic similarities between certain bands that I have been compared to in that way, which is cool, but I have never been directly inspired by those artists...I think a lot of the similarities that people draw between me, Caribou and Four Tet are kind of superficial comparisons, and I think what all three of us are dong is quite different.: I decided to strike out my next question about what he thought of my Four Tet comparison in my review of his album a few issues back...
For his latest release Mark packed his bags and moved to The Big Apple for three months, where he holed himself up in a friend's apartment and polished off most of the material he had already started back in his hometown Adelaide. "I had done a lot of the work, it was just a matter of putting it all together, " he says. "I pretty much packed my studio, went over to America, set it up in about half hour and there I was...it was really nice to have that flexibility and not feel like I'm pinned down in a particular place."
And so with the new album finished and released, Mark and his two partners in the live scene, Curtis and Allen, are gearing up for an East Coast tour of Australia in November for a belated album launch. The first time the band had ever played together in Sydney was only a few months ago as support for AIH at The Metro. "We try to fill out the sound and we try to incorporate as many different things into it as we can...Me and Curtis play the accordion, and he also plays a mandolin, and I play the tin whistle too. I feel like every time we play we're getting better at t. It's really fun."
After unfortunately missing out on jumping on a plane a touring the US of A with the multiple party party-starters Architecture in Helsinki due to time restrictions, Mark informed there are plans in the wrks for a tour of the US in March of next year. To keep up to date with more of their touring and recording happenings, checkout their Myspace at www.myspace.com/cluetokalo. Oh, and while you're there, add me as a friend too, please? I get lonely sometimes.../artbrutdonebadly.
- MARK MITCHELL