Cali and Cae's Musical Adventure

"Diamond Mine" - King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

Track Listing

1: First Watch

2: John Taylor’s Month Away

3: Bats in the Attic

4: Running on Fumes

5: Bubble

6: Your Own Spell

7: Your Young Voice

Ally

You know you’ve chosen a good album when, upon recommendation from Lyd, you reply with “I’ve never even fucking heard of it.”

Upon the first song’s dawning on me, my reaction was, and I quote, “What the fuck is this shit?” The first song, titled “First Watch,” is a tinny, gramophone-esque piano track behind an audio track of what appears to be an Irish family dinner. It creates a feeling of sadness, nostalgia, and remorse. It reminds me strongly of the opening track of “Ghost” by Radical Face, titled “Asleep on a Train,” in which an accordion is played over quiet recordings of a, you guessed it, train.

“John Taylor’s Month Away,” the first track on the album to introduce the lead singer’s clear, monotone voice, is one of acoustic guitar, accordion, and a soft pulsing noise that almost sounds like your brain itself. The lyrics are hard to decipher over the loud acoustic guitar and building climax of the accordion, but they seem to tell a story of a man stuck on the outside looking in- one of the lines is “I’d much rather be me/For once again, I’d much rather be me.” At about the 4:30 mark, the song fades out after a climax into electronic pulsing noises, which then build into a chorus of voices. This, while building atmosphere, does little for the listening experience.

“Bats in the Attic,” unfortunately, breaks this feeling of a nostalgic atmosphere by coming in loud and hard with intense piano and almost spoken lyrics, backed by a strangely erratic drum track that almost sounds tribal. The song, lyrically, is incredible, but the song itself isn’t entirely enjoyable to listen to; the repeated elements (the repetition of the same piano chords, the repeating drum line, and, most of all, the repeating line “And it’s such a waste/Of all that we have”) leave little to the imagination and, worst of all, the last few seconds of the song are spent giving you a mind-numbing burst of electronic pulsing that tears into your brain. For such a quiet album, the electronic pulsing that appears throughout is quite annoying and unnecessary. 

“Running on Fumes” brings back the nostalgic and almost claustrophobic atmosphere, bringing back audio tapes and the soft acoustic guitar from previous tracks, but, overall, it is rather boring to me and was forgotten as soon as I finished listening.

“Bubble” is the most odd thus far of the tracks, seeming to take the electronic beats of “Idioteque” by Radiohead and fusing them with the soft lyricism of Radical Face. The song is fascinating to listen to, with the electronic beats helping the rising climax of the vocals along as, later on, the band adds more instruments and singers in. The song then fades out with a single piano line, bringing the song to a satisfying and enjoyable climax.

“Your Own Spell,” however, returns back to the tried-and-true formula of “I’m going to sing near-indecipherable lyrics while I play a repeated piano chord over low feedback.”  This song, to me, brings home a nagging feeling that I’ve felt since first starting this album; that the singer is saying something of massive importance and something extremely personal, but I cannot hear a goddamn word he says. Whether this is a pro or con is really up to personal preference, but I enjoy hearing singers put their issues out on the forefront and the fact that the singer has such an odd singing voice makes it hard for me to enjoy the lyrics. Musically, however, the song is superb, walking a fine line between “I will send you to sleep” and “I will make you cry out all your tears until you have none left, you sick son of a bitch.” Great stuff.