Another entry here in somewhat quick succession from the previous one, and as this is being written I’m realising I’ve been doing this Track Of The Day feature for just over a year now, with 66 entries having been penned up in that time (including this one) and about another 30 entries that are either half-written, chicken-scratch notes or missing a few bits and pieces before completion. Yay me. I’m sure those incomplete drafts will be finished up and then deployed at some point.
The track featured here, with the murky, almost Hammer/Amicus worthy title of “Tales (Live From The Crypt)”, is by a somewhat obscure group called The For Carnation that has been active in a stop/start timeline since 1994. There’ll be a bit more of the band’s background a bit later in this piece but the album itself is a shadowy, late night listen consisting of six tracks. The LP version version has been snuggled in my record collection for quite a while and gets pulled out on the occasions of quiet, dark nights more than I suspected it ever would.
Although the band itself would be defined in the genres of slowcore or post-rock, much of the output of this band — and more so of the overarching catalogue of the band’s primary songwriter, Brian McMahan — can easily “out-goth” most bands who identify as goth (at least for me), without being really anywhere adjacent to that established genre themselves. Or more so, here’s an artist who’s output naturally takes its listeners to darker places than bands that “don the dark cloth” could possibly do in many cases.
Heck, a title like “Tales (Live From The Crypt)” brings up imagery of a coffin lid being opened in the dank cellars of some abandoned estate somewhere. Another band McMahan was involved with — the highly influencial and seminal Slint — had a track entitled “Nosferatu Man” (see clip below). Again, more on this further down.
The self-titled LP that “Tales (Live From The Crypt)” comes from is the band’s second album that was released in 2000 on the legendary Touch And Go label, with the debut LP Marshmallows being released in 1996 on another established American indie, Matador. The track sits in the middle of the second side of this six track album, opening up some static noise and a low bell-like drone, followed by some swirling synth work and a strange vocoded voice (this I believe being the voice of Kim Deal from The Breeders) before landing into a swirling, galactic and dark jazz-inflected shuffle.
The rolling bass line in B holds the ballast while melancholy organ and harpsichord style leads weave in and out playing the tracks’ main melody motif with occassional bursts of electronic or guitar noise. And then of course there’s the voice of McMahon — its breathy and subdued tone sounding like it’s beamed out of a mid-20th speaker floating in the wing of some distant galaxy somewhere.
As the years go by I’m seeing sonic parallels to soundtracks of darker, European arthouse cinema from the 1970s time being — whether they be complex thrillers or more heavily stylised giallo classics. Recently I had watched the first film of Alan J. Pakula‘s paranoia trilogy — 1971’s Klute — that had similar sonic vibes courtesy of soundtrack composer Michael Small. Some contemporary, modern directors, such as the English director Peter Strickland, have resurrected this style of soundtrack genre in more recently released films. Strickland’s The Duke Of Burgundy (2014, with the soundtrack being handled by Cat’s Eyes, a collaboration featuring Faris Badwan of The Horrors) and In Fabric (2018) are great examples of this.
Overall, “Tales (Live From The Crypt)” is a great track and for me it’s a strong tie between the mirror track on the flip, which is the middle track on the first side called “A Tribute To”, which follows in the same key with a bass guitar that seems like it’s been dropped in tuning to a low B to great effect. Less bouncy than this track featured here, it has a more menacing feel, with the drumming subtly hinting at the band member’s hardcore roots in its cracking, syncopated feel.
Given the equal standing of these two tracks in my mind, I’ve likely selected “Tales…” over “A Tribute To” for this entry as listening to it now it would seem to be a somewhat stylistic parallel to what I was doing in the very early days of Soft Riot — namely the first release, No Longer Stranger (2011/2013). It was at this point that Soft Riot was merely a side project — a collection of odds and ends I had been doing in random windows of time in the years proceeding the initial release while my main attentions were focussed on the other bands I was in at the time. It was a project meant to explore the darker, back alleys of mood and sound where the dark, electronic underground would intersect with more broader cosmic and psychedelic influences — whether those were rooted in post-rock, modern classical, experimental or even ambient music.
Going through old mixes I’ve done, there’s two that sort of reflect where this stylistic mindset was at this time: a 2010 mix called White Lodge 006: Winter Waves & Cryptic Caves as well as a mix from the year before (both of these before Soft Riot was even established as an entity) called White Lodge 002: Sparkwood and Twenty One (an obvious Twin Peaks reference there) from late 2009.
I suppose leading up to that time I had played in a lot of bands that were high energy — whether they be hardcore, post-punk revival or synth punk — and at that period in time thought it would be good to try out a project that explored more mysterious and shadow-y sounds. Of course things didn’t stay in that mindset for long, for as Soft Riot began to surface as my main musical project around 2012, in the following couple of years or so the sound began to shift noticeably to more higher energy synth/wave at faster tempos, while retaining some trace elements from the sounds it started with — all mainly because my confidence in playing live with what was a new set-up for me (playing multiple synthesizers live) and my strong need to keep things moving forward sort of took over the reins.
And this path of energy remains, especially as while I write this I’m still recovering from blowing out a lot of energy on stage during some shows in Austria and Hungary this past week.
Now for a bit of a summarised background. In the early 1990s an extremely influential band called Slint emerged out of Louisville, Kentucky (USA) out of the remains of an 80s punk/hardcore band called Squirrel Bait. I suppose Slint took the energy and experimentalism that was emerging out of US hardcore at the time and applying it to more dynamic, textured and moodier compositions which compromised of one of a number of pieces that laid foundation to what would become post-rock or post-hardcore. Slint seemed to be one of those rare groups from the midwest that tapped into a dark Americana feel (and later such groups like Regulator Watts, covered here) and their sound was one that provided a trigger for a shift in post-hardcore happening in the 90s, with bands opting for longer, meandering compositions with a subdued vocal apporach. Listen to McMahan’s voice on “Nosferatu Man” and his whispered, almost creepy delivery of the lyrics in a subdued talking tone add an extra shadowy layer of depth to what is Slint‘s most “rocking” track from their second LP, Spiderland (1991), which then sees McMahan flipping the coin and barking out the vocals in the more open, louder parts of the track.
Slint broke up prior to the release of Spiderland and then it’s members broke off into a long list of resulting projects, often tying in with the burgeoning post-rock scene emerging in Chicago, and at times in styles of music further and further from the post-hardcore sounds of their earlier projects. This shift in sonic culture had its ripples — even in Vancouver — as by the mid/late 90s punk kids of the Gen X generation were moving into similar territory — whether it be the aforementioned post-rock, alternative country (ie: Will Oldham) or generally more into the classic canon of American songwriting. Admittedly, while many peers of mine in the scene pursued these directions — most of them didn’t resonate with me, especially as my path led me more into darker post-punk and synth. However, there are some exceptions and in this case The For Carnation is one of them.
So — a little gem for you to check out. There’s a number of other artists that float this shadow-y path from the indie/post-hardcore sphere and there’s some half-written drafts still cooking in these vaults that I suspect I’ll get up at some point!