GUIDED* are a four-piece froup from Newtownards: a short bus ride away from Belfast. They've played Auntie Annie's in Belfast, and they've been on a compilation put together by John O'Neill of The Undertones. They've done two other albums: "Trying Not To Crash" and "Little Light." They're coming to know that their music deserves wider circulation.
"Little Light" was gentler stuff: "Allure" is challenging. There's an undisguised religious message (see cover picture); there is some harshly-recorded instrumentation, and voices get morphed out of shape to stop them being pretty for too long. The album evokes feelings reminiscent of the Canadian Constellation (Silver Mount Zion and Frankie Sparo in particular). It's not the sound per se: it's the uncompromising and zealous communication of what's true and important.
The crucial song at track 7 is "Seven Years And A Day". It's a remarkable song of regret and redemption and a Mark Linkous-style weary serenity. It has loud and clattered rim-shot percussion and warm paino, it has crackling vinyl noise and an ecstatic wail of female vocal harmony across an almost spoken chorus. It is a very fine song.
The songs in general are written by Ricky Graham, who is very much the centre of the project. Brother and sister Keith and Alison Winter, along with Michael Aicken and Michael Neill, make up the full Guided* complement.
They start with a tape-reversed Irish com-ye-all for small town disco dance floor days. They progress through a dozen musical adventures with textures and colours from every instrument and keyboard to hand. The variety is impressive and disciplined. No gimmicks, just close attention to the needs of each new song. You might not like what you're hearing, but each song is exactly how Guided* want it to be. Out of tune trumpet, wobbly piano, swooping synth noises beautifully loose drumming. Whatever you want and nothing repeated.
|
There's a Bill Callahan-like confessional in "For You" at track 10. There's a backroom piano song with huge bass and beginner sax in "The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon." You've got the perky holiday show song without the sea sickness pills in "Red Square." There's a mournful acoustic guitar tune called "If Forever Is Today" that escapes unexpectedly into the electronic ozone in the last chorus. And you finish in the very best Alt.Country purity of "A Lowkey End.and Goodnight", that leads you off burbling through a dance-oriented dance pattern, away into outer space. Only a swift re-entry to the imagination-boggling sound FX of track one can cure the sense of loss.
This is a special album that could be treasured by anyone who discovered it. It certainly isn't going to come and find you. And maybe, like me, you'll want to remix it to make the levels more conventional and more like the comforting noises you would want to allow into your troubled head. Bloody artists.
|
