Review Summary: For Tomorrow: A Guide to Contemporary British Music, 1988-2013 (Part 52)
In 1991, The Clientele were formed in London, England. The songs collected on their first release,
Suburban Light, were all released between 1997 and 2000. The music here does not betray this fact in the slightest. Show any song here to anyone you know and they’ll never guess what year it came from.
Suburban Light is such an unbelieveable triumph of aesthetics it goes beyond mere nostalgia bait or tribute and sounds wholly apart of the time period it draws inspiration from.
That time period could be pinned down simply as 1965, the same year The Byrds released their hypnotic, sighing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”, The Beatles released
Help! and
Rubber Soul, and The Zombies issued their debut album (
The Zombies in the states,
Begin Here in the UK).
Suburban Light sounds like a classic album lost in between the busy shuffle of that year. The kind of record that could have gained a cult following during the 90s and been granted a reissue in 2000. Instead it’s a collection of singles and one offs the band released during the 90s and assembled for their debut in 2000.
Produced by the band,
Suburban Light nails the hazy atmosphere of the aforementioned 1965 totems. The jangly guitar leads ping with a distinct clarity while the bass and drums remain just below each song’s luscious analog hiss. Alasdir MacLean’s voice is the sound of smoke slowly rising, curling, and fading from the end of a cigarette. “Like a silver ring thrown into the flood of my heart/With the moon high above the motorway,” he breathes on the radiant “We Could Walk Together”, “I have searched for all your fragrance in the silent dark, is that okay?” His voice makes films out of these lyrics, all evocative mood and miles and miles of atmosphere.
Course, silent dark fragrances can’t carry an entire album so The Clientele deliver what their ‘65 forebearers delivered, by writing sharp little tunes with subtle but immediate hooks. Opener “I Had to Say This” is an absolute wonder. The Clientele giving you but a few stray notes to catch yourself before fully thrusting you into their world. “I have never really been here If I am alive/Am I just a photograph inside a printed night?” asks MacLean before letting the question go and lapsing back into the song’s wordless hook. The last movement of the song fractures - a tambourine part sounds unfinished, the psychedelic guitar solo ends abruptly, and the drummer signs off with a few tossed off snare rolls. It truly makes the song sound removed from time, like an accidentally discovered unfinished demo. The shimmering “We Could Walk Together” plays like “There She Goes” strung out cousin and is probably the album’s most accessible moment. “Reflections After Jane” and “6am Morningside” are hauntingly still, with the latter making the first stirrings of a small town sound like the most captivating thing happening on earth at that moment. “(I Want You) More Than Ever” sports the album’s clearest hook and synthesises the band’s M.O. in one line, “Listen to my words just fade away.”
You can’t jog to
Suburban Light. You can’t get pumped up to
Suburban Light. You can’t lift weights, mosh, or soundtrack a party to it either. But there’s plenty of music for those things,
Suburban Light is the soundtrack to the quietest moments of your life. It’s music for ambling, for reflecting, for slowly cruising your old neighborhood at night, for having a long, painful talk with a friend. I don’t listen to
Suburban Light all the time, but when a very specific mood strikes me, I’m always thankful it’s there.
