"Dreamy"-- that hackneyed descriptor of quiet, bedroom IDM/electronica-- carries heavy metaphoric baggage. Many still believe dreams come from rapid batting of our eyelids, sometimes at a rate of up to one hundred or one-hundred and twenty times per minute. Our sight sphere sheaths flutter energetically-- albeit, nearly undetectably-- and because of them, an otherwise motionless body moves about freely at night in a world to which only the mind is privy: the land of dreams, the land of make-believe. Without such kinetic energy, that very same body remains betwixt its sheets, and the mind nary leaves the pillow. Put simply, there's a fine line between the greatest revelatory dream and the most inconsequential night of sleep.
On Come Here When You Sleepwalk, Clue To Kalo-- aka Australia's Mark Mitchell-- walks that line, as have Dntel, Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss, and occasionally Schneider TM before him. Mitchell even seems to acknowledge his tenuous position: both sides of the disc are unmarked and reflective, the division between content and coaster frustratingly blurred.
The album is beautiful enough: it has the lush washes of sound, the simple, sparingly-used voice blended in, the nostalgic, lovelorn lyrics replete with a tinge of cynicism, all essential nocturnal vocabulary. When these sounds seek to transcend into dreams, though, it ultimately comes down to those subtle, nearly undetectable flutters of energy; intangibles transform pretty but otherwise stagnant sound, building, collapsing and coming to a logical conclusion. Come Here When You Sleepwalk contains a few such inspired, dream-inducing interludes, but overall, constitutes an array of well-crafted sonic images that frustratingly go nowhere.
As if to performatize our foray into his dream world, Clue to Kalo spends the first forty-five seconds of "The First Song of the Rest of Your Life"-- nearly half the track-- easing up the volume level until we're adequately enveloped in its waves, vocal echoes, and martian beats. He lets it fester, only to cut off the track suddenly and begin the only close-to-perfect song on the album, and one of the best I've heard this year: "Empty Save The Oxygen"
A processed guitar fumbles initially, then finds itself as a subtle, driving pulse; it churns throughout as electronic ticks and whisps dance in the background. Mitchell emerges quietly, but confidently on vocals: " I'd like to love you, but I'd like a lot of things." It's a song that, if we ever had the choice, our fed-up lovers would sing to us on the eve of our breakups, sparing the equivocation of "I still want us to be friends."
"Empty Save The Oxygen" is no new take on Humanity's Bout With Inevitable Personal Disappointment, but unlike songs with similar emotional content, it refuses to wallow. Indeed, as Mitchell retires on vocals, it's invigorated by a profound optimism-- everything is clearer, the ticks become more precise and concentrated, the beat more present. Everything sucks, but everything is going to be okay.
After this truly exhilarating opening, the rest of the album makes for poor man's imitation-- especially since Clue to Kalo's palette is more or less fixed. The songs are frustratingly stagnant-- albeit beautiful-- exercises in lap-pop textures. This would be fine-- wonderful even-- would that the same level of inner energy present in "Empty Save the Oxygen" came through, but unfortunately, with the exception of the deftly executed "This Dies Over Distance" and the 11-minute sonic rollercoaster "Still We Felt Bulletproof", shapes hardly shift. The listener is left with pretty loops, but hardly the carefully considered songs Clue to Kalo has already shown he can compose.
Had Come Here When You Sleepwalk been released three or four years ago, it would have been highly regarded if only by merit of its sound. But as the lap-pop genre has grown leaps and bounds, both musically and technologically, it's become formulaic: simple ear candy isn't impressive anymore. Song structure-- the "pop" element of "lap-pop"-- is playing catch-up to electronica's sonic triumphs. At his best, Clue to Kalo shows he has a unique sensibility, capable of advancing the genre's subtle electronic shoegazing. Here's hoping his next release delivers; it should be fantastic.
