Epic45 Weathering. One of the problems with appreciating a band like Epic45 is their "epic" anonymity. They are faceless, nameless, personalityless, whateverless. I can sit and dreamily romanticize the music but when I think of them, as would be pop stars, I don't get any impression at all. They are me, dreary, drab, dull, well except that they make lovely pop songs. Now, apparently Lady Gaga is the most important person in the world now because she sold like 17 million copies of her album last week. That's pretty alright. At least she doesn't seem to shrink from the attention and she tries to live like a pop star. How would Epic45 compete? Could they do anything so daring as to guarantee them a adjoining spot in the tabloids? The could try to buy Theresa Macri's descendants? They could eat 100 pound notes in remembrance of F. Scott Fitzgerald though I suppose many would think they were just aping the KLF. They could make interesting music. Oh wait. They do. They could marry a royal, or a new royal's sister in law. They've made a huge leap with this album. Where before it was much pretty and inconsequential soundtracks to pastoral postcards of rural England now it is Hood-like cinematographic pop, it is Bark Psychosis mastery of space and stillness, it is gorgeous is what it is. It is also very long. First track has been playing for a bit, starting off with the usual field recordings and whisperings and then it is joined by a menagerie of instruments possibly played by many other people. There are but two in Epic45. Sometimes there are three, when they are joined by July Skies. They share the same affinity for test patterns, cable knit sweaters and postcards of vintage aircraft over green fields of albion. Now the end of song one, it fell away to nothing and now to bliss. This really is a huge improvement for them. I've always liked them because i am a sucker for most things in the Make Mine milieu. Basic, soft, gentle, pastoral, hippie-ish, not very male. But on this record they've incorporated so many lovely things. Now there is a wash of synths and tape recorded hiss and fluff and it closes out the introductory record in wonderful fashion. song two. A very Hood strum starts, overexposed 35 mm tape effects, fractured strums, low tech electronics probably lifted from an obscure film. Whispered vocals, very very Hood. It's also somewhat reminiscent of Bark Psychosis again, the prettiness invades from unknown vertices, almost as of the song is being invaded by all of these uncontrollably lovely aliens with their space rays of prettiness for sprinkling pop songs. Now a softer voice. I would suppose that music for these guys is a part-time affair. Make Mine Music is a collective. As such it is probably a dismal failure, though it still exists. I should not be so unkind. I am reading about the collectivist experiments in Republican Spain in 1936. Even with a sympathetic author they seem improbable in their silliness. Epic45 would seem in their element writing a song about the Spanish Civil War, it might be a lament to the republic, the tender apogee of human kindness crushed by the Falange. It would also sound a bit like Bark Psychosis did in 1990. Bark Psychosis is one of the greatest bands in the history of the world ever. Well, they were, until they released Codename:Dust**er they were. And this is reminiscent of their greatest achievement, the pushing of the air in between the notes into delicate sculptures of significance. I remember reading an interview in Emily's Hip Pocket with Graham Sutton and his epiphany when he discovered that silence was more powerful than sound. Not because he was pompous and pretentious and a fan of John Cage but because he heard Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden. Of course Talk Talk is the progenitor of most of this sort of thing. This deliberately paced, miasma inducing, intricately minimal aesthetic. Third track, hums and organs, strings, the space in between compressed but you can still breathe. It is similar to Auburn Lull. Auburn Lull is the champion Bark Psychosis acolyte in the modern world so to be compared to them is high praise, even coming from me. This is an instrumental. A short interlude. Speakers maneuver the air. Fourth track, a surprise, a vocal appearance by Baby Bird. It reminds slightly of his Dying Happy days, Petrol Cigarette and The Unemployable Rub Oil On Her Coffin, etc...he is in hypnotic chant mode, the music builds to a crescendo, cheap tinny drum sounds, liquid falling in the background, a repetitive guitar line builds and then falls back, again. His voice, slightly affected. He's a big fan. Allegedly. I can understand it. I miss Baby Bird. Those first five records were so terrific, Chris Knox without being insufferably PC. Chris Knox without being cranky. Homemade beautiful things. Then he became a pop star and I hated him for it. I am not consistent. I am earlier lamenting the anonymity of Epic45 and now condemning Baby Bird for his turn into the spotlight. This is the joy of not having any readers at all. I am allowed my inconsistency. This is the joy of deleting all past blogs and websites, I can be even more inconsistent because all previous evidence of my biases in pop music have been removed from the face of the earth. Lucky for you. This is a marvelous track. Another, that is four in a row. Next track, folky, reminiscent of My Autumn Empire things. A very high voice, oh wait, a female voice. Lovely lovely. Just a guitar, some ambience and her voice. Amazing. What if they were pop stars? What if they made their way into the public conscience? Could this music arouse the masses? It's beautiful, for certain, could they induce rapture in the loins of young girls and their manservants? Unknown. It's not transcendent like say Chopin or Fanny Elssler. If I rode down the streets with a loud speaker attached to the top of my automobile and played this track at full volume I would receive only genuine stares of confusion and rage. Track playing now is human moans, random drum fills and mistimed appliance emissions. I find it beguiling. You should too. But what about them? The masses. Those that chase mediocrity with all of their heart? This could be labelled mediocre, because it is not as great as Bark Psychosis, it is not even as marvelous as Auburn Lull. But mediocrity in service of yourself is not great crime, mediocrity mislabeled as magnificence is criminal. See our current political class, see our current cultural attache, see our current human condition. Would that Barack Obama or Peter Orszag had retired at 19 and gone on to a career Yemeni weapons trader. But instead we are forced to accept mediocrity as deity. This is a mediocre moment on this otherwise lovely album. It is These Walks Saved Us, a fractured female form, a guitar finger exercise, shortness is its only virtue. Now to an even shorter number, very July Skies. More bands should sound like July Skies. How exciting that this album should be so enchanting and on the eve of a possible new July Skies record later in the year? Antony Harding programs the cinema of my mind. He soundtracks the rain that falls from the sky. Is he mentor then to Epic45? Does he take the young men out for tea with their harmonium and acoustic and sits patiently and allows them to play their latest compositions for him and he declares them good. I am enjoying the thought of his having given blessing to Ghosts I Have KNown. It sounded like him singing. Was it him. Ah, it was. And on clarinet as well. Now to the title track. Very Mark Hollis, this. Could they not have coaxed Mark Hollis out of retirement to join them on this track? What is the going rate for a Mark Hollis guest appearance on a record? It can't be exorbitant. Can it? It was acoustics and voice and now it is multiple twinkles, acoustics and voice, now a drum, another acoustic guitar, a violin, it's elegant. It's amazing. Have they always had this in them and only just recently acquired the ambition to realise beauty such as this? You can dispose of all of the rest of your Epic45 records. Honestly, you will hear this, if you are a fan, and you will be astonished. It's reverent, it's ethereal, it's heavenly. Oh, a false ending, birdsong, but there is still half of the song left to go, toy orchestras and birdsong, it's an intermission of sorts, now to violins more breathless than previously, it's a slow rising, it's a rebellion against the boredom of post rock. This is on Make Mine Music. It is doubly strange, their newfound ambition rather, strings in concert, metronomes, dazzling array of tender sounds all made into a sparkling whole. I don't even mind the plodding drums. But drums are mostly unnecessary and would not it have been grand to invest in a rudimentary drum machine with some sort of gauzey filter attached instead. I am not content with this near perfection. I apologise to the powers that govern such things, it is why I shall be cast into the depths of hell when my lonely days are over. In hell I will listen to to Joe Satriani. i will be seated next to my high school chemistry professor as we are mocked ironically by Charon. Oh dear, my fate is sealed. Last track, pianos, two voices, it's a sing along, it's clunky and erratic and marvelous. Really really marvelous. The words are barely messaged across the notes, but it sounds poignant and revealing and they seem so proud of what they have accomplished as well they should be. They should go out into the world armed with copies of this wonderful record and play it for people in churches and in school yards and shopping malls and without comment just allow such majestic elegance to wash over the crowd and leave the scene without leaving a single footprint. Plead for the ephemera of melancholia and the red sun of Krypton over the horizon this evening. Pssst...there is a hidden track, a secret continuation. How unexpectedly thrilling!