artist: Chlorine
title: Souvenir Helms
keywords: experimental aa nights chlorine found sounds rewire scapes smikkelbaard souvenirs sunderland Leiden
label: Smikkelbaard https://smikkelbaard.bandcamp.com
Chlorine’s collection of music pieces that didn’t fit anywhere else is one of the finer collections of music on the Smikkerbaard record label. It all begins with the pleasant sounding ‘Tide Times’ which easily slips in a melodic calmness that could be equal to a pleasant intake of a enjoyable tranquilizer. The music as smooth and beautiful as it is, simply calms every listening listener down, making all stress slide off someone’s head and shoulders.
Chlorine then serves us a work named ‘Favourite Empty Face’ which kindly provides a strange rhythmic industrial glow in which I imagine green pulsating lights shivering down the dark drainage.
Another dark themed sounding Chlorine work is ‘Aroundandaroundaround’, which takes on a sinister repetition of melody that feels like it could be a good backing track for a bad ass movie-star. Something from the future, perhaps a new kind of Darth Vader, an evil personality with a cape and memory problems.
Chlorine’s album is far from finished and that’s why it continues with a track named ‘Captain Control’, this is quite refreshing as it seemingly has a brighter intake in sound and feel then it’s previously heard darker brothers and sisters. It is a short synthesizer piece in which you could clearly imagine Chlorine’s hands slightly resting on the keyboard; fascinating!
We can’t keep it all too bright as that means we have to wear sunglasses at all times, and because obviously Chlorine is fully aware of this there is ‘A Family Picture’ inserted into this album. We all know the dramatic impact a family picture has, and Chlorine translated this feeling most perfectly in sound and melody. It’s a moment in which we feel like standing in a corner, family picture in hand, and wondering what the hell had happened with the people depicted on the picture: some truly deep thoughts!
After all this it’s clear that Chlorine is getting a bit hungry, and that’s probably why we get to ‘School Lunch’. A fairly lengthy work that for a school lunch seems to come across as well fairly dramatic. Perhaps the food isn’t good, the atmosphere in the school’s dining zone grim and horrible, perhaps there are school bullies around that makes the lunch into a sad battle of not too be seen (or they might steal the lunch!). In other words, it’s a pretty traumatic school lunch…
Chlorine finally brings a work in which we should be like a fish in the water. This is ‘Piece Of Small Talk’ which quietly swims around in a pretty lightweight (almost untouchable) ambient style that is as pretty as glass from the finest glass maker. It actually makes me want to talk less, and listen more…
Chlorine’s Conditions is a pretty highlight on thus album, kindly providing a simple yet feel good seriousness to our ears. It feels as if we just got the results from a doctors research and we are all cleared from the worst case scenarios.
Last track on the Chlorine left-over release is a very lengthy bonus track ‘Sarsaparilla’, it’s good as it is long, just as food is good when there is many. It is one of these tracks that simply takes the time to evolve, slowly opening up from just a friendly little noise into a deranged little flower. What else is not to love?
https://smikkelbaard.bandcamp.com/album/souvenir-helms
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Yeah I Know It Sucks 