‘Solitude’, ‘beauty’, ‘distance’, ‘disappointment’, ‘epic’, ‘melancholy’, ‘bittersweet’ are some of the words used by the bio to describe the sounds of Cradlesongs, the debut album by Californian Clayton McEvoy. His home state is often synonymous with music as pæan to sun and water, and this music definitely evokes elements of that. The big difference is that Sleeping Me is more interested in the deserted beaches of the winter months, when sand and water and light stretch on endlessly, uninterrupted by the clamour of people, the repetition of basic sounds of water and wind providing a context for solitude. There is a subtle notion of the concept album – starting and finishing with tracks titled ‘Empty Cradle’ and ‘The Rattle In Our Throats’ indicate fairly clearly the arc of time and human isolation.
In technical terms, the music is quite simple. Electric guitar filigrees are bathed in a wash of treble heavy reverb, building layers of high harmonics. Subtle synth patches sometimes underscore the mood. Chord patterns never resolve but float in a Satie-an melancholy. There is a consistency to the timbre across the entire album which helps build the mood but is also its main weakness. Without a strong bottom end, the tracks are never grounded but float overhead. This could be the point, but the insistency of that top-end reverb sometimes becomes piercing, alienating the listener rather than enveloping them. And the anonymity of each track as the album moves from one to the next (but without the sheer driving cocoon of sound built in longform drone) while again creating mood, makes engagement a struggle. Instead of feeling consumed by the music, which I’m certain I was supposed to be, the sounds began to feel distant or, even worse, become slightly grating background noise. McEvoy goes someway to overcoming these issues in a few tracks mid-album – ‘Egdon Heath’, ‘Pride And Fall’ and ‘Here In The North’ add some subtle variety in timbre and structure but are also, tellingly, the albums three briefest tracks.
I found Cradlesongs a slightly frustrating album. It’s basic idea and method are attractive and certainly fall within the successful parameters other contemporary shoegazers have explored, but that single idea doesn’t feel to be of enough substance to maintain interest for 48 minutes. Sleeping Me achieves his stated goals, but probably would have done so more successfully across an EP half the length of this.
Adrian Elmer
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