Blogg → This One Time, At Bandcamp...

I found Invisible Elephant.
(And yes. Yes I did go for the obvious post title there. But that’s beside the point).

One of the great things about this particular site is that not only does it encourage exploring artists and genres outside of those you might typically listen to, it makes it really damn easy, offering you a variety of ways to explore the community and make new discoveries.

Most recently, I've developed a taste for music more on the experimental side, typically searching for artists who fuse a variety of genres not often associated with one another. I've been able to discover some real gems, like Japanese outfit Mutyumu and the intriguing Islaja from Finland.

I expanded this search recently to Bandcamp, which is where I stumbled across the Invisible Elephant album, called The Lights Go Out, released February 16 and available in its entirety for free, now also available here on Last.fm.

The concept behind the work takes some inspiration from writers such as Haruki Murakami and John Irving, with the artist behind the project referring to an overriding theme of “characters who have quite mundane lives but then stumble into bizarre situations and other worlds” (as you might find in Murakami's books like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, though the album’s references are varied). As such, you'll find the music creating a dynamic narrative that shifts between these different situations and worlds by using an interesting blend of genres (post-rock, dream pop, psychedelic rock, shoegaze and folk rock) and to great effect, as no one element sounds out of place or arrives abruptly as tracks build or veer into a different direction. Punctuating the album throughout with various environmental sounds helps keep a consistent, other-worldly yet natural sound.

Vocals are almost ghostly and distant - I sometimes have an issue with vocals in this style, as it has the potential to make the music sound a little hollow and washed out. Thankfully, though, here they serve more as an ethereal, underlying texture rather than give the sense that there’s something missing. At its heart, The Lights Go Out is delicately dreamy, with fluid, almost trip-hop like percussion to match the mood shifts; which is where I think the success of the concept lies. Without that gentle, persuasive motion of all the other elements, the shift into fuzzy, guitar-laden psych rock would perhaps be a little too jolting. As it stands, the tracks shift smoothly enough that unless you’re listening out for it, you don’t notice the build or the shift until you’re already immersed in the new sound – a bit like a plot twist you didn’t see coming but when you read back through the chapter you start to pick up a little on the foreshadowing.

With that kind of story-telling like structure in mind, The Lights Go Out – in a nutshell - starts you in a place of easy familiarity, a place you know and like to be, but much like in a dream, it shifts you to a different place, and maybe under any other circumstances you'd be thinking hmm, this is weird or possibly even be freaking out because you're not quite sure how you got there, but the transition is natural and even if it’s unfamiliar you don’t feel out of place in this place, actually it’s really kinda nifty here so you think you’ll stay – as long as it lets you. ;)

I’ll be most interested to find how the Invisible Elephant story develops.

Favourite tracks: You Can Have It All is a genuine highlight. Of other note is the track Wind-Up Bird which - Murakami references aside - conjures images akin to the fox wedding procession in Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, and ends on something of an ominous note that inspires a bit of a nervous curiosity as to what happens next.

Check out the album tracks individually @ Last.fm
Or download the album in full @ Bandcamp

While I’m not overly fond of inviting comparisons to or between artist’s work, I see the value in a frame of reference, so perhaps if you can imagine Jeniferever, Natural Snow Buildings and Sonic Youth decided to get together you might have a decent start...

Best recommendation for a similar artist: This Is My Normal State

And definitely worth checking out if you’re partial to any of the following:
The Middle East, Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson, Tides From Nebula, Our Ceasing Voice, Mogwai, Under Byen, Deerhunter