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Rating:
Chapter four, as the title suggests. At least officially, because considering the entire discography (from the semi-amateur double vinyl “Fuse”, to the debut mini LP “Self-Non-Self” onwards, including the collection of remixes), we should actually be facing the sixth discographic release from the Portsmouth band. After two critically discussed albums (in an ambivalent way), such as “Forever” and “Loved”, which for better or worse marked an artistic evolution for the group and established them among the general public, “Population Four” marks a clear stylistic and instrumental shift and requires, in my opinion, a retrospective reflection.
One can try to imagine the dream pop of the Cocteau Twins, sometimes whipped by “cold gusts of wind” (to quote a well-known contemporary writer), illuminated by the distant gleams of the post-apocalyptic Berlin of Einsturzende Neubauten and cloaked by the techno-rock-sampled roughness of the early Young Gods. This was the debut of Cranes, a band that staged “a ghostly universe of contrasts between dissonant industrial sounds and ethereal voices,” wrote Vittore Baroni.
After the double CD reissue of “Wings of Joy/Self-non-Self” in 1993, the subsequent “Forever” was decidedly influenced by the encounter with Robert Smith (the participation in the “Wish” tour projected the group onto the world “alternative” rock/pop scene) and so was “Loved”. What characterized those pieces of music was a greater presence of keyboards, a skillful “dosage” of feedback and piano, wider soundscapes, more varied rhythms, and some good quality songs like “And Ever” and “Sun And Sky”, followed by “Paris and Rome”, indicating the romantic fascination (in the literary sense) of Alison Shaw, the model of the “exploding track” (practically a kind of “Plainsong” updated to the rhythmic cadences of the group’s new “Mediterranean dream pop” hybrid), an authentic interest as confirmed by the theatrical work “La Tragedie d’Oreste Et d’Electre”.
Stylistically demarcated from its predecessors, it was said, this “Population Four”, appears a more “spartan” work compared to the instrumental sumptuousness and arrangements of its predecessors: drier, bare, and in its own way essential, from the opening “Tangled Up” marked only by acoustic guitar and voice, to the second track “Fourteen”, which seems to contain distant reminiscences of the beginnings, the entire work seems to proceed in an ascending way creating the expectation of a climax that never materializes, or so it seems… indeed, shortly after the midpoint of the CD, “Angel Bell” stages strings and distorted guitars in an almost “expressionistic” way, and the explosion of paroxysmal drumming mixed with guitar-noise vaguely recalls “Starblood”, to reach towards the conclusion one of the gems of the album: “On Top Of The World” (the poetics underlying the title is in continuity with “Wings Of Joy”). The entire work, on one hand, consolidates my (personal) opinion, that it is a group with notable talent and still partially unexpressed potential, and on the other hand seems to initiate a transition. One towards a sound and a genre increasingly less “codifiable” and “contained”, placing the Cranes outside the boundaries of the “stylistic geography” of certain British techno/rock/ethereal music (Curve, Bleach, Slowdive…).
It could, perhaps, truly be a surpassing of the past… so vivid and (in the end) reassuring as to overshadow (or “darken”) what, from a band located at latitudes more familiar to us in English, is asserted as a slogan: “Look Into The Future”.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Tangled Up (03:38)
Time again
There's time my friend...
And time will never end
You'll be free my love
You'll be free my love
Do you see our love ?
Do you see our love ?
Oh, honey...honey
honey...honey
Can you see our love ?
Do you feel our love ?
To be free my love
To be free my love...
Can you feel our love ?
Can you feel our love ?
I can feel your love
I can feel your love...
03 Breeze (03:41)
Like stars from the world above you
Bright dreams from the one inside
Bright scenes scattered all around you
And each scene shows you who you are...
It's all the same when you think about it
Not much to say and i don't much mind...
I like today, there's a gleam about it
That shows the way to who knows what you'll find...
I know it could all fall for you
I know cos it's all beautiful
I know it could all fall for you
Hey yeah yeah it's only natural...
And here we are on the gold grey beach
With the sun and the sand and the waves at our feet
And there are a million grains
And like diamonds they glisten
To the sound of our days while the old breeze listens
I know it could all fall for you
I know cos it's all beautiful
I know it could all fall for you
Hey yeah yeah it's only natural...
Just look at that ... hey look at that!
Well, it reminds me of the place you showed me
I know it was you
It reminds me of the thing you told me
I know it was true...
I know this won't last forever
But i'm happy now
Yeah, i feel much better...
Something in the sky tells me i could be happy
Something in your eye makes me feel sort of carefree
Something in the sky tells me i could be happy
Something in your eye makes me feel sort of carefree
Sometimes life can all fall for you
Yeah yeah yeah sometimes it's all true
I know it could all fall for you
Yeah yeah yeah it's all beautiful...
04 Can't Get Free (02:51)
The sky is red...
The sky is green
Our love is like...a summer breeze
Alive and free, alive and free
You can be what you want to be
I close my eyes...and try to see
The things I always thought I dreamed
Coloured gleams, coloured gleams
Come alive in front of me...
Summer breeze, summer breeze
I close my eyes...and try to see
A sunset now, with all its gleams
Of summer hopes and summer dreams
Alive and free, alive and free
Our love is like...a summer dream
I close my eyes...and try to see
The things I always thought I dreamed...
05 Stalk (02:20)
I dream for you
To be for you
But all the time your window is closed
I see you through the glass...
A reflection of myself maybe falls
Between us when the sun comes out...
So give me life and soul to go
When the sun shines bright
And give me love and bliss and hope
In the darkest night
Your blinds are blind
And your cats want the birds
In my garden heaven
Where I'm lodging tonight
...And the glass in your window
Is killing tomorrow for me...
Closer and closer, we can't get much older
I'm smashing but breaking,
My heart has awoken
These windows soon shatter for me
Black on the outside, it's black on the inside
Together we'll make it
Darkness sedated to grey
...But the bars at your window
Are killing tomorrow for me...
07 Angel Bell (05:29)
Maybe I'll glow..
And tap my toe
But somehow I know
I will feel low
Maybe I'll laugh...
Maybe I'll smile
And we'll have fun
For a little while
..But when I go
When there's no Hello
Somehow I know
I will feel low
The sun will rise
High in the sky
And maybe I'll grow
But today I feel low..
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