Soon You'll Know That We've Been Here Before

Being on hiatus for 8 years (since 2001’s self-titled debut), Will Cullen Hart pulls himself together to bring us the next Circulatory System album called Signal Morning. Hart, once one of the co-founders of The Elephant Six Collective and The Olivia Tremor Control now is more than glad to create short-circuits and hazy quick electro-shocks in our heads and that’s exactly what he does on this 17 track brand new disk. A hypnotizing set of experimental indie rock pieces that can make you confuse Elliott Smith with Prefuse 73 if you don’t listen with a sharp ear. Hart has been unluckily diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2008 but no sign of that trauma is heard through your speakers when trying Signal Morning. The band gained media attention on their debut when Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) joined them but he’s allegedly absent on this effort.

Track #6 “Overjoyed” is a thickly layered noisy tune that is fundamentally folk. And to be frank if a single proper song is found on Signal Morning, it is naturally not a sophisticated composition though it’s densely mixed and overworked that fools us about its genre, that’s the reason you may lose the traces when it’s abundantly filled with electronic pads or heavy bass lines. The song segues into a well of ubiquitous noise that leads us to the end. You may want to give the album several plays before you come to an unjust conclusion. It’s promising to see an indie band which had been wiped off the headlines for the last 8 years has had fans still awaiting a sequel. Noah and the Whale or Margot & the Nuclear So & So’s didn’t make such a loyal fan base.

[mp3] Circulatory System "Overjoyed"

*****

This week I figured I was so late to see Guy Richie’s 1998 killer Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Despite the ever-annoying presence of Sting in some parts the movie blew me away in direction, Brit culture and most importantly the extremely groovy and dirty soundtrack. Amongst the collection, there are numerous punk, funk and soul tracks by The Stooges, Castaways and James Brown. Even Robbie Williams has a track there when he was not even internationally recognized. The opening song by Ocean Color Scene called “Hundred Mile High City” was a jaw-aching wicked punk opus and I need to put it on repeat sometime soon. You might want to try the whole disk because it’s utterly worthwhile due to its massive eclectic taste. Guy Richie has apparently quite a taste in picking tunes for his druggy traffic-driven pictures. But this one song by indie veterans The Stone Roses got me the most and I get a kick out of it every time. “Fools Gold” appears as the last song on The Stone Roses classic 1989 self-titled and it originally runs for 9 minutes. And it comes as a surprise when hearing the rest of the album that “Fools Gold” is technically a semi-funk song that you can easily dance with. On the soundtrack version however, you see 5 minutes severed from the original cut but it’s still a danceable and nimble tune and it has nothing to do with Stone Roses’ psychedelic existence.

[mp3] Ocean Color Scene "Hundred Mile High City"
[mp3] The Stone Roses "Fools Gold"

* Buy Circulatory System's Signal Morning
* Buy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels OST and DVD