Reviewed by Jason Simpson (
Forestpunk)
I always forget that Circulatory System is the project of Will Hart. I also forget
how much I miss Olivia Tremor Control and the other Elephant 6 offshoots until I press plunge and am submerged in Hart's world of dreamy, orchestral, slack-
key grandeur.
Post-modernism has never had its true anthem. The closest corollary would be
Alice's adventures in Wonderland and through the looking glass, and even that
is at a distance as Alice was a representative from the Victorian age dealing
with the chaos and confusion with proper etiquette and rote learning. She was
never totally IN it.
Will Hart, along with a bunch of other E6 alum have composed a proper
soundtrack to many of the 20th centuries hardest lessons. There's uncertainty
("You might never know why" from "The Reasons Before You Knew"), relativity
("It's funny how long it's been, for the young rocks on the shore", from "Aerial
View of a Heart (From Above)", linguistics (the double entendre wordplay of "When
You're Small"), sub-atomics and hermetic philosophy, "Stars And Molecules"),
existentialism ("Does it feel like a dream/you'll never wake up from", also from "The
Reasons...."), and transcendentalism ("When you open up your mind, will it open other
windows", also from "Stars And Molecules").
While these may be difficult concepts, "Mosaics Within Mosaics" is not difficult listening. It's quite the opposite in fact. Most of "Mosaics Within Mosaics" is gentle, swaying,
shambolic psychedelic pop that wouldn't sound out of place on a Stephen Malkmus or
Steely Dan record, not to mention the classics like The Beatles or the E6 canon. The
closest comparison is Will Hart's own "Dusk At Cubist Castle" with Olivia Tremor Control,
as "Mosaics..." follows a similar pattern of glorious, catchy pop tunes arising from a surreal
bricolage of concrete cut-up collage, here in the form of "Mosaic #?", 8 in all, making the
tunes seem like atomized fragments of half-recalled memories, arising from the
confusion of the subconscious, from the ether of the id. This can best be seen on "Open
Up Your Lives", whose chiming chords and questioning lyrics arise from a bramble of
crackles and refrigerator drones, and returns to a sound sculpture of infinite squeeze
boxes played by disembodied hands.
While these tunes may be poppy and infectious, they are still weird as sin as can be seen
on "Over Dinner A Cardinal Spoke" which sounds like a klezmer wedding band's take on
The Grateful Dead's "Eyes Of The World". It reminds me of Yo La Tengo's video
for "Tom Courtnay", which features Ira Kaplan playing clarinet in the bathroom stall of a rock 'n
roll camp like some high school stoner, only to be busted by an Ace Frehley look-alike.
We all know this is the true rock 'n roll; doing what you want, being true to thine own
self, giving music a much longer shelf life than the mock pyrotechnics of the arena
warriors which too quickly passes from true epics to flabby pretense.
"Mosaics Within Mosaics" is a true achievement for a number of reasons. The most
publicized would be the contributions of other Elephant 6 allies Derek Almstead (Faster
Circuits), John Fernandes (Olivia Tremor Control), Heather McIntosh (The Instruments),
AJ Griffin (Laminated Cat), Peter Erchick (The Olivia Tremor Control, Pipes You See,
Pipes You Don't), and most notably the first ferric appearance of Neutral Milk Hotel's
Jeff Mangum since 2009 (and that was only a single song for a contribution) along with
fellow NMHer Jeremy Barnes, who also plays in A Hawk Or A Hacksaw.
This record is not reliant on cameos to be a stunning success or achievement however. "Mosaics Within Mosaics" is the first Circulatory System since 2009, and Will
Hart has been battling with Multiple Sclerosis in the meantime which can make tying
your shoes difficult, let alone composing a brilliant, timeless psychedelic travelogue. We
are all the better, for Hart's perseverance.
"Mosaics Within Mosaics" asks more questions than it offers answers. It reflects the cloud
of confusion of living in a world with seven billion perspectives (not to mention the other
living organisms on earth) with immediate access to people and places all over the
globe and sometimes, the galaxy. It begins to be difficult to speak objectively,
authoritatively. You can only speak for yourself, for your own experience. And not even
then, as who knows completely what influences and effects us. If cosmic horror like H.
P. Lovecraft or Thomas Ligotti describes the terror of this dissolution, Circulatory
System is the sound of embracing freefall. How I Learned To Stop Worrying, and Love
The Moment.
"Mosaics Within Mosaics" is the kind of record that makes you sad when the review is
over, as I no longer have reason to obsessively listen over and over, looking for clues and
latch keys in the lyrics, speculating on choices of instrument and structure. It's a
coded puzzle, a matrix of songs, which yields more strange, beautious organisms with each
successive listen. A true and faithful relation of the disintegration of the persistence of
memory.
Available here on vinyl, and here on CD.
"No Time" is the second album by Brighton based Dan Reeves' one man band Soft Walls and the first to appear on Trouble in Mind Records rather than Dan's own highly respected Faux Discx label. An extremely appealing hybrid of krauty post-punk and bedroom psychedelia, "No Time" is loaded with tunes that I can't get out of my head, propulsive, motorik rhythms, woozy organs and all manner of other things that tick the boxes that I want ticked when I drop the needle. "Never Come Back Again" is the sort of track that leads to all sorts of unhealthy obsessions and it's got plenty of company here. Essential.
