Clue To Kalo
Lily Perdida
10 Track, LP (2008, Popfrenzy)
Related: Clue To Kalo.
A work of almost overwhelming scope and ambition, Lily Perdida is a kaleidoscopic narrative with 10 different narrators, an array of tricky time-signature changes and a self-contained world of exotica and toy instrument sounds. Opening with the carnival atmosphere of 'Lull for Dear Life', this never settles into a single identity, songs being fragmented and changing character several times through their duration, evoking the detail and artistic restlessness of Brian Wilson's Smile more than any of Mark Mitchell's previous work. In particular, the gauzy somnolence of lost classic ‘Come Here When You Sleepwalk’ seems distant; the sound similarly layered but this time characterised by competing, dissonant elements.
The record's sprawling aspirations are its biggest strength – and weakness. Any real sense of the central character is lost under a mass of musical detail. However, the lack of anything to latch hold of means that inspired ideas, like the descent from a snappy rhythm into reverb on 'It's Here The Story's Straight' or the bouncy melody spliced into 'The Infinite Orphan', flash by on a regular basis. While not as immediate or as purely enjoyable as Come Here ..., this stands as a singularly ambitious release, and quite possibly the only Australian album of the year you'll need to draw a mind-map to follow.
by Daniel Herborn
Armed with his silver Dictaphone, Clue to Kalo’s well-travelled frontm…
