Clinker, On the Other Side... (for L. Cohen) (CDR Dragon´s Eye Recordings)

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Dragon´s Eye Recordings have recently slid down the American west coast from Seattle to Los Angeles. Home of a small cadre of artists mainly committed to shaping and manipulating the very air and architecture around them, as witnessed by recent releases like Yann Novak´s pulsating "In Residence" and Steve Peters´ "Filtered Light (Chamber Music 4)", in which the latter proves that an empty room is far from being a silent room. Since its back catalogue is small enough to fit into a medium-sized Samsonite, I assume they schlepped their stock with them, both are still available at a mere ten bucks a crack.

Its latest release is an homage to the man in the famous blue raincoat, Leonard Cohen, by Clinker, aka artist and sound designer Gary James Joynes, and was specially composed for and debuted at the Leonard Cohen International Festival in Edmonton last year. One wonders how the audio-visual performance was received by an audience of Cohen scholars and geeks.

For this "bass-scape", Joynes alchemically renders Cohen´s self-proclaimed "golden voice" into some lesser but hardier metal whose tones while also deep and resonant are dirtier and rougher, less gleaming and seductive - wrought iron, perhaps, maybe brass. Joynes deploys analogue synthesizers and even lends his own voice to the mix, though pitched high in the stratsosphere above Cohen´s earthy mulch. The synths have the perfect timbre for accompanying his ominous rumble, which over the course of nearly three quarters of an hour is abstracted into obscurity. Even the cover art, I would deduce, are visual equivalents of the music - Cohen´s visage stretched and abstracted beyond clear recognition.

Joynes intends his piece to reflect wordlessly the tussle Cohen has fought with light and dark that would heal or harm the world. Despite a clunker of a name, Clinker has succeeded in an inimitable fashion. Since being inimitable is also a characteristic of Leonard Cohen, it is even a meta-success.

http://www.dragonseyerecordings.