Kirk Lake: Pictorial Memories (CD on Dreamy)

Band: Kirk Lake
Label: Dreamy
Title: Pictorial Memories

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Band:Kirk Lake
Title:Pictorial Memories
Reviewed By:Cila Warncke
Date Published:17/12/2001

Label:Dreamy
Format:CD
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His smile is as brittle as the seashells on the floor” should not be a song lyric. It should be – is – poetry, the kind of vivid image artfully clad writers at open-mic nights cattily wish they’d thought of first. Sorry folks, but Kirk Lake beat you to it.

London-based noir novelist, poet, and (…but not least) singer-songwriter Lake has recently released his third CD, Pictorial Memories (Dreamy Records, London NW6), a petite delicacy with novelistic aspirations.

Starting softly with a wistful quartet, the first half of 'Pictorial Memories' finds Lake in a reflective mood – perhaps sitting alone in a darkening room, listening to cheery neighbours’ voices. “I’ll Take it as Read,” and “Nothing to No One,” are both sung to a memory, a shadow, an absentee lover. They are the words a man gropes to find in the middle of a conversation, the ones that come in a rush of lucidity after the door has shut behind her. Track 3, “A Beautiful Ending,” continues in the same vein, “if after everything we have nothing left / at least we had a beautiful ending” he sings, clinging to aesthetics when emotion fails. The fourth song, “Painted Horses” completes the quartet with a slightly optimistic turn, “the carousel takes you from me / and brings you back.” Tied together by their lyrical theme, the first four tracks are also linked musically. Lake’s modulated, even voice – a professional reader’s voice – murmurs low across guitar-oriented tunes that will give any Catchers fan intense feelings of déjà vu. A sudden change is signalled in track five, tellingly dubbed “Interlude,” the scratchy sound of a ‘40s noir film soundtrack, static-y and foreboding.

“Morphology” kicks in with ominous bass licks, and Lake’s voice has grown clearer, harder. “Evolution sets you on extinction’s path,” he warns. Choppy, repetitive piano chords open “Everyday Lingers” and the new, dark Lake emotes like a jazz singer in an empty dive bar, “everyday lingers like a bad tattoo” he growls, over a single moaning trumpet. Pictorial Memories bursts into full noir flower with “The Adventures of an Abstract Detective,” which opens with a post-Beck wobble-and-squeak-fest and then morphs into a spoken-word monologue à la Freaks-era Jarvis Cocker. Riding shotgun with a pretty girl at the wheel has never been this spine-tingling, as our singer-turned-narrator intones his story over a pleasantly nerve-jangling electronic soundscape.

Finally, “The Wedding Song” wraps the package up neatly, if bitterly. “You’re so old / I’m so ugly / I think it might work out” is the opening line… you can imagine what follows. The themes of absent love, loss, and degredation are brought together in a song that embraces them all – it should be a love song, but what kind of lover (in what kind of world?) says “pass me the lighter / I’m gonna burn the house down / and I’ll see your brothers at the wake / I’ll say ‘sorry it was some sad mistake / but we never really had a love affair’”?

Every good poet, though, has a final piece, one last little thought provoking titbit – subtle, but demanding. Appropriately, Pictorial Memories concludes with “the end of music,” fifty-one seconds of the sound the end of a record makes – needle scratching softly across vinyl, a soft white fuzzy noise. The sound, perhaps, of the last page turning over – the last page of Lake’s musical noir novella.

Discography/Bibliography: CDs: So You Got Anything Else (1995). The Black Lights (1996). Pictorial Memories (2000). Novel

Track Listing:

01) I'll Take It As Read
02) Nothing To No One
03) A Beautiful Ending
04) Painted Horses
05) Interlude
06) Morphology
07) Everyday Lingers
08) The Adventures Of An Abstract Detective
09) The Wedding Song
10) The End Of Music

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