06 April 2011

Scissor Lock - broken english (2010, Hello Square)

Scissor Lock is the solo project of Marcus Whale, from
Sydney, New South Wales, AU, and "Broken English" is his first official album after various CDRs, splits and compilation tracks.

Using his voice as an instrument, he manipulates fragments, constructing ambient and vibrant pieces, processes these with electronic sounds and feedback, developing a strange universe where limits are slowly blurred, for a result both familiar and otherworldly, both luminous and icy, both emotional and broken. 

There are four parts, each one around 10 minutes. "Part one" is build like an early Steve Reich piece translated into the contemporary ambient style: minimal and evolving slowly with progressive layers slowly expanding the landscape like light at dawn slowly discovering an ice field full of mirroring surfaces and broken ice forms.

After a pure crystalline electronic, vocals are back on "Part two" with a more melodic and emotional but still experimental form, somewhere between Meredith Monk for some part and the type of vocals you can meet on Sigur Ros records.

Following similar steps on "Part Three", Scissor Lock is strangely seducing, reaching slowly more height on this track, while distilling a residual sadness and gains even more nuances through minimalism on "part four".

It's a very nice album and Marcus Whale is exploring very interesting and promising directions.


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