Originally released in the ludicrously slim edition of fifty cassette copies in 1984, Clear Memory has now got the re-issue Washington, DC oddities Bomis Prendin deserve, complete with rare photos and insightful (and often surreal) liner notes detailing its making.
A pioneering pull, the summery chirps and Casio calico of the first track breezes in with tangled colour, subtly offset by the wet rub of tyres on tarmac. It’s a starter that sets a dreamy focus the rest of the album could easily surf out upon, but to which the Scooby Doo shimmy of the second piece hits against, musical-chaired in noodling fret flourishes and Inspector Gadget cartooning, churning up that easy listening shazazz and twisting a bit of mutant from the melody.
This home brew certainly weevils a refreshing sincerity, its re-wired circuitry bubbling away, dishing up doodling sweetness that sunshine-spiders in over-driven tonality and blistering noise. The mumbled lyrics of “Respect The Road” swimming in a swervy skate of key-changed headlights. That Thomas Dinger-like infusion of “Street Without Lunch” that shows off their earworm prowess. Then the brilliance of “I Don’t Want” that has you hanging on its undulating hooks in a waltzing wonder interjected by random ruffle and hissy noise, and one of the few tracks to embezzle the vocal riches in this mostly instrumental ride. I’m just loving the way this mischievously smooches your ear — that bendy subversion / perversion of what you expect gloriously hi-jacked. It’s easy to see why this band was included on the Nurse With Wound list — they sound the way I always wanted the Grateful Dead to, triple-cooked casualties of some prolonged bender, holding on to their newly found reality with the broadest of grins. That Casiotone purr full of squirrelling silk quickly set aflame, sandblasted into an attention deficient dispersion of fresh horizons piled high in bric-a-brac and noodling hydras. Fretwork that’s all over the place (just how I like it), full of raw instance, that spur, spore, switch-up of the Sesame Street-like glide that trickles on through that pedalled contouring.Clear Memory is an adventurous listen brimming with ideas that psychedelically nourish as much as they bring you out in rash of unexplained dance shapes.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
