Siskiyou – Not Somewhere

Constellation

For Siskiyou‘s fourth album for Constellation, they appear to have returned to their roots with that lo-fi home-recorded sound that echoes the kind of direction in which Mark Linkous originally headed.

On Not Somewhere, Colin Huebert has taken on the majority of instruments and constructed frayed but hopeful vignettes over which his vocals are scattered carelessly, at times whispered and distant, and at other times infused with a little hope. His voice is uneven enough to keep you interested, but feels as though it is going to drift out of earshot at times and you won’t have the opportunity to hear how the track may end.

I have no idea where it was recorded, but I have this image of a faded coastal cottage, wood-bleached with age and sea salt, and Colin padding backwards and forwards along the veranda while the ideas appear, wandering inside to an array of shonky instruments to let it all tumble out.

There is melancholy at work here; the shuffling drums that kick in on opener “Stop Trying” are not enough to allay it, and even the chords used on “Unreal Erections” are the perfect choice to evoke a little wobble in the heartbeat. They feel as though they are dragging the song home slightly drunk, but still searching for joy. Stark lo-fi piano on “What Ifs” join forces with a rambling list of possibilities, mentioning samurai, Frankenstein and Watergate, and questioning what may have happened should he have been there. You have the feeling that Huebert is working things out, and some of the tracks are like an internal monologue put to music.

It isn’t just Colin though, as friends do come by to lend a hand. His delivery wrestles with itself and the state of the Canadian way of life on “Nothing Disease”, but is accompanied by spectral cello from Rebecca Foon and Cris Derksen, while trumpeter Tom Moffett and saxophonist Joseph Shabason construct an alternate outro for an earlier song that descends into a New Orleans jazz freakout, ending the album in surprising fashion. The beauty of the album is the variety in which Colin has been able to present the tracks here; from the bluff piano and broken electric guitar of “The End II”, with plenty of cymbal wash, to the almost funereal and cello-laden “Dying Dying Dying”.

The tracks never outstay their welcome and are suffused with a kind of shambolic charm that bears a fleeting resemblance to early Flaming Lips, but Not Somewhere is very much Colin’s thing and will very likely seduce you into its fuzzy, sun-dappled world.

-Mr Olivetti-