Thing of the Day 

Limited editions from Strange Animals

March 22nd 2011

STRANGE ANIMALS - Four tracks and a hand made CD (limited edition, this particular one is number thirteen of just twenty), hand delivered and wrapped in plain brown paper.  “Cataclysmic meanderings of an unholy kind. Admonium syncopation with singular collapse and re-appearing like a new born star. A schizophrenic adventure into the heart of darkness. Or a way to pass the time.....” so reads the record label’s website in reference the delicately quiet minimal beauty of London band Strange Animals. 

    Four delicate pieces, two of them very much songs, the other two more instrumental in nature. Their Facebook page list the members of the bands as “Me, me, me and me”, I guess that means their four of them? Information is at a minimal. Opening track, I Don’t Think So, is a refined piece of refreshingly simple, uncluttered alt.pop understated simplicity; that lead track is far more conventional that anything else to be found on this impressive four track ep.  I Don’t Think So leads us to a beautiful sparse piece of very slow moving graceful instrumental radiance called Iconic / Last, an intriguing mood-shift, not quite ‘schizophrenic’ though.  Keep It Gloomy does anything but, simple piano keys and a quiet voice, a song that slowly uncoils as the minimalism becomes quietly more experimentally inviting and glowingly inviting - gloom can be beautiful, this is the sound of a dark sunlit room, dust caught in the mellow rays of the sun that’s getting in through the cracks. The EP ends with a strangely named piece of shimmering restraint called An Egg and A Trumpet. The title really gives us no clue - the track is two and a half minute piece of glorious warmth, somewhere between a piece of radiant sound-art and a beautifully mellow Cocteau Twins flavoured tune. 

Four fine tracks, a beautiful meandering set of enjoyable experiences and a very fine way to pass time, doesn’t sound that dark to these ears though, nothing unholy, strange animals indeed…   

www.strange-animals.co.uk

www.facebook.com/mystrangeanimals

www.hellprecords.co.uk