Over the past few years, Campbell Kneale has been slowly but surely consolidating the disparate musical threads that define the breadth of his passions. Fortunately for us, he has done this very publicly on a series of increasingly sophisticated and accomplished releases under the moniker Birchville Cat Motel. Released to coincide with Kneale's first United States tour in early 2005, Chi Vampires takes another step towards integration of Kneale's different interests and inclinations (drone drift, wistful and delicate melodies, headbanging sludge metal, it's all there). In terms of his catalog's progression, it may not be the evolutionary jump that last year's excellent Beautiful Speck Triumph was, but can an organism really survive two consecutive leaps of that magnitude? By sacrificing the scope of that double CD release for a more intimate runnning time, Chi Vampires has afforded Kneale an opportunity for increased focus and clarity.
He has responded by presenting a strange and beautiful sonic landscape built on a foundation of contrasts. The contrasts can be as cerebral as meditations on the relationship of "natural" and technologically imposed structures or as visceral and tactile as stark juxtapositions of different timbres (both in "Buckling Metal Snowflakes"). They can be as humorous as playing a craggy Scots Highland bagpipe melody on the deep refined resonances of a church organ ("Blonde Moth Burial") or as deeply affecting as a dissonant violin losing itself in that same organ ("Cold Herbs Travel").
On Chi Vampires, Kneale is giving a clinic on the various methodologies one can use to reconcile seemingly divergent tonal textures. As mentioned above, the tension between these textures is presented in several incarnations, but the lesson is delivered with such a natural and seemingly effortless grace that it never seems didactic. Indeed, like much of Kneale's work as Birchville Cat Motel, there's a meditative inner peace underyling these tracks. Whether it's "Blonde Moth Burial"'s evocation of echoing cathedrals or the more intimate violin-organ interaction in "Cold Herbs Travel", the pieces unfold leisurely with their own gorgeous logic and coalesce into seamlessly interwined structures.
"Blonde Moth Burial" begins the disc with an undulating organ line that slides it way effortlessly through the air while bending notes erode its purity of tone and add a gradual husky edge. At some point barely discernable, the pipes of the organ are mingled with those of a bagpipe further deepening the flavors while a tortured animal moan of a horn of some sort lurks in the shadows. This is followed by "Buckling Metal Snowflakes", where the title alone indicates a merging of mechanistic and organic construction. The point is reinforced by the chirp of metal springs played off of field recordings of crickets. Over the course of its nearly half hour length Kneale introduces a lovely clarinet melody that could find its home as a lost track from the "Bladerunner" soundtrack.
After the heartbreaking dirge of "Cold Herbs Travel", the delicate piano melody that introduces "Chi Vampires" is faint and ethereal. The timing of each note subtly varies in the way drops of water would fall from an icicle just beginning to melt. Into this serene backdrop blasts a slowed-down bottom heavy crunching guitar and drums (perhaps a renegade entry from the "black metal" Battlecruiser label recently started by Kneale as a wicked stepsister for Celebrate Psi Phenomenon). It's the first genuinely disruptive moment on a release that to that point has painstakingly introduced and then integrated each new element but the moment is timed for maximal effect. After all, an exploration of contrasts would be incomplete without at least one jarring example. The intrusion manages simultaneously to be a heavy riptide pulling downwards and an adrenaline fueled phoenix flying skywards. Eventually, the riffage dissipates its intensity slightly and bathes the ears in an unearthly glow that never quite eliminates the tinkling piano underneath.
Like the release that bears it name, "Chi Vampires" brings together sounds that at first blush would seem to be polar opposites. Through Kneale's expert coaxing, these opposites emerge as not only compatible but in possession of a singular, quirky beauty that evolves under the gentle care of an experienced and determined tender. Essential and very highly recommended.
