The Child Readers - Memory and Fantasy
(Mallard Lake)
Following up their first release (the phenomenal Hototogisu 3" CDR), Mallard Lake Recordings have released The Child Readers' third and best album. The Child Readers are Jason Honea and Loren Chasse, whose two previous albums were released on Chasse's label, Jewelled Antler. While they are certainly at home among the other Jewelled Antler bands, they sort of have their own thing going. That is due largely to Jason Honea's songwriting, as it isn't evident anywhere else in the Jewelled Antler catalog. The drones, scrapes, environmental sounds, and bizarre acoustic instruments all augment Jason's songs, placing them in a context, however fractured and bizarre.
The album opens with a beautiful folk song, "Voyaging (the Reds, Pinks, and Purples)" which ends by stretching itself into a buzzing drone, and taking a long voyage of its own, eventually leading into the similarly droning "The Rainy Valley (Including Gale at Dawn)." "Mystery" tempers Jason's gentle croon and delicate acoustic guitar with a dull ringing somehow created by Loren, and a short section of the sound of waves crashing and gulls calling. It's a great example of how The Child Readers' music feels like a moment of clarity (see the new album by The Ivytree for another) amid the rest of the Jewelled Antler stable (and their counterparts from Finland and New Zealand). "Pouring Out Living Flowers" starts as a sort of raga, which slowly congeals with the addition of a lightly brushed (and bowed) cymbal into a delicate trip. "Cry of Mind/The Winter Capital" end the album on a high note, with an exultant (but still subdued) song built around pulsing loops and acoustic guitars which fade and are overcome with a downcast song that could easily be a murder ballad.
Having stepped it up from their already great previous albums, The Child Readers seem ready to overtake The Blithe Sons' position as the Jewelled Antler band with the 3rd highest profile (after Thuja and Steven R. Smith).
Apparently when starting the Mallard Lake label, one of the goals was to release a record from a Jewelled Antler band, so having filled that square with only the second release, who's to say where Mallard Lake will take us next? Wherever it is, I'll be along for the ride.
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