Ink Puddle Compound - Tantrum Seas and Dust Lanes
(Camera Obscura)
Brandon Siscoe joins a long line of performers trading (some might say hiding) under the guise of a full band name: Kurt Halske (Ultra Vivid Scene), Ian Broudie (Lightning Seeds), Bill Callahan (Smog), Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Matt Johnson (The The), Nick Saloman (early The Bevis Frond) and Camera Obscura's own Scott Smith (Lifesmyth) are but some of his predecessors. Clinging to the adage, "If you want something done right, do it yourself," Siscoe began self-releasing home recordings out of Norman, Oklahoma back in 1998. He has since relocated to Illinois and this is his first release under the IPC moniker. Opening with the bubbling, haunted house organ instrumental, "Camella," Siscoe sets the stage for an offbeat collection of synthy folk tales and horror stories that settle somewhat (un)comfortably between the ambient (Zoviet France, Current 93) and the downbeat (Lycia and other World Serpent and Neurot artists).
Nightmarish sound effects (and an even scarier vocal approach) imbue most tracks with an 80s gothic hue: Nine Inch Nails meets The Cure is close (particularly on "Furnace Palms"), but Siscoe's tunes are much more deliberate, taking their sweet time to develop (for example, "Our Sculptor Was A Lazy Prince" takes half of its allotted nine minutes building from an ambient, horror film soundtrack to a misbegotten tale of vivisection and dismemberment, while "We Had Frost On Our Bodies" repeats the same three-note sequence for its entire seven-minute length). Swans fans will eat this stuff up. In fact, I can envision some of the instrumental tracks ("Camella," "Sirens In Our Bed," "We Had Frost On Our Bodies," "A Third Eye On Every Child," and the scraping, dripping, oozing Alien-like monstrosity lurking behind closer, "Distance Steals Her Vapor") serving as the backdrop to any number of tales out of Gira's short story collection, The Consumer.
As nightmarish as the cover art that houses them (Siscoe is also an accomplished visual artist who designs all his own artwork a la Stone Breath's Timothy Renner), these sleepy, late-night, deliberately melancholic visions of dementia and other things that go bump in the night will likely give even H.P. Lovecraft the jitters, and are highly recommended to fans of Camera Obscura stablemates, Stone Breath, Goblin Market, the Iditarod and the enigmatic Dafydd of Alphane Moon and Our Glassie Azoth, as well as the goth gods previously mentioned. A real grody horrorshow not to be listened to alone in the dark!
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