After earning his stripes in the recent reincarnation of the Silver Apples,
Christian Hawkins gives us his solo project Sybarite. Sybarite uses rock
electric guitar and bass with electronic programmed drums to create
minimal yet textured melodic music. It's sort of like what would happen if
Labradford got really interested in drum machine beats and decided to turn
it into a side project. Wait... Mark Nelson pretty much did that. It's
called Pan American, and that project's music is a fairly accurate comparison
to Sybarite.
Sybarite's debut full length, musicforafilm, is actually a soundtrack for a
dark independent film called Kill Me Tomorrow. The dark mood of the film is
presented in the music, creating the mood and imagery of hazy city streets at
dusk, the orange sky masked by the large buildings that line the streets,
surrounding the listener. Sybarite's instrumentation may match bands like
To Rococo Rot, but this mood he creates is the exact opposite of the aural
sunrises consistently created by those other bands' pop undercurrents.
With those pop undercurrents less prominent, Sybarite is less excitatory and
more lulling and meditative, the gentle melodies slowly unfolding, wrapping
themselves around the listener. These guitar melodies are the main component
of Sybarite's music. The bass groove one may expect from music derived from
these sources is fairly understated, creating along with the beats only enough
frame to support the melodies. It is very minimal songwriting.
Being music made for a film, many of these songs seem abbreviated, like
Hawkins composed and created just enough music to fit the scene and then
stopped. Many of these melodies and songs could easily be extended to let
them more fully envelop and overpower the listener. This musicforafilm is
quite interesting--the mood it creates spooky yet not unsettling--but
perhaps the music Hawkins creates on his own (that is, when he is not
impeded by having to match the vision of another artist) will be stronger
and have a more natural flow and feel. I have a feeling it will.
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