HIS CLANCYNESS - Pale Fear 7"

Recorded in Bristol at Portishead’s Invada Studios by Stu Matthews (Beak, Anika, Portishead), Pale Fear’s cassette-recorded beat rumbles through neon-lit streets of analogue synth noise and sleazy fuzz guitar and is steered with a pulsating, unshakeable Red Crayola-style bass line. All that grime and murk can’t obscure the pop sensibility shining through, however. His Clancyness stand firm with one foot in Plastic Ono/Bowie land and the other in Swell Maps/Faust country and they have a psychedelic post-punk gem to prove it.

Coming Up Empty, also recorded by Matthews, is curveball rock. Approaching like an inconsolably sad desert-torch tune, it then snakes through a claustrophobic sci-fi sequence born from Scott Walker’s nightmares over a dubbed-out Dario Argento-style motif before returning to its slow heartbroken beginning. It’s a strange journey, but this is a song from a strange city after all. It wouldn’t be right any other way.