A Sunny Day in Glasgow : Scribble Mural Comic Journal

There's something otherworldly and endearing about the swirling, heavily-affected female vocals on A Sunny Day in Glasgow's new album 'Scribble Mural Comic Journal'....
7.5 Notenuf
2007 

 There’s something otherworldly and endearing about the swirling, heavily-affected female vocals on A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s new album Scribble Mural Comic Journal.  Backed by psychedelic, ambient art-rock, the vocals take on a supernatural tone, and calmly soak in.  There’s a haunting sense of omnipresence in them, and combined with the strangely upbeat music, they feel like ghosts throwing a party.  They’re not there to mess with your soul, just hang out with it.

Sisters Lauren and Robin Daniel are the voices behind the masks, and their brother, Ben, contributes most of the music of A Sunny Day in Glasgow.  While the vocals aren’t really the most dominant aspect of Scribble Mural Comic Journal, they’re impossible to ignore.  Their melody on “5:15 Train” is gripping while the shattered digital wall crumbles behind.  On “No. 6 Von Karman Street”, the ladies’ voices orbit haphazardly around an ethereal disco beat.  Their uber-mixed chanting/singing helps weird out “C’mon” and it’s brash, metallic sound.  The sisters’ vocals help steer the album into the surreal.

While the vocals on the album are distorted and attention-grabbing, the music behind them is what defines Scribble Mural Comic Journal.  The combination of ambient echoes and sheets of micro-noise conjure the calm and chaos inside an atom.  The static fills gaps on “Ghost in the Graveyard” while silvery guitars slide around a bedroom jungle beat.  “A Mundane Phonecall to Jack Parsons” neatly stirs the mess of chiming guitars, distant drums, and spectral organ.  Most of the music seems set back from the pop spotlight and allowed to go wild, like a storm behind a curtain:  you know it’s there, but you just can’t see where exactly it’s coming from.

Auroral and disconnected, Scribble Mural Comic Journal flows with an enchanting ease and well-designed chaos.  Rhythms come and go behind a wash of drugged art-rock and distorted, siren-esque vocals.   It’s the background music in a house full of ghosts.

Categories
Album Reviews
  • Anonymous
    at
  • No Comment

    Leave a Reply

    Album of the Week