»Amoral Mayor Earwig EP« by Beak

We first hooked up with shadowy U.S. artist Beak earlier in 2003, when he made an ‘absolutely checken’ appearance, providing us with a few choice tracks featuring his unconventional but beautiful twinning of multi-tracked acoustic guitars and harder electronics. But it’s taken us until now to choose the absolutely perfect combination of sweet and savory songs from his extensive, largely publically unreleased output for the enchanting randomly titled ‘Amoral Mayor Earwig EP’.

So, where did we end up? Well, with the loping ‘How A Hot Air Balloon Works’, we have silent impulse into sonic heaven, all surprisingly summery, before new track ‘I Saw Two Of Me’ goes a whole lot more complex, really twisting the guitars and the jittery kitten-y drums together. Meanwhile, the title track simply multitracks weird spokenword interludes and beautifully played acoustic melodies with the pitter patter of drums, and our still-beating heart. Then, a brief interlude for the powerful phasing of ‘Yellow Hat’, before everything falls to piece with ‘Candrea444’, an out of time, out of space, in places rendering of a much more intensely acoustic, hardly normal daddy.

And what did we learn? That it takes time to get things right, that time is on our side, and that when phrased just right, the call of the string can sound like the call of the wild. Many thanks to Beak for teaching us.