Kodaclips – Gone Is The Day (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Although it is easy to draw a line between the sound that Kodaclips makes and the high watermark of the original shoegaze scene and sound, to see them in those terms would be a case of lazy journalism. For this is music for the here and now. It is perhaps telling that each member of the band has come from a different musical background – be it from the psychedelic realms, the haze of stoner rock or more ornate, progressive pastures – so maybe the sound that they make is merely the natural result of blending all of those various sonic urges.

However they get there, Kodaclips has a gorgeous sonic slice with “Gone Is The Day.” It is a song that combines the structure of solid beats and prominent guitar hooks with intense walls of noise and a murky intensity. The vocals contribute to this feeling of cocooning and claustrophobia by sitting low in the mix, sometimes rising above the sonic waves, other times lost in the scintillating, squalling musical maelstrom.

And, as is always the way with such music, it is mood rather than meaning that is being conveyed; it is a sound designed to trigger feeling rather than take you by the hand and explain exactly what it is about. It is music that finds beauty through mystery, which exhibits beguiling properties through a sense of the otherworldy and the oblique.

But that is as it should be. Art doesn’t have to explain itself; it is better when it doesn’t. Remember, creativity doesn’t owe you, the listener, anything. Art, for art’s sake.