Sphere of Relativity – When Mountains Speak (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

If “Minotaur” saw When Mountains Speak venture into the sonic world of fantasy adventure, this latest four-track ep takes us more into a sort of warped blues-scape. The music we find emanating from main man Steven Clarkson’s mind never truly aligns with what established generic tags may suggest. Still, some hints and references very broadly indicate what sonic ballpark he may be floating over, and mentioning the word blues is as close to a commitment as you will get from me to understand where such a sound fits into the musical landscape. Best you don’t try, that is all I can say.

The opening title track, “Sphere of Relativity,” may drift along seemingly bereft of direction, but the salvos of harmonica (often sounding like an amalgam of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and Dylan’s signature style) and sudden squalling blasts of guitar sound like a blues equivalent of free jazz. Actually, by the time the saxophone gets involved…the free jazz is equivalent to free jazz.

“Phil,” which follows, is more fractured and fragile, drifting and, in its way, dramatic, ebbing and flowing between brooding depths and searing guitar highs, but always giving deference to a certain amount of space which in response frames and frees up the music perfectly.

The saxophone gets its own day in the sun with “I’ve Got Something to Show You,” and for some reason, don’t ask me why, as the image just came out of nowhere, when I hear their screeching inventiveness and creative cacophony, I imagine that before Salvador Dali portrayed the melted clocks of The Persistence of Memory, he painted a lesser-known work of melted saxophones called…I don’t know, “The Endurance of Sonics.” And now I suspect you can see it, too. Sorry. (It looks cool though, right?)

The longest and last piece of these four sizeable tracks is “Not in This Lifetime,” which sounds like Steven’s take on *Talking Heads* – had they gone down the avant-garde instrumentalist route, something about the beat and the ticking intensity, something about the angularity and sense of sonic awkwardness, something…well, just something.

As Steven Clarkson proves time and time again with When Mountains Speak, there is always somewhere new to take music, always something different to create. Most artists align themselves with what has gone before, stay within the lines of fashion and fad, and try to appeal to existing fan expectations. Isn’t it like staying in your house when you could be wandering the world? Not that Steven Clarkson limits himself to just one world, nor does When Mountains Speak sound as if it is music necessarily made with this one in mind!