Caught In The Wake Forever – All The Hurt That Hinders Home
All The Hurt That Hinders Home is music steeped in memory. It’s as though it’s recounting a memoir in chapters, but the pages of are being simultaneously written and reflected upon as it progresses.
Almost quietly breathing (for lack of a better word) just beneath the surface is the ambience, sound and motion of time, and, in a way, that manages to be both mechanical and organic – similar to how the ticking of a clock can be likened to a heartbeat, but here the constancy of time is contemplated through echoes that are generally from the past. The pop and crackle of vinyl records, soft static of radio, computerised processes and various other sounds of machinery – with and without nostalgic connections – are consistently present. They aren’t necessarily subtle, but are unimposing, grounding the work from a dreamy, ethereal realm into the place where we live. And where we have lived.
‘Recorded With You In Mind’ opens the EP, and, though beginning with soft, almost insect-like computerised beeps and glitches, through the sound effects and motion of the music it conjures imagery of old films being watched. You hear the light hum and flicker as the film passes through the projector reels, and, as the track builds layers over those mechanical sounds, you can almost feel the room begin to warmly glow, imagery feeding memory.
The following tracks similarly build over and explore the occasionally flawed and perfunctory sounds of old(er) devices, and are – somehow – extraordinarily effective of conjuring memories I can imagine myself having in a past or future life.
This may sound odd, but it’s the juxtaposition of digital and analogue sound effects with ambient drones and the more organic guitar and piano that seems to highlight a connection with (and between) machine and memory, and in turn, the past and future.
It draws lines between the systems we use to store memory, the objects we gradually associate with them, and those that bring back old ones. At the centre, the driving force behind why these mechanisms and the various ways they are accessed have become significant, is the thought process that ties them together – the human compunction to be sentimental, reflective and explorative with the memories we cherish – for better or worse.
Caught In The Wake Forever , through five songs, has created an experience that brings nostalgia to life – it reminisces fondly, mourns and ultimately resolves with the sense that something is finished, but nothing has ended, which is, quite simply, just a beautiful thing to hear.
~All The Hurt That Hinders Home is out June 13th 2011 on mini50 Records .~