On the lush
Future(s) Blues, Quiet Bears' Johnny Cluney tries
instrumental music on for size. Where I adored his prior effort for
its lo-fi take on Americana folk, here the favoured approach is a
moody, ambient one. Using keys, hushed drums, and low-key guitar,
Cluney churns out brief moodscapes which are as accessible as they
are evocative.
Despite a change in
approach, still embroiled in Quiet Bears' sound is a distinct sense
of country heritage -- at several points on Future(s) Blues,
one perceives the influence of the dusty, rural road at night.
Nowhere is this more evident than on the two parts of "Future(s)
Blues." Its first section is all sifting percussion, pretty guitar,
and bucolic harmonium -- an uplifting, promising, and gloriously
open-ended affair, as its suggests. The second part, meanwhile, is
somehow older and even pained, its regretful picked guitar and
solemn strings conveying a hardened outlook. The two parts together
make for perfect accompaniment to Faulkner's The Sound and the
Fury or Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio -- two books
which intersected with my encounters with this record.
The rest of
Future(s) Blues is more freeform than its titular composition,
as on the stunning, Virgin Suicides-era keyboard build of
haunting "Sung Sun" and the time-melting soundscape that is "Green
Dream." These more abstract compositions don't come off as mere
interludes, however; the longer ones, at least, comprise interesting
and listenable sound experiments which accentuate the EP's twilit
rural atmosphere. Like the rest of Cluney's body of work, this EP is
a brief one -- concision is a virtue that more aspiring songwriters
should observe than do, although with Quiet Bears material, one is
always left wanting the music to go on. While I would love to hear
Cluney expand upon the folky work of his We Are all Legend, I
couldn't honestly complain about this new avenue of sound.