Charles Curse - Rain in Skull

Mymwly
0054

Another excursion into psych/noise/folk from the lads at mymwly (musicyourmindwillloveyou), this one emerging out of Charles Curse (Greg Charles to friends and family). Ten pieces that range from fairly gentle acoustic “songs” to acid-drenched noisefests, the latter containing some of the more rewarding music herein.

Though essentially a solo effort, Charles makes substantial use of the talents of his three-year old son, Oscar, whose voice (and possibly other contributions) are gleefully mangled and morphed among spacey drones, echoing clangs, primitive electronics and other psychedelic detritus. On pieces like “Horse”, Charles picks up an acoustic guitar, strumming and singing like a sub-continental Eugene Chadbourne as well as emulating his lo-fi production qualities. Given the lurking danger of self-indulgence at this end of the spectrum, I was pleasantly surprised that, for my money, the two strongest cuts were also the two longest, “Ghosts of Hi-Kulcha” and “This Town Is Dry” (I could have the titles misapplied—their listing on the sleeve is a bit confusing). The former blends noise-guitar with backwards tapes, samples, found sounds and god knows what else but the resultant mélange has a nice plasticity to it, a very expansive feel. That dry town is indeed a sparser construction, Oscar reappearing in multiple, echoic forms mixed with soft bells, breathy whooshes, one very loud static storm and various other trippy effects but, again, all uniting to form a convincing, oxygen-filled whole. As the shorter pieces here are more hit and miss, I’ll be interested to see which direction Charles Curse lights out for in the future.

mymwly