Little doubt can be cast upon the fact that nursery rhymes are of a rather Grimm history. As innocent as they may sound, the most unusual of subjects find their way into these couplets and tales of misguided, punished, or otherwise confused youth. Andrew Liles, with the help of Lord Bath and Thighpaulsandra collaborator Sion Orgon, has recorded the audible equivalent of that awkward and dark thread that plays inside the mind of every child's sleeping head.
ICR/Klanggalerie
Lord Bath is, so far as I can tell, an English essayist, painter, poet, and intellect of aristocratic background. His work covers everything from Kama Sutra and religion to speeches on the importance of art to essays on world government, warfare, and punishment. As such, his willingness to work with Andrew Liles makes a lot of sense. Both artists exhibit a body of work as widely varied as it is perverse and alluring. Mother Goose's Melody... is Liles' extension into the realm of nursery rhymes. Using Lord Bath's background as a poet and speaker, Liles employs him to perform various rhymes after which an accompanying piece of music plays out the details of that rhyme. The result is a little unsettling, exaggerating, or perhaps highlighting, the drama and terror that some nursery rhymes keep hidden in their simple machinations. Though Lord Bath and Liles may not employ any of these rhymes directly (such as "ashes, ashes, we all fall down"), the line that they draw between the words in the poetry and the music is too direct to ignore. Though the music is often peaceful, Liles' now familiar and twisted perspective often lurks just below the sweet melodies and synthetic dances. No matter how appeasing the music may seem, there's always a sixth sense informing me that a Victorian terror lay somewhere just below the surface.
Liles' familiarity with the ignored is more evident than ever on this release. A interest in ventriloquism, animal surgery or testing, plant life, and prosthetics all make their way into the song titles. More often than not, the titles add a dimension of strangeness to the already odd compositions and revel in the unusual synthesis generated. "Cannula Tubes as Fine as Straw" is a lovely guitar piece that strolls lazily through a hillside during the spring. The name of the song and the rhyme that accompanies it, however, places a farmhouse in the distance with a dark shed where animals stand, cannula sticking out of them in bizarre arrangements. The trickle of water and the tearing sounds that appear in the song then become appalling and the entire piece changes itself from a meditative work into a song about pain or perhaps a song about a very confused maid. The possibilities are endless as Liles has managed to paint sounds more expertly than ever on this release. His compositions reflect eras, places, ideas, and nightmares more keenly than on any of his other releases. Perhaps it is the topic of this album that has made that possible; the deeply ingrained memories of childhood mixing with Liles' love for the absurd, the repulsive, and the unexplainable might be more inspirational than any historical, theoretical, or geographic origin that Liles' has played with before.
This album is far more listenable than Liles' last solo effort, the labyrinthine New York Doll. The music is far more akin to the melodic and often emotional My Long Accumulating Discontent. Where New York Doll harnessed its energy in the fractured essence of its many samples and locations, Mother Goose's Melody... finds all the power it needs in the atmospheres and songs Liles has crafted. With that in mind, this recording has deepened a split in Liles' output. On one hand there is the Andrew Liles that works intimately with drone and natural instruments. He combines the two, uses them to recall old places, forgotten ideas, and possibly to reveal a disturbing underworld of subconscious desires and bottled up evil. On the other hand, there is the Liles who plays with sounds and draws them all together with a concept laid out before hand. New York Doll and Aural Anagram/Anal Aura Gram fit this bill with the bulk of their sound being drawn from some concept, instead of the other way around. What makes Mother Goose's Melody... such a solid album is that Liles has allowed his influences to flow both ways. That is to say, there isn't just a concept informing his music here, the music is also informing the concept, perhaps simultaneously. That not only strengthens the album's music, but it feeds the ideas behind the recordings and makes them more intimate with the material everyone hears. It makes drawing connections easier and more fun. In turn, the record is more fun to listen to and twice as effective at convincing anybody that this sound world is real and directly related to the one we live in.
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