I Am Not There Anymore

Chronique

After a stretch when the Clientele seemed to be gracing the indie pop world with another album's worth of melancholy melodies every year or two, they began to take their time as band members matured and began living real lives, while also undertaking other projects. 2017's Music for the Age of Miracles arrived eight years of relative silence, then after another painfully long gap I Am Not There Anymore was released in 2023. The band used much of that time between recording, for first time using computers to bounce ideas back and forth, and to experiment with arrangements before heading to the studio to flesh out another album's worth of gloriously autumnal pop music. While they were in the early stages of working on the album, the band began to explore different styles of music such as electric jazz ala Miles Davis and various forms of electronic music. They manage to fold both into their already established approach with sure-handed finesse, adding programmed drums, tricky editing, stately jazz tempos, and a general sense of exploratory freedom that hadn't always been a part of their music. These elements do nothing to detract from another stunning set of songs that move from tender ballads with cascading choruses ("Blue On Blue,") jangling tunes like "Lady Grey" tailor made for walks on leaf-strewn garden paths, and a series of impressionistic instrumental interludes to progressive pop like the almoist eight minute long "Fables of the Silverlink," which folds in breakbeats, string quartet interludes, triumphant horns, and a bracingly plangent vocal by Alasdair MacLean. The album is equal parts Clientele at their best and them at their most experimental, battling to a draw that leaves the listener the ultimate winner. It's exceedingly rare for a band this far into their career to be willing to make major tweaks to their established sound and the trio seemingly have no fear to do so. The rambling, hypnotic "Dying in May" is like nothing they've done before, the chanted vocals, swaths of sampled, warped strings, twinkling percussion, and spiraling drumming are psychedelic and free, yet still pointedly emotional. Other songs do just as good a job balancing deep feelings and diverse sounds; the whole album brought to tear-filled life by MacLean's lyrics. Most songs revolve around his mother's death and the lingering pangs of sadness that can be brought back to shuddering life in ways both trivial and massive. He does a wonderful job of transmitting his feelings of loss without giving details, just letting the feelings ebb and flow across the album like they do across the years. It adds up to another pitch perfect album by the band, certainly one of their best and most devastatingly pretty works. In a career full of brilliance, that's saying ever so much.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo