Gilbert - Eponymous
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- Author:
Paul Walters, MyVillage
Gilbert - Eponymous
Release date: Out now
Format: EP (i-tunes download)
Genre: Um?
Our Rating: 5/5 if only for sheer originality
At first it would be easy for the casual listener to dismiss Gilbert as being another member of the swelling morass of gimmicky bands, with nothing underneath all of it’s audial hyperbolisms, but that would be a crime against all that is good and pure. What lies beneath this shockingly original veneer is a truly all-encompassing record, containing a selection of tracks of such enormous breadth and depth that it seems to be almost as difficult a task again to attempt to document his sound in a review as it was for him to write it in the first place… hence the use of words that don’t really exist (see above).
I’m sorry to say it, but my first reactions to Gilbert’s music weren’t ones of joy, but instead they were more of doubt. I was looking for the rouse to which Gilbert was latching himself onto in order to peddle his music. I couldn’t comprehend how somebody could sound so staggeringly different and yet not have some kind of soulless ploy for world domination. How glad I was to be proven wrong.
If I had to run a comparison alongside Gilbert, ‘The Avalanches’ are about as close as I can get to his own unique sound. Each track is full of samples and a myriad of effects, but it seems to both contain and simultaneously lack the cartoonish nature of ‘The Avalanches’. There is a certain sincerity to his playful tinkering that lend the songs weight beyond merely flippant electronic warblings.
‘Self Help for the English’, (as well as having one of my all time favourite song titles of all time), is an unusually fulfilling song that sounds as if it is narrated by Ernie from Sesame Street attempting to do his own version of Renton’s own soliloquy from the opening credits of ‘Trainspotting’...
‘Willow’ is a wispy, delicate string of music woven through rattling beats and very surreal, stream-of-consciousness lyrics… The end result sounds like something that could easily be taken from a score for a kind of dreamlike dance theatre, which is exactly where Gilbert finds his fresh sense of energy; in the fact that it is tantamount to being absolutely impossible to describe in terms people might be able to envision.
In all respects, Gilbert is a breath of fresh air, and is definitely worth checking out no matter your tastes, as it will doubtless be unlike anything you have ever heard before.
www.myspace.com/gilbertlinley
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