Spellling & The Mystery School, the new album from Spellling, and possibly the Mystery School too, is some record. I started listening to it this morning with headphones on, while also getting going on my book for next month's Book Club meeting.
It seems like an interesting book. The Coward by Jarred McGinnis. A little bit Irvine Welsh, (and it has a punched endorsement by the great man himself on the cover to confirm those suspicions), and an equal dose of old school noir. Anyway, should keep me going over the next week 'til we all meet up again.
But, good as it seemed, a few tracks and a few pages in, I had to put down the book and focus on the record. This is a bit noir itself. Very reminiscent of Portishead. Or a Bernard Herrmann Hitchcock soundtrack, slashing chords. Nerves ripped to shreds. At breaking point.
Chrystia Cabra, the artist behind Spellling has form in this respect. She doesn't deal in easy listening or the easily quantifiable or describable, despite the pointers I've just laid down. I wasn't even sure whether I liked the record on first play, even as I was quickly obliged to give it my full attention.
But I was certainly forced to do that. Spellling is not quite like anyone else, even though she dabbles in and draws from existing genres most readily described as the melodramatic and certifiable.. Spellling & The Mystery School, only has one gear. The top one. It races down a treacherous mountainside road during a late night thunderstorm, like a classy sports car whose breaks have been snipped by the villains. Danger Will Robinson. Danger. Immediate danger. Here comes your 19th Nervous Breakdown.
I'll play the record again, just to check my ears haven't been deceived, then I'll post this again in a while, in my run down of favourite albums of the year. Sometime in September. Like I said, I'm still not entirely sure I like this. But it's really difficult to deny.
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