Fairly recently Barry Snaith (1/2 of the m1nk duo with Erika Bach) asked me to review his How I Wrote Elastic Man project, and their debut album, 'Changelings.' Others involved in the project are Garry Marshall - electronics, and guest vocalists Ang Kerfoot, Luciole Langevine, Olivia Pellegrini, Augenmerk, Karin Tarabochia and Erika Bach. Barry provides the guitars, basses, some keys, vocals, percussion and other stuff. While I wouldn't call m1nk "commercial" or "pop," it was by no means as experimental as this. Hard to classify is an understatement with How I Wrote Elastic Man, which begs the question- "How did they come up with that name?" Simple answer - The Fall, 1980 (RIP Mark E. Smith).

The 7:53 opener, "On Sun" sets the pace and the mood for this space trip with NASA samples and other contributing vocals (both spoken and sung) while guitars, electronics and percussion in lockstep motion propel you upward and onward. It does level out into the cosmos before it's done. I'm kind of reminded of Hawkwind on this one, and it seemed pretty cool. I wasn't as enamored of "ET Androids in Lascaux"; the Thompson Twins style sequencer was nice but I didn't care for the processing on Luciole's voice turning it from female to male (sorry Barry). Much better is "She's a Changeling" with its deep percussion/bass groove. Makes me think of elves for some reason. Also, can't help but think of that Doors' song on 'L.A. Woman'.

Things get even more abstract and psychedelic on "Violet," where Olivia duets with Erika over a cloud of sound adrift in the night. Occasionally some pop vocalization emerges, like some hallucinatory boy band. Snaith injects some additional menace into "The Unloved" with a pseudo-Crimsoid guitar riff, which sounded fairly menacing anyway. "Sagarmatha 1852 (Prayer to the Mountain)" has Luci freestyle vocalizing over a rich sonic background; a highly abstract piece. By the time we get to "Silent Fall" though, I am utterly lost. I'm not even sure what this is about anymore...the tick...and the tock...I didn't think things could get any more abstract, but they surely did on "Schwanentanz" where everything (instruments, electronics, voice, atmospherics) swirl in this heady stew of trippy mind expansion.

I would think that by now there would be some concession to rein things in a bit, come up with some solid, grounded form that could tie things together, but no- "He Dreams of Nightingales" gives Olivia free reign in the vocal department, but it feels too "up in the air" for me. Finally though, "Death On A Winter's Morn (Lament for Mary)" does manage to bring things back to earth in a slow and stately Pink Floyd minimal prog-rock way. There are some things I really, really like about this album, and some things I found to be just too much. Maybe repeated listenings are the answer. I do however think you should listen to it and make up your own mind. A lot of work went into this, and it does deserve to be heard. If you like it you should definitely buy the CD as it's a limited edition of 200 and will probably sell out quickly. Great cover art by Greg Oire too.