What you say
No-one has reviewed Strange Geometry by The Clientele yet.
What we say
 This record left our Clint feeling happy.
Sounding as warm and fuzzy as always are the ever brilliant The Clientele.
This is their 3rd album - the previous one to me didn't have enough strong
songs to get anywhere near the quality of the first one. So here's hoping. Its
too early to tell but the lead single 'Since K got Over Me' is a slightly
tougher version of the 60's influenced hazy pop shapes of before. The other
notable change is a use of a string section on a few tracks. For the uninitiated
think Belle and Sebastian, Nick Drake, McCarthy, mid 60's pop.
What the label says:
Tracklisting
1. Since K Got Over Me 2. (I Can't Seem) To Make You Mine 3. My Own Face Inside The Trees 4. K 5. E.M.P.T.Y. 6. When I Came Home from The Party 7. Geometry Of Lawns 8. Spirit 9. Impossible 10. Step Into The Light 11. Losing Haringey 12. Six Of Spades
Reviews
Beguiling third album from the discreetly uncanny north London trio, taking a turn from Galaxie 500 to The Zombies, as the whispery reverb of their twilight torch songs is elegantly embellished with strings from Louis Philippe. 4 stars
Uncut
Formed in Hampshire in 1997, The Clientele could be accused of imagining they live on the West Coast in the '60s. Yet with repeated listens, the trio's third album grows in stature, full of intriguing neo-psychedelia. It's the lovely spoken-word drowse of Losing Haringey, however, that shows them at their best — proof you don't have to live in California to write enchanting urban poetry. 3 stars
Q Magazine
Enclosed in the dilapidated glamour of Bush Hall, with its twinkling chandeliers and Victorian music hall charm, it's easy to feel transported to another time. It's not a bawdy turn-of-the-century vaudeville night the Clientele take us back to, however, but the shimmering, psychedelic pop days of the 1960s. Their ineffably pretty indie sound draws on classic bands such as Love and the Kinks; in fact, Since K Got Over Me sounds unashamedly similiar to Waterloos Sunset. It also borrows heavily from the neighbouring decade, with deep swathes of 1970s country rock thrown about in the semi-darkness. There's no stage lighting; instead, the Clientele are lit only by some rather ostentatious projections behind them, which start off with images of aeroplanes and end up with moody black-and-white shots of Parisian couples looking gorgeous and intelligent. Admittedly, this peculiar arrangement draws the crowd in, heightening the music's intimacy. Aside from his swooping vocals, singer and guitarist Alasdair Maclean barely utters a word all night. But towards the end the house lights come up a smidgen and he introduces a shy-looking Spanish girl to the stage. Her job is simply to mutter the lyrics of the sweet, folky bossa nova number Losing Haringey in a sexy accent. Something she does splendidly, bringing a touch of exoticism to a song about a grey, and essentially quite glum, north London borough. 4 stars
The Guardian
The Clientele have been making small but beautifully formed ripples in the English indie ocean for quite a few years now and Strange Geometry, their second album proper, and strongest album to date, is likely to enlarge those ripples, like the kind that have seen them sign a lucrative publishing deal over the pond in America. There’s a central theme of melancholy and loneliness that runs throughout the album and this mysterious recurring ‘K’ figure seems to have an influence on this tone. Songs such as E.M.P.T.Y reflect this mood: “I get in so tired, to the saws & bows that spell out E.M.P.T.Y.” They wrap this melancholy in a warm blanket of Love, Zombies and Felt infected shimmering guitar pop. Singer/guitarist Alasdair MacLean has explained that Strange Geometry is about creating atmospheres and has stated that part of their inspiration comes from “the person who wanders around with no object other than to soak up atmospheres and symbols.” This would explain the apparent isolation throughout but also hints at the origins of the album title where shapes and objects define surroundings and alter moods. ‘Geometry of Lawns’ represents this with the line, “Leaving came to us just like a song, a dull geometry of lawns.” A fair few songs on the album are augmented by a string quartet arranged by the French composer Louis Philippe. This adds a haunting 1940s texture to the overall mood of the album and offsets the 60s sunshine pop tones rather effectively creating a fresh and modern take on the past, like Hal and The Magic Numbers have been attempting. After repeated listens, Strange Geometry really gets under your skin and you’ll wonder how you’ve managed without its lovely atmospheric tones. It is a most rewarding album full of impressionistic character.
soundsxp.com
London band who seem to have been transported direct from '60s LA — minus the mop-top hair and ridiculous trousers. Mellow and melodic psychedelic folk rock.
Nuts Magazine
When I was in high school a friend drove a 1970 Impala that his gearhead dad had kept garaged for years. The radio was AM-only, and as luck would have it, reception was poor and the only station it could pull was Lansing, Mich.'s version of the "Golden Oldies" format. Oldies, yes, these were the songs to hear in this car. Tooling through the streets while listening to pop singles from the late 1950s and early '60s through that factory-original system, the production of the era made perfect sense. Songs like the Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You" or the Association's "The Time it Is Today", with all their lush reverb, opened up the single in-dash speaker and kept us in the middle of the music as if it was Dolby 5.1. Those producers knew exactly what they were doing. Reverb gives the illusion of immersion, and immersion is what the Clientele is all about. Singer and guitarist Alasdair Maclean writes songs that work like songs are supposed to, but I've no desire to hear them covered by another artist. Clientele songs are bound tightly to the performance and production; to separate them would destroy the effect. Still, the band's signature sonic trick-- laying a thick coating of reverb Maclean's voice in tribute to the AM radio production of the '60s-- has in a sense been isolating; such a relentless stylization is bound to turn away some people. There's a subtle shift in that regard here on Strange Geometry, the Clientele's second full-length. The reverb is toned down considerably, strings have been added (courtesy of Louis Philippe), and the album as a whole is more direct and focused. This clarity foregrounds Maclean's songwriting talent, a poetic ear tuned into a more surreal world, with darker images bumping against the bucolic scenes of records past. The music retains its easy tunefulness, but inside many of the songs lurks a desperation that seems new to the Clientele world. "Crowds pulled you away, through the ribbons and the rain, and the ivy coiled around my hands" in "(I Can't Seem To) Make You Mine". And then on the catchy mid-tempo "E.M.P.T.Y.", Maclean sings, "Driving west, now half past five/ My skin is cut, my hands are knives." On previous Clientele records loneliness and romantic longing led to a hyper-aware state of quiet contemplation; here there's a vague suggestion of underlying violence. "The crowd" is mentioned throughout Strange Geometry but the narrator never seems part of it. Instead he wanders the streets seeing things--lifeless bodies in doorways, his own face inside trees-- that may or may not be there. Passages of blissed-out musical haiku like Suburban Light's "6 am Morningside" or The Violet Hour's "Haunted Melody" are nowhere to be found. It's not right to play up the differences too much, though; this is in most respects a classically "Clientele" record. The primary differences can be found by comparing the version of "Impossible" from last year's Ariadne EP with the one released here. On the former, Maclean's voice sounds like it's been bounced off the ionosphere an ocean away, and the band's instruments sound pinched and aged. The Strange Geometry version begins with a stately string arrangement as a lead-in to a much meatier sound, while sticking with the same basic arrangement. The slight nods to accessibility and the decreased stylization might disappoint some of the faithful at first, but Strange Geometry grows more appealing with repeated listening. On the whole, Strange Geometry does a better job than The Violet Hour translating the Clientele's aesthetic, which lends itself easily to the single or EP, to the demands of a full-length record. One of today's most consistently wonderful bands has kept up its long winning streak. -Mark Richardson, October 14, 2005
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