Tom Carlyon and Conrad Standish deviate from their past work in The Devastations and venture into lush, Lynchian territory for their debut album as Standish/Carlyon. It’s more on the level of HTRK, but with a wink and nudge to lighter, retro sounds. HTRK’s Jonnine Standish jumps in for lead vocals on Deleted Scene’s third track and they are notably less bone-crushing than the intonations on her band’s work, but she still sounds more masculine than her husband’s accompanying falsetto. This kind of subtle twisting of the norm is a common trait, and a big part of the appeal, of these ten songs.
Deleted Scenes takes the listener on a neon-strip cruise that’s slowed down to a bass-heavy crawl, so you can see all the grime in the alley cracks and the faceless lurkers hiding in the shadows of a lurid fantasyland. It imagines a high-end, glamorous lifestyle which fills a gaping, vacuous void with excess, while dark, disturbing thoughts bubble beneath its meticulously controlled surface.
“You don’t want my love” is the key lyric of the excellent Nono/Yoyo, one of a couple of songs where the object of affection is busy talking to someone else on the phone, while being watched by their lover. This lack of engagement and obsession with materialism/objects is all in line with the hollow bigness of the ’80s, though the unremitting excess is met with a cool, clinical “How do you make it… stop?” in opening song, Critics Multiply. The influence of this dollar-chasing decade is echoed in the music, with its big slaps of funky bass, ice-cold synths and industrial drum machines.
Standish and Carylon often work in completely separate cities (Melbourne, London) and you feel the influence of gritty urban life throughout the album, its lurid tales glossed up by an international, high-flying sheen. There are various references to cities and countries in the lyrics, often with a surreal edge: Nono/Yoyo goes from Soho to Kyoto, Gucci Mountain gets jinxed in Jamaica and Moves, Moves grooves to “chocolate Labradors in Tokyo.”
The duo are unified in their sound and you can’t detect any disconnect that might result from their long-distance musical relationship, though Carlyon’s instrumentals are more than a match for the songs with vocals. The album’s two sides (to think in vinyl terms), are both closed by non-vocal compositions that recall the moody grandeur of Bowie’s Low. The strength of these two tracks suggests that an album’s worth of instrumentals would be an equally compelling proposition.
The title Deleted Scenes is a great match for a collection that feels cinematic, but lurches away from the main action to the murkier sidelines, where more interesting things are happening. It’s a slick, sleazy and very satisfying collaborative work.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Nono/Yoyo
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Marry Me Tonight HTRK, Confess TWIN SHADOW, Ex Tropical LOST ANIMAL
In A Word: Deviant
