scott gilmore: subtle vertigo

There is something wonderfully uplifting and naive about the mittle European B-movie pop and library music of the 1970s. An imperfect perfection of sound palette and melody, creating and encapsulating a whole world of hypnotic intrigue. This feeling is what comes to mind when listening to the debut album of Californian Scott Gilmore. A wonderfully concocted tincture of yard sale instrumentation, Walker Brothers guitar, offbeat refrains, and home-brew synthesizers, put together with a truly different sense of perspective, from a musician seeming to exist outside of time and scene. Scott's debut is reminiscent (in more modern times) of the pre-Moon Safari Air (1997). The playful opening of "E70 No. 01" leads into the Bowie and Eno-esque shimmerings of "Europe" and the Gainsbourg hazed moments of "Flight Through Grey" and "Subtle Vertigo". The album closes with "Walking Underground", a valley boy diary of the outsider looking inwards at the bizarrity of everyday life. This is a travelogue of the timeless and gently obscure, a bunch of rarities all in one place, at one time, woven together with an accomplished sense of harmony, counterpoint, and vision. From the river side of the Dordogne, to the Grünewald of Berlin, the white sands of Playa de Des Illetes, and the urban sprawl of Van Nuys, this is an alternative sonic reality sent to free the mind and open the heart, as the sun rises high in the sky and the cotton wool heat envelopes you in its gilded cage.