Lark – The Last Woman (Standard Lamp Records)
LP / CD / DL
6 July 2018
The quote at the foot of the album artwork probably
sums up The Last Woman and Lark in general – languagefallpleasurewallcircusmokebeautyjoke
– nonconformist and tied by no boundaries.
We’ve reviewed the work of Karl Bielik several times and have become
quite an admirer of his work, it’s darker than a blackbird’s retina and exhilarating
to listen to.
With a smattering of additional musicians, Lark begins
to form and the end results are often deep.
There is a menacing sound to Lark, an almost industrial dissonance where
sometimes improvisation enters the fray along with cutting basslines and anarchic
arrangements. The Last Woman was written,
played and mixed all at the same time which keeps a fresh and appealing feel,
it makes for instant interest and almost gives the feeling of sitting in the
same room as the performance.
Makes no mistake, Lark isn’t for the faint-hearted,
this isn’t music for your Auntie’s 90th Birthday, this is music that
will challenge everything you have heard before and you will be grateful for
it. Bielik’s gritty, grungy vocals
sometimes whisper and sometimes shout, what they do do is give a sense of threatening. There’s a foreboding sense of unpleasantness
around the corner, a wrecking of convention and a disassembling of the
past. Lark is an enigma.
As the album opens with Dowdy, a slow and plodding broodiness
of gloom and disturbance, the scene is set.
To begin an album with a track like this would normally command a certain
amount of bravery but to Lark it is maybe a drop in the ocean. As the line “the first man, the first woman” drifts
through the lazy, grungy guitars so the scene is set for a truly wonderful and riveting
album.
Kneel And Serve is gentle too and a more subtle
feeling album is maybe on the cards but once third track, John Berger’s Wild Shirt
opens with its painful guitar, then the sonorous mood of the album is
revealed. Bielik’s spoken vocals, rant
and rage over a disjointed juggernaut of thrash and it is glorious.
You might hear hints of The Stranglers in here, The
Fall too, definitely early Bowie, and the whole kit and caboodle is an
eye-opener for the music recluses of this world. Way Out West acts as a sonic wilderness before
the sprawling Nightclub drags its deathly feet from the darkness to the gloom
and, Bleaching Out throws an automated piece of precision into the pot.
Ending with Mr Choo Choo, The Last Woman reminds us
that there is still exciting and adventurous artists out there screaming to be
heard. Lark is one such act that pushes
the envelope wide open. Do yourself a favour.
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