Bark Psychosis – Reflecting on the 30th Anniversary of “Hex”
The album was first released on February 14, 1994
February 23, 2024
Released on Valentine's Day 1994, Bark Psychosis' Mesmerize is an aptly named album as it gives a mesmerizing hypnosis to the listener. Mesmerize it could be considered ahead of its time, but more accurately it still sounds lost out of time. Follow in Talk Talk's footsteps Spirit of Eden and The Verve's A Storm in Heaven and is one of the most experimental records of the 1990s. Mesmerize is a melancholy and wintry song cycle, deeply textured and cinematic, for those lonely moments in the middle of the night.
Mesmerize opens with piano and floating strings, a worldly waiting, the sound of falling snow, in 'The Loom'. There's a noisy, late-night neon glow to “A Street Scene” and “Big Shot,” laced with dopey, cool vibraphones. “Eyes & Smiles” is a stunning climax of frosty guitar and shimmering brass, where the anguished, moody vocals and lyrics climb to an evocative and haunting peak as Graham Sutton repeats, “One step back… and you've got to go home !”
Looks like the album is finished.
In an impressively subtle way, Mesmerize he saves his definitive moment for last. “Pendulum Man” is a winter staple — ethereal and meditative. It's a nearly 10-minute instrument of ecstatic immensity. The metronomic tone of the guitar is like a swinging pendulum, the clock is ticking, the minutes and hours of the cloudy day slip and disappear over time. Around the 4-minute mark, there's a breakthrough in the drifting clouds – the silvery blue glow surrounds as rich organ and electronics enter the soundscape. An intense guitar that reverberates cascades ever so slowly, while the piano from the beginning returns for a faltering ending, mournful and sighing notes. The organic drone fades into the distance.
www.firerecords.com/artists/bark-psychosis/
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