What music can contain its own paradoxes? What music defies deciphering and thus forces the listener to push aside their psychological machinery and experience at a level of being. What music you say? That would be Clown Core. Best we just get started with a short track. But, before you begin, as you listen, remember what you're feeling.
Credits: Clown Core YouTube channel | Website
"Earth" showcases the talent and musicianship of the band. The band members are often playing or "singing" more than one instrument at a time. The arrangement skirts a fine line between order and chaos while moving through phrases faster than the brain can fixate. Then, just as you think you're feeling comfortable with a pattern, the thing switches wildly to something very contrasting. The air horns are not just part of the clown aesthetic; they add some childhood delight. The airhorns remind me not to judge things as I see them rationally but how they feel. An airhorn reminds a young me to get out of the way of a bicycle. The song is delight and terror spun in a blender until it becomes an audio smoothie. "Computers" sounds like an attempt to create the first hit single for music that an artificial intelligence might enjoy. If you've ever looked at an image recognition AI's guts, then you've seen familiar snippets at strange sizes and in strange places. Now, imagine that as audio instead of an image, and you get this song. My favourite Clown Core song is "The Area 51 Snack Bar Sucks", which is blends brooding synth sounds reminiscent of late 90s computer games with the air horn. I might seem more contrived and danceable despite its short playtime, but a good series of experiments should settle somewhere.So yeah, that's Clown Core, which like all good experiments, should extend your ability to listen to music of any kind. Remember how you felt with that first song? Confused? Delighted? Horrified? Awestruck? Even angry? Well, this is the band that renders the experts momentarily speechless. It defies conventional analysis for some time by being so different yet somehow familiar. And maybe that's the ultimate gift of Clown Core's music, that our intellectual arrogance is momentarily sand-blasted away, leaving behind something zen.
That was Clown Core.
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