Bright Midnight - Floating Feather (Sleepy Mood)

Hear The Track Here

A brand new name to me (and Soundclick apparently) Bright Midnight is a Alternative: Post Punk artist from the Lone Star state (Ed: Texas) who cites some very interesting influences. Ahhh but does the music and/or ethos of those influences come to bear in the music the musician makes? Unfortunately not, in this case although I can see a lot more modern references so much so that one Soundclick reference should be one Thomas J Marchant, whose approach to music is remarkably similar. Obviously a lot of the problems with Floating Feather (Sleepy Mood) have more to do with Bright Midnight's recording situation, as will be obvious on first playing this track.

Lo-fi is the name of the game then, but believe me I've heard a lot, lot worse than this. Like a lot of home producers, I think Bright Midnight has a problem with self-restraint, both performance and arrangement. For example, Floating Feather could easily have lost a minute or so and been none the worse for the cut. The vocal, also has that specific 'home produced' sound that seems to accentuate even the mildest deviation from vocal pitch. It doesn't happen often, sure enough, but enough to make me hear it everytime this track came up on my playlist for the week.

Although the tune and performance are carried out with a fair bit of energy, it doesn't - to my mind - cover up the tracks problems. Sure I can appreciate little bits, some of the ideas are particularly interesting but overall I found the whole thing a bit scrappy. A track of ideas, rather than a coherent song. I suppose a good thing that could be said is this is a track where nothing repeats itself, and it would be a good thing, providing it had flow and to my ears this track didn't. Mind you, it's early days yet, and I've reviewed tracks similar to this from musicians who learnt very quickly from being in a community like Soundclick.

Rough edged Alternative (still not sure about the post punk thing...)