Welcome to Psapp world. It is the one inhabited by Carim Clasmann and Galia Durant and whilst all has been quiet since the release of their third album The Camel’s Back some five years ago now, much has been happening within their mission control. To add to their electronic playlist staples they have further populated the Psapp iPod with Chicago blues, Swordfishtrombones, some jazz, tropicalia and the occasional waltz, a dash of John Cage, Brecht and Beefheart, a few compositions written by schoolchildren and thrown in a bit of Frank Sidebottom for good measure. Beyond some more conventional instrumentation, the Hamleys’ storeroom has once again been raided for source material with which to make much noise; further sonic equipment has been fashioned from bones scavenged from Smithfield meat market; and a small menagerie of cats, mealworms and a few of their neighbours’ cows have also been pressed into audible action to complete that unique Psapp sound.
The sounds that are inside the minds of Carim Clasmann and Galia Durant walk a thin line between what is innocence and experience. And it is the precision of this balancing act and the forever changing kaleidoscope of their collective imagination that have combined here to produce what is surely one of the albums of the year. By capturing a child’s sense of wonder on the radar of a vaguely sinister grown-up world What Makes Us Glow is revealed as the definitive soundtrack to a modern fairytale.
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What Makes Us Glow was released on The state51 Conspiracy label on 11th November 2013
Psapp will be playing their first live show in four years on 13th November at a secret location near Old Street.
