Cindytalk - Camouflage Heart (Blk) [LP]

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980s Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five full-lengths of swooning, granular atmosphere. In 2021, Cinder partnered with Dais Records to release several new projects alongside a series of long-awaited back catalog reissues, starting with elusive albums Wappinschaw (1995) and The Wind Is Strong...(1990). Next, the focus shifts to Cindytalk's 1984 debut, 'Camouflage Heart', a fearless work that feels even more singular and prescient now forty-plus years beyond it's release. The other goal in 1983 was to land a record deal and develop the band's roving curiosities in a proper studio, something The Freeze could never do outside of two Peel sessions. Soon came their signing to Midnight Music and opportunities for Cinder to sing outside of the project, contributing to This Mortal Coil's Sixteen Days/Gathering EP and It'll End In Tears album. These forays into a more pop-oriented structure allowed Cinder to see her voice in extremes, with Cindytalk drifting towards the dissonant end of the spectrum. Citing Brian Eno's use of the studio as a compositional tool, an instrument, Cinder and the band became immersed in the process at London's Gateway Studio. "We were determined to take our time and try to learn how to use a studio and stretch ourselves." 'Camouflage Heart' plays with tension and pace, from creeping to feverish to claustrophobic. The percussion moves between restless marches and barely-there pulses; for some parts, they scratched and hit a tin bath, among other objects. Guitar lines vibrate and stab as Cinder contorts her voice freely. She pulls poetry from a cerebral abyss, like "make the snake in your eye, pierce the camouflage heart" on the slow-droning centerpiece "The Spirit Behind the Circus Dream." In that register is raw power, both vulnerable and menacing, an ability to locate something deep and emotionally charged within. "I still remember that person who was way too intense for their own good," Cinder reflects. "I couldn't make a record like that now, certainly not vocally, while that anger hasn't dissipated; there's still a kind of warrior." For all the destruction and disintegration of 'Camouflage Heart', Cinder maintains the objective was never full-on fatalistic; these songs seek not to destroy but to poke and provoke, to transform and heal, to find cracks of light in a crumbling world. She points to the last lines of the opening track, "It's Luxury": "Don't look down," the lyric pines through static and rhythm. Cinder extrapolates, "I'm essentially saying, just keep fucking going. As time went on, for me, that falling became flying. 'Camouflage Heart' is the beginning of believing in flight."