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Album Review

Anthony Reynolds/ Colin Wilson
A World of Colin Wilson Rocket Girl

Article written by Ged M - Aug 21, 2012

Colin Wilson is a writer and philosopher – one of the original “Angry Young Men” of British literature - whose 1956 book the Outsider, dealing with themes of creativity and alienation, is a cult classic. Anthony Reynolds is just the latest in the line of musicians to be drawn to his ideas, following Bowie, Robert Fripp and Julian Cope. Wilson took a cameo on Reynolds’ British Ballads album in 2007 and this is a full album inspired by Wilson, with arrangements by Reynolds, together with Martin Carr and Spanish experimentalists La Muneca De Sal.

‘Why Life Fails Us’ is full of doomy electronica and cut-ups of Wilson’s voice somberly recounting big philosophical questions, until the moment of relief where he breaks off to shout at someone in the house: “close that door”! Much of the album is cast in sepulchral tones, full of eerie synths, ghostly wails and treated voice. This works particularly well on ‘Life Is All There Is’, where moaning synth waves and outré electronica sounds offer perfect, if disturbing, backing for the scary ideas that Wilson expounds: “the sense of feeling that all human life is futile”. The pain peaks on the Coil-like ‘Cornwall’, where a voice at minimal volume (or at the bottom of a well) is shrouded in a fog of garrotted electronica and glitschy strangeness. Thankfully that solid weight of misery (which is a good thing in this context) is lifted by ‘The Colour and Light Around Me’, a marvellous co-composition by Reynolds and La Muneca De Sal, which layers many different elements in a thrilling smorgasbord of aural delights, including simple humming, a beatnik jazz shuffle, blasts of melodica, Wilson’s mantra-like intoning, and bursts of funky African rhythms – it has as many elements and influences as there are titles in Wilson’s bibliography.

It’s a curious album in that Wilson’s contribution is centre stage sometimes, and other pieces just bear his impression. But that vocal or virtual presence creates an eerie and weirdly atmospheric mood that the music matches, the stuff to accompany ghost stories and séances.

Links:
http://www.anthonyreynolds.net/
http://www.colinwilsonworld.co.uk