I suppose I'm an artist or at least I'll get you to think so
Simple
and minimal songs, played mainly with synthesizers and sequencers, but
also with real guitars, bass and drums. It's definately a curiosity in
the post/dark scene of Los Angeles in the late 80s: a trio, Aliz, Gigi
and Robert, possibly art students, created this record of tribal/vocal drone,
if such a thing could be said (or writen). Tribal refers to the drums
(a key feature of almost every group in this scene), though a great
part of them are digital. Yet they add a sense of motion in the
otherwise more or less static synth lines. As for the vocal part, we
are listening a voice without emotion talking rather than singing,
semi-nightmare stories, or to be more precise stories from someone's
dream world. A world where there's no heaven or hell, a city with
buildings without windows, where sterilized and silent people are
living. A flight under an artificial sunlight, just high enough to
watch the buildings, the cars and the people. Persons talking about
themselves and the others without love or hate, using very common
phrases. A neutral voice, showing only a certain irony, just to prevent
us from taking the stories very seriously, yet succeeding to make us
more curius.
Rooms of joy in a room of sadness
For
someone with enough listenings of american underground of the 80s,
Partly Cloudy's music would certainly not fit out of place in some more
"industrial" city scene, like Chicago or Detroit. There are some very
obvius simularities with Chicago's Algebra Suicide, especially in the vocal/synth part, or XeX
from New Jersey. But Partly Cloudy are far richer musicaly -due to the
use of physical instruments- yet remaing in the minimal/synth genre.
Drums make the music more human, while guitars remain a bit in the
shade.
I've got to get out of this room
There's a poster on my wall
Talking Heads and David are telling me to leave
A
teenager takes a bus ride, after the poster on her room wall tells her
to leave. 'Bus Ride' is not a song about a flipped girl, it's a series
of thoughts of a girl in her bus ride: common, strange, funny, thoughts
without any depth, without strong emotions. This is how the lyrics go
in the most part of this record (there are a few songs with more
abstract stories, but I wouldn't go so far - anyone who read thus far
will try this album), common references, just the surface of things.
I
left some details for the end: the (deserted?) industrial cloudy
environment on the front cover and the violent tornado on the back. The
grey-blue tones on both sides. The label's name: Forecast Records.
The minimal information and the absense (to my knowledge) of any
connection with other bands of the time/place -no familiar names in the
credits, except Ethan James and Radio Tokyo studio, where this album
was edited.
Partly
Cloudy intended to release a second album 1990, which never came out -
as far as I know (I would love to proved wrong). 'Jihad' from these
recordings appeared in "Viva Los Angeles II".
tracks
Right Hemisphere
Bus Ride/Sunlight/Violated by Pretension
City/Postcard/You Blew It!
Left Hemisphere
Big Trouble/Revelation/Relic Revival
Melodrama/Unhallowed Ground
Lizards/Nice Time
Fucked
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