Carmody – Sleep On Mirrors: The 1981-1985 Tapes
Just in case we hadn’t spent enough time dreaming of Italian wave this year, here comes another Carmody reissue. The truth is that for lovers of the scene you can’t spend enough time praising it, and a lot of these bands appear to have found fresh ears (generationally, aesthetically, and geographically speaking) for whom these records finally become the adored classics they deserve to be. After a year dedicated to Turin, what with the various Der Zeltweg and Musumeci reissues and reworks, Mannequin churns up another pearl in the first LP reissue of Carmody’s 1981-1985 works.
Fans of the genre will recognise tracks from pretty much any recent Italian compilation, from Strut’s Mutazione to Mannequin’s own first Danza Meccanica, not to mention the various Spittle compilations of the past few years. Maybe the secret to the enduring fascination that Carmody inspire is the fact that their tracks were dark, experimental, seductive, but also very soft. This is stuff that stands perfectly on the edge between the lower echelons of metropolitan, noir atmospheres, and the tenderness of a very Italian, very tuneful melancholia.
The record is quite cunningly curated: it contains a progression, from the more playful, airy material to a darker, more nervous kind of substance, although always intensely and brilliantly melodic. The Brit-inspired synth of “Messengers of Love” and the broody air of “Most of You”, with its infantile synthlines and thin beats, give way to a side A full of the lighter side of Carmody. Twinkling sounds over and clean, long synthlines, a backbone of constant and classically darkwave bass huffing in the background. Though “Psalm” and “Ambiguos” have probably gathered more compilation fame, the far more theatrical yet terribly sparse quasi-tangoesque wave of “As We Down” also provides a lot of enjoyment here, performed with an air of dreamy wit.
On side B, things get more adult, and more comfortable with trying different routes, different aesthetics and sonorities. “Space Invaders” is reminiscent of more humorous, glitzy stuff (à la N.O.I.A for example) and both “Long Breath” and “Bones” mess with the form of the Italian wave classic. “Bones” is the track to pay renewed attention to, with a quasi-experimental finale (it sounds like someone pressing numbers on a phone) which supplies one of the finest minutes on the whole record.
On “Time’s Under” and “Sleep On Mirrors” things get darker, warmer, more complex, and they’re probably the most magnificent tracks on the record. Here we move towards darkwave sonorities, closer to other Turinese outfits such as Deafear or Suicide Dada (with whom members of Carmody also collaborated). Carmody leave us in 1985 just at the beginning of a sunset, and here we listen to the journey to that sunset. The sunset, of course, will hide a new night, a new light, and will prove a satisfying listen for anyone in love with the heartwrenching shores of new wave.
Flora Pitrolo
Tracklisting:
A1. Messengers Of Love
A2. Most Of You
A3. As We Down
A4. Ambiguos
A5. Psalm
B1. Long Breath
B2. Space Invaders
B3. Sleep On Mirrors
B4. Bones
B5. Time’s Under