Mira Calix - Eyes Set Against the Sun

by Maarten Schiethart

published: 24 / 3 / 2007

Label: Warp Records
Format: CD

Complex, but rewarding third solo album from prototype Warp Records artist Mira Calix

Review

Mira Calix is a South-African ex-pat with a French name. Thus not being either a Boer or a Briton, Chantelle, as is her real first name, makes exquisite music appreciated only in scattered places around Warpland. She chooses titles well. On listening to 'Belonging (No Longer Mix)' you do get a feeling of being left out. A sense of abandonment is prevalent throughout much of 'Eyes Set Against The Sun'. Right, after Mira Calix's participation on the Alexander's Annexe single'Push Door to Exit , comes this third album. Sparse splashings of Aphex Twin-styled breakbeats left aside, the bulk of this, not really conclusive, album sounds like a procession of friendly, mental probes. She is a prototype Warp Records stalwart whose defragmented electronica workouts have been tried and tested, and, as fabricated as the album may sound, the music does get a grip on you. 'Eyes Set Against The Sun' bursts into life on the first tracks. She then swaps the chaos, a pool of space invader effects in fact, for pastoral soundscapes with story lines deriving from her pianoplay and Ciaran McCabe's violin. As with many tracks, from her - and as it is with many of her Warp colleagues, for whom Sonic Youth's 'Providence' serves as the blueprint, layer upon layer of sounds gradually appear to the ear. Deep concentration is required to actually hear her semi-poetic lyrics. She mixes in found, and urban field, recordings to maximize a sense of disorientation. Her refined style shows best when she uses on three of the tracks the Woodbridge School Junior Choir. The highlight is when in 'The Way You are When' in which she conducts her own Philharmonic Orchestra yet ends with her own affecting epilogue.'Eyes Set Against The Sun' is a tough exercise for a member of the short attention-span generation and most likely best performed in St. James's Park on a gloriously bright sunny day.

Track Listing:-

1 Because to Why
2 The Stockholm Syndrome
3 A Cereus Night
4 Eeilo
5 Protean
6 The Way You Are When
7 Tillsammans
8 Umbra/Penumbra
9 Belonging (No Longer Mix)
10 One Line Behind