Cassette Review // Storyteller "Blood on the Fairway"
Storyteller brings their fifth installment in the spoken word with music series of cassettes. I always feel like I have to sort of preface these reviews by saying that I am not one who listens to podcasts nor can I listen to audio books, but if every podcast or audio book had this type of feel to it, I would definitely start. One of the last audio books I tried listening to was the auto-bio of Mark Hoppus, which was read by Mark Hoppus so I thought that might be okay, but no, I just ended up reading the book. But if Bruce McClure were to have read it then I might have made it more than one chapter in with the audio.
So I understand that right away this whole idea comes from a strange place for me because I feel like people who listen to podcasts and listen to audio books will really just love what is going on here and the overall vibes of what Storyteller does. But I also say this as someone who doesn't partake in that world, so even if maybe you think podcasts are boring and you'd prefer to read books than have them read to you, this might still be something you can find the art in because I certainly do.
There are forces in play within here which makes this feel like music but also the vocals, which are telling the story, seem to be at the front of it as well. With these various elements coming into each song, it's not always easy to follow the story on the first listen because you might get distracted by a specific line or use of words (such as "a destructive daffodil") the same way you might not hear the lyrics the first time you listen to any piece of music. The same way it might take you several listens to sing along with a song, it might take you several listens to fully grasp the story being told here.
Musically this can go from this acoustic jam type of place to the electronic beats you'd expect to hear in "Trainspotting", but yet overall the pace is set for this to be more sci-fi, something somewhere between "12 Monkeys" and "A Clockwork Orange" in my mind. It is just that unfolding of a story being told through word and sound, but it can become visuals in your mind that make you feel like this is a movie and in many ways it is.
At one point I am taken in by the lines: "And that... That's what I'm talking about: magic", while at another I'm thinking of how it is said that "I'm an okay person when I'm sitting here talking with you" but then when it's time to kill he comes the devil and is not your friend. Some of those little things not everyone might get but that I do love about words in here are when there is a mention of a doll's hair being synged and then moments later mentions of a place where there is nowhere to get your haircut. Just those subtle relations make this so special in terms of the words which are all contained within.
From thoughts of Christmas to upbeat jazz, from feeling like this is from "Fallout" to just those upbeat pianos like in an old western saloon, this takes us through different sounds and feelings in that sense but then the words can take us on a similar journey from murder to a job interview and, yes, even golf. A sort of chuch-like singing will end this all and it just feels like something so far out there that once you are also out there with it, you don't ever want to come back in.
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