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Jazzfinger, "King Murnam"
This cassette's album art may be a gorgeous sky blue, but it doesn't deal in daylight metaphors: my mind's vision of the music is at direct odds to the open sky artwork. The resounding visual image of King Murnam is that of music called into being from the dark by candlelight. It's not a case of horror-flick dark flickering shadows, Jazzfinger have never been ones to shoehorn clichés, preferring to move organically.
This release has more to do with the slow flicker and fill of flame, the slow burn of drone and ever-present unfurling smoke melodies. The fallen regal title foreshadows the ever present idea of a slow descent, "Riddish Windham Hill," channelling the micro-mic sound of wick's glow. This track's nonagenarian tones are trapped deep inside melted wax, a slow downwards smother of notes that diffuse throughout its duration. The abstract bed of "Freedom of Pollen" repeats a cheap-voltage melody that's heard through the smeared glass of hazy halo throttled guitar. Things get rougher on "Brain Freeze" as serrated steel sounds carve chunks out of the song. This song's outlying mood is fuelled by tresses of suppurating molten drone, a last blow-out before the dying of the light.
