The Clientele: I Am Not There Anymore Album Review

The Clientele were once the discerning indie critics’ discerning indie band. The songs collected on the UK group’s debut album, 2000’s Suburban Light, were first delivered in the collectible, cult-building format of 7″ singles. This daydreamy music made sense to ears attuned to not only the post-Beatles pop of Love, the Zombies, and the Left Banke, but also the impressionistic ache of Felt and the reverb-coated reveries of Galaxie 500. The Clientele were so sensitive to their critical impulses, their singer and guitarist, Alasdair MacLean, publicly rubbished Belle and Sebastian, whose fan base they would’ve been most likely to share. After releasing a spate of broadly similar-sounding albums with various subtle refinements, and even quitting their day jobs, they eventually took a break. On their most recent outing, 2017’s Music for the Age of Miracles, they sounded cozy and familiar, but also slightly diminished, like twilight passing into dark.

I Am Not There Anymore, just the Clientele’s second full-length album since 2009, draws much of its inspiration from what MacLean remembers about the early summer of 1997, and the lyrics allude frequently to the death of his mother during that period. On paper, the incorporation of spoken-word, field recordings, and piano instrumentals, along with horns and a string quartet, is in keeping with the lush expansiveness that has carried throughout the Clientele’s discography, from the steel and Spanish guitar of 2000’s The Violet Hour up to the last album’s Iranian instruments. The further addition of programmed drum and bass samples, similarly, is of a piece with MacLean’s longtime affinity for Boards of Canada. And yet the 19-track double LP feels like a step away from their characteristic sounds, embarking on a quest into the vast unknown. No wonder publicity stills for the album show the trio of MacLean, drummer Mark Keen, and bassist James Hornsey dressed up as knights in shining armor.

If the key difference for I Am Not There Anymore, as MacLean has observed, is the Clientele’s purchase of a computer, then, with all due respect: What took ’em so long? Album opener “Fables of the Silverlink” brings fractured electronic beats and haunting Spanish-language guest vocals to a bustling eight-and-a-half minutes’ worth of chamber pop, but that really undersells the album’s sonic adventurousness. “Garden Eye Mantra” glides like a dubwise Moon Safari with luxe strings and flickering “Dear Prudence” guitar lines. “Dying in May” ditches guitar altogether for a dizzying drone where French horn, cello, and Mellotron undulate amid clattering polyrhythms, equal parts flamenco and On the Corner. Minimalist piano-and-celeste instrumentals with titles like “Radial B” offer a meditative reprieve, keeping all this eventfulness from growing too overwhelming. More remarkable still is “My Childhood,” where Jessica Griffin of veteran indie-poppers Would-Be Goods recites eerie bricolage poetry over Psycho-worthy strings digitally transposed from field recordings of the wind; an abstracted reprise, “The Village Is Always on Fire,” swaps in backwards-sounding beats. From a band that once seemed destined to repeat themselves, it’s all enough to suggest a glimmer of Low-like reinvention.