Midlake – Bamnan and Slivercork (2004)

I fell in love with Midlake's music after hearing their 2010 album The Courage of Others. I have always been a fool for melancholic tunes and folk music. It wasn't long before I dug up their previous album The Trials of Van Occupanther and I loved that album as well. It took me a lot longer to discover the band's debut album Bamnan and Slivercork. I found it in a London-based record shop on sale with a couple of pounds and decided to buy it having spent very minimal time listening to it before. On this album, Midlake sounds still a bit raw and they haven't found their sound yet. The sounds are quite lo-fi and the general sound of the album is perhaps closer to indie pop than to folk. There are no flutes that sound so great on the later albums and instead there are some lo-fi synth sounds and simple electronic beats etc.



If this album was all Midlake had to offer, I probably would never have discovered them. I would've maybe been interested in a couple of songs, had I heard them, but I certainly wouldn't have thought I had found something special. The vocals have their laconic expression on this album, but the songs are quite raw and I think the album sounds a bit generic. A lot like many other indie albums of the time.

The opening song They Cannot Let It Expand has some melodica sounds and cheap space synths. It kind of reminds me of another similar band, The Boy Least Likely To. Balloon Maker is more psychedelic and reminds me of early Flaming Lips albums. King Fish Pies is probably the closest song to later albums when it comes to song structure and the sounds. I Guess I'll Take Care is quite monotonous and simple with buzzing noises and lazy electronic drums. Some of Them Were Superstitious uses kind of humorous organ sounds and it has a great melodramatic melody. It almost sounds like some of the more obscure Grandaddy songs. The Reprimand goes even further in experimental sounds world, using space-synth sounds and video game beeps and clanks. The Jungler has some jazz-style melodies and rhythms still maintaining the obscure indie feel. He Tried to Escape is quite a simple folk song, but it's been spiced with strange electronic backing vocals that make it sound really psychedelic. Mopper's Medley has some great buzzing synth sounds and in the chorus it actually sounds really good. No One Knew Where We Were has similar space synths as you heard on 1970's synthesiser albums that featured classical music played with analog synths. Anabel is a proper folk song, but you can hear that this hasn't been recorded with a folk album in mind. The sounds are like from inside someone's garage. Mr. Amateur ends the album with lazy space folk that could sound quite amazing if it was produced a bit differently.

There is a strange black and white music video of Balloon Maker, which has apparently been made to promote The Trials of Van Occupanther. This video shows that back in the day, Midlake really wasn't that big of a deal and there hasn't really been a proper budget for music videos. It's still interesting to see and I kind of feel like this video looks like those surrealist videos Dali used to make decades ago.

Bamnan and Slivercork is historically interesting album to understand where Midlake came from, but I think it would've been difficult to foresee the band's full potential based on this album.

Listen to the album on Spotify.