tiny pushes vol.1 (how to be childlike)
mp3 album released on Autoclave Records CLAVE003
Released May 2003. For Rachel.
This joint release between Timshel Records & Autoclave Records was originally intended to be a mini album for 7" vinyl, but has now been released as 10 mp3 files, available to download for free. These 10 lo-fi gems., recorded on an old four-track, range from the frail electronica of 'Three Point Turn' to the battered acoustic distortion of 'Hey Baby' and 'Simpleton', incorporating childhood recordings, documentary samples and Playstation beeps 'n' clicks along the way. The music's great, it's free and there's artwork.
Tracklisting:
1. False Start / Hallo Boy
2. Simpleton
3. Hopescotch
4. Everyone is the One
5. How to be Childlike
6. Tree Song
7. Open Your Eyes
8. Three Point Turn
9. Hey Baby
10. Two More False Starts/What Else Can We Do?"...at 17 minutes in total you can hardly go wrong...short and sweet, like a Highland Guided by Voices." - Is This Music?
"...An interesting listen which makes me want to hear more..." - DiskantREVIEWS IN FULL:
Is This Music?
"Congratulations are due, to the recipients of the ITM? stamp of Value and Quality this month. Following their almost harrowing 'Autocity' EP, Calamateur been busy. The 10 tracks here are all downloadable and at 17 minutes in total you can hardly go wrong (John Peel's a fan if you need any further convincing). In fact this works as a set - fragments of found sound link together the more tunesome songs here such as the simple but mightily infectious guitar strum of 'Three Point Turn'. Other highs include the almost-metal riff of 'Simpleton' which again is 'just' guitar, but all-powerful. 'Hopscotch' is like a lo-fi Durutti Column with beatbox, and 'Everyone is the One' is a lovely acoustic song, short and sweet, like a Highland Guided by Voices."
Diskant
"I have to be honest with you. I have no recollection about where this first CD by Calamateur, called 'Tiny pushes vol.1 (how to be childlike)', came from. As good a place to start as any though, eh? Weirdly, although this is a CD, this whole collection is available to download for free here. Hey, don't worry too much about big slow download times either, because the whole ten songs clock in altogether at only around seventeen minutes. It's worth downloading the whole lot too, as some of the tracks individually are cut-up snippets and fragments of random samples and sounds, and so it's best listened to as a whole - the more 'song'-like tracks (which, even then, are only glimpses of ideas) being interspersed with passages of vaguely electronic, vaguely dreamlike strangeness. It's hard to get a grip on where Calamateur are at, but from this selection, they seem to exist in a world of half-asleep-yet-heartfelt acoustic songs in a suitably lo-fi style. They remind me of tapes which people used to put out in the old indiepop/underground cassette days, ideas committed to magnetic tape before too much refinement comes into play. An interesting listen which makes me want to hear more - hopefully, their invention and reluctance to submit to traditional songwriting rules is carried throughout their other work."