Invisible Elephant – Anomie or Swimming in a Black Sea

Year: 2011
Genre: Shoegaze, experimental

Anomie or Swimming in a Black Sea, Invisible Elephant’s second album, is the first release from the Two Hands Music label, and they’ve burst out of the blocks like a kid on Sports Day filled with a little too much parental encouragement and red cordial. That’s qualitatively speaking, there’s nothing frantic or rushed about the poppy ocean waves that wash in with a satisfying natural flow from this record.

Everything is the first notable track, it establishes a nice dreamy pace with it blurred vocals and relaxed beat. Arguably, it would be nice enough for the album to remain in this chilled style for its entire duration, but it did get up and move around more than I expected. The centrepiece is the seven minute When It’s All Over, which grabs hold of the laid back atmosphere and really gives it some legs, ending in a surprisingly dense breakdown of live drums and electric guitars. After that tension breaks Invisible Elephant seem happy to push their music up against any boundaries they please, including noise, rock and trip-hop. It’s a little hard to believe the whole journey was only around thirty minutes long.

You can stream or obtain a ₤2 (or more) download of this album from Two Hands Music’s Bandcamp page.