Sian Alice Group, Troubled, Shaken, Etc.
Featured Album
An enigmatic headphones album that grows more evanescent with each listen
If it had been made 30 years ago, Troubled, Shaken, Etc. would have been called a headphones album, the kind you hole up in your room to listen to while you examine the cardboard sleeve it came in. It's introspective and free-ranging, and you kind of just want to be alone with it and your thoughts. Or, at least, I did.
The people behind the music are the London-based collective Sian Alice Group, who have been labeled by some as shoegaze, but calling them that would be overlooking their other dimensions — influences and moods ranging from post-jazz and trance to baroque to plain and simple. Around the time they released their first full-length, 2008's 59:59, which featured guest appearances by 's John Coxon and Gang Gang Dance's Brian DeGraw, Sian Alice Group issued a skeletal four-song EP called The Dusk Line that consisted of nothing but piano and vocals. Good luck pinning these guys down.
And honestly, why bother trying? Just go with it — literally. Each Troubled song is its own little journey, sometimes purely instrumental, sometimes not. Heavy on the synthesizer, "Airlock" is astronaut music—a wordless space odyssey. "Close to the Ground" has a steamy, tribal feel with thumping percussion. (It may remind you, in fact, of Fleetwood Mac's "Big Love".) Album opener "Love That Moves the Sun" has a prismatic effect that recalls a meditative Stereolab, while "First Song — Angelina," with its rolling piano progressions and Middle Earth vibe, is just waiting for the right fantasy film to come along and add it to its soundtrack.
Why take so long to comment on the vocalist, you might be wondering? While Sian Alice Group has one — her name is Sian Ahern — she plays a different role than most lead singers — a supporting role. And that seems to be a calculated move. Ahern has a tissue-paper voice, and it hangs over the music like a soft mist on an autumn English afternoon. A mixed metaphor, yes but that's really the effect her singing has — it's light and dreamy, and any chance you have at fully grasping this group becomes evanescent with each note she sings.
