The Clientele - Music for the Age of Miracles (New CD)

The Clientele return with Music for the Age of Miracles, their first release of new music since 2010's MinotaurEP. It seems fitting that a chance meeting with a ghost from the past/future is what led to the first album of new Clientele songs in seven years. Singer and principal songwriter Alasdair MacLean and Anthony Harmer knew one another and played music together in the mid-90s but had lost touch. On Music for the Age of Miracles, Harmer joins the line-up of MacLean, James Hornsey (bass), and Mark Keen (drums, piano, percussion), contributing string and brass arrangements as well as guitars, vocals, keyboards, saz and, yes, Santoor. There's something rapturous about the ways in which tracks such as "Falling Asleep" and the exquisite "Everything You See Tonight Is Different From Itself" stretch out in choral harmony and rhythmic syncopation. In addition, Alasdair's lyrics create a series of linked, impressionistic stories or poems, even if their exact meaning may be obscure.