Movie Club - Great White (self-released)

You can tell the nature of a person by the company that they keep, or so they say. So, the fact that Movie Club’s first show was for a party hosted by Foo Fighters and headlined by The Doors’ Robby Krieger speaks volumes if you ask me. But famous acquaintances do not make an album; it is better if you have a fantastic creative vision, a unique take on what music can even be, and a killer delivery. All of which can be found on the Selachimorpha-infused album Great White.

Movie Club makes psychedelic instrumental music, which might seem a somewhat limiting form, but one listen to this latest release, and you find that nothing could be further from the truth. Here, you find music that can hit sky-searing crescendoes as easily as it embraces simple understatement and can deliver anthemic walls of sound just as readily as it can offer staccato riffs and ambient drifts.

“Requiem,” the opening salvo, tells you everything you need to know, blending the feel of Vangelis’ Blade Runner Original Sound Track with more powerful post-rock and psychedelic noise salvos. And from here, they use that core concept as a springboard to explore all manner of associated sonic spaces.

“Spinner” has a jaunty and upbeat quality yet one soaked in reverb and resonance, “Thresher” is a dark and delicious slice of kaleidoscopic alt-rock, “Tiger” offers us some busy soundscapes, and “Dusk” is a collection of ambient threads and distant sonic wails…whale sonics even…that proves that they are adept with the concept of less being more.

I guess, like all instrumental music, without the direct communication of lyrics, the music has to do the talking and talk it does. The great thing is that, apart from the general theme of shark-based titles, this musical language can only suggest, leaving the real meaning to be derived from each listener and what it means to them. Lyrical music only has one story to tell; instrumental music can tell each listener their own, individual and personal tale. How great is that?

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