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LP Feature/ CA Celestial & Bill Wells: "Somewhere Under a Rainbow"

  Tobias

Surely, “Somewhere under a Rainbow” must have been recorded thirty years ago. Much more a barely five minute long hush than a single, it occupies a place so far out of time, that it is hard to imagine it being recorded in a 21st century studio on protools. And maybe it wasn’t.

A sad, brittle and fragile acoustic guitar casts its sombre shadow on the wall of the candle-lit room, as a whisper creeps up from complete darkness right next to to you – everything is personal here. “Somewhere under a Rainbow” is folk-influenced, but it is not statement on tradition. Cari Anderson, the “CA” in “Celestial”, has worked with Glasgow-based sweet soulpop ensemble International Airport, but her solo oeuvre requires no sidekicks, the dream dreaming itself.

If this is really a duo, then one of its member is trying hard to disappear completely. Three tracks, one of them over before you can blink an eye, the other two breakable icicles, miniatures which will get lost in the rush of the city but are magnified to the dimension of cosmic prisms when popping up in a schoolgirl’s diary. Anderson’s music is quiet, not in the sense of making no sound, but as in blocking all external influences and sucking you into its realm head over heels.

Side A contains a miracle of happily looping love verses, sung by a freely associating poet shortly before falling asleep: Everything is well and always will be. Side B, meanwhile, is made up of melancholically circling lyrics of autumn sung by the same poet who has now realised that words are nothing but an intrusion.

The fact that there is hardly any information to be found anywhere on the cover of this release only adds to its mystery. So let’s pretend that “Somewhere under a Rainbow” was really recorded thirty years ago, that it’s a loveable lie, an imaginary promise kept for all the right reasons. As the fata morgana becomes true, you gently fall asleep to that little black circle spinning on your record player. And then someone blows out the candle.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Wee Black Skelf Records