{"id":9800,"date":"2015-01-06T15:43:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T15:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9800"},"modified":"2015-01-06T15:43:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-06T15:43:06","slug":"clockwork-orchestra-a-fish-for-a-heart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2015\/01\/06\/clockwork-orchestra-a-fish-for-a-heart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Clockwork Orchestra &#8211; A Fish for a Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Clockwork-Orchestra.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-9801\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Clockwork-Orchestra-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"afishforaheart_front cover\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Clockwork Orchestra isn\u2019t an orchestra at all \u2013 it\u2019s a solitary lunatic from Dublin emptying his brain into a synth-heavy, post-punky whirlwind of sound.<!--more--> \u201cBedroom producer\u201d Paul Mangan doesn\u2019t shy away from the bizarre on <i>A Fish for a Heart<\/i>, and the end result is something wonderful. It\u2019s hard to describe Clockwork Orchestra\u2019s sound, but Mangan\u2019s bone-dry vocals and the music\u2019s relentless drive brings to mind Welsh rockers Future of the Left \u2013 if they had discovered the synthesizer used to record the soundtrack for Nintendo\u2019s <i>Castlevania<\/i>. The ever-present synth has an unusual interplay with the guitar, as both are constantly playing leads, almost competing with each other as pulsing bass and martial drum machines dutifully drive the rhythm. The lyrical content is self-described as \u201cthoroughly bonkers,\u201d and that\u2019s pretty accurate, but there\u2019s a darkness throughout the album that gives it more gravity than something just weird for weirdness\u2019 sake. There are a few missteps (including a bizarro waltz), but <i>A Fish for a Heart<\/i> is infectious, especially the unstoppable lead single \u201cThe Generator Girls.\u201d While it\u2019s maybe a little too \u201cout\u201d to achieve any major success, it comes very close to that fine line between insanity and genius. (Soft Bodies Records, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clockworkorchestra.com\/\">clockworkorchestra.com<\/a>) <b>Sam Thompson<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clockwork Orchestra isn\u2019t an orchestra at all \u2013 it\u2019s a solitary lunatic from Dublin emptying his brain into a synth-heavy, post-punky whirlwind of sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1056],"class_list":["post-9800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-utn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}