Channel In Channel Out
The Author And The Narrator
Karaoke Kalk

Channel In Channel Out is the musical project of Portland-based experimental electronica songwriter/composer Marcus Cotten. The Author and the Narrator is his third album, but his first release for Karaoke Kalk.

The Author and the Narrator is a delightful reminder of the wonders in the mundane life. It has a playful atmospheric soundscape, that even being compiled mostly by bits and pieces manages to have the structure of whole-hearted songs, as it loops between almost classical indie, psychedelic and fuzzy, vintage fairground music. And as in every good fairy-tale, it has a lamenting undertow. The latter provided for the most part by Cottons nasal vocal.

The Author and the Narrator opens kindergardenish with "It's Rather Amicable/Addling Authors With Narrators", before it turns more grown-up voyeuristic in "Calculate The Surveillance", and almost forlorn in the emotive "Invalid Entry And The Enchanting Word", the stirring "Them Embedded Company Claws", and the seductively hissing "Affirmation Confirmation". "Drop By Drop I'll Measure It Myself" is a welcoming guitar-driven lighter interlude before the sorrowful closure "Kind Euphemisms Part B". Or, on the digital version, the closure actually is the animated short film for the centre-piece, "A Modulating Perception". An equally sad and naivistic song, that perfectly wraps up the album.

Channel In Channel Out has with The Author and the Narrator delivered a pretty magic puzzle of an album.

Copyright © 2011 Aslaug O Klausen