Monolith Cocktail Blog

REVIEW
WORDS: AYFER SIMMS
PHOTO CREDIT: MAREN MICHAELIS

Candice Gordon   ‘Garden Of Beasts’
Proper Octopus,  8th September 2017

A sober freedom, a cry of rage, murky coal and relentlessness: We are, we are and we are sedate because it is not the 60s going into the heavy hippy careless indulgent époque anymore nor the hangover of it, nor the 90s with the backlash of foolishness and the dismantling of the old order. But…even then, in the mud there was a disheveled hope, a rebellious tenacious grip, a real control with the ultimate proof of the extermination of their ‘own selves’ for some (a lot) of them.

Reality destroys yes, but beyond the icy purity, warmth keeps us together.

With Candice Gordon it is smooth; the grimy world she exhibits discretely is quickly eclipsed by her gentle and earnest voice, one that hides, not a cheap insubordination toward the mass of us but a dreamy mise en scéne of “a” reality, sunny after all. She promises not a better world: our anticipation is sweetly tempered by words such as “the laws of nature are in command”, but beyond those it is the whole attitude of the voice’s variations and tones against the overwhelmingly swell feeling brought on by chords, drums and basses which makes us feel safe and welcomed. There is reassurance and why? Asking myself I simply looked up really deep in the night, luckily as Gordon uttered the words “my conscious was an effigy”, I saw stars, many, far and up close, and widening my eyes I realised: we see it upbeat and we are thankful for the sky to be greater than us, displaying conundrums and an array of moods, between gothic and robotized mortals. It’s Rock’n’Roll. Candice is deeply that.

Freedom is not your friend but your lover. And the sultry, oriental, romantic and dark Candice is very good at convincing the listener of that.