A band that openly admits to being inspired by early prog noodler and “Exorcist” theme writer Mike Olfield is either out of touch or really ballsy. Eyes Like Saucers admits to the influence only for the title track, but “Parmalee, Tribute to a Dog” is the only track directly attributed to an Olfield moment. That track, however, and the other five songs seem to take inspiration from a Kafka quote included in the liner notes: "All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog." Given the rather meandering, indecisive drone present throughout, it may be that you need a dog’s ultra-sensitive hearing to pick up on the hidden power of the songs.
Let the buyer beware of records that spell out a concept in the liner notes, as if it might be a problem to pick up on it through the actual music. the notes state that the music is “oddly evocative of early folkways and nonesuch field recordings,” that it “explores the potentialities of autistic, automatic-composition through the employment of relatively primitive acoustic instrumentation and primitive electronics” resulting in “a unique foray into structurally defiant, yet intrinsically organic electro-acoustic music.” What “Sun and Moon,” Owl Creek Bridge” and the three part “Warrigal” provide, in place of the natural acoustic warmth of found recordings or a kind of ragged but innately poetic autistic composition, are rather soulless ambient with a few wrenches tossed in for jarring or evocative effect.
“Parmalee, Tribute to a Dog” seems a rather dull tribute both to the silent knowing of dogs and to an electronic pioneer who at least wrote one memorable tune. Eyes Like Saucers have produced something not so much spontaneous, as something aimless that sounds like what happened when the artists just turned on the recorders and left the room. 6/10 --
Mike Wood (7 October, 2009)
