Exposé Online banner

Exposé Online

Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
Covering music from the fringes since 1993.

Reviews

Steve MacLean — Clairvoyant
(Recommended Records (RéR) ReR SM10, 1983/2025, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-06-22

Clairvoyant Cover art

One could be forgiven for thinking that Steve MacLean might have any consistent vision from one album to the next, but to be fair this is an archival release that goes all the way back to his musical beginnings in the early 80s, some even predating his earliest recordings with Doctor Nerve — although his friend and Nerve ally Nick Didkovsky does appear at least on some of the album’s dozen cuts. There is no comparison between this and Universal, which we reviewed back in 2023, or Flies in the Face of Logic and The Opposite of War, both dating back to the 90s. These are recordings of MacLean using early 80s technology — that would be an early GR500 Roland guitar synthesizer, an early Boss drum machine, and period-era samplers, and of course guitar and synthesizers of the day. There was a lot of crappy pop music in the early 80s that used all this same stuff, but the problem was, with a few exceptions, it was just mediocre fluff that didn’t break any real barriers. That MacLean recorded these tracks back in the day and chose not to release them certainly shows some understanding of how they would be received in that era of primitive technology. Instead he held his cards until a later date, after an audience for this sort of avant-garde experimentation could be cultivated. The songs here are mostly very rhythmic and borne of synthetic sounds, with samples of spoken voices on several of the pieces, but there are players credited with bass, alto sax, and even oboe (and of course Didkovsky’s prepared guitar) though one might detect that these are on this track or that, and not throughout the entire album, as these pieces seem to have all been recorded at different times — the credits don’t provide a date for each recording, just a range from 1983 to ‘93. The first seven tracks are about as strange as anything imaginable in the day, though beginning with “J Is for Jump” the songs (if one could call them that) begin to have a bit more of a possible commercial appeal, though that would probably be better left for the listener to decide, some sounding like bits of film soundtracks, still very creative and original as can be, though generally better produced. So whatever you thought of this primitive equipment in those early days, you can know that MacLean was using it to create something far more original than what you knew at the time.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases, 1983 recordings

Related artist(s): Steve MacLean, Nick Didkovsky

More info
http://steve-maclean.bandcamp.com/album/clairvoyant-selected-recordings-1983-1993

 

What's new

These are the most recent changes made to artists, releases, and articles.