The Curfew Bell
(2006)
Independent

Goodnight Streetlight’s The Curfew Bell was over 2 restless years in its construction, some of it in the suburbs, some in a city, and some in a cabin on a small island.  A great variety of tracks were made and then it was whittled down to the strongest (or strangest?) of the material.  The general direction of the album was to explore more complex and unusual arrangements, yet still keeping the simple sleepy melodies and eerie noises that have defined Goodnight Streetlight’s sound. 

Although a lot of the music was composed and created on a laptop, a point was made to include more found sounds (camera's clicking, rustling paper, Morse code beeps etc) as background textures and percussion. Samples were cut up from old wandering guitar jams, noises were made on my little brother's drum set, and the ol' toy casio keyboard was brought back for a couple tracks. In the spirit of revisiting these earlier themes, speaking voices were requested from some faraway internet friends, which were then cut up and layered into the music, adding to the narrative of the compositions. 

Altogether, The Curfew Bell forms the most assured and adventurous of Goodnight Streetlight’s ouputs, helped considerably by the masterful production of Aaron Clark who spent many sleepless nights fixing up the errors and bringing the album to life.

A booklet/mini-zine of writings comes with the CD which is a collection of fictional police reports set in a strange and magical town called Blinksville.

<back

1. Mesmer
2. Doubt And The Flying Machine
3. For the Hopscotch Kids of Duncan Dr. (mp3)
4. Strike Anywhere Matches
5. Ambien
6. What Ghost Is This?
7. Minus Numbers (mp3)
8. Sleep Comes Asking
9. Snow Globe Movie Theatre
10. Yesterday Was Slow
11. Sweet Dreams Huck Finn
12. Shelf Life

 "The Curfew Bell" is also available at Red Cat Records and Zulu Records in Vancouver, B.C.

Creative Commons