Candy Claws - “Silent Time of Earth”
This song and the album it comes from were written on synthesizers by people who were mostly used to playing guitars. It’s a well-known little factoid, yes? The point was for Candy Claws to shake themselves out of what felt like mundanity and songwriter’s block. They’ve said in interviews how much they enjoyed stumbling upon different melodic structures as they worked with this new-to-them technique, and you can hear that sense of joy and discovery in the skewed arrangements, inverted sounds, and wide spectrum of “Silent Time.” But even further underneath all that, I hear echoes of something old and, to most of us, uncool: the toothy, schmaltzy orchestral pop of Murry Wilson and sing-along organ music—the kind of stuff Murry’s son Brian once combined with surf rock to form you-know-what. “Silent Time of Earth” invokes glaciers and mountains and giant trees, yes, but on the lilting steps of its feathered melodies, Candy Claws could also be surrounded by wood paneling, cheap carpet, itchy sweaters, and stuffy relatives. Part of what makes the song so great is how they’ve reclaimed all of this within their own new idiom and made it move again.
