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about this album
Mushroom Clouds is the first public release of Jack Anderton's music. Developed in early 2004 using basic computer software, a microphone and an acoustic guitar, the album is testament to how musicians will invariably produce interesting and unique music within constraints. Lacking the software required to develop sophisticated electronic ambience, the noises are a combination of quiet grainy synth and quiet tinkling melody, and the music is often a dark and barren landscape evoking scenes of post-apocalyptic wastelands. This is created by Jack Anderton's breathy choral vocals, often reduced to a whisper or a breath, which gives parts of the album an intimate feel. The album's production is lo-fi, and acknowledges the fact with melodies that sometimes seek to wrong-foot the listener, and melodies that wander flat out of tune and out of time. That disengaged approach whether by accident or design contributes hugely to the atmosphere of the piece. There are moments of brief percussive exertion with the the snappy IDM-influenced track Loki, and the lengthy Io which thankfully do not seem out of place, moreover they simply help give the album some pace at the required moments. Through all the praise, there are misdirected moments such as Plains Of Ghostly Shadows which errs too often, and the inessential Relapse, a Tangerine Dream style effort towards the end. However, with tracks such as Aftermath and Nebula, Jack Anderton lays down a template for a particular human kind of
