The Clientele: Suburban Light

The Clientele's mystique is rooted in its commitment to pop music as an artifact. The trio has been kicking around London for four years, uniting periodically to record a few stray songs, and releasing a meager series of 45s, EPs, and the occasional compilation. The group's records spin too rapidly, and though the songs are slow and hypnotic—drenched in an echo so deep that notes already played hang around and harmonize with those to come—the experience is over quickly enough to leave listeners entranced, but a little unsatisfied. Even Suburban Light, the band's LP-length assemblage of its scattered oeuvre, is designed to confound. The American edition features a different set of tracks from the U.K. edition, and neither contains the entirety of The Clientele's work. The band insists that this abbreviated collection strategy is intended to preserve thematic unity, and in a way, that's admirable. Suburban Light does flow nicely, and at 43 minutes, The Clientele's wispy style doesn't have time to grow tiresome. But the group's music on CD has the same effect as its music on 45. Lead singer and guitarist Alasdair Maclean's reverberating whisper hovers over his quiet picking, while bassist James Hornsey provides a hint of bottom, and a rotating corps of drummers adheres to the tempo-only philosophy best espoused by The Velvet Underground's Maureen Tucker. On Suburban Light's finest moments (especially "Reflections After Jane," "We Could Walk Together," "Monday's Rain," and "What Goes Up"), Maclean's reveries about the comforts of melancholy and the pleasures of drifting into a beta state seem frozen in mid-air. Then they suddenly fade out, and Suburban Light ends.