c.layne
[#] Maps of Us (2014)
Glossy black desire, yearning, and everything in between.
Reviewed May 30, 2025
A darkly melodic, reverb-tinged, minimalist psychedelic rock album? Sounds familiar... Antonymic isn't the only familiar point in the c.layne catalog here either—"Confess"' slinky bassline and booming kicks are a direct callback to "the mind i left behind" on albumone. Neat! Maps of Us is no mere retread, though. Don't worry if opener "Release" sounds a little plodding, because this album really starts with the auditory floatation tank of "Syrup" and never really wanes. Through the goopy layers of quivering bass, clean guitars, and vocals twisted and pitch-shifted into unrecognizability, it plays like an Antonymic from a glossy, icy future. I may like it a little more, even.
"Take a moment to pause/And remember/All the old things you had/And dismembered", c.layne sings halfway between reassuring and warning on midpoint "Sensors". It's in this little trio of songs, "Visitation", "Sensors", and "Gauze", that you find the brightest spots on the whole album. The vocal layering and harmonies, the unsteady rhythms, the lines about feral lives and feral needs—it's what he does best, perfectly balancing dark and menacing with just that touch of seductive pop to bring out the flavor. Maps of Us is a hugely nostalgic record for me, having accompanied me on many an early morning bus ride in high school. It's gentle enough to fall asleep to, but evocative enough to stick with you the rest of the day.
| Essential: | "Syrup", "Sensors", "Falls" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Illuminate" |
| Non-Essential: | "Release" |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | Download from c.layne's Bandcamp |
[#] I'm Glad We Met (2011)
Grinding and grotesque.
Reviewed May 30, 2025
A bouncy, static-damaged synth. Steady stick clicks. A hushed, ominous vocal soon to be overtaken by an orchestra of screeching tires and shearing scrap metal. I'm Glad We Met's base components laid out like separated limbs across the road on the very first track, "So Ashamed". Death is heavy in the air on this one, the scent of cadavers ripe just by the song titles—"By the Tail", "Splatter", "Candlebones". Even the relative serenity of penultimate cut "Just a Joke" can't cover up what this really, electronic rock to soundtrack a slasher film, and it's as fun to listen to as a slasher film is to watch, as long as you like blood.
This is one of those perpetual Halloween albums for me, perfect for when the leaves start changing colors and you want something just a little eerier. "Head Down" is an old favorite, the glitchy drone and bitcrushed drums and vocals a surprisingly gentle avenue to tell of a ghost that disappears as soon as it appears. "Waste (This Time Together)" detaches from its body and mind shortly before going off the cliff in a barreling Cadillac (as an aside, I'm pretty sure I had a Casio with that exact intro synth tone). Have I made my point? Worse is coming. Give this one a try when you start hearing noises outside.
| Essential: | "Waste (This Time Together)", "Head Down", "Splatter" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "You Never Did" |
| Non-Essential: | "I'm Glad We Met" |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | Download from c.layne's Bandcamp |
[#] Shark Week (2007)
Proving both the sea and the sky are out to kill you.
Reviewed December 21, 2018
c.layne has a knack for writing concept albums that don't know they're concept albums. Antonymic, his debut, was psychedelic lo-fi genius that had some curious lyrical themes running throughout if you were lucky enough to catch enough of his woozy, reverberated vocals. The grainy, MP3-ravaged sound, offset by synthbasses and softly-falling synths and chiming guitars, made him stand out amongst the Song Fight! crowd. Abandoned followups like Drawing Shapes With Sounds built on Antonymic's sonics, but by 2007, he had cleaned it all up and was onto making sure people could actually make out his voice. The result is probably his masterwork.
Don't be fooled by "You Think You're So Clever", the bubbly opener built on screeching strings and loopy acoustic guitars. Songs flow from one to the next, ease in and out of atmospheric theatrics, and somehow go from the sea to the sky in the span of an hour. The album takes an interesting detour into the vacuum of space halfway through; "Spacesick" and "Abell 1835 IR 1916" trade in depictions of being ripped apart and getting caught on hooks for the confusion and fearful isolation of being alone in a world alien to our own. "The Places We Visit" shows c.layne acknowledging the trip in a glitchy, breathy voice. It's not for everyone, but those who can appreciate its cold, disconnected world will be greatly rewarded.
| Essential: | "Abell 1835 IR 1916", "Chlorophyll", "The Places We Visit" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Octopus Trees" |
| Non-Essential: | It's all pretty important tbh |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | Download from c.layne's Bandcamp |
[#] The Sun Will Come Out to Blind You [Original Mixes] (2005)
High calibre grubby minimalist downtempo.
Reviewed May 30, 2025
![The Sun Will Come Out to Blind You [Original Mixes] album art](covers/the-sun-will-come-out-demos.jpg)
The transition away from the hazy, undefined sister worlds of Antonymic and Drawing Shapes With Sounds was a quick one. By the very next year, c.layne had begun work on a more minimalist, earthy downtempo effort that downplayed the guitars, thick with the rumble of synthbasses and drum machines and loops no longer content to keep time unobtrusively. This would become the original demos of The Sun Will Come Out to Blind You, shelved as a more polished and sonically constructed version came out on Magnatune in 2005. Now that you can hear this original version again, what's the verdict? Truth be told, I like it a good bit better.
The original version of Blind You is a thin sliver of sonic midnight, not pumped up, but precise. The lack of the overblown orchestral elements and rewrites of c.layne's already catchy melodies helps the songs to shine through without much in the way of adornment. The slow burn duet of detachment "Less of You" (featuring the sadly long M.I.A. Revel Yth and her lovely voice) sits as tidily alongside the crunchy, pulsating "Vertigo Blues" as the Pink Floyd-esque acoustic ballad "Fight the Sea" does next to icy, eerie closer "Everybody's Going Underground", largely made up only of layers of c.layne's voice. I'm sure you can make a case for this sounding unfinished, but compare it to what got released, and it's pretty clear less is more.
| Essential: | "Less of You", "Vertigo Blues", "Fight the Sea" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "You Are the Reason" |
| Non-Essential: | "How Soon I Forget" |
| Rating: |  |
| Further listening: | Stream from c.layne's SoundCloud |
[#] The Sun Will Come Out to Blind You (2005)
In fairness to Victor, I like his solo work a lot better.
Reviewed May 30, 2025
Not content to marinate in psychedelic pop, c.layne made a pretty quick switch to a sorta inky downtempo feel for his third (proper) album, The Sun Will Come Out to Blind You. This is also the first and to date only c.layne effort to feature help from an outside producer, namely ccMixter bigwig and fellow Magnatune artist Victor Stone. Unfortunately, it's kind of a dud. Victor took the existing demos for Blind You and reworked them into a sort of orchestral, brass band style (sometimes), oftentimes jettisoning neat melodies and ear-catching ideas for far less interesting ones. Normally, an adventurous remix is what you want, but I just don't think these do the material any justice.
On the good end of things, the sole triumph of the remix sessions is the opener "I Don't Care If You Lie", going from a grubby, droning rumble accompanying c.layne's voice to a pokey, quirky, stage musical sorta backing which I think works well with the lyrics and delivery. Towards the front of Blind You, it's fairly similar to the demos, which is to Victor's credit, but as things go on, big hooks (like the lead synth and general propulsion of "Vertigo Blues") get left on the cutting room floor for sleepy trombone leads and walking basslines. Least forgivably, take note of how c.layne's vocal audibly lags the beat on "Everybody's Going Underground" (as also happens on "Vertigo", and "How Soon I Forget"...). Not pretty, and easily fixed.
| Essential: | "I Don't Care if You Lie", "Just My Luck", "She's on My Mind" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Vertigo Blues" |
| Non-Essential: | "Everybody's Going Underground" |
| Rating: |  |
[#] Drawing Shapes With Sounds (2004)
Ugly, twisted, world-battered, but somehow comforting.
Reviewed May 30, 2025
This is a PSA from me to you: reach out to your favorite indie artists and let them know that you want their unreleased stuff online so you can talk about it on your website. c.layne's not too big on a lot of his older work, which has led to some of these being in the vault for almost two decades now. I've been listening to copies he gave me some years back, but yes, I am why you can now check out Drawing Shapes With Sounds. I get it. This is an ugly, weird album, the vocals thin and the production effectively a less dreamy version of what was going on with Antonymic. This is not for everyone—but it's in that strangeness and darkness that c.layne conjures up that, even if Drawing Shapes isn't a better album than Antonymic, it's at its best a worthy companion of it.
Where Antonymic is a largely harmonious warm sonic sunspot, Drawing Shapes With Sounds is dissonant, built of backwards collages, feedback squalls, detuned bridges, ring modulators, and head voice vocal takes that seem more than a little concerned with that whole war thing that was happening at the time. It's right around the instrumental "Keep Away" that the weight seems to come off a little, a little less downcast and certainly less oppressive. "Show Me a Fire" conjures that comforting guitar-led Antonymic balladry, "The Devil and a Woman" looks forward to the more rhythm-heavy Memes, and "9/6" is a desolate waltz to bring the mood back down. By no means a good introduction to c.layne, but it'll keep the right kinda isolated freak (me) good company.
| Essential: | "Hello My Name is Hello", "Show Me a Fire", "9/6" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "Lumberjacks as Janitors" |
| Non-Essential: | "Tylox and Apple Juice" |
| Rating: | |
| Further listening: | Stream from c.layne's SoundCloud |
[#] Antonymic (2003)
Dreamy sweet pop.
Reviewed May 30, 2025
Oh yeah—this one brings back memories. I had a friend in middle school grill c.layne about the lyrical parallels between this one and his then-new Maps of Us, and I don't think he ever got a straight answer. I don't think it matters; Antonymic is hazy on purpose. It's lavish with reverb, warm and dreamy in the sun's glow, the lyrics slightly indistinct, the sound MP3-ravaged (that one might not have been on purpose). It's a comfort even when the mood is downcast, and when your opener talks about black ash skies and nooses and you end your record with "The End of Me", it might just be a little sadder than it seems on the surface.
Antonymic is powered largely by wandering clean lead guitars and anchored by its spindly drum loops and CR-78s, c.layne's sleepy coo and self harmonies gently wafting over the top. It can bounce ("You Are the Reason"), it can linger ("A House of Sticks"), it can even turn heavy impressionistic ("Devil on Your Shoulder"), but it's never all that huge or washed out—I've never heard anything quite like it. Regardless, it's all bullseye because never once do the dreamy sonics take precedence over the songwriting. Pretty, sad, nostalgic, mournful, but undeniably catchy, it's a big old favorite of mine, and I'm not surprised it's the only of c.layne's early period to stay "in print", if you will.
(This one's had a few tracklist revisions over its lifespan. The most recent running order excises "Eidetic" entirely and moves the former track four "Yours Truly/Guilt" into its place. It makes for a much slower end to the record, and I liked the way "Eidetic" built off "Thinking of You"'s strummy frustrations to give the record, and the relationship depicted on it, a powerful and surprisingly clear-headed climax. I mean, everyone thinks the version they heard first is the right one, right? "Eidetic" is still included in the Bandcamp edition as a bonus track, alongside three other songs that were also originally on the album. I guess it's your call whether to reinstate it, but it's honorary Essential status to me. I do hear c.layne's working on a new version though, which...)
| Essential: | "The Lake Down the Road", "A House of Sticks", "Yours Truly/Guilt" |
|---|---|
| Quintessential: | "You Are the Reason" |
| Non-Essential: | "Talk Slow" |
| Rating: | |
| Further listening: | Download from c.layne's Bandcamp |