Sounds (December 22), 1984
Robin Gibson

I've come to search beneath the top layers of Cindytalk. Cindytalk, who have abruptly delivered one of this year's most engrossing, entrancing, occasionally petrifying albums.

'Camouflage Heart' was a sudden shock and has become a constantly intensifying adventure, layers of sound and voice touching on greater beauty with every listen. A jagged, surging, unpredictable beauty.

Cindytalk grew from Edinburgh band the Freeze, vocalist Gordon Sharp and fellow Freeze member David Clancy shifting operations to London and, together with musician John Byrne, recording 'Camouflage Heart' over the first half of 1984. David has since left, Gordon and John are now Cindytalk.

I'm sitting here talking to Gordon Sharp, to whom, sometimes, Cindytalk seems to mean everything. He tells me that at the heart of Cindytalk it is attitude that is essential. An attitude that means they will not be shackled by musical/technical convention. That means they want to communicate something of lasting value. That means they want to be a catalyst for themselves and for others.

"On the surface," he suggests, "Cindytalk is possibly pretty much the unlistenable rubbish that people might say it is. Because I think it demands that you move towards it, and maybe go inside it. It seems, also, superficially claustrophobic...it's maybe dense at times, and even at the points where the density is taken away, and there's a space, it's still very intense. There's a mood of harshness throughout...a mood of abrasion.

"And all those things alienate people, and the attitude in that context is that we're willing to take that on, and not make it too easy for people -- and hope that they will maybe sense something from it."

And search further. Perhaps 'Camouflage Heart' is demanding, but it should not be alienating. It's a brave album, alone and weaving its own thick web of love, pain, hope and horror offering emotion. It is uncompromising, but it's definitely human, laced throughout with feeling.

"There are words -- just single words can point in the direction of an attitude. 'Desire' is a word that would work. 'Communication'. 'Emotion'. Umm...'Commitment'. Things like that."

Gordon Sharp talks of harshness -- indeed, Cindytalk music often rests on severe, relentless rhythms and is bound up in swathes of churning, raw-edged instrumentation and is sent into flight by Gordon's remarkably expressive, extreme vocals.

But it is also music which describes hearts and nerves laid bare. In the turbulent, bleeding agony of 'Memories Of Skin And Snow', in the slowly heightening sorrow of 'The Ghost Never Smiles', in the tender love and resignation of 'Disintegrate...', 'Camouflage Heart' means myriad, ever-changing impressions and ecstatic escalations of feeling.

"I think that one of the intentions is to create a kind of poetic imagery," says Gordon. "Suggestions and hints at things, fragments of ideas which do lead, at some point, to something more clear.

"I don't think there's a lot to be said for being too analytical about it. I think it's best if your own sense of it grows with how you listen to it...picking up more the more you go along."

'Camouflage Heart', as it ranges from patches of raw energy and fury to other gorgeous peaks of tenderness, is a whole. The tracks and emotions interlock, and there is an underlying personality.

"I find it quite sad, actually. But not a sadness which is born out of total despair. My personal taste in things tend to be drawn towards things which have a sadness, but a sadness which is very uplifting, which has a sort of glorious feeling to it...a feeling which wells up inside you and has a real power to it."

The part of Cindytalk which best conveys that marriage of passion, melancholy and hope is Gordon's voice. Always exploring, stretching, reaching out and pulling together all kinds of sense and sensation. A raw, real voice. Tones and textures are cries and whispers in Cindytalk, and there is no need or wish for unnecessary polish.

What does Gordon Sharp think of that voice? Does it surprise him? Is it remarkable?

He laughs quietly. "Oh...I'm definitely surprised. I do think it's extraordinary. One of the things I like most about Cindytalk is the voice...if I didn't think that, I wouldn't do it.

"But I don't say that in a conceited way. I'm happy that it's like that, I'm glad. If it wasn't that way, I'd be very disappointed. Really, Cindytalk does revolve around the voice. But it doesn't come from that necessarily, often the voice is the last thing to go down. Often it'll be me working out something to what John's come up with."

Cindytalk is a constantly revolving and co-operative exchange of ideas and to Gordon Sharp, it is quite different from the accepted notion of a group. It is harder, but it is necessary.

"There's nothing wrong with music which is purely for the moment," he agrees. "But there has to be a balance. There's got to be something more demanding, and hopefully more rewarding.

"It could be said that 'Camouflage Heart' is a reaction against the way pop music seems to ahve been developing, although ours is not a pop record by any standards. It could be that part of the reason why it exists is because of my personal disgust at a lot of things..."

There is in Cindytalk music a darkness which he agrees will be taken by some as gloom. But it is far from that, Cindytalk's darkness is a sharp, promising darkness that conceals an exciting, living body of ideas and desires, emotions and instincts. Scattered, and ready to be discovered.

"I can see that in it as well," he enthuses. "I can see all these fragments of thoughts. They're excitable and they're nervous and they're awkward and they're beautiful at the same time, and they're all tangled.

"And yet if you're willing to move inside that sort of tangled mess, and not necessarily untangle it, but just find yourself in it, there's a strong sense of joy in that...

"'Camouflage Heart' is not a collection of songs. The nearest we get to a song is 'It's Luxury' -- the rest is a collection of moods, images, thoughts, used in communication."

He sighs and admits the inevitable.

"No doubt, this'll make people cry, 'Pretentiousness!' but they're welcome to, quite honestly. We're not pretending to be anything. We are what we are."

To delve into the details of Cindytalk lyrics would take too long. And it would probably, if anything, detract from the pleasure that is gained as you listen and find their trails of feeling gradually come clear and begin to mean something.

When I mention one song, though, 'The Spirit Behind The Circus Dream', Gordon recalls a George Orwell poem, and perhaps we begin to clarify the Cindytalk motive.

"The fountain sits on edge and sings: the spirit cannot be broken if the spirit is true..." ('The Spirit Behind The Circus Dream')

"But the thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: no bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit" (Orwell)

Gordon: "I saw that poem after I'd written the song and that belief, that faith, his love of the potential of life, and saying that no matter what happens, nothing can shatter the crystal spirit...the Circus Dream is that spirit, Cindytalk is that spirit, is that passion and that belief."

A thrilling brand of life flows from 'Camouflage Heart': a tempting choice, out on its own. Cindytalk seem perfectly aware of their detachment from any kind of mainstream. They are not in competition, and it is fairly plain that Gordon Sharp's motives bear little resemblance to those of his contemporaries.

"Cindytalk will live and breathe without records...the way 'Camouflage Heart' is structured, loosely, and the way it iwas throught about over the years could quite easily be autobiographical from my point. Therefore it could've been anything from a book to a picture to a film, something would have happened, because it's inside here."

He talks of the possibility of another record, of some ambition. But, too, he says, "We've set ourselves a standard with this record and if it looks like we've said enough, and done enough, then we won't make another. The last thing in the world that I want to do is just go on, and on, until everything becomes really tedious."

Cindytalk's future is as intriguing as its presently character: but we can only guess at the future. What matters now is that they have put out 'Camouflage Heart' within our reach. Grasp it.

Reprinted without permission.