Sophomore Songs (a novel) by Clarke Geddes

Printed by The Conrad Press

Launch date: Out now

The report business by way of the trying glass, as two musicians discover loss of life, not glory within the recording of their troublesome second album.

Contemplating the baroque nature of the music business, you’d assume it will swimsuit the climactic world of fiction. The place the literary world has typically struggled nevertheless is in treating the business as a morality play. It doesn’t bend to such karma and plainly there may be by no means such a payoff. Because the Hunter S Thompson quote as soon as succinctly identified: “The music enterprise is a merciless and shallow cash trench, an extended plastic hallway the place thieves and pimps run free and good males die like canines. There’s additionally a unfavorable facet.”

This newest try, Clarke Geddes’ ‘Sophomore Songs’ understands that these are completely different instances, the place report gross sales are minuscule, ticket costs are extortionate and the golden age of tv has in all probability poached the subsequent technology of inventive expertise. For his two protagonists Nick and Dominica nevertheless, their musical dream nonetheless glimmers, albeit with the stress introduced by report firm debt and a spiralling hedonism which threatens to eat one in every of them. Relocated to a distant Scottish island to report their sophomore album, Nick and Dom view their idyllic environment with curiosity at first. Crucially although, it doesn’t take lengthy for a extra sinister image to loom on the horizon.

The ebook first takes us down a well-trodden path. Regardless of this, the plain cynicism and authenticity of being a modern-day performer are completely drawn. Geddes, an ex-touring musician himself understands the weariness and distressed glamour of the recording course of, though the drip feed of musical artists and tracks he continuously drops into the textual content proves a slight distraction. He shades the interior circle relationships of the principle characters slightly extra subtly. There’s Cammie, the revolutionary producer employed to assist them hone their forthcoming masterpiece, a sort of pixie, dream lady love curiosity in Ana and a smattering of locals who drift out and in of the textual content like line drawings and thru Nick’s peripheral imaginative and prescient, which will get more and more disorientated by order of his nefarious, self-medication habits.

Issues sharpen into focus with the arrival of their mysterious benefactor Mr Fazio, which accelerates the plot, but it surely’s right here that Geddes additionally begins to clunk by way of the gears. The place Fazio must be an enigma he sadly comes throughout as one thing of a cliche, sharp-suited and flanked by safety guards like a villain in a straight-to-video thriller. A dramatic incident then follows, which needs to be the cue for the drama to ramp up however sadly acts because the precursor to a convoluted mess. Cue a gangland subplot which actually has no impact on its most important characters by any means and lacks each pressure and actual intrigue. Ultimately, all of this solely succeeds in making the ebook lopsided. As a collection of narrative threads, it doesn’t make any collective sense.

This can be a disgrace as a result of Geddes will get sure issues proper with ‘Sophomore Songs’. Definitely, the inventive technique of going right into a studio and creating an album is realised properly. The place that pastime could be suffused with a sort of numb vagueness, nevertheless, a lifetime of crime (and positively it’s description) is the rank reverse. Maybe the creator ought to have caught to minor chords fairly than those that break legal guidelines. The previous, being the place his actual perception lies.

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Phrases by Craig Campbell, you possibly can learn extra ebook opinions at his creator profile. He additionally tweets right here