The worlds created by
Ran Slavin are all part of the nocturnal universe and this album is definitely
one of them. All twelve Bittersweet Melodies is a collection of unique stories
between sunrise and sunset. Each of the tracks is unlike the other, some bitter
and some sweet, as the title of the album suggests. Each track is a piece of a
jigsaw, fitting in the front picture of the album art - a blurry image of a
night city and a tropical island postcard from the 80s.
Our trip starts with the
first track Saturday’s Dress. As the track progresses we leave the real world
for the imaginary one.Category: Murdered Entertainers - is the soundtrack of a
crime story with a twisted plot, eerie loops and paths, atmosphere noire. In
Disruptive Lounge we hear the sounds of a string ethnic instrument mixed with
the sounds of tuning of a radio, which does not get tuned in the end and
instead untunes the whole track.
In Fake Sunsets we take
a walk in the darkest hours before sunrise, listening to the music from some
old movie and get to the next track Dubai Dawn. Sinatra Was Here reminds of
Frank Sinatra in a wonderful film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), where he had a
short, but remarkable role.
Listening this album
over and over again, it feels like the album describes a point, where the night
turns into sunrise and back into the night. Slavin’s music calls for
adventurous associations with illusionary and surreal cinema. Trying to
understand this album is the same like wandering the streets of the city, which
never existed. Slavin’s music is highly intellectual and urbanistic, it matches
the pulse of the modern life, and yet there is always a mystery there, like a
street close that you heard so much about, but could never find, no matter how
hard you tried.