SIZEMORE says that he has been observing and experimenting with the amazing phenomenon of “the magic in music which so thoroughly captivates our attention and delights our minds, our hearts, and even our very souls”, for quite some time; and that he is now attempting to perfect and put into practice the many things learned about the ‘magic’ of music.
He goes on to explain about the “NO SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS OR FOOD” album: “This collection of tracks plays like a concept album. Each song here is radically different from every other song on the list; and the playlist is designed to create for you a listening experience which is probably quite different from anything you have ever heard before.”
Not many artists are really honest about what they do. They either badly describe their own music, relating it to stuff they may like, or rather stuff they’d prefer to sound like, or totally over-hype the listening experience.
SIZEMORE, on the other hand, tells it like it is. When he says “a listening experience which is probably quite different from anything you have ever heard before.” You’d better believe him.
Throw all your ideas of mainstream music and classically constructed, verse-chorus-verse, songs out of the window. This is ‘diverse’ stuff, to say the least. Now, not everything SIZEMORE does is amazingly different or brilliant….some of it is rather pedestrian or a little tedious perhaps. But then even Mozart wrote tediously pedestrian music on the rare occasion. But there is nothing conventionally dull on “NO SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS OR FOOD”. It is transcendent and intoxicating in its almost abstract expression.
I do not believe that listening to snippets or musical scraps can really capture what SIZEMORE is doing here. You need to immerse yourself into the world he creates, a sonic palette of bizarre digital noises and drones, wispy little synths, pulsating bass-lines, breathtakingly brilliant percussion, and outlandish singing or talking voices. Unlike anything else, and unrelated to anything else, “NO SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS OR FOOD” stands on its own as something worth experiencing and enjoying.
SIZEMORE is much like a Paul Klee or Pablo Picasso painting. Often when you look at their paintings, you wonder what the heck they thought they were up to. But somehow Klee and Picasso hit it perfectly; they placed courageous swirls, drips and spatters on their drop-cloths and produced something gorgeously different for sensitively inquisitive eyes.
“NO SONGS ABOUT BUILDINGS OR FOOD” replicates that formula into something sonic; an audible flow and rhythmic movement, using the most elementary, and often most repetitive, sounds and weaving and blending them into a tapestry of endlessly surprising and often unimaginable fascination.
I won’t even mention track names or pick favorite musical passages from the fifteen arrangements available, as that would completely defeat the purpose of this singular body of work, in my opinion. The lyrics and song titles themselves add to the album’s peculiarity. Well, maybe I’ll give to 3 titles to tease your curiosity:”I’m Bloody Hungry ( Come Let Us Reason Together)” or “Eternity Inside A Very Small Bubble” and “Laugh, Wag Your Finger And Walk Away.”
On the album, SIZEMORE explodes with feelings of hope, despair, happiness, sadness, and all points in-between, perhaps even creating some new emotions as he goes along.
How do you ultimately describe this genre of music? You can’t, because it’s your individual reaction to this music that truly defines the sound of SIZEMORE!