Paddle or no paddle? The question hovers,
unanswered, unanswerable, irrelevant as “Don’t Cry Sci-Fi Tiger” unfurls itself
from glowing speakers, claws unsheathing and retracting, tail swishing, mouth yawning.
It’s a languid, sleepy kind of afternoon, and Sci-Fi Tiger is not ready to
pounce. It lays in the shade on its own, contemplating something that may make
it sad. This is why we ask it not to cry.
Shit Creek is from Bristol, which is in the UK
for those of you without a globe handy, and “Don’t Cry Sci-Fi Tiger” plays like
a storybook for children in a terrible alternate universe where children are in
charge somehow, demanding the adults to cater to their every whim while the
plot destructive plots but get too tired to really pull anything off. Somehow
that’s a place, because I conjured it, and there’s one of infinite alternate
realities that went this way. Anyhoo, Shit Creek plasters noisy elements to the
walls like they’re prize artworks on a refrigerator. Glommy guitar, syrupy
synths, plocky percussive elements, an annoying patience with getting to where
he’s going on a convoluted path that he’s plotted through detours and thickets
and diversions, and in the end it doesn’t go where it was planned to go anyway,
and there wasn’t even a plan to begin with.
There’s a grisly digital nightmare called
“Creepy Robot Bird Monster” and an oddly restrained dribble of composition
called “I’m Bursting Yr Tires You Prick! Here Comes Mr. Keys!”
That may be all you need now for your
attention, and the Sci-Fi Tiger raises its head, twitches a whisker, and
pixilates till it’s sated.
Ah, it was no paddle.
--Ryan
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