Caught in the Carousel

Golden Arm Trio

The Tick Tock Club
Shamrock Record Co.

The Tick Tock Club is a tightly realized concept CD, an instrumental blend of themes that twist, invert, and merge to form a unified whole. It is smart, manic, and deeply passionate, and sounds like a score from a 60s-era spy thriller (think I Spy meets Dime Detective).

The Tick Tock Club opens with a swirling cello preamble, a peaceful overture that suddenly crashes into a furious blaze of sound, almost like gunfire during a car chase. The themes express the rising and falling tension of this imaginary story, evoking a mad dash through gritty urban streets, capers through Europe and the Middle East, and a dip into the Baltic before returning. The music is moody at times, euphoric at others, and graceful throughout.

There are a few numbers that Martha Graham might yet crawl from the grave to dance to. Golden Arm Trio is not a trio, but a fluid set of musicians under the direction of Graham Reynolds, a composer-performer-producer based in Austin, TX. Reynolds, as Golden Arm Trio, has three previous releases, including the soundtrack to the animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly.

Reynolds built The Tick Tock Club on a classical foundation, but then blended nuanced, symphonic interludes with surf-rock, found sounds, and improvisational crime jazz to achieve a cross-genre CD.

The Tick Tock Club is music by which to find the dead, to knock down a few bad guys, and finish the day in a smoky dive with a hot dame and a bag full of cash.

--Lyn Dunagan