‘Fanfare’ feels like a strange confession. its lyrics are frank, almost apathetic while the backdrop surrounding them is anything but. Across its runtime, Silkarmour shifts between recollection and admission, narrative tenses and non-sequitars, with every refrain gradually bridging the distance between what was and what is here and now, and, rather poignantly, “the absence of light”.
The latest single by London-based producer/composer Enzo Samuel, ‘Fanfare’ continues the steadily evolving sonic language of his Silkarmour project. If ‘Pig’s Ballad’ found beauty in a more subdued, melancholic and droney register, (with the integration of the harmonium into his repertoire), ‘Fanfare’ feels more encompassing and immediate, while retaining the hymnal quality and ornate arrangements central to Samuel’s output.
With a contemplative opening built upon viscous, reversed textures, and a slow introduction of rich harmonium chords, the arrangement gradually begins to resemble a dawn chorus. There’s almost a devotional quality to the song, but with its shifts in narrative tense, Samuel’s writing rarely stays reverent for too long.
‘Fanfare’ performs a fake out from its pensive outset into something more groovy; discreet drums pulse just beneath shifting textural blocks which undulate between the more processed digital layers and dense, regal acoustic warmth. True to its title, the track ends grandly, seen out by a chorus of trumpets over a deep, distorted bass. Built upon gradual shifts, there’s a final movement from the pastoral to the ceremonial, while contending melodies and inversions gather toward a final flourish.
The accompanying self-directed music video extends the pastoral and ceremonial imagery into Silkarmour’s visual world. Shot by DOP Arthur Attenborough, whose credits include Bladee and Clark, it marks a return collaboration and a loose follow-up to their work together for ‘Pig’s Ballad’. Throughout, an ensemble of guerrilla militants brandish folk instruments inside an ascetic room, surrounded by candles and pistols. The flying pig, now synonymous with the project’s iconography, is suspended above the scene upon a quilt, painted on a canvas, and tattooed on an arm.
This new track arrives off the back of a second packed-out Venue M.O.T headline show. Live, Silkarmour performs as a hybrid three-piece of harmonium/vocals, drums and electronic organ (with foot pedals). The project has previously played alongside black midi, Factory Floor, and Sorry, while Samuel’s work as a producer extends beyond Silkarmour into studio production with abrasive noise-rockers gegenpress and Maddison Windfarm, shining new voices in London’s DIY circuit.
With each Silkarmour release, we are invited into a play with the folkloric and absurd. The flying pig hangs over it all, increasingly familiar, but no less mysterious.
