See the world from the other side fo the wing.

The influence of art in understanding our surroundings is hard to quantify. Despite the rise of social media, the immediate gratification so easily accessed from a ten second video spiel, it is still common to see satirical comic strips reflecting the structure of our current climate. We digest the world in many ways, from word on the street to billboards in times square. Everything has an influence, for example Gabi Garbutt’s new EP The Creation of the birds was influenced by Mexican surrealist painter Remedios Varo. who has a painting with the same title.

Varo has explained that she ‘repeatedly turned to music as a symbol of the wholeness [she]sought whilst believing that surrealism “contributed to art in the same way psychoanalysis has contributed to the exploration of the subconscious.” Garbutt’s latest release does just this.

Her feature track Panic encapsulates the dismal state of current affairs in a wittily wrapped opener that hits you like the cold stepping out of the shower.  This track brings with it a barnstorming collab from Du Blonde for an anthemic feel.  Whilst the second track, Stun like a flower truly explores the boundaries of surrealism, the dreamscape of a shaken mind, the art revolution of the human experience, if we do not strip back the layers of ourselves how we expect to understand our surface? Entrenched in gothic pessimism, shrouded in a foreboding atmosphere this track tis imbued in the macabre wrapped in a harrowing , power ballad style.

Swim in the unconscious sea of your mind, watch the waves roll over you as your skin stays dry, your hands become those on a clock face by the time we reach All The Magic’ which burns us deeper into the surrealistic wells of Gabi’s imagination, with arcane references to occult spells and alchemy, concluding with a spacey chromatic outro that rolls meticulously into Unquiet Mind. 

Just like the experimental elements of surrealism, everything means nothing and nothing means silence, this latest EP introduces a new direction, for Gabi. Goodbye to her distinctive jangly guitars hello to a more plaintive piano riff, a sip of sweet sax and what could either be a flute or a whistle or a soundbite of Garbutt’s mind. As the great Salvador Dali once said “Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” The exploration into the unknown is a frightening but liberating journey.

The EP rounds off with Satellite Gazing, a pensive ballad about searching for solace in the night sky and finding only blinking satellites, the rattling space junk of some ‘raging tycoon’, presumably Elon Musk. One day we will find a can of pop on the moon, half empty and warmed by the sun. Bored of poisoning our own planet we must pullet space next, none of these missions will extend our time on Earth or on any planet in the solar system for that matter.

Fly from the monotonous horrors of your 9-5 with The Creation Of Birds’ which embraces us on a spellbound odyssey through the hinterlands of alchemy, dark magic, melancholy and finally to the stars. Remedios Varo would probably hum along to it as she paints.