Sculpture - Toad Blinker

TRON showed us what it would be like to be sucked into a digital video game, but what about being absorbed into a pinball machine? The electronic wizardry and analogue tape manipulations on Toad Blinker demonstrate what this would be like. This is the audio/visual duo Sculpture’s second full length zoetropic picture disc, and much like Rotary Signal Emitter, it’s a tidal pool of playful energy and audio mayhem. Toad Blinker is 35 minutes of carbonated caprice and while its music stands on its own, the album cannot be fully appreciated without Reuben Sutherland’s fantastic animation that is best viewed through filming the LP in motion at 25 frames per second with a high shutter speed? Don’t have a good camera? Neither do most of us, leaving us to observe the picture disc through a homemade viewer (demonstrated here) while Dan Hayhurst’s effervescent music concrète takes center stage. Imagine the ghostly fanfare of Philip Jeck sent through a grossly exaggerated machine built for Willy Wonka, and you might get an idea. The music is exciting: never stabilizing but also never running off the rails. Sounding much like the mind of a toddler, it’s surprising how intriguing Toad Blinker is despite the melodies and themes being hidden or absent all together. This duo is producing an artistic product that is highly unique, further pushing the idea that music when grafted into other realms of expression can be more than a folder of mp3s.

Elk Cloner from Sculpture on Vimeo.