Last year, like a phoenix risen, Airport reemerged in a blaze entitled, Lilliputian. The word “Lilliputian” means little or insignificant, which Lilliputian was not, by the way. “Clarion” is the name of a war trumpet, but it can also mean loud and clear, which is how Airport’s new novelistic effort, Doomsday Clarion, truly feels.
The long-form score, which is broken up into distinct songs but structured as one swath, sounds out a group effort by Airport’s founder Miranda Pharis, plus regular contributors and now members Olivia Sullivan and Stephen Mayer, and with further contributions from Edward Shenk and Celes.
2017 was insane and 2018 already feels a bit gentler. Similarly, Lilliputian’s unhinged emotives and broad noise-walls soften into sounds of slothily strummed electric guitar; scattered drums; clappy, almost burlesque-show, piano; and more fragmented, orchestrated, and almost mathematical noise bouquets with Olivia’s ivy-like vocals, which were also heard on Lilliputian, weaving through it all.
Sometimes, her singing is tiny and fragile. Sometimes it soars and makes me want to see this whole ensemble perform on stage amidst much fog. All along she poeticizes. She reads what sounds like YouTube or other internet comments. She muses over a dead white rabbit. Is the rabbit a metaphor? If it’s really a rabbit, I think of its soft fur and its cute ears and how Olivia sings “soft dusk.” My favorite time of day. Dried flowers wilt in their dusty vases. Bedrooms and basements draped in cables and heavy sheets.
Doomsday Clarion articulates a newfound presence and surety in Airport’s sound. A sampled voice midway says, “There are some strange fucking sounds out there.” There’s literally so much happening in these 32 minutes that all I can do is implore you to explore its bugling depths on your own.
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