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Jerry Garcia once accurately said, “All music is psychedelic,” and truer words were never spoken. At its best, sound can take a willing listener to the outer edges of reality, no matter what style it is. To look at the recent troubles of the music business is to see what happens when outside order is imposed on an art form to try and segregate it for unnatural causes. There was a reason Miles Davis and Neil Young used to play on the same bill: creativity knows no bounds. Those days are long gone, and now that different genres aren’t allowed much to co-inhabit concerts, audiences are way worse off. Enter Starling Electric to try and change that. Within these 18 songs is such a wide and wild range of music, they’re almost impossible to tag. They’re a little like a musical Zelig: the band can shift personas with total confidence, and never sound like they’re anything less than inspired. Instead of trying to list all their intriguing influences here, it’s better just to say they’ve learned from the masters. Led by Caleb Dillon, Clouded Staircase was self-released two years ago, as the band built its name around Ann Arbor and beyond. Word of mouth spread fast, though, and soon Guided by Voice’s Robert Pollard became a one-man cheering squad, taking Starling Electric on tour and telling anyone within earshot this group is a keeper. There is a gentle grandness to their music that marks them for greatness, an elegance of expression that puts them in the category of those they emulate. Recorded mostly in their home studio, the quartet’s real strength is how they shy away from nothing. It’s the quality that most classic albums share, which is surely what Clouded Staircase is. Listen now and let others know.
