Clue To Kalo

Clue to Kalo represents the creative outlet of Adelaide, Australia’s Mark Mitchell. What started as glitchy laptop pop later developed into a symphonic indie pop ensemble. From childhood Mitchell imagined himself a recording artist, inventing tracks and designing nonexistent album sleeves, yet he avoided learning any instrument. He turned instead to writing and completed a Ph.D. in English, only to resume music-making after a high-school friend demonstrated computer multi-track recording. Experimenting with electronic music, Mitchell reached a level of competence that prompted Mush Records to issue his debut album, Come Here When You Sleepwalk, in 2003. While touring behind that release he recruited backing musicians whose experience was nearly as modest as his own. The experience of performing live with others shaped Clue to Kalo’s second album, 2005’s One Way, It’s Every Way. Mitchell structured the record as a “musical palindrome,” situating darker material in the first half and brighter songs in the second; its combination of live and electronic textures plus more intricate arrangements set it apart from Come Here When You Sleepwalk. The vinyl-only EP Man Who Took a Step Expecting a Stair But Instead Got Level Ground, issued in late 2006, carried the project still closer to live instrumentation and included a cover of the Beatles’ “Mother Nature’s Son.” Mitchell and his collaborators completed the third Clue to Kalo album, Lily Perdida, in 2007; the record, which follows a woman’s life from birth to death through the eyes of those around her, did not appear until early 2009.