Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Mark Sultan, Modern Sky USA/Dirty Water Records 2018.
Mark Sultan, like Tash Sultana, has released an album in which he plays all the recorded instruments.
Sultan hails from Berlin, Germany, and although most people have never heard of him, his input can be heard on the recordings of many major label English and European bands such as The Red, Last Gang, Crypt, and Wick amongst many others.
Over the course of multiple decades he’s compiled a substantial discography built from the strength of his own recordings and the many side projects he’s been involved in.
Mark Sultan’s disposition is towards taking classic garage rock sounds and presenting them in new ways.
The name of his personal studio, Imperfection Studios, gives some idea of his ethos.
Imperfections are to be treasured rather than digitally corrected because music needs to live and breathe. To err is human.
As Leonard Cohen put it “There’s a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in.”
Sultan is somewhat unique in the 60s revivalist movement in that he doesn’t just regurgitate parodies of the genre but takes it and twists and experiments with the sound to create something new.
Let Me Out is hard to pin down.
The up-front sound might be 60s pop/rock but there’s more going on.
The songs have surprising depth to them while at the same time harking back to a simpler more straight forward time and sound.
Songs like Believe Me run through a myriad of sounds and rhythmic changes that disrupt and disorientate.
There’s hints of the Kinks and the Pretty Things in there but much more as well.
He has gained the attention of the music press and they have been effusive in their praise.
The London Times called him: “The best one man band alive. If you don’t believe me watch him perform. It is absolutely otherworldly and will blow your mind.”
And Dusted Magazine said: “There’s a powerful, surprisingly complicated, interplay of emotional currents in these songs so that even the most overt party themes have a wounded underbelly.”
I really like what he’s done. He’s certainly a talented musician.
