Pinnacle Tricks - Celestials

​Pinnacle Tricks

Celestials
​self-released; 2022

3.8 out of 5

By Dino DiMuro

Pinnacle Tricks is the musical project of Patrick S. Clinen from Sydney, Australia. Though he’s been a semi-professional musician since his teenager years, he’s kept his music career separate from his work life until now. He says that he was too scared by modern recording technology to learn (which I can relate to), but learn he did and has just released his first album titled Celestials. Clinen calls this an EP, but with ten songs and running over 35 minutes, it certainly qualifies as an LP.

Clinen describes his songs as “wandering through art rock, psychedelia, blues and folk.  When I write music I try to invoke mood through the use of the modes, which I believe give a bit of color to a piece. My writing process is driven by my love of creative writing; a number of my lyrics began as poems and evolved into something else. Some of my inspirations are David Bowie, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, The Cure and Mazzy Star.” All recording, mixing and mastering took place at Clinen’s home (“Recording can be a struggle as I’m the father of two young children!”) using a Tascam 8-track recorder.

“In The Melancholy Coffee House” starts out very much like a classic home taper would using a multitrack recorder: doubled electric guitars both picked and strummed, bass, a distant tambourine and Clinen’s hoarse but compelling vocals. His style has the immediacy of solo John Lennon, and there’s a definite feel for the space he’s recording in. You can easily imagine him calling you into his bedroom and saying: “Check out what I did here!”  Lyrically the feel is definitely steeped in melancholy, but his pain is our gain! When the song ends, it simply cuts off.

“Heliosphere” continues in the same vein, with guitar chords that are just slightly different than what you’d expect (alternate fingering or tuning, I can’t be sure) with a melodic lead line to carry us safely across. Thematically this song deals with the transient nature of life and memories (“Blink and you’ll miss it, baby”), and Clinen’s voice is again the perfect vehicle, this time reflecting a bit of early Bowie. Clinen takes a concluding guitar solo that has a clean ’60s quality, NOT bathed in fuzz tone or phasing. 

In “Stained Glass” Clinen adds piano and (digital?) drums to his picked guitars. This one has a melodic structure and slightly out of tune quality of Velvets-era Lou Reed. A shorter tune but I loved it.

“Birds of Paradise” is the first blatantly psychedelic piece, with a shimmering pad of harpsichord or mellotron. Clinen’s vocal is a little buried but I love the sound of the tune. “Saturn in Locrian / Ceres in Lydian” is an instrumental that begins with eerie bird calls and backward piano, then goes forward again, using the Locrian and Lydian scales. Somewhat stark and experimental but an interesting change for this part of the album, and it ends almost exactly as it began.

“Straw Man” has a dark Doors feel. Clinen sings along with both chunky and picked electric guitars, building a sense of menace as he progresses. A funhouse organ reinforces the scary, unsettled atmosphere. Clinen also introduces an interesting percussive track, which sounds like multiple hand claps in almost perfect time. Certainly one of the more compelling tracks!

“The Kids Are Growing Up” starts right out with a lovely acoustic picking scheme, kind of like Donovan with a hangover. Thematically it feels like a father’s frustration with not being able to provide for his kids 100% of the time, to which I can certainly relate! “Mint Cigarettes” is the second instrumental, and it’s a surprising delta blues slide-a-thon. Clinen’s playing here is a bit rough as befits the genre and it’s another bracing, unexpected detour.

“Gallows Humour” is a dark (VERY dark) ode to a lost lover, one whom the narrator might soon find swinging from a rope. That’s Pinnacle Tricks for you! Structurally it’s bluesy, somewhat recalling “House Of The Rising Sun.” Clinen’s guitars are a little less locked-in, as befits a man that can barely face what may be coming.

“Epoch - A Celebration of Life” is the concluding 12-minute Epic in three Acts. Clinen explains that this track “looks to tell the Creation / Christ narrative in Acts of Amber (form), Embers (life) and Umbra (darkness).” It starts proggy, with hypnotic guitar and synth parts and whispered vocals. Clinen chose to create a “click track” by looping what sounds like a guitar being plugged in, which I didn’t really care for. The next section is a bit more accessible, with strummed chords and charming, minor-key melodies that reminded me of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord.” The final section starts with monk-like chants of “Consummatum est - Gloria!” The final song proper has a Bowie gravity, while still sounding unavoidably like Pinnacle Tricks. This miniature Rock Opera doesn’t totally gel as whole, but the individual parts were all quite interesting.

​In a time when many home artists create albums that could easily come from a major label, it’s refreshing to hear someone’s album that actually plays more like home demos. This particular sound is how you once could identify music that did not come from a corporate stamper, but was in fact a real person’s passion project. It’s up to Cinen if he now wants to take the next steps forward, but what he has here is quite good and very unique for our times.

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