Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

For now, our thoughts are our own, and we must treasure that, hold on to the privilege of self-determination and will, our judgements and beliefs that are immersed into the fabric of what makes our experiences unique, to be able to say with conviction that The Space Between My Ears belongs to me, and me alone.

Suspicions run deep in the minds of the bored, in the brains of the narrow-minded and in the imaginations of the dull and beige, for they are the ones who usually panic at the first sign of independent thought, and they are the ones who do not understand that to reflect and contemplate upon anything more than the trivial is to recognise our own humanity. The sense of melancholic alludes them, and when the conversation turns, as it naturally does so to subjects that deal with loss, consequence, addiction, and the effects on the individual psyche, it is possible to see the motor in their heads break down and retain a defence of ridicule to the process of consideration and esteem.

Then there are those such as Mike Clerk who think with clarity of vision, who understand that the space is as important as the image created in its name, and as the musician’s debut album is released, The Space Between My Ears, becomes more about repairing the moment we have all lost in the last number of years, than the angst of the moment itself.

The Space Between My Ears is compelling, it feels visual despite it coming from a place where the audio and the aural are keenly the masters, and in that graphic switch, tracks such as Thoughts of Fools, The Air In Here, Come Down With Me, So Bizarre and Words Of Gods resonate as perfectly as a vibration on tuning fork struck at the precise key or as the beautifully as the draw back on the curtains that have for so long kept the storm from being witnessed.

Majestic in its hold of truth in its melancholy, filled with courage to confront those who espouse the sincerity of the dull, The Space Between My Ears is not filled with empty rhetoric, it is the manifesto of the artist who knows that the space is replete with humanity and with style.

Mike Clerk’s The Space Between My Ears is out now.

Ian D. Hall