From the first issue of Neu Magazine, New York:
In 1983 Beat Icon William S. Burroughs packed up his Bowery, New York belongings and moved to Lawrence, Kansas to finish out the chapters of his life. In a reverse pilgrimage of sorts, young Patrick Cleandenim, product of Lawrence, has made his way to New York's Lower East Side and Cooper Union where he plies his craft in music and visual arts.
"Baby Comes Home," Cleandenim's debut album will be released in Europe in early 2007 with stateside release soon thereafter. Cleandenim has crafted a song cycle with all the ambition of 64-track orchestrations that pays homage to the sounds of glam, jazz rock, and lounge, but the songs' often up-tempo beats and full sound sometimes belie their more twisted and dark lyrics (the track "Cognac and Caviar," for instance. is about poisoning...)
In the unending desire to classify and quantify, Cleandenim's music has typically been categorized as jazz rock but while jazz is important to Cleandenim, he explains that "it's more about the process than the actual product." As for musical influence, Cleandenim says he is as indebted to the producers Phil Spector and Jean-Claude Vannier, who produced french troubadour Serge Gainsbourg, as he is to a more likely comparison of a Beck.
A healthy tradition of rock bands have taken in the crucible of the "Art School's" nurturing womb - from Pink Floyd's Regent Street Polytechnic to the Talking Head's RISD - and Patrick and his Cooper Union mates have high hopes to continue in their predecessor's footsteps.
- Matt Saha
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