Cindytalk - Camouflage Heart LP
$20.98
Label: Dais
Release Date: May 23rd, 2025
Cindytalk is the ever-evolving, expressionist project of Scottish artist Cinder, born from the ashes of her early '80s punk band The Freeze. After relocating from Edinburgh to London, Cinder launched Cindytalk at the intersection of UK post-punk and early European industrial, blending noise, balladry, catharsis, and improvisation into a sonic language rooted in transformation.
Following a string of acclaimed albums on Midnight Music and collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder moved to the U.S., immersing herself in the underground techno scenes of the Midwest and West Coast. Later relocations to Hong Kong and Japan opened new creative paths, culminating in a series of atmospheric experimental releases for Vienna’s Editions Mego. In 2021, she joined forces with Dais Records to reissue long-lost gems and unveil new works—beginning with the reappearance of Wappinschaw (1995) and The Wind Is Strong… (1990), and now returning to the fearless 1984 debut, Camouflage Heart.
Written during a time of personal upheaval and gender exploration, Camouflage Heart was Cinder’s attempt to carve space for a voice the world wasn’t yet ready to understand. The sound—feral, poetic, and emotionally raw—signaled a radical shift from punk into something more fractured and expressive. With bandmates David Clancy and John Byrne, she renamed the project Cindytalk—a sly nod to the British Sindy doll—as a way to mark both a sonic and spiritual reorientation: “to uncover new pathways… to feminize it.”
The album draws power from its extremes. Recorded at London’s Gateway Studio, its textures move from sparse percussion scraped from household objects to violent guitar stabs and guttural vocal performances. Inspired by Brian Eno’s studio-as-instrument philosophy, the band took their time, stretching each sound to its limit. Tracks like “The Spirit Behind the Circus Dream” and “It’s Luxury” ripple with tension and vulnerability, balancing fury and fragility in equal measure. “I couldn’t make a record like that now,” Cinder reflects, “but the warrior is still there.”
For all its darkness, Camouflage Heart is not about destruction—it’s about resilience. “Don’t look down,” Cinder sings on the opening track, through a haze of static and rhythm. “At the time, that meant keep going. What felt like falling, over time, became flying.” Forty years later, Camouflage Heart still cuts deep—an uncompromising debut that continues to inspire, provoke, and transform.
