Hello!
I’m a week late and on a Monday - very much riding on the “ish” of “fornightly(ish)”. I had every intention of getting this out last week, but I was away from my desk and, well, best laid plans and all that.
In the meantime, my interview with experimental pop sensation Káryyn was published. The feature doesn’t scratch the surface of everything we spoke about, but it was great fun to write and Káryyn has such an interesting and thoughtful approach to music.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been spinning recently…
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Polypores
WILDLIFE
Aural Canyon
Stephen Buckley has completely ditched the synthesisers for his latest record. Yes, I almost couldn’t believe it myself. Until I remembered that Stephen is incredibly good at reinventing and experimenting. ‘Wildlife’ uses only piano, woodwind, guitar, drums, and “home-made percussion implements.” It’s a real change of pace, but it stands to reason that Stephen’s electronic brain would have some more organic outcrops here and there. Inspired by the likes of Steve Reich and Pharoah Sanders, it would be easy to point at the big neon-flashing “New Age” sign to describe ‘Wildlife’. But as with most things Stephen does, it’s far more interesting. There’s a hazy dreaminess to ‘Thought Bubble’, and an ordered chaos to the percussive ripples that stampede under that winding flute on ‘The Faceless Clock At The End Of Time’. ‘The Sanctuary’ feels like I’ve entered a part of Stephen’s brain, as textures spiral and trill and neural fauna interact with one another. It’s a really interesting record, and shows a different (yet wholly natural) side to Polypores that we’ve only heard snippets from before.
Midlum
OGE SUND
Bandcamp
You may remember that earlier in the year I covered ‘Under Stillhet’, the first entry in ‘A Soundtrack For Paintings’ the collaborative project between musician Midlum and artist Christiaan Kuitwaard, both from the Netherlands. Very happy to see the second entry is now in the wild. The story behind ‘Oge Sund’ concerns a small island in the North Sea - “a place where land and water never agree on a boundary” (you can read more on their Substack). The track itself is gorgeous, a delicate piano melody that climbs in front of the breeze of a synth. Everything slowly builds, percussion hissing into focus, before everything slows again like the tide rolling out. But then it washes over you again in a cascade of electronic stabs and echoing textures, all circling back around that piano. Really can’t wait to see in what direction this series goes.
Numinal Void
CAPRICORN SUN
Bandcamp
I’ve been an admirer of Andy Kelly’s work for ages now. I first discovered him on Twitter back when he was a video games journalist, and have since followed his career with interest. A career that seems to be based about creating things tailored to my own interests. He made the beautiful One More Win fanzine, his tribute to racing game ‘Ridge Racer Type 4’, as well as wrote ‘Perfect Organism’, the celebration of video game ‘Alien: Isolation’. So I couldn’t not check out his concept album ‘Capricorn Sun’. Recording under the alias ‘Numinal Void’, ‘Capricorn Sun’ is a sci-fi score to a fictional movie of the same name. There’s a whole proper backstory to read through, but the music here is in the vein of Tangerine Dream and John Carpenter. Sign me up. You know you’re off to a good start when the opening track is the jingle to the film’s production company ‘Zenith Pictures’. I’m a big fan of how wobbly the synthlines are on ‘Stargate Approach’, and there’s a feel of Boards Of Canada to ‘Descent To Capricorn’. This is a full-on production in every sense - make sure you grab a limited transparent red cassette copy. I can’t imagine they’ll stay in stock for long.
Various Artists
THE SILENT HARVEST VOLUME ONE
Folk Police
I’ve been meaning to feature this compilation for a couple of weeks. I’m not sure why I haven’t until now. Folk Police’s ‘The Silent Harvest’ is a tribute to ‘The Long Harvest’ series of records that were released between 1967 and 1968 by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. Those albums contained variants of traditional folk songs. The electronic cohort featured on ‘The Silent Harvest’ were asked to “immerse themselves in the arcane and sometimes unsettling imagery” of the music on ‘The Long Harvest’, resulting in a collection of dark, hauntological eeriness. Where to start? I love the muted electronic thumps that smatter like rain on Jo Johnson’s ‘Deluded Them All’, as well as that melancholic piano melody on Veryan’s ‘The Gosport Tragedy’. The guitar work on Hawksmoor’s ‘Corvus III’ is achingly beautiful, almost Americana as if plonked into the sodden British countryside. And I’ve not even mentioned cuts by worriedaboutsatan and Field Lines Cartographer. It’s really full of gems this compilation, and if that wasn’t enough all profits from ‘The Silent Harvest’ will be donated to The Wildlife Trusts. Oh, and if that’s still not enough there’s a Volume Two for you to fill your boots with.
That’s it for this time. As always you can find my ramblings elsewhere in both print and online in Electronic Sound. I am going to tentatively dip into the world of microblogging again, so follow me on Bluesky if that’s your sort of thing.
But before I go, here are some Stray Thoughts and things from across the internet that have caught my eye…
// Please enjoy this video of a walkable cyberpunk city made entirely by ASCII characters.