(First published in Issue 110 of Electronic Sound magazine, February 2024)
EPIC45
You’ll Only See Us When The Light Has Gone
(Wayside & Woodland)
“First thing in the morning, harsh words by the school gate,” sighs Ben Holton on ‘New Town Faded’, the opening track of this elegantly resigned album. “They say ‘I won’t let them push me, this country made me’…”
Epic45 have always operated in the edgelands. In the 1990s, core members Holton and Rob Glover were school friends in Wheaton Ashton, a Staffordshire village within hissing distance of the M6. And their band – formed in 1995 when both were barely teenagers – has lurked ever since in the wilderness separating bucolic idealism from head-throbbing modernity. But where previous recordings have raked over the autumnal embers of childhood memory, this – their twelfth studio album – takes a crisply contemporary approach. When those edgelands, those forgotten small towns and weed-filled suburbs, are emptied of purpose by political neglect and prospectless ennui, what fills the gaps?
Their conclusions? Misplaced patriotism and tabloid-fuelled bitterness, but the album – with its wistful guitars and open-skied synths – is far from polemic. ‘Passing’ is a breathy swipe at rabble-rousing political poseurs (“You’re safe with us under our guiding hand / But just know your place”) but elsewhere the mood is affectingly personal. ‘Be Nowhere’ urges a downtrodden housewife to seize the chance for escape. “She keeps a silent vigil on a laminated floor / Pink gauntlet to the ceiling for a fallen English town,” sings Holton, his heart keening. “When there’s nothing left inside and nowhere left to hide / Just be nowhere”.
There are laudable attempts to understand the resentment that can seethe through silent streets. “Neighbours start to crack / Plastic flags seen from the fields / Left behind left to rot by poisoned words from shadows and ghosts”. So begins ‘The Crush’, the album’s penultimate lament, driven by a coruscating spiral of acoustic fingerpicking. Joined by drummer Mike Rowley, Holton and Glover have created a sparsely tasteful musical setting for these phlegmatic kitchen sink chronicles. But amid the woozy wobbles of closing track ‘Finality’, it seems the trio are planning their own escape. “We’re leaving home across country / To another place / To another town / We’ll stay on the outside and watch life from the inside”. On this form, here’s hoping for a swift return.
Album available here:
https://waysideandwoodlandrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/youll-only-see-us-when-the-light-has-gone
OFFICE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Doing. Is. Thinking.
(Bex-Pop)
Fancy getting your ducks in a row and thinking outside the box? Trevor Deeble has done exactly that. Once precisely 50% of folk duo Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou, he has since re-assessed his core values to become the motivational guru behind Office For Personal Development, a splendidly ripe pisstake of evangelical corporate culture.
The music is magnificent, evoking the synthpop glories of Heaven 17 or Furniture. But Deeble has also struck a canny lyrical balance. Songs that could have been stuffed with knowing references to fax machines are instead heartfelt vignettes of isolation and delusion. So strident odes to self-improvement like ‘You Are In Control’ (“It takes a lifetime of dedication to even achieve mediocrity”) are countered elsewhere by worrying vulnerability. “I’ve been thinking that I am Jesus,” sings Deeble on the bleepy banger that is ‘Do It All Over Again’. “It’s fun going up and down at the supermarket when you think you’re the son of God”. Going forward, this could be a game changer.
Album available here:
https://theopd.bandcamp.com/album/doing-is-thinking
TAPIR!
The Pilgrim, Their God And The King Of My Decrepit Montain
(Heavenly)
“The story of a solitary traveller – known as The Pilgrim – on a journey across a mythical landscape of eerie forests, stormy seas and unholy mountains populated by beasts, injured birds and idealized eidolons”. And surely we’re all here for the idealized eidolons? We’re told Tapir! are a London-based six-piece fronted by singer and guitarist Ike Gray, but let’s not bog ourselves down in such dreary mundanity. These are giant, papier-mâché head-wearing visionaries on noble quest across an acid-folk Middle Earth.
Fans of 1970s weirdies like Trees and Comus will find plenty to adore. ‘On A Grassy Knoll (We’ll Bow Together)’ sets the tone, Gray’s plaintive vocals surrounded by spiralling keyboards and devotional choirs, before ‘Swallow’ delves headfirst into tangled, trumpet-laden folklore. “He calls my name, the sacred hunter…” By the time we reach the Erik Satie-influnced ‘Gymnopédie’, we’re fully immersed in this splendidly wonky world. “I’ve been told in Heaven the rooms are filled with mice / There’s breadcrumbs in the bedsheets and Jesus had head lice”. Genius.
Album available here:
https://tapir-exclamation-mark.bandcamp.com/album/the-pilgrim-their-god-and-the-king-of-my-decrepit-mountain
AURORA ENGINE
Secret Knock
(Bandcamp)
“Tiny hands, tiny feet, tiny little hairbrush to keep her neat,” sings Deborah Shaw at the beginning of this glacially strange album. “I’ve been working so hard to keep things small”. It’s an record of delightful contrasts. Shaw’s vocals are half husky Geordie, half ethereal pixie, and her own mellifluous harp playing is woven elegantly around electronic fizzles. All are showcased immaculately on ‘Miniature Self’, a resigned sigh at the reductive measures women are expected to take to find acceptance.
Her lyrical concerns are eclectic, too. ‘Roxy Ryder’ is an anthemic, string-laden apology from a guilty porn addict, ‘Scaling The Walls’ laments the lonely existence of a geologist obsessing over a rare mineral. But it’s Shaw’s own battle with anxiety that is most affecting. ‘Pink Noise’ is her restless, harp-driven battle with insomnia, and ‘Keenia’ the imaginary friend she invents to find comfort. “We could have a secret knock and live on Sherbert Lemon Drops / Running, stampeding, howling in the dark”. Alluring magic abounds throughout this splendid collection.
Album available here:
https://auroraengine.bandcamp.com/album/secret-knock
LETTERS FROM MOUSE
Clota
(Subexotic)
Clota? The Celtic goddess of the River Clyde, and Steven ‘Letters From Mouse’ Anderson has honoured her with this soothingly modular tribute. His 2022 album Tarbolton Bachelors Club was an homage to Robert Burns’ regular 18th century hangout, and Clota is a similarly ambient celebration of Scotland’s quieter corners. So the woozy tinkles of ‘Frogspawn’ surrender to the lilting piano of ‘Bowling Greens And Tennis Courts’, before hissing traffic and birdsong lead us to the fractured arpeggios of ‘Habitual Joy’. An album of soft sunshine and gently clearing skies.
Album available here:
https://lettersfrommouse.bandcamp.com/album/clota
Electronic Sound – “the house magazine for plugged in people everywhere” – is published monthly, and available here:
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