Electronic Sound – Reviews (Issue 113)

(First published in Issue 113 of Electronic Sound magazine, May 2024)

KEELEY FORSYTH
The Hollow
(Fatcat)

From ominous, thunder-filled skies, through the black rain of the North York Moors, comes a voice to rattle the bones. Monastic, despairing, its meaning half-lost in a skin-chilling squall of electronic noise: “It feeds in the hollow of my mouth / The dregs now walk within me,” it cries. “There is no help here / Not for me”.

The title track of Keeley Forsyth’s superb third album was seemingly inspired by the discovery of a long-abandoned mineshaft on a moorland walk. And this portal between air and earth, between desperate life and mouldering death, is perfectly symbolic of an album frequently overwhelmed by grief. “A cold wind / Sweeps up the dead,” sings Forsyth on ‘Eve’, as icy gales whip around her operatic vocals. “An air so dreary / Even the fittest body would / Lay its spirit down to die”. It’s a haunting tribute to the doting grandmother who raised her on a 1980s Oldham council estate.

The odd twist here? Music is Forsyth’s second career, following decades as a TV actor. She was a regular in Peak Practice and Heartbeat, and is surely the only artist in this month’s edition of Electronic Sound to have taken part in a Family Fortunes all-star special. So it’s all the more remarkable that Scott Walker’s bleak 1995 opus Tilt, with its orchestral sweeps and baritone despair, should become the clear template for her recording career. Although, admittedly, more recent onstage performances as a self-created mute, moorland hermit called ‘The Scuttler’ suggest a distinct interest in the darker corners of the human condition.

Forsyth presses these dramatic chops into affecting service on the spoken word ‘A Shift’, adapting ‘Women Of The Working Class’, Mal Finch’s 1984 tribute to the wives of striking miners, into a message of strident solidarity with fellow female creatives. But those expecting redemption at the album’s conclusion may be downhearted. The closing ‘Creature’, a stark piano recital from some austere moorland chapel, only reinforces the hopelessness of that goosebump-raising title track. There is still no help here, reiterates Forsyth, her voice now sounding slurred and defeated. Perhaps her fourth album will finally emerge blinking into moorland sunshine, but for now let’s stay underground and wallow in the half-lit beauty of this stunningly lachrymose collection.

Album available here:
https://keeleyforsyth.bandcamp.com/album/the-hollow

WARRINGTON-RUNCORN NEW TOWN DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Your Community Hub
(Castles In Space)

It’s only three years since Gordon Chapman-Fox recorded his first Warrington-Runcorn album as a nose-thumbing “what the hell” riposte to an indifferent world. Four albums later, he has been crowned King of the New Towns, a crusading champion of Brutalist town planning, the only man to have led euphoric festival crowds into fist-pumping celebrations of Rocksavage Power Station at the side of the M56.

The message has become more political, but Your Community Hub is not a polemic album. Inspired by Runcorn’s Castlefields Centre, it’s a heartwarming celebration of forgotten togetherness. ‘A Shared Sense Of Purpose’ sets the scene, a glimmering modular tribute to streets bustling with snotty kids and head-scarved pensioners alike. ‘Rapid Transport Links’ adds kinetic beats, ‘Facilities For All Ages’ is a lightly hypnotic homage to a receding age of accessible healthcare. If 2023’s The Nation’s Most Central Location was a scream of anger at the misery of modern life, this is more a resigned headshake at the fading memories of what we’ve lost – but it’s no less affecting for that.

Album available here:
https://warrington-runcorn-cis.bandcamp.com/album/your-community-hub

THE BALLONIST
A Quiet Day
(Wayside and Woodland)

Memories of chickenpox have never felt so seductive. The Balloonist was intended as a one-off project for epic45 frontman Ben Holton, with 2023’s sublime debut album a floating, Mr Benn-inspired joyride above semi-mythical Arcadian countryside. Here, Holton comes softly back to earth. Opening track ‘Midweek Rain’ – all groggy synths and soft pattering on the window – is the perfect introduction to an album with one Start-Rite shoe planted firmly in the listless ennui of the school holidays, the other in the sallow jumble of assorted youthful maladies.

It’s an elegantly touching collection, an immaculate evocation of the sheer stillness of the pre-digital childhood. The noodling guitars of ‘Pebble Mill At One’ are an affectionate homage to BBC One’s lunchtime magazine show for pensioners, the jazzy strums of ‘Afternoon Ceefax’ an endearing throwback to the delights of reading Teletext weather forecasts with a temperature. Holton’s melodies are effortlessly poignant, hovering like motes of dust floating behind the kitchen curtains in pale, February sunshine. Exquisite.

Album available here:
https://waysideandwoodlandrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/a-quiet-day

PENNY ARCADE
Backwater Collage
(Tapete)

From “a place of secret coves and vast moors” (we think it might be Totnes) comes James Hoare, one-time guitarist with Veronica Falls. His first solo album proper pays clear homage to his beloved Velvet Underground, all packing case drums and mooning arpeggios, but there’s British psychedelic whimsy at large here, too. ‘Dear John’ could be a folky White Album outtake, ‘Black Cloud’ sounds like Syd Barrett becoming a little too lucid for comfort. “Every day the same merry-go-round / Trapped inside a paper bag”. A keening, pensive sigh of an album.

Album available here:
https://pennyarcade.bandcamp.com/album/backwater-collage

SYNTHETIC VILLAINS
Sounds From Inside The Racing Mind
(Bandcamp)

What does “contabulation” mean? The answer: nothing whatsoever, but Lancaster insomniac Richard Turner lay awake one night convinced it referred to the sound of metal being struck. The result? The tinkling melodies of ‘Cascading Confabulations’ – a word that does exist, and refers to appropriately false memories. This hugely enjoyable album boasts fuzzy dream logic throughout, with the likes of ‘Nipparty Noppit’ and ‘Mind Pop’ combining dinky beats and vintage bleeps to effortlessly recreate the whirling mental gymnastics of the reluctantly wide-awake.

Album available here:
https://syntheticvillains.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-from-inside-the-racing-mind

PLANT VOX
REset
(Platoon)

And, on keyboards… an evergreen Ashwagandha. Not content with a bit of basic pruning at the weekends, Oram Award winner Helen Anahita Wilson combines close-mic recordings of plants in Sussex gardens with compositions derived from their genetic DNA codes, creating a delightfully seamless suite. Indian classical motifs gently cross-pollinate with swelling electronica, as the reposeful harp of ‘Vivo’ is slowly subsumed by the slow-breath ambience of ‘Deep Rest’ and ‘Essence’. Originally seeded to aid mindfulness in cancer patients, it has flowered into a soothing panacea for all.

Album available here:
https://plantvox.bandcamp.com/album/reset

PULSE: ROBYN ERRICO

Who she?

Arguably Darlington’s finest purveyor of fantasy-influenced psychedelic folktronica. Her excellent debut EP Back To The Mud takes its name from a phrase in Joe Abercrombie’s best-selling book trilogy, The First Law.

“It has a warrior society called the Northmen,” explains Robyn. “Being northern, perhaps, I took a particular liking to them despite their savage-ness. They have a phrase for dying – going back to the mud. I liked the gritty honesty and the circularity of it, the idea of going back to the earth rather than leaving it. It sounds natural yet brutal.”

Why Robyn Errico?

Listen to the likes of ‘Sycamore Tree’ or ‘Lightless, The Stars’. She’s got a voice that, quite frankly, might send shivers down the spines of longstanding Kate Bush fans.

“It’s extremely flattering that Kate Bush is almost always mentioned in reference to my music,” says Robyn. “Truthfully, I’m not overly familiar with much of her work, although ‘Wuthering Heights’ has always been a favourite! I grew up listening to Radiohead, Tori Amos, Jeff Buckley, Damien Rice, Alanis Morissette and Pink Floyd. I’m also very inspired by classical music and film scores, as I really appreciate the way that music accompanies stories to create a certain atmosphere.”

Tell us more…

The EP has been slickly produced by fellow Monte Darlo resident Graeme Robinson, one-time Dubstar manager and North-eastern drum maestro.

“I met Graeme through my mum, who knew him back in the 1980s and ‘90s,” says Robyn. “Working with him has been great, and I feel like we really trust one another’s judgement. Plus, I have so much respect for him as a drummer – the tracks just wouldn’t kick the same without him!”