(First published in Issue 122 of Electronic Sound magazine, February 2025)

BHAJAN BHOY
Bhoy On The Wire
(Cardinal Fuzz / Feeding Tube)

“In September 1984, I started a degree course at the University of Lancaster,” remembers Ajay Saggar. “On a wet and soggy afternoon, I sat in my room and decided to alleviate the boredom by seeing if there was anything to listen to on the radio…”

The programme he discovered gave him fresh impetus. On The Wire was a brand new BBC Radio Lancashire show, presented by Steve Barker and filling the Sunday schedules with a giddy array of electronica, reggae and psychedelia, alongside nuggets from the still-emerging hip-hop scene. The teenage Saggar was smitten. By 1988 he had been a studio guest, introducing tracks from his own Peel-endorsed band, Dandelion Adventure. And the love affair has continued for four decades and counting, effortlessly surviving BBC cuts and the show’s 2023 relocation to Mixcloud and Slack City Radio.

Through Saggar’s wildly eclectic musical journey – with Donkey, The Bent Moustache, King Champion Sounds and now as the drone-fuelled Bhajan Bhoy – On The Wire has always been there. Recorded especially for the show’s 40th anniversary in 2024, these ambient sessions act as both an affecting thankyou for Barker’s support and as a touching reminder of Saggar’s formative years. ‘Campus Blues (Lancaster)’ says it all: a drifting, sitar-based drone laced with treated glockenspiel, it perfectly evokes the unique dreariness of student ennui, of watching rain sweep across the roof of County College while waiting for Spar to open.

Rain feels like a recurring motif. The interwoven piano melodies of ‘Castle Bandstand (Clitheroe)’ dance and twinkle like a passing Sunday shower, the magnificently-titled ‘Pass The Sushi Pon The Lef’ Hand Side (Burnley)’ is a mesmeric patter of synth arpeggios being slowly deluged by an unexpected squall of banjo. The closing ‘Caribbean Club (Preston)’ brings a glimpse of sunshine, though. A warming duet for pirouetting guitars, it’s an homage to a venue that became emblematic of the town’s multicultural heritage – while also, slightly surreally, hosting live performances by The Membranes, The Wedding Present and Bogshed.

Saggar has long since relocated to Amsterdam, but – like all the best radio – On The Wire has transcended regional limitations and created its own community. A community celebrated with appropriate aplomb by this affectingly heartfelt collection.    

Album available here:
https://bhajanbhoy.bandcamp.com/album/bhoy-on-the-wire

SCHOLARS OF THE PEAK
The Call Of The Summit
(Wormhole World)

“My name is Nora Crestborne, and I’m no stranger to the call of the summit”. In some parallel universe 1990s, it wasn’t Lara Croft that shimmied her way into a million geeky hearts, it was pixellated Peak District mountaineer Crestborne. Her imaginary console-based quest to uncover the ancient secrets of Chapel-En-Le-Frith forms the backbone of Drew Huddart’s pristine second album as Scholars Of The Peak, a project that has arrived thrillingly fully-formed.

Huddart is a church bellringer who pours his clear love of Plain Bob patterns into winsome synth lines, but his memories of 16-bit gaming and his fascination with local folklore add extra dimensions here. The endearing bleeps of ‘The Hedgehog’s Hunt’ and – brace yourselves – ‘The Devil’s Arse’ shouldn’t fail to raise a smile, but it’s ‘Ghosts Of The Derwent Bell Tower’ that proves the perfect synthesis of his disparate interests. Crystalline melodies pay joyous homage to a church long-since submerged by a local reservoir, and the message is clear: it’s game on for both Huddart and his fictional Megadrive muse.

Album available here:
https://thescholarsofthepeak.bandcamp.com/album/peak-quest-the-call-of-the-summit-expanded-edition

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Vorsicht! Digital Themes From The Arcadia Library
(Buried Treasure)  

The title? It means ‘Caution!’, but let’s throw it to the wind and dive headfirst into this curious tale. Teaching at an Oxfordshire college, Buried Treasure supremo Alan Gubby found an expansive collection of 1980s library music CDs in a dusty cupboard. Arcadia Cosmos, he discovered, was once the go-to archive for film directors whose low budget flicks were equally likely to feature both Paul Freeman in a white Armani suit and at least three fast-moving Ford XR3is.

This splendid collection brings together a dozen little gems from Arcadia’s unlikely stable. David Beast gets the lion’s share: ‘Endurance Test’ sounds like Jan Hammer operating from a lock-up in Romford, while ‘Powers Of Darkness’ is surely the growling soundtrack to some long-forgotten 1987 eco-thriller where Trevor Eve uncovers government conspiracies using floppy discs the size of manhole covers. But a word too for Klaus Back and Tini Beier, whose moody ‘Submerged Cultures’ is the perfect would-be accompaniment to the nefarious activities of a KGB sleeper cell hiding out in Stoke Newington.

Album available here:
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/vorsicht-digital-themes-from-the-arcadia-library

PARASTATIC
Concrete Reborn
(Workie Ticket)

“Unrepentant aggression / Murderous monoliths,” whispers Tyneside-based poet Late Girl on ‘A Building Is A Weapon’, the uncompromising opening gambit of this heartfelt homage to Geordie Brutalism. “His stark materials / Unapproachable textures”. She’ll probably never make a successful estate agent, but it’s a thrilling introduction to an album of thunderous charms.

A decade on from 2015 album Recall Fade Return, the post-rock grooves whipped up by core trio Jon Garrard, Jonnie Halling and Neil Caffery feel looser, more organic. In stark contrast, of course, to the clinical contours of their subject matter. “Lines on lines piled high and long / Sneer and snap at the city song,” spits their new frontwoman on the celebratory ‘Dancing To A Modernist Beat’. Although ‘Tear It Down’ tacitly acknowledges the city’s one-time objections to its new 1970s skyline: “Social stigma / Pissed in lifts / Stairwell crime-scenes”.

Combining deceptively spacious soundscapes with lyrics that offer the very latest in open plan minimalism, it’s an album that provides the ideal investment opportunity.

Album available here:
https://parastatic.bandcamp.com/album/concrete-reborn

TWO WAY MIRRORS
Endure
(Frosti)   

When your opening track is called ‘They Found Your Rotting Head (In A Peat Bog)’ then it’s probably wise not to expect too many upbeat, jolly singalongs. For his second full album as Two Way Mirrors, Thomas ‘Sulk Rooms’ Ragsdale has manipulated crackly classical recordings and medieval chants into dark, graceful elegies that patiently unfurl. ‘The Woods At Holme’ is the highlight, a slice of swelling ambience that imbues the landscape of his native West Yorkshire with a strange, shimmering magic.

Album available here:
https://thomasragsdalemusic.bandcamp.com/album/endure

THE HEARTWOOD INSTITUTE
Forgotten Futures
(Bandcamp)

He might be Cumbria’s leading exponent of rustic electronic oddness, but Jonathan Sharp spent a sizeable chunk of his 1970s childhood visiting his dad in London. ‘Barnsbury’ sets the tone for an album of bittersweet memories, weaving vintage vox pop disillusionment (“If, like most of us round here, you live in a slum…”) around austere synth melodies. Fans of Metamatic-era John Foxx will find much to love, with the likes of ‘Kings Cross Road’ and ‘The Battle For Powis Square’ positively reeking of Ballardian tower blocks and resolutely unloved concrete.   

Album available here:
https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/forgotten-futures

Electronic Sound – “the house magazine for plugged in people everywhere” – is published monthly, and available here:
https://electronicsound.co.uk/

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