(First published in Issue 124 of Electronic Sound magazine, April 2025)

MIKI BERENYI TRIO
Tripla
(Bella Union)

“There used to be a song for every feeling / There used to be a lightbulb in the ceiling,” sings Miki Berenyi on lead single and opening track ‘8th Deadly Sin’. It’s ostensibly an ecological lament, but the wistful tone feels symptomatic of the midlife malaise that 2020s existence has instilled in young and old alike. “Skeletons or trees – the light we’ve left / Makes it hard to see life or death”.

It’s a bold move to make a debut album so affectingly melancholic, but the project has never been fuelled by contrivance. Originally formed to play Lush songs at promotional events for Berenyi’s 2022 autobiography, the trio is completed by her husband KJ ‘Moose’ McKillop and multi-instrumentalist Oliver Cherer, whose solo recordings as Dollboy and Gilroy Mere are nostalgic, plaintive sighs in their own right. Progression to this splendid collection has, apparently, been an organic journey, with the album’s Hungarian title both a nod to Berenyi’s family heritage and to the album’s three-way creative process.

Anyone glibly expecting the layered shoegaze of early Lush – or even the sparky Britpop of their later singles – might raise an intrigued eyebrow at the expanded sonic palette. ‘8th Deadly Sin’ boasts breathy synths and electronic beats, ‘Vertigo’ is even more rooted in elegantly melodic bleeps, sympathetically soundtracking Berenyi’s recent experiences with depression: “I forgive but can’t forget / Drive myself to drink / Want to learn from past mistakes / But still believe there’s more to make”.

Pop fans rejoice, though. A love of the three-minute masterpiece pervades, and the album expertly weaves the touchingly personal into soaring choruses and quirky middle eights. ‘Kinch’ even uses Shangri-Las beats to pay homage to both Berenyi’s late father and Lush drummer Chris Acland, who died in 1996. “You are as real to me as when you were alive,” she sighs, and it’s a genuinely lovely moment. ‘A Different Girl’, meanwhile, is a deliciously jangly love letter to Berenyi and McKillop’s daughter, while ‘Big I Am’ combats facile masculinity with irresistible disco beats.

This latter combination is key. That midlife malaise might be real, but Berenyi, McKillop and Cherer have nailed it to a soundtrack that is both upbeat and defiant. There are, it seems, still a few songs left for every feeling.

Album available here:
https://mikiberenyitrio.bandcamp.com/album/tripla

WONKY PLONKY ELECTRONK
The Wonky Sessions Volume 1
(Street)

Launched by Street Records in 2023, the deliciously-named Wonky Plonky Electronk is a roving showcase of live experimental sounds, bringing modular textures and fizzling ambience to appreciative audiences in Ramsgate, Margate and Brighton. This debut compilation from the Wonky roster collects five longform pieces, and the tone is uncompromising from the off. Mieko Shimizu’s ‘Space, Colony, Death’ sets the scene with an intense six minutes of buzzsaw gear-changes, before Dhangsha’s ‘Elbit Crushed’ adds furious beats and disintegrating throbs.

The mood mellows, through. ‘Re-Entry’ is cinematic sci-fi from Shape Navigator, ‘Syntony’ is reposeful ambience from Analogue Mechanic. But the album’s lynchpin is Gagarin’s elegant ‘Margate Illuminati’, a genuinely uplifting symphony for swelling synth and sampled seabird. One of the final works of the late Graham ‘Dids’ Dowdall, it’s testament to both the collective unity of the Wonky community and the adventurous spirit of a man to whom the whole collection is rightly dedicated.

Album available here:
https://www.wonkyplonkyelectronk.com/product-page/the-wonky-sessions-volume-1

ALISON O’DONNELL AND GAYLE BROGAN
A Colloquy Of Birds
(Sonido Polofonico)

“A tawny owl is at the bay / A barn and eagle stare in the glass,” sing O’Donnell and Brogan in spooky unison at the outset of this ornithological opus. “Nocturnal raptors at the casement / Five in the family tonight will pass”. Blimey, nothing like a glass half-empty, is there? But the mythology of birds has always veered towards the ominous, and this stirring album of feathery folktronica swoops gracefully back and forth between beauty and darkness.

Both women have previous form when it comes to rustic weirdness – O’Donnell as founder of cult 1970s outfit Mellow Candle, Brogan as half of acclaimed drone-folk duo Burd Ellen. Folk Horror maestro Grey Malkin joins them throughout, adding suitably eerie radiophonica to these uncanny tales of crossbills, cuckoos and curlews. The highlight? The playful ‘Egg On A Silver Platter’. “We walked the woodlands high and low / And found a spotless woman in blessed dress / Keeper of eggs for a saint who prays and sings” sings O’Donnell, vanishing into a world of verdant treachery. It’s genuinely transportive.

Album available here:
https://pefkin.bandcamp.com/album/a-colloquy-of-birds

IRKYA
Mind Fog
(Wormhole World)

The mental state of the reluctantly awake can be a complex beast to evoke, but Manchester producer Mat Mills has done a sterling job, assembling an album of ambient contrasts. The ceaseless bleeps of opening track ‘New Years’ might give nocturnal overthinkers an attack of the vapours, while ‘Piccadilly Gold(En)’ weaves woozy synths around field recordings of the city centre, expertly capturing the stiff-limbed exhaustion of the small hours stroller. A muzzy collection pitched perfectly in that dismal not-so-sweet spot where the body is shagged out but the brain won’t stop whirring.

Album available here:
https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/mind-fog

FELINES OF THE NIGHT
Catmandu
(Dead Forest)

Up on the Isle of Lewis, Ali Murray has clearly got into a flap. This bijou album of “death ballads sung entirely by cats” is one of the year’s more unlikely releases, but Murray certainly can’t be done under the Trade Descriptions Act. These seven immaculate acid-folk laments boast passionately mewed vocals throughout. “Miaow miaow miaow” sings Murray on opening waltz ‘The Death Of Mr Tibbs’, but the piano-fuelled beats of ‘Catmandu Moon Dance’ are woven around a more uplifting message: “Miaow miaow miaow / Miaow miaow”. Paws for thought in a troubled world.

Album available here:
https://felinesofthenight.bandcamp.com/album/catmandu

BONFIRE HILL
A Year On Bonfire Hill
(Bonfire Hill)

Throughout 2023, Whitby weirdies Rebecca Denniff and David Owen produced an “aural almanac” of twelve-minute tracks, one a month, to celebrate the tangled folklore of Bonfire Hill. This mythical mount is their windswept El Dorado, an inspiration for music with one foot in traditional folk, one foot in sound collage and both feet –  presumably – in sturdy rubber wellies. “The North Wind blows and it brings the snows / But who will sweep away the cold?” sings Denniff on ‘January’, the gateway to a rousing compendium that sources inspiration from centuries-old ballads and Ladybird books alike.

Album available here:
https://bonfirehill.bandcamp.com/album/a-year-on-bonfire-hill-2

RURAL DISTRICT LO-FI RECORDING PROJECT
Time Travelling In A Sussex Church
(Bandcamp)

“I’m not a religious man, but I do love an old church,” says David Soulscorch. This softly sinister hymnary of what he modestly calls “pound shop hauntronica” is testament to his passion for consecrated ground. ‘Ringing The Changes Across The Millennia’ is the perfect opening sermon, where clanging bells surrender to swelling drones before the disquieting whispers and deadpan tour guide narration of ‘Welcome To This Ancient Church’ take over. An album for anyone with fond memories of brass rubbing in shadowy naves.

Album available here:
https://ruraldistrictlofirecordingproject.bandcamp.com/album/time-travelling-in-a-sussex-church

Electronic Sound – “the house magazine for plugged in people everywhere” – is published monthly, and available here:
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