(First published in Issue 111 of Electronic Sound magazine, March 2024)

SAINT SAVIOUR
SUNSEEKER
(VLF)

“A picture is all I have,” sings Becky Jones on the fragile, heart-tugging song of that very title. “Though I feel your touch / On my childish cheek”. It’s a touching remembrance of both her much-missed grandmother and her recently-departed mum, but also a tender tribute to Jones’ own young daughter. The importance of family – with all its inherent loves and losses – is a theme that runs throughout this, her fourth solo album as Saint Saviour.

Jones herself describes this collection as “an experiment in challenging dourness”, clearly conscious that her previous three solo records have never shied away from downbeat self-reflection. But, thankfully, she hasn’t completely abandoned the exquisite melancholy that has transformed her from Groove Armada’s one-time chanteuse of choice to an independent singer-songwriter of elegant precision. ‘Be Gentle’ even turns the botched execution of Margaret Pole, the 16th century Countess of Salisbury, into a defiant plea for dignity and kindness. “Sainted, I’m a player under lights / Making sure my rouge is right”.

By Jones’ own admission, the song is a “wild card”. But her discovery of Pole’s fate came from long weekday walks around London’s quieter nooks, and the whole album reeks of these overgrown graveyards and hushed, dusty museums. Regular producer-of-choice Bill Ryder-Jones crafts an autumnal backdrop of softly-plucked guitars, plaintive strings and baroque woodwind flourishes, all evoking that early 1970s sweet spot when Lesley Duncan and Bridget St John made heartbreak feel wistfully alluring. It’s probably no coincidence that the promo video for ‘Better Than’ sees Jones surrounded by vintage TV equipment, performing in affectionate homage to the faded glories of The Old Grey Whistle Test.

It’s a song in which, once again, she passes the mantle of her new-found optimism onto her own daughter. “Don’t eat my mistakes / Cos you’re better than that,” she coos, her voice a soothing whisper on a pale, late afternoon. Meanwhile, ‘Not Nothing’ encourages us all to pull ourselves out of the doldrums. “I know life has been unkind to you / But it won’t apologise,” Jones sings softly, accompanied by a piano straight from some parquet-floored school hall. “Come on, it’s not nothing to try”. The future, she promises, can be as bright as this sublime album’s title suggests.

Album available here:
https://saint–saviour.bandcamp.com/album/sunseeker

RUPERT LALLY
Sculptures
(Modern Aviation)

Wandering happily through the woods between Wohlen and Bremgarten,Swiss-based Rupert Lally came across a series of curious stone sculptures. Looking at the track titles, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d taken a detour through Middle Earth. ‘Dwarf In The Mirror’ combines a throbbing Roger Waters bassline with suitably mystical electronic ambience, ‘The Talisman’ weaves ominous piano rumblings into the ripples of a sun-specked guitar. It’s like that first glimpse of a darkening sky through a canopy of rustling leaves.

Lally’s 2022 album Wanderweg – named after Switzerland’s network of public footpaths – explored similar territory. But there’s a proggier feel here, pitched somewhere between Peter Gabriel in a spangly cape and the complex, expansive angst of late 1990s Radiohead. ‘Big Shoes To Fill’ adds a walking-pace groove to swirling keyboards, ‘Hexenmusik’ slowly transforms dreamy Moog noodlings into slabs of dark disquiet. Lally pins them all to the unmoving stonework of his own bass and guitar, creating an album that feels both firmly grounded and gently fantastical.
 
Album available here:
https://musiqueparavion.bandcamp.com/album/sculptures

THE BRITISH STEREO COLLECTIVE
In The Shadow Of The Bomb
(Bandcamp)

We all know hauntology, right? Stone circles, Public Information Films and midnight ceremonies to summon the spirit of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop? Phil Heeks’ previous work as The British Stereo Collective – particularly 2021’s joyous Mystery Fields – has tapped into these tropes to gleeful effect, but In The Shadow Of The Bomb is the album where, to put it bluntly, shit gets real. Put aside that idealised 1970s of dancing Druids and suburban sex witches and instead immerse yourself in dispiriting memories of IRA bombings and the Three-Day Week.

It feels like he’s been watching World In Action on a loop. From the austere synth arpeggios of ‘Threat’ to the Brutalist electronic slabs of ‘Desolation’, it’s a bleakly beautiful depiction of Britain in a “perpetual state of social and political upheaval”. So while ‘Dereliction’ is a genial, spacey dub homage to The Specials, the bone-chilling bleeps of ‘Four Minutes’ may prove triggering for anyone who ever contemplated nuclear armageddon while pushing liver and onions around a chipped dinnerplate.

Album available here:
https://thebritishstereocollective.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-shadow-of-the-bomb

WOO
Robot X / Xylophonics
(Independent Projects Records)

Musical historians may wax lyrical about the legendary studios of the 20th century, but there’s an equally compelling history of bedroom tinkerers to be written, too. For every Abbey Road or Ocean Way there were a thousand cramped bedsits where Tascam tape decks and Casio keyboards teetered on the edge of rattan coffee tables. An entire chapter should be devoted to South London brothers Mark and Clive Ives who, since the early 1970s, have tackled virtually every conceivable musical genre with admirable DIY gusto.

These two albums have been assembled from a lifetime archive of 1500 tracks and date from the 1980s and ‘90s respectively. Reflecting their concerns about dystopian technology, Robot X is a heartfelt nod to the Ives’ beloved Kraftwerk, with the industrial clanks of ‘Multi-Minimal Malfunctions’ the stand-out. While Xylophonics also casts a sideways glance at troublesome circuit boards, but feels slicker and gentler, with the likes of ‘Refer To The Manual’ boasting a gently jazzy feel. Together, they’re a fascinating insight into the wonderful world of Woo.

Albums available here:
https://woo-music.bandcamp.com/album/robot-x-2
https://woo-music.bandcamp.com/album/xylophonics-2

CATE BROOKS
The Crystal Parade
(Cafe Kaput)

Her work as The Advisory Circle explores giddy retro-futurism with melodic precision, but Cate Brooks’ solo projects have a more contemplative feel. And The Crystal Parade is positively glacial. Comprising five hypnotic long-form modular workouts for Buchla 200e, it begins with the swirling, 14-minute hummadruz of ‘Hematite’ before ‘Pink Opal’ adds resonant throbs and ‘Blue Zircon’ glimmers with a softer, more metallic sheen. Once released secretly and pseudonymously, it now becomes a worthy companion to 2023’s similarly Buchla-heavy Easel Studies. 

Album available here:
https://catebrooksmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-crystal-parade

KITCHEN CYNICS AND GREY MALKIN
We Are All Ghosts
(Fenny Compton)

Kitchen Cynics is Aberdeen folkie Alan Davidson, Grey Malkin was the occult-obsessed weirdy behind The Hare And The Moon. No surprise that this splendid collaboration has a supernatural theme, with Davidson’s extraordinary voice – straight out of some smoky 19th century taproom – lending gravitas to Malkin’s eerie soundscapes. “The wind strokes their graves with a sigh / Then the dead choir starts blackly to sing,” he croons amid the keening whistles of ‘New Ghost in Town’. There’s more sadness than spookiness throughout this affecting album, a mist-laden lament for lonely old ghosts. 

Album available here:
https://fennycompton.bandcamp.com/album/fc5-we-are-all-ghosts

GARDEN GATE
Magic Lantern
(Clay Pipe)

Beginning life as the soundtrack to writer Roan Parrish’s Strange Company audiobook, these horror-influenced elegies make for a wistfully sombre collection. Garden Gate is New York-based Timmi Meskers, and she brings a whiff of smalltown, David Lynch-style devilment to Clay Pipe’s trademark haunted landscapes. So ‘A Kiss Like Soil Smells After The Rain’ is a doomed smooch drenched in sinister Mellotron, while ‘My Body Like Driftwood’ adds sumptuous strings and a bassline tailor-made for climbing furtively through bedroom windows. Seductive and sepulchral.

Album available here:
https://claypipemusic.bandcamp.com/album/magic-lantern

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