Reviews originally published in Issue 92 of Electronic Sound magazine, August 2022:

TIM BOWNESS
Butterfly Mind
(Inside Out)

“The sickness is real / It’s all you can feel now”. No-man frontman Tim Bowness adopts an Orwellian tone in ‘Say Your Goodbyes Part 1’, the cthonic opening salvo of this, his seventh solo collection. Prowling arpeggios explode into authoritarian beats and the loudhailer diktats of some unseen despot. The reprise at the end of the album offers little hope, either: “The silence won’t protect you / The noise will bring you down”, he croons, every inch the sinister Minister for Dystopian Opportunities. But fear not, browbeaten children of the pandemic! Take heart, weary casualties of the populist shitfest! Inbetween, there is hope, resistance and some splendid musical diversions.

The resistance begins with ‘Always The Stranger’. Named after Bowness’ own teenage musical project, it’s a breathy clatter of joyous guitar jangles and a celebration of deliciously insecure creativity. “Waiting for someone to tell you, you did OK…”. ‘Only A Fool’ has jerky, post-punk beats and Magazine’s Dave Formula on keyboards. And ‘Lost Player’ feels like a descendent of Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’, with Bowness mining long-buried childhood feelings for respite from the morass. “Come back awkward ways, come back cowboy days / Come back sweet escape, the world’s been set ablaze…” 

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the focused intensity of his last two albums, but Bowness feels unleashed here. 2019 No-man album ‘Love You To Bits’ was a beat-heavy sift through the ashes of a destructive relationship. 2020’s solo ‘Late Night Laments’ was lushly downbeat. But – true to its title – Butterfly Mind flits delightfully, perhaps most in thrall to Bowness’ formative love of all things prog. On the strident ‘We Feel’, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson weaves quicksilver flute between the driving guitars of Van der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill.

Bowness’ working title was Against Oblivion and he offers slivers of hope throughout, most touchingly in the Scott Walker-esque ‘About The Light That Hits The Forest Floor’. “In love, you are more than yourself,” he whispers. “You just need to keep escaping…” The message is clear: salvation from this ongoing torpor lies only in the heart. Those looking to bolt for the hills with a head full of dreams could barely find a better soundtrack than this heartfelt, heroically eclectic album. 

Album available here:
https://burningshed.com/store/timbowness/tim-bowness_butterfly-mind_2cd

SEDNA CHRONICLES
Sedna Chronicles
(English Heretic)

Like a pandemic-era Frodo and Sam, Andy “English Heretic” Sharp and Grey “The Hare And The Moon” Malkin have traversed the occult hotspots of Scotland. The result? A glorious mish-mash of ancient and modern folklore. Take ‘Song To The Cliodna’… a Celtic spirit whose Russian equivalent The Vodyanoi inspired 1981 BBC drama The Nightmare Man, its plotline echoing the wrecked submarines the duo discovered in Aberlady Bay. So we get a lilting Russian lullaby accompanied by radiophonic synths and the fizzles of a distant longwave radio. Keeping up at the back?

Elsewhere, fans of supernatural Victorian seafaring drama will relish ‘The Nunavut Letter’. Amid spiky, manipulated strings, Malkin narrates the real-life correspondence of doomed arctic explorer Lt John Irving, Edinburgh-born officer of the notorious HMS Terror. But the lynchpin is ‘Children Of The Cove’, a terrific eight-minute exploration of Gilmerton’s mysterious caves. “There is something here of an occult nature… something other”. The perfect summation of an album steeped in a very Caledonian sense of the uncanny. 

Album available here:
https://burningshed.com/store/timbowness/tim-bowness_butterfly-mind_2cd

REGAL WORM
Worm!
(Quatermass/Republic Of Music)

Locked in a humming South Yorkshire laboratory, I Monster’s mild-mannered Jarrod Gosling once again necks a test tube of bubbling elixir, sprouts unruly eyebrows and an industrial jawline, and transforms into Regal Worm’s psychedelic synth-prog bogeyman Varrod Goblink. Before rampaging through the unsuspecting streets of Sheffield with this fifth album of splendid cosmic daftness.  

The Ween-esque stoner muzak of ‘Bong Song’ sets the tone. “Whirlpools skim each other, dust clouds form a planet / Centrifugal forces dropping fast”  sings Goblink, exploring the universe with three bags of Monster Munch and a KitKat Chunky close at hand. ‘Don’t Freak Out The Creatures’ is pure 1960s Zappa; ‘The Steppe Nomad Space Program’ sets Kazakhstan folk trappings loose on relentless electro beats. He claims Fun Boy Three influences for ‘Chlorophyllia’, but yegods… only if Terry Hall had munched his way through half a tin of spacecakes and spent 16 hours straight listening to Gong. Beautifully performed, and brilliant fun.  

Album available here:
https://regalworm.bandcamp.com/album/worm

POLYPORES
Hyperincandescent
(DiN)

“My mind is chaotic, the entire universe is chaotic,” claims Lancashire modular maestro Stephen James Buckley. “This is my experience of it transmutated into a sort of shimmering sonic monolith”. For his debut release on DiN, Buckley creates two mercurial 20-minute suites. The opening title track begins with swirling bleeps, the detuning of Buckely’s own mental longwave radio, before settling into amniotic waves and the chatter of some exotic, tropical forest of the mind. Sometimes the shifts in tone are imperceptible, sometimes jarring, but it’s always fascinating. 

‘Floating In The Meme Pool’ builds gently before a crunching gear shift into bubbling arpeggios. But there are moments of calm, with soothing, summers morning melodies seeping gently through the maelstrom. And the title itself? “Hyperincandescent” is a word coined by DJ Kate Bosworth to describe the affecting vividness of Buckley’s ambient experiments. If this album is his mental mind palace, it’s a palace where they’re constantly knocking down walls and seeking planning permission for extensions.

Album available here:
https://din.org.uk/album/hyperincandescent-din71

KID MOXIE
Better Than Electric
(Bandcamp)

“The Downtown LA skyline, night rides and retro-futuristic love scenes”. Such are the influences Greek-born Elena Charbila claims for this glossiest of glossy pop albums. Opener ‘Shine’ is lit with neon seductiveness: “I’m taking the lead in the back seat / I’ll make you shine tonight” she sings, amid thumping beats. But Charbila has worked with Angelo Badalamenti, and her earworms have an appropriately cinematic quality. ‘Better Than Electric’ boasts flamenco touches and ‘Thunderstuck’ brings dystopian, widescreen synths to – brace yourself – the most unlikely AC/DC cover of the year.

Album available here:
https://kidmoxie.bandcamp.com/album/better-than-electric

NAOMI ALLIGATOR
Double Knot
(Carpark)

Naomi Alligator album please, and make it snappy. A lo-fi Virginia doodler uprooted to California, Alligator’s first album for Carpark is a winsome encapsulation of twentysomething angst. “I want to break up with you for the tenth time now… I want to get back with you for the tenth time now,” she sighs indecisively on ‘Over’. But amid the rawness, she has a charming turn of phrase: “Sam is made of quicksand and I love him all the same,” she grins on ‘Blue For You’. “Time to put a footprint on him before it fades away”. Banjos chime, wobbly synths… well, wobble. A delight. 

Album available here:
https://naomialligator.bandcamp.com/album/double-knot

BAND OF CLOUD
This Is Tomorrow
(Castles In Space)

The forecast? It’s Whitby, so gothy spells with outbreaks of gloomy folk. Thankfully, David Owen and Rebecca Denniff are here with this little ray of electronic sunshine. Owen was once frontman with 1990s NME faves The Hollow Men, but there’s nothing of his indie guitar heritage here. Orb-esque opener ‘Band Of Cloud’ floats softly around Denniff’s hypnotic vocals, ‘Night Visiting Song’ is beautifully hypnapompic, its nocturnal murmurs sweetened by the tinkling of subliminal harps. And the closing title track is a cool deluge of beats and cut-up blipverts. Music For Meteorologists.   

Album available here:
https://bandofcloud.bandcamp.com/album/this-is-tomorrow

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

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