Reviews originally published in Issue 105 of Electronic Sound magazine, September 2023:

PALE BLUE EYES
This House
(Full Time Hobby)

For the lucky few, the certainties of childhood seem reassuringly indestructible. It’s Mum and Dad at home, isn’t it? Still the same home, with your battered action figures hiding in the loft and your faded felt-tip drawings stuck to the fridge with a chipped Buzz Lightyear magnet. But maturity puts cracks into the illusion of permanence. Your parents grow old. They get ill. You don’t go round for dinner, you go round to make them dinner. And then they’re gone, leaving you with a silent house suddenly filled by the unwelcome ghosts of a childhood that now feels more bittersweet than idyllic.

Incredibly, here’s an album that sensitively celebrates those feelings – and, of course, the joys that came before. The house in question is on the front cover. An unassuming Devonshire cottage, it was the childhood home of frontman Matt Board, who – fair to say – has had a torrid few years. 2022 debut album Souvenirs was a tribute to his late father, recorded in the garden of the house itself while Matt and bandmate wife Lucy consoled and cared for his ailing mother. Now she’s gone too, the property has been sold, and This House stands as a moving testament to them all.

The Boards have channelled their sadness into a crisply contemporary take on the vintage synthpop lineage of Lucy’s native Sheffield. ‘Simmering’ and ‘Hang Out’ are filled with chiming Human League melodies, effortlessly evoking an age when the Top Of The Pops studio was at least 75% balloon. The melancholy is implicit, just a nagging doubt at the edge of the dancefloor – but it’s there alright. “You’re already gone,” Matt sings on the vaguely New Order-ish ‘Spaces’. “These feelings, they’re temporary”.   

Third man Aubrey Simpson adds razor-sharp mod basslines, Lucy contributes the occasional plaintive trumpet. And, by the end, there’s acceptance of sorts. “I look around the room and understand,” sings Matt, amid the Cocteau Twins guitars of closing track ‘Underwater’. “I see so much of you still remains”. It does – no longer in the echoes of an empty house, but rather in the grooves of a record that is both touching and triumphant. To infinity, and beyond.

Album available here:
https://paleblueeyesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/this-house

MOUNT VERNON ARTS LAB
Deltic Vespers
(Castles In Space)

He could stake a decent claim as the founding father of hauntology, but it’s doubtful Drew Mulholland would welcome such glib pigeonholing. This amiable Glaswegian spent his 1970s adolescence making tape loops from dismantled cassettes, and by the 1990s had founded Mount Vernon Arts Lab, channelling his love of psychedelia and grungy garage-pop into a welter of hissy home recordings.

Deltic Vespers, named after the railway breaker’s yard behind his childhood home, gathers 19 of these early fragments into a wonderfully entertaining scrapbook. Some are barely snippets. ‘Flame’ is 47 seconds of delicious ‘96 Tears’-esque pounding on a Vox Continental, ‘Hyperion Go Purple’ a minute of twangy Ventures-style surf-rock. But there are also hints of the uneasy experiments that would make his name. ‘The Differential Equation’ combines cabaret drums with scary radiophonic drones, ‘Automatic Frequency Control’ is an uneasy hummadruz. Altogether, it’s a fascinating snapshot of a thrillingly fertile moment. 

Album available here:
https://mountvernonartslab.bandcamp.com/album/deltic-vespers

REVBJELDE
Amicus
HOWLROUND
Trespass and Welfare
(Buried Treasure)

Buried Treasure overlord Alan Gubby gives debut vinyl releases to a brace of excellent 2022 albums, now rejigged. Amicus, by Gubby’s own abrasively psychedelic outfit Revbjelde, is both a tribute to long-term friend and artist Jon Kemp and a furious indictment of post-Brexit Britain. No prizes for guessing the target of the industrial ‘Fukko The Clown’ (“The big hook, the big lure / The false talk, the false cure”), with a pounding “rehash” by Zyklus among a trio of new remixes. See also: Bernard Grancher’s splendidly woozy synth version of ‘Goose Chase’.

Howlround, meanwhile, is experienced tape tormentor Robin The Fog. And Trespass and Welfare is the ultimate… well, howlround. No outside inputs, just two vintage tape machines creating loops of recursive noise. From opener ‘Sonic Horsfunk’ onwards, it’s a head-pounding trip with hints of haunting melody: ‘A Bird In The Head’ feels like the ghost of some ancient ’78 attempting to squeak through a portal into 2023. Of four new additional tracks, the squelchy ‘Far Life Cage Gunk’ is an otherworldly highlight.

Albums available here:
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/amicus
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/trespass-welfare

FOGROOM
The Brownian Vortex
(Doomshire Tapes)

For those who failed GCSE Physics, it’s the random movement of particles suspended within a gas or liquid. But don’t worry, no formal qualifications are required here. German producer Jörg Follert – also variously known as Mimsy and Wechsel Garland – has taken inspiration from early 20th century occultist painter Austin Osman Spare. And the resulting ambience itself feels both fantastical and curiously Edwardian. ‘The Moon So Big’ is a sepulchral, sepia-tinted drone, ‘Telescope’ is the wheezing of a torn, haunted bellows. Magically disquieting.

Album available here:
https://mimsy-fogroom.bandcamp.com/album/the-brownian-vortex

MIKE DICKINSON
The Ghost Of Pennyman Hall And Other Tales
(Bandcamp)

James and Ruth Pennyman were the final incumbents of Ormesby Hall, a stately home now subsumed by the suburbs of Middlesbrough. On a recent visit, Teessider Dickinson felt inspired to tell their story through proggy synth workouts. So ‘Jamie’s War’ moves from dark ambience to pounding drums, reflecting its subject’s harrowing World War I experiences, while ‘Oberon’s Garden’ is a beatific hymn to Ruth’s predilection for staging Shakespeare on the expansive lawns. A generous patron of the arts for working class families, she’d have been flattered by this wistfully charming collection. 

Album available here:
https://mikedickinson.bandcamp.com/album/the-ghost-of-pennyman-hall-and-other-tales

PENELOPE ANTENA
James & June
(Parapente Music)

Want to feel ancient? She’s the granddaughter of Telex founder Marc Moulin. This louche assembly of “love notes, quietly tucked away” owes more to Grandad’s early career as an acclaimed jazz pianist, but Antena’s tender torch songs are underpinned by unsettling electronic drones, perfectly encapsulating both the splendour and insecurity of burgeoning romance. The chattering beats and mournful theremin of ‘Enough’ sum up the feeling perfectly. “Am I loving you too much? Will I ever be enough?” It’s a question we’ve all had to ask, and sometimes even answer.

Album available here:
https://penelopeantena.bandcamp.com/album/james-june

PULSE:
Debris Discs

Who they?

It’s James Eary, holed up in the Peak District, and new album Post War Plans is lavish synthpop with a touching genesis. His grandfather Alan Howard was a World War II “Desert Rat” serving in Egypt, and the album is inspired by recently-unearthed letters written to his worried family back home.

“I spent a lot of time with my Grandpa when I was younger, building dens in his office and picking berries from his garden,” says James. “I had a nasty car accident as a child and it was my Grandpa who carried me into the hospital, so I kind of hero-worshipped him”.

Why Debris Discs?

Turning intimate wartime missives into shimmering, electronic anthems shouldn’t really work… but it does. “I wanted to approach the album from a cinematic perspective, but was struggling to form a narrative,” James explains. “These letters gave me the dramatic story arc I was missing.”

The album’s lynchpin is the heartbreaking ‘Dear Fred’, based on a letter written by Alan to his brother. “I’d like to share what I’ve seen / But it’s been eight days in convalescent camp” sings James, with affecting sensitivity. “Mother says she’s not seen you lately / Please don’t leave her alone…”

Tell us more…

The album is preceded by an accompanying EP, The Empress Way. The whole project, says James, has given him a new-found appreciation for his grandfather’s sacrifices. 

“The respect is on another level now. It was also fascinating to see his political mind develop, as he questioned the motives of those in command. After the war he became a big political activist, and those values are ingrained in the family now.”

EP available here:
https://debrisdiscs.bandcamp.com/album/the-empress-way-ep

Album available here:
https://debrisdiscs.bandcamp.com/album/post-war-live

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

Support the Haunted Generation website with a Ko-fi donation… thanks!
https://ko-fi.com/hauntedgen