The Belbury Circle – Outward Journeys. Absolutely cracking album of late 70s/early 80s flavoured synth pop/rock from Ghost Box mainstays Jim ‘Belbury Poly’ Jupp and Jon ‘The Advisory Circle’ Brooks, plus guest vocals from John Foxx. Kraftwerk is always the obvious reference with stuff like this, but there’s just as much contemporary Tangerine Dream and Vangelis in here. A must for all retro futurists: https://soundcloud.com/ghost-box/sets/outward-journeys (and also this week’s Listen With Father, on the basis that Belbury Poly was a fave in the kitchen during the pre-school years…)
Spaceship – Fields 2: From The Sea To The Moor Via The Forest And The Stones. More field recordings enhanced by dronic electronica. Some really compelling stuff here: http://forged-river.com/album/fields-2-from-the-sea-to-the-moor-via-the-forest-and-the-stones
Concretism – At The Delaware Road (playlist). From a recent event held in a disused nuclear bunker. Undeniably derivative of Boards Of Canada, but still rather fab: https://soundcloud.com/concretism/sets/the-delaware-road-playlist
JuJu – Our Mother Was A Plant. Hmmm, it’s a real curate’s egg this album, with perhaps a little too much 80s style bass on it. But then this is great: https://fuzzclub.bandcamp.com/track/patrick
Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense. Put in the car by the wife for the girls to listen to, thought I’d give it a spin… I must have seen the film years ago, but I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly heard the album before. Quite a strange experience coming at it from 2017. Some of the songs are part of the art rock canon, but the sound is soooo 80s that it’s sonically quite unpleasant in places, with its plastiky digital keys, faux-soulful backing singers, and over-perky rhythms. TH might have ‘innovated’ this type of Afro-beat via New York vibe, but by this stage it just sounds too slick (to my ears anyway), and uncomfortably close to what an entire deluge of mainstream/adult pop/rock/soul bands would sound like over the next few years.
S is for…
Schlammpeitziger – Collected Simplesongs Of My Temporary Past. Picked this off the shelf having no recollection of what it was or when I got it (which is partly the point of this exercise). Turns out to be a compilation of quirky Cluster/Harmonia-influenced electronica from the 90s by a Cologne-based musician called Jo Zimmermann. Came out on Domino in 2001 (presumably why I originally got it), but it looks to have been his only ‘UK release’ (not that that means so much anymore). Possibly a contemporary of people like Mouse On Mars and Tarwater/To Rococo Rot? Anyway, some nice stuff, definitely worth a listen if you’re into this type of thang… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmoQCOfzyvo
Live:
Walthamstow Electronic ’17 – Small but intriguing event held in a converted cinema which featured Dick Mills from The Radiophonic Workshop explaining how the original Dr Who theme was put together (great!), plus various ‘live’ sets (sorry, still can’t get over the old rockist division between people hitting strings and drums, and a bloke standing behind a laptop) included the brilliant Pye Corner Audio, whose slot was far too short…
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