Hipwell + Kasperkiewicz – Hemispheres / Apta – The Pool

As cornerstone enterprises in what Electronic Sound magazine recently redubbed as the ‘grassroots electronica’ scene, Doncaster’s Woodford Halse and Biggleswade’s Castles In Space labels continue to curate physical and digital releases with care and affection, as well as supporting their signings to stretch beyond straightforward musical appliance reverence, as these first two new outings of 2025 from each imprint exemplify.

Mind-melding the twin talents of Poland’s Jakub Kasperkiewicz (guitars and more) and Australia’s Adam Hipwell (synths, guitar, wordless vocals, percussion and harmonium) for Woodford Halse, Hemispheres is globally and historically reaching in its construction and conceptualism. Trading mathematically as Hipwell + Kasperkiewicz, the multi-instrumentalist pair – bolstered by guest percussion and saxophone from Ivan Masic – have forged an otherworldly homage to the ancient Earth subcontinents of Gondwana and Laurasia, no less.

Whilst two relatively short pieces — “Remember Quicksand” and “Goat’s Peak” — respectively proffer imposing drones and Plankton Wat-mapped wanderings, it’s two twenty or so minute cuts that truly define the epic tectonic movements of the album. Hence, “Gondwana” commandingly extends through movements of Vini Reilly-meets-Popol Vuh guitar figures and dense Tangerine Dream-meets-Vangelis synth strata, whereas the finale of “Laurasia” spellbindingly sprawls and snakes – with Hipwell’s added freeform ululations – as if it were a time-travel-facilitated collaboration between Wild Strawberries-era Eternal Tapestry and Manuel Göttsching.

Although there is a certain degree of New-Age-meets-prog portentousness underpinning the sophisticated and elemental sound explorations collected within, the overall end result is a profoundly mesmeric statement. Somewhat unwieldy in its overarching vision yet dexterously focused in its delivery, Hemispheres is an entrancing slow-burn triumph.

Though travelling across significantly less elevated terrain in comparison, Apta’s long-awaited LP-sized appearance on Castles In Space, with The Pool, is still deeply driven by the solo operation’s ever-evolving artistic ambition.

As one of the least doctrinaire characters on the circuit, Barry Smethurst has already gently defied what might be considered de rigueur for a domestic synth-chiselling sculptor. This isn’t to say that his latest Apta long-player is a radical breakaway affair, but it unquestionably moves on the project’s story with some noticeable steps forwards and sideways.

Blending in gradations of guitars and bass into the electronics-framed mix to a greater extent than before, as well as tentatively bringing in his own vocals, The Pool is an even more textured and genre-blurring conception than its predecessors. Thus, while the pellucid Polypores-alike wateriness of the “Sink”, “Shivers” and “Awash” connect most directly to Apta’s past and to the album’s title, albeit with extra layers added to the presentations, elsewhere proceedings move in other directions.

This means weaving in languid latticed shapes with understated infusions of Suss’s ambient Americana (“Dive” and “Meniscus”); pulsing electro-astral-prog passages (“One Foot”); glitches and ripples that echo Apple TV+’s Severance vibes (“The Depths”); Pause-to-Rounds-era Four Tet-style folktronica (“Breathe”); and serene salutes to Mogwai’s most elegiac modes, featuring Smethurst channelling Stuart Braithwaite’s own fleetingly deployed tones (“Emerge”). Certainly, with the latter cut, the prospect of a ‘songs-based’ future for Apta is undeniably tantalising.

Until then though, The Pool is a subtly enthralling expansion of Apta’s home-built micro-universe to survey serenely in the present.

-Adrian-