Although conceptually bonded around memories of the brutalist architecture and municipal communitarianism of the Sunderland Civic Centre, demolished in 2022, Chambers stands up as a low-tech yet otherworldly edifice built from its own sonic materials. Framed primarily through the stretched parameters of a basic analogue synth set-up, with some apparent deployment of his dusted-off drum kit, this ten-track tape / download delivery has some genuinely alluring and arresting moments spread across it.
Adrian
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Whilst on paper a collaboration between a successful modern poet (Brian Bilston) and an ensemble co-led by indie-pop veterans (Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey’s The Catenary Wires) might suggest a slightly unwieldy and ephemeral vanity side-project, in aural reality Sounds Made By Humans proves to be a deeply entertaining and durable product from the creative conjoining of like-minded souls.
Thanks to the more benevolent side of technological advances, recordings of a roaming and domestic provenance are no longer restricted to four-track strummers or those with the resources of rock royalty. Which, means there not many real limits upon those with advanced levels of imagination and ingenuity. As evidenced by the below divergent sonic dispersals.
Recorded in Spain, away from their now globally-scattered homes, the group’s extended latter-day line-up, built around -- but not subservient to -- the long-running core membership of Jon Langford, Sally Timms and Tom Greenhalgh, have delivered an eclectic exemplar of well-matured musical mind-melding.
Nick Godfrey’s Precious Recordings label continues to be one of the most reliable historical route-finders for visits inside the BBC vaults, in parallel to promising recent forays into releasing new recordings. From such navigation, fresh archival spotlights are put upon the familiar and near-famous, as well as those previously misplaced in the mists of musical time. Enter then, three 10-inch EP platters -- bolstered by bonus digital content -- from the latter camp.
Dipping just a toe into the DIY electronica streams these days still requires some weighty waders to avoid being soaked by the volume of material. Hence, another amalgamated approach is needed to fish for some of the most notable new wares.
Whilst such output has fleetingly tipped the hat to his formative enterprise along the way and Galaxie 500 songs have regularly reappeared in recent solo ensemble live shows, it’s taken until now for a fuller recorded reconnection with the most atmospheric elements of the hallowed group’s aural palette.
the fact that Hersh’s recent recordings have confirmed a renewed creativity means fresh rewards for those of us who have kept the faith over the years. Arguably providing the biggest late-reblooming flourish – following on from 2022’s rowdy yet textured Black Pearl with 50 Foot Wave and 2023’s sonically diverse Clear Pond Road solo outing – is this new nine-track set from Hersh’s mothership enterprise, Throwing Muses.
With his 2023 debut, Evensongs, having rightly been hailed for its modern but ageless psych-folk magnetism -- by Mark Radcliffe, Shindig! and the Guardian alike -- expectations are set quite high for this sequel set. Whilst the nine-song Collodion possibly doesn’t quite possess the same out-of-the-blue awe of its old-as-new prequel, this is still a sublime twenty-minute offering in its own right.
Whilst sadness surrounds the unveiling of this posthumous affair from The Chills – following the premature passing of the New Zealand group’s only constant member Martin Phillipps last year – we can take comfort in the fact that the late-reblooming legacy continues to be given considerate curation on Fire Records. A fully fledged and seemingly intentional swansong project, conceived by Phillips himself, Spring Board brings the band’s somewhat unwieldy story full circle to a well-groomed, if pathos-tinged, celebratory conclusion.
The documentary evidence of an accepted invitation to Maida Vale from the Yeovil-birthed quartet, this is an unpretentiously charming C86-era memento. Fleeting in duration yet brim-full of melodic energy and youthful camaraderie, these four recordings may possess plenty of period trappings, but they contain an elevating freshness.
For his latest long-player on Sonic Cathedral -- the punningly anointed Pinball Wanderer - Bell seems increasingly comfortable in his own sonic skin, to the point of allowing the boundaries between his two sole trader ventures to be openly blurred.
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.
Although less prolific and less visible over the last decade after a rewarding thirty or so years of jointly directing The Walkabouts and Chris & Carla, Chris Eckman has remained a reassuring background presence as an adaptable Americana ambassador embedded in Europe.
The never-ending flexibility of folk-framed idioms is undoubtedly one of the music world’s undervalued gifts, with there being near-infinite creative power in the union of pastoralism and open-minded songcraft, as the following four full-length releases contest.
With 2025 already feeling somewhat weighed down with algorithmically-enhanced gloom, we’re undoubtedly going to need some sheer aural abandonment to get through the remaining pre-spring period… and indeed beyond. Enter then two new releases following divergent trajectories, aligned towards taking us away from it all.
After branching further out of apparent comfort zones across 2024 in terms of content and format manoeuvres, Precious Recordings pivots once again, around the turn of the New Year, with three self-set-boundary-breaking releases.
For those feeling forswunk and seeking to switch-off over the mid-winter break, then musical products conceived by artists in hermetic bubbles seem suitably worthy of some eleventh-hour examination, at the end of a very hectic 2024. As the three below albums attest…