A seasonally-affected round-up of releases that might not otherwise have secured some Concrete Islands investigation time separately

The music industry at all levels no longer seems able to slow down its schedules. Whilst this is a ‘#firstworldproblem’ that perhaps only music critics have the relative privilege of worrying about, it does mean that some worthwhile releases can miss coverage on these very pages and elsewhere due to the sheer abundance. Mindful of a mounting review-pile in this corner of the Concrete Islands world at summer’s end, here is the first part of an attempt to bundle-up a clutch of artefacts that might otherwise have been lost beneath another autumnal audio avalanche.

Having made slow-burn self-introductions late last year, with some charmingly old-school handwritten letters to several bloggers accompanying his promising cassette album Une Cassette Comme Les Autres under the Perrache pseudonym, Stuttgart’s Joachim Henn returns with two near-simultaneously-arriving long-players. One platter is his mesmeric full-length vinyl inauguration with Perrache on Polytechnic Youth. Extending upon the cryptic Moog-driven constructions of its predecessor, Barriere in Movimento is a strong shift forward, with four tracks (three very long, one very short) that veer between gritty Throbbing Gristle hypnotics, vaporised post-apocalyptic ambience, ecclesiastical drones and balmy burbling, collectively-bound with a commanding yet not overbearing sense of creative ambition.

Henn’s second fresh product is the self-titled debut double-LP from Frood of the Loop on his own Taping Desk O-Phon Mania label. A significantly contrasting group-based affair featuring Henn hooking-up with three other close-knit collaborators, this expansive eponymous set hinges upon intuitive improvised interplay across synth, guitar, flute, Theremin, bass, vibraphone and more. Whilst not matching Barriere in Movimento for focus of intent, the six connected instrumentals studiously bend the barriers between embryonic early-Tortoise, Sonic Youth’s most atonal conjurings and Death and Vanilla’s film score works, with a promising reach that invites repeated aural onion peeling.

For the first time since 2005, Mark Brend (Palace of Light, Mabel Joy and Ghostwriter) has reunited with fellow multi-instrumentalists Matt Gale and Cliff Glanfield as former Pickled Egg Records veterans Fariña to cut a cassette/download EP for Spain’s Hanky Panky Records. The Undercliff Suite acts as a soundtrack to accompany Brend’s recent Undercliff novel (which has also been sonically celebrated with his recent Concrete Islands mixtape). Musically mirroring the book’s spooked narratives set in the shadows of the Devon coast, the trio segue five short redolent and sometimes disquieting vocal-free segments over the EP. Moving deftly between jazz-flecked haunted-house creepiness, folk-imbued waltzing and eerie shipwrecked-lamenting, with shades of both Tom Waits and Bernard Hermann at their most deconstructed, there is far more going on here than there first appears. Hopefully, this all-too-brief collection is only just the beginning of Fariña’s return to active duty.

After some recent detours into micro-publishing and flexi-discs (with Frances Castle and The Hardy Tree’s ongoing Stagdale project) and a welcome archival repress of Sharron Kraus’s Friends and Enemies; Lovers and Strangers LP, Clay Pipe Music brings us two very seasonally-appropriate wares. The first from Vic Mars – in the shape of Inner Roads and Outer Paths – charmingly funnels sounds and sights fully-attuned to the spirit of the label’s reliably consistent psychogeographical explorations. Assembled with analogue synths, acoustic guitars, recorders, glockenspiels, piano and all manner of percussion underlays, this de facto sequel to 2015’s The Land and the Garden – after equally essential interim diversions into minimalist-electro for Polytechnic Youth and Bandcamp as well as a soundtrack commission for Gideon Coe’s 6Music show – revisits the hangouts of Mars’s Herefordshire youth to tap into some deeply warm, nostalgic, inventive and evocative English pastoralism. Along the way there are shrewdly-nuanced nods to Freddie Phillips, orchestral cinematics and bucolic kosmische alongside subtle salutes to likeminded past/present Clay Pipe labelmates such as Plinth, Gilroy Mere and Tyneham House, to make for a sumptuous smorgasbord of a record.

Although less initially inviting, Alison Cotton’s 10-inch two-track mini-album The Girl I Left Behind Me is an alluring adjunct to the Clay Pipe canon. Although better-known as one-half of The Left Outsides, Cotton’s solitary venturing is now taking her talents to another level. Inspired by Muriel Spark’s ghost stories, the literary side of Clay Pipe’s artistic ecosystem is in full flow with these two expansive side apiece compositions. With its unsettling but serene movements of layered viola lines, choral ululations and organic ambient twinkles, the title-track is a supremely commanding set-piece with strong hints of both John Cale and Nico’s most abstract post-VU solo wares. Even more impressive is “The House of the Famous Poet” on the flipside, which shifts from a wordless near a cappella opening into a mournfully-rendered soundscape of viola drones, murmurous pulsing, percussive shimmering and desolate incantations. Certainly one of the darkest but also most impressive entries in the Clay Pipe catalogue to date, don’t miss out on it.

Adrian
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