Adrian returns with Autumn Done Come part two, another seasonally-skewed selection of musical produce bundled-up as the nights draw in

Still no rest for the conscientious reviewer as new releases seem to cluster like copious autumn leaf fall piles. Here below then, is another gathering of audio goods that required some collectivised documentation and dissection.

Although Cambridge’s underrated Fuzzy Lights have been on hiatus since 2013’s Rule of Twelfths LP, it hasn’t stopped co-leaders Xavier and Rachel Watkins from remaining creatively active through various extra-curricular projects. Now both are putting out new solo sets back-to-back. The first release to arrive, by a matter of weeks, is the latest from the former’s Twenty-Three Hanging Trees venture, which has been steadily slipping out material via the likes of Extreme Ultimate, Sacred Tapes and WIAIWYA since 2016. For this outing, Xavier’s instrumental alias joins the Bibliotapes roster to release a cassette/download soundtrack to accompany Kurt Vonnegut’s technological conundrum novel, Cat’s Cradle, from 1963. Stitched-together with synths and Fender Rhodes piano, the literary tie-in seems to work wonders in bringing a stronger focus and greater musicality to Twenty-Three Hanging Trees’ sculpted soundscapes. Moving through immersive dronescapes, plaintive pirouetting, ecclesiastical eeriness, sci-fi serenity, rippling repetitions and burbling ambience, familiar Brian Eno, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream boxes are ticked throughout yet not in contrived or obvious ways. Quite how it matches the mood of the book itself can only be judged by those with a better reading-capacity that this writer, but as standalone audio entity Cat’s Cradle certainly deserves to be heard.

Also released as a tape/digital combination, Rachel Watkins’s solo-trading debut Collectanea for the micro Meadows Records label, is radically different in its construction to Cat’s Cradle, though it does contain some equally haunted desolate moods. Part-recorded in a church and part at home, this eight-part suite finds Rachel funnelling darkly-orchestrated folk idioms with near-hymnal solemnity, primarily through deploying her own violin loops and layered vocals. Across its journey, Collectanea imagines a lost Sandy Denny and Dave Swarbrick collaboration, echoes the avant-classical claustrophobia of Nico’s The Marble Index, cross-references some of Laurie Anderson’s vocal tricks and makes sisterly nods to more latter-day fellow-travellers like Agathe Max, Alison Cotton and Brave Timbers. Collectanea is undoubtedly a very promising and impressive debut that deserves to go beyond its currently niche circulation channels.

Not content with releasing several strong shared Concrete Islands favourites from the likes of Polypores, The Home Current, Jonathan Sharp and Dalham earlier this year, Colin Morrison’s Castles In Space label has a veritable bounty of new wares still to bring to our ears before 2019 is over. The latest trio of album-sized affairs reconfirm both the label’s A&R and packaging commissioning skills. The first of the three new CIS products is an elaborately-curated self-titled CD-based bundle release from The Central Office of Information. The brainchild of the Kent-based Alex Cargill, named after now-defunct government agency once responsible for the notorious UK Public Information Films which ran between the 1960s and 1980s, this one-man operation sits in the more retro-futuristic corner of the label’s family tree, like a looser less cold-war-cocooned sibling to Concretism or a not-so-murky Dalham. Veering between chirruping ISAN-indebted analogue-electro etudes, early-Human League-meets-Throbbing Gristle glitch and grime, vintage 70s Doctor Who soundtrack interludes and disconcerting filmic Threads-style atmospherics, Cargill may not be the most original creator in his currently crowded field but he certainly knows which buttons to press and what wires to plug in, to keep a certain constituency of hauntology connoisseurs justifiably happy.

In contrast to The Central Office of Information’s offering, Cotswold Stone from Doncaster’s Pulselovers leans more thematically towards the warmer nostalgic pastures of labelmate Jonathan Sharp’s Divided Time as well as bringing in a broader more collaborative approach to the CIS table. Inspired by his 1970s school holidays in Burford, Oxfordshire, Mat Handley – together with a handful of well-recruited accomplices – has fashioned a radiant record replete with electro-organic invention and conceptual connectivity. Along the way, Handley and co dip into glistening Harmonia-meets-Listening Center synth-propelled grooves (“Cleeve Hill” and “Badby 80”), utterly gorgeous Durutti Column-goes-electro-balminess (“Autumn Arrives Again”), sax and guitar-laced space-funk (“In the Grove”), early-OMD prettiness (“On the Water” and “On the Heath”), Vic Mars in pastoral-Clay Pipe Music-mode (“The Green Leaves of Shildam Hall”), the more celestial corners of Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine (“Aethelbald and the Golden Dragon”) and the languid proggier-side of Popol Vuh (“On the Wold”). In short, Cotswold Stone is unquestionably another high-bar-setter in the Castles In Space catalogue.

Arriving in a truly eye-catching book-backed CD package, Lo Five’s Geography of the Abyss album takes yet another angle into securing a place in the Castles In Space roster. Fashioned by Wirral-based producer Neil Grant, this second Lo Five full-length collection follows an enveloping ambient-techno path that cleaves closest to the works of The Home Current and pre-Castles In Space Polypores output as well as harking back to headtorch-toting 90s Orbital, Boards of Canada and early-Aphex Twin. Powered by thick squelchy beats and saturated synth sounds as well as peppered with Speak & Spell-aping vocal interjections and samples, Geography of the Abyss is very much designed as a continuous piece to get lost inside, with little encouragement for focusing on where each track begins and ends. For those less at ease with stepping outside their usual Castles In Space/Polytechnic Youth/Ghost Box-fenced electronic comfort-zones, this might feel too much like stepping into a uber-hip Berlin nightclub. However, for those willing to enter the Lo Five headspace, there are some transportive tunnels of sound to be taken down.

Adrian
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