Jane Weaver’s Loops in the Secret Society is an emotive tapestry of charged library music and into the night dancefloor anthems

I suspect there are plenty folks who heard Johnny Cash’s take on “Hurt” before the Nine Inch Nails original and still experienced the shock of the new. Primacy seems less important with this example of a cover version because each iteration stands on its own as a work of art. It hardly seems to matter which was made or heard first and opinions can reasonably flow either way as to choosing a favourite. All of which is to say that I encountered Jane Weaver’s Loops in the Secret Society before her previous two albums proper – The Silver Globe (2014) and Modern Kosmology (2017) – which were mined here for source material. Loops is admittedly the work that plugged directly into my bio-port.

Reworked tracks are embedded amongst new pieces, which most often lean towards strange cues and interesting loops. It’s an emotive tapestry of charged library music and into the night anthems that functions as a single work, snaking its way through your feet and into the back of your head. Weaver appears to have beamed in house music and reshaped it to her own unique vision, holding it and stretching it out over peak moments. The record is consistently on the cusp of dancefloor deliverance. Imagine Scott Walker and Jean-Claude Vannier subdued by the electronic behemoths of Chicago and Detroit, then filtered through a dream. Or else Portishead’s Beth Gibbons re-enacting Histoire de Melodie Nelson as a club narrative reaching higher states of consciousness.  

The reworked “Elements” opens proceedings with an earth-shifting tectonic groove, loops circling in and expanding out into the cosmos, hints of Euro horror in the synth line. The track is taking off in perpetuity, accompanied by faded 16mm film of a rocket launch, the moment repeated until it feels like a series of moments. “H>A>K” is a throb of motorik machine music, layered vocals atop a radiophonic electrical hum, repetitions that spiral and infiltrate. Distant bass echoes and the subterranean pull of Pye Corner Audio and The Advisory Circle in collaboration comes to mind in the intro to “Did You See Butterflies”, before the ghost of Stereolab past steps in. “Did you see… did you see?” sings Weaver, grounding the spectral inclinations, the track pulsing towards an exploded view.  

“Sun House” startles the insect world in a matter of twenty seconds, whereas “I Wish” flings open the doors of the electric cathedral. “Are you dreaming of something?” is the question asked and answered in the music (none of this is real). Gently electroacoustic and purposeful, “I Wish” is an untampered-with minority report on things to come. The Badalamenti-like instrumental “Battle Ropes” (a version of which also closes the album) is a heightened synth wall that bypasses all cerebral functionality and goes straight for feeling. In the house alone, but soon to go out into the promise of the night.

“Slow Motion” emerges from the dry ice like Willard from the water in Apocalypse Now, ready to do battle with Kurtz. It’s the mid-set peak moment that feels epic and intimate. “Let’s go outside when it doesn’t feel right”, sings Weaver, giving voice to the dispossessed, offering succour on the dancefloor. Breakbeats arrive from and recede back into the symphonic stew, keeping the track beautifully poised and fired up with potential. Could it be Sonique’s “It Feels So Good” gone psychedelic and filtered through a foggy misremembered lens, pulled from Gatecrasher to Ghost Box? Regardless, it’s surely a Balearic anthem waiting to happen, if it hasn’t already been adopted as such. The listener is taken by the hand back down into colourful ambient waters, with “Slow Motion” easing imperceptibly into “Margins”. The mood shifts. “Code” brings to mind Sergio Leone in the witching hour whilst “Majik Milk” is folk music released from the space between waking and dreaming.  

Jane Weaver takes chances and openly defies genre rules, nonetheless delivering a coherent, enveloping work. Loops in the Secret Society is a conceptual DJ set of an LP that maintains an otherworldly charm whilst delivering subtly dancefloor-shattering moments.

janeweaverfire.bandcamp.com

Stewart Gardiner
Latest posts by Stewart Gardiner (see all)