A cast of considerate remixers take the conceptual journeying of last year’s solo LP from Mark Peters into eclectic yet seamlessly navigated new directions

Having been vindicated as an outrider champion for the shoegaze revival that has seen the likes of Ride, Lush, Swervedriver and Slowdive successfully reform to reach now less cynical audiences, Nathaniel Cramp has also applied his fondness for early-90s ways of doing things into his stubbornly resourceful and resilient Sonic Cathedral label. Hence, the imprint’s regular full-length releases have become as important as frequent detours into standalone singles (as best exemplified by a currently unfurling year-long 7” singles club), limited-edition 12” remix EPs (see Sobrenadar’s recent Rymixes) and reworkings of entire albums (as with Spectres’ Dead remoulding of their Dying LP). New Routes out of Innerland sits squarely and sagely in the latter tranche of Sonic Cathedral off-piste outings. 

Although on paper this revisiting of 2018’s already intrepid Innerland, from ex-Engineers songwriter Mark Peters, comes close to overkill, given that in the interim a stripped-back Ambient Innerland was put out just before Christmas, this third incarnation is anything but superfluous or indulgent.

Handing over the eight instrumental segments of Innerland to remixers from across Europe and the US extends its elegiac psychogeographical reach into diverse yet complementary globalised sonic routes. Hence, the original pieces – thematically threaded together with reflections upon the imposing rural landscapes of Lancashire and built from self-layered combinations of electric guitar, synths, keyboards and programmed percussion with shades of The Durutti Column, early-Spiritualized and Brian Eno – are both honoured and stretched out.

The opening repurposing of “Twenty Bridges” by Andi Otto is worth the admission alone, as it refunnels the formative version’s chiming fluidity into a gorgeous slow-mo voodoo groove. Thereafter, things continue with a remarkably cohesive sophistication. Hence, Olga Wojciechowska remakes “Mann Island” as a pulsing techno-noir bliss-out; Brian Case recasts “Windy Arbour” as a looping hypnotic glitchscape; Ulrich Schnauss morphs “May Hill” from a noise-rock swirler into a more measured ambient meditation; and Moon Gangs (aka Will Young of Beak>) boils down the already languid “Gabriel’s Ladder” into even warmer pellucid tranquillity.

For the closing three tracks, the mood shifts into more unsettling but no less effective terrain. Hence, Odd Nosdam reshapes “Shaley Brow” as a fizzing funereal affair; E Ruscha V echoes the nocturnal art-funk of Sextet-era A Certain Ratio with a rubbery and rippling reconfiguration of “Cabin Hill”; and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma leads “Ashurst’s Beacon” across murkier and eerier expanses.

New Routes out of Innerland achieves the rare feat of sounding like it was meant to work as a complete and satisfying standalone entity, rather than just a collection of remixes slung together for only the truly devoted follower. A triumph for imagination over contractual obligation in short.

soniccathedral.co.uk

Adrian
Latest posts by Adrian (see all)