A mix of wares from The Heartwood Institute & Hawksmoor, The Eccentronic Research Council, Polypores & Gareth E. Rees and The Home Current

Whilst there is still plenty of productivity from ‘one person and one synth’ operations, more collaborative and comfort-zone-busting creativity is now coalescing within the still rudely healthy electronic scene, as the below torrent of releases confirm in a variety of ways.

The Heartwood Institute & Hawksmoor’s remotely-connected conjoining to conceive Concrete Island (Spun Out of Control) was almost guaranteed a place on these pages based on the reliable personnel involved (namely Jonathan Sharp and James McKeown under their respective aliases), the choice of conceptual literary tie-in (the same JG Ballard novel from which this site takes its very name) and the stellar artwork (from Eric Adrian Lee). Satisfyingly though, the contents live up to the context.

With the twosome initially coming together to just see what might happen from friendly file exchanges, an eventual framing of their ideas around Ballard’s tale of desolation and divorce from society on a derelict land expanse has led to an album that welds its self-described ‘post-punktronica’ grooves to a gripping dark narrative. Featuring McKeown’s live-played basslines giving many of the nine chapters of this cassette/digital release a distinctive anchoring, around which both craftsmen add synths, programmed percussion and effects, Concrete Island rolls along with a mesmeric momentum.

Across proceedings, we find the well-matched duo fusing synthetic choral ululations and doom-laden beatscapes with more than a hint of prime-cut John Carpenter (“The Architect (An Arrogant Protagonist)”); strong but densely-layered nods to the dub-laced landscapes of early-Tortoise (“Rainstorm Burning Car” and “Median Strip”); punk-funk motorik (“Fire Signal”); dirtied-up Kraftwerkisms (“Beast and Rider”); dank urban industrial ambience (“Delirium”); and an imaginary melding of Tubeway Army records with early-80s Doctor Who background scores.

Murky yet magnetising and bleak but beguiling, this first presentation from The Heartwood Institute and Hawksmoor’s coupling-up is an enthralling experience.

Having already upped the ambition ante very recently – via the super-limited and luxuriantly-packaged musique-concrete-meets-turntablism voyaging of The Superceded Sounds of The New Obsolescents – the latest gourmet selection to expand the Castles in Space menu comes in the banquet-sized proportions of The Dreamcatcher Tapes Volumes 1 & 2 from The Eccentronic Research Council. Originally released in a hard-to-find one volume form back in 2013, this partnering of Dean Honer and Adrian Flanagan’s music with the spoken word recounting of dreams from a vast cast of collaborators, now reappears together with a second volume expanded by new material assembled in and infused by last year’s lockdown living.

Now at 37 tracks for its maximum extents in deluxe-cassette and digital versions (with a more manageable 26 cuts bundled on to a double vinyl edition), The Dreamcatcher Tapes finds a divergent array of actors, artists, musicians, scientists, poets, filmmakers, nurses, teachers, delivery drivers, writers, journalists and shop workers reciting their dreams – as well as nightmares – inside a broad tapestry of largely electronic settings.

Part-art project, part-social observation study, part-psychologist’s couch eavesdropping and part-bite-sized BBC radio storytelling anthology, there is a lot to digest here, that may take some months of listening to fully unpack. Against acres of borrowed Radiophonic Workshop effects, irradiated space-pop, kaleidoscopic kosmische, mid-fi trip-hop, dishevelled electro-funk and fleeting shades of Freddie Phillips pastoralism, there are strange, sinister and sometimes darkly hilarious yarns told of paranormal activities, family members, serial killers, animals, blue plastic werewolves, driving, PPE shortages, shopping trips, surreal sex… and Grace Jones causing a fuss at a pub carvery.

Whilst notable contributions from actor Maxine Peake, writer/journalist Wyndham Wallace and musician/Finders Keeper label-owner Andy Votel will helpfully reel in the casually curious, The Dreamcatcher Tapes is very much an extended team event, wherein the best moments can often appear with the least obvious blends of sonic beds, voices and subconscious nocturnal brain activity extractions.

Some of the challenge is finding these particularly special combinations amidst such an overwhelming sprawl of material. However, for those who love both esoteric sounds and voice-driven podcasts but don’t have the time for lengthy audiobooks, this could be a highly apposite headphone-listening experience to get thoroughly lost in.

Taking a similar approach – but on a much smaller scale – is Stephen James Buckley as he steps away from his most solitary synth scene-building as Polypores for the first time since last year’s piano player pairing-up exercise Piano: Dismantled, to work with author and erstwhile Clay Pipe Music alumnus Gareth E. Rees. Cut as part of Miracle Pond’s Subliminal Suggestion digital/cassette series, Deep Motion Trips is an aptly anointed artefact. Split into two ten-minute spoken word monologues from Rees around which Buckley has chiselled his sonic sculptures (which are also repeated voice-free on side B), this is an intentionally immersive affair.

The opening “Everything Is Interesting” certainly proves to be the most striking melding of the two talented minds, as Rees hypnotically talks us step-by-step through an oblique observational twilight walk around Covid-emptied city streets, soundtracked by serene droning and oceanic modulations from Buckley. In contrast, “Deep Motion Trips” takes a more internalised view of the world that feels very much like a mindfulness practice instructional from Rees, with Buckley encircling him in swirls, percolations and voice manipulations.

It is genuinely profound trippy stuff overall, that expands the Polypores realms into an embryonic yet promising lateral direction, which is definitely worthy of further future exploration.

Although it’s perhaps only a matter of time before Stephen James Buckley also joins forces with Martin Jensen to form some kind of all conquering super duo – that can collectively release even more things together than both have put out separately over the last couple of years – in the meantime the latter still has the remaining two of five albums he’s authored or co-authored to let out into the world this annum.

The first is another much-delayed and out of chronological sequence set, in the shape of The Home Current’s The Coyote Kiss, originally recorded back in 2019 but now finally unleashed by Lonely Mountain Records on double vinyl. Ostensibly designed as a sequel to his much loved sole Castles in Space LP to date, Civilian Leather, with two spot lit guest vocal spots and a balmy beats-led trajectory, the twelve-track set is a deliberately uplifting art-pop creation.

In respect to the voice-led pieces, Visage Pâle’s Lars-Martin Isler adds his underrated Gallic wistfulness to the pulsing blissfulness of “Mexico” and Oliver Cherer lends a graceful Robert Wyatt-like presence to the chunky stomping “Aquamarine”. Elsewhere, the gliding “Ku’damm Blues” and the bustling “Just Before Your Love” salute peak-years New Order, whilst the juddery “Romford Street Scene” nods to clubbier Four Tet moments and the closing title track extends out into dreamy widescreen ambient-techno.

All in all, The Home Current’s most loyal followers will undoubtedly want to crank out The Coyote Kiss loudly as the spring sun comes into view.

Ultimately though, The Coyote Kiss is a fans-centric refinement of one strand of The Home Current’s story so far, whereas the near-simultaneously released Endless Exile on Woodford Halse tries on some different attire. Openly dedicated to honouring the eclectic career of the late great Andrew Weatherall, this tape/download selection opts for an inverted band-like feel, albeit still composed under one-man conditions. Replete with guitar loops, live-sounding percussion tiers and dubby bass-lines, the nine-track dispatch deepens and stretches out The Home Current’s world into some flashbacking yet refreshing directions.

Hence, “Sudden Expulsion” and “Disbelief” sound like lost instrumental outtakes from Primal Scream’s underrated Vanishing Point; “Bless and Release” imagines an unearthed One Dove remix; “Your Silence” pays a loose homage to Sabres of Paradise; and “City Pain Purple Skies” shimmers like one of Saint Etienne’s most dancefloor-centric excursions. Although others more acquainted with the Weatherall canon will be able to make some sharper cross-references over the length of Endless Exile, the long-player exudes a strong sense of adventure in its own right.

With no more releases from The Home Current promised – at time of writing that is – for the rest of this year, there could now be an opportune breathing space to step-back and choose the true keepers from Martin Jensen’s catalogue to date. Endless Exile should at least be the near the top of the list.

Adrian
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