A bumper load of releases from Polytechnic Youth, Woodford Halse, Castles in Space and Werra Foxma get pulled from the review pile

Returning to the swollen sonic in-tray after temporarily downing review tools for only a matter of weeks, is a daunting prospect – albeit of #firstworldproblem proportions – when your favourite corners of the micro-label music industry continue to put out new content at such a rapid-fire rate. Here then beneath is an attempt to catch-up with some goods from a few familiar and reliable sources.

Seemingly unstoppable currently, with two or three distinctively-packaged new albums being released each month on cassette and now sometimes on CD, is the increasingly go-to Woodford Halse. May’s flotilla of cargo from the Doncaster enterprise certainly includes some solid stuff in the shape of Simon Klee’s Mandragora (meticulously mixing-up chunky Home Current-like beats, the glistening gliding of The Man-Machine-era Kraftwerk and the hauntological morphing of Drew Mulholland) and the split as well as collaborative Vision Sur Plan from Bernard Grancher & Projet De Vie (with both plugging into deliciously dank Throbbing Gristle-meets-John Carpenter grinding, glitching and droning) but it’s The Hologram People’s Sacred Ritual to Unlock the Mountain Portal that most impresses these ears.

Primarily a product from the pairing of multi-instrumentalists Dom Keen (guitar/bass/synth/keys/organ) and Jon Parkes (guitar/bass/synth/organ/drums/percussion), bolstered by a few guests, Sacred Ritual… is an engorging eclectic spread. Veering through the vintage acid-kosmische contours of Amon Düül II and Ash Ra Tempel (for the title-track and “Étoile Voyageuse”), sublime shades of Pink Floyd’s More soundtrack LP (“A Seventies Mother”), soaring near-symphonic pastoralism (“Sun Breaks on Saturn’s Return”, with added vocal ululations from Hattie Cooke), voodoo space-funk (“Planet Sahara”) and Brian Eno-meets-Tangerine Dream swirling atmospherics (“Deep into the Cosmic Ocean”), Keen and Parkes clearly have great record collections to influence them, without tipping into outright plagiarism. Already sold-out on cassette – but with a CD edition to follow soon – this is an inviting initiation into the world of The Hologram People.

Despite battling pressing plant delays, alongside many other like-sized ventures, the trusty Polytechnic Youth has still delivered some choice releases of late. Appearing a few months between the lovely Vignettes album on Woodford Halse from the start of the year and another all-new long player on Werra Foxma Records scheduled for this coming summer, Barry Smethurst’s one-man Apta operation takes a slightly backwards but welcome archival step with a reconfigured and expanded vinyl edition of a cassette/digital mini-album released on With Bells Records in 2020. Whilst Rainbow Islands (NG+) is less organically interposed with the guitar and bass elements that helped fashion Vignettes, the balmy blending of synths and drum machines across the eight pieces still oozes with warming home-baked comfort sounds. Those making the upgrade from the previous version are certainly rewarded in particular with the closing elegiac eight minutes of the bonus track “Putty’s Party (Slumber)”, which seals the deal on this soothing micro-electro affair.

From the same imprint but contrastingly more expansive, comes Alexandre Bazin’s Concorde. Dexterously drawing together watery modular meditations (“Swollen Seas”), twangy twisting TNT-phase Tortoise hybridising (“Dunes”), Dick Dale-meets-Can surf-motorik (“White Arrow”) and buzzing retro sci-fi disquiet (“Colors of Noise”), the Parisian’s rich sonic strokes certainly helps bring some refreshing colourisation to the collective Polytechnic Youth palette.

Forged from the infectious creative chemistry of Ali O’May and Frazer Brown, Edinburgh’s Dohnavùr could be one of several breakout acts from Castles in Space in 2021. Preceded by an excellent extended remix 12” of its opening track, “New Objectivity”, the duo’s first full album for the label, The Flow Across Borders, is a wide-open journey of sorts. Running through prowling techno-noir (“Sestriere”), early Four Tet meets Cluster blissfulness (“The Kindness of Others”), ambient ethereality (“Blue Stripe”), clatteringly raw acid house workouts (“Sunk”) and the most desolate ends of 80s 4AD (“Pass Remarkable”), O’May and Brown certainly give themselves plenty of room to roam with churning creativity.

For those in need of even more electronic wares swimming in the same aural tributaries as most of the above, then the fundraising Blue Scream compilation on Werra Foxma Records (the label run by one half of Dohnavùr) is also worth investigating for some decent off-cuts from the likes of The Central Office of Information, Kieran Mahon, Forest Robots, Apta and more.

Adrian
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