Another broad set of electronics-framed creations – from Ffion, Salvatore Mercatante, Giants of Discovery and Concretism – undergo assessment

If it wasn’t for the combination of FOMO and the high quality control being exercised by the main protagonists on the electronic scene, some of us could be forgiven for stepping away temporarily from collecting and documenting the ongoing benevolent deluge as the sun calls us out for the summer, however sporadically. Yet, here we go again…

As the still relatively fresh alias of Thomas Ragsdale (better known for output under his own name and various TV soundtrack works), Ffion is now turning into one of his most striking projects. Previously putting out a handful of cassette and/or download wares over the last few years through various routes, the venture now makes a vinyl debut with Unfurling (via Third Kind Records) and another tape/digital outing with Sessile (on Woodford Halse). With similar pastel coloured and ornithologically themed front sleeves as well as near back-to-back arrival dates, it’s hard not to consider the two releases as a close but contrasting sibling pairing, regardless of whether they were conceived as such.

Certainly, as the most aptly-named and expansive of the two works, Unfurling befits the need to spread out across some pressed plastic grooves. Through pulsing and arpeggiated synth landscaping, Ragsdale won’t be the first (or last) person to find sweet spot connections between Tangerine Dream, Cluster and Michael Bundt but so skilfully does he make them across the six sprawling tracks that they certainly confirm him as one of the best at it right now. In comparison, Sessile is a more low-slung, more intense and – at times – more claustrophobic affair. Nevertheless, with similar synth patterns bolstered by juddering scything beats, subterranean drones and ecclesiastical loops, this other six-track suite is just as strong and essential as its close relative.

It should also be noted that both albums play-out particularly well as headphone immersion experiences. Furthermore, for those wanting to dig even deeper between the two albums, signing up to the Third Kind Records subscription service will grant access to a digital-only alternative version of Unfurling.

Also making digital/cassette appearances on Woodford Halse are two more familiar faces. Having already delivered an impressive CD release as Giants of Discovery for the same label, in the shape of last year’s Monuments, the Wirral-dwelling Kevin Downey returns again swiftly with the even more ambitious Orpheus, a full-on sonic thematic tie-in with the Greek legends of Orpheus and his wife Eurydice.

Mixing from a diverse palette of modular synths and Moogs, keyboards, live percussion, bass, electric guitar, uncannily live-sounding sampled strings and more, the album gives the remarkable sonic appearance of an ensemble presentation, whilst remaining the sole product of Downey’s DIY dexterity.

Across the thirteen wordless pieces, Orpheus finds him near-seamlessly segueing through chamber music-meets-dronescapes (“Eurydice”); Without Mercy-era Durutti Column (“A Blessed Union”); evocative gothic ghostliness (“Orpheus’ Lament”); percussively stormy orchestrations (“Hades!”); ambient serenity (“Bring the Light”); and balmy brass band-like warmth (“If I Could Meet You Again for the First Time”).

Whilst it might encourage an interest in the complexities of the Greek myths it was assembled to pay homage to, Orpheus also impressively stands up to sustainable listening on its own musical terms.

Riding alongside Sessile and Orpheus, as part of Woodford Halse’s June outpourings, is Tre Sfere from Salvatore Mercatante. Following speedily on from his recent Soundtracking the Void release, Presents Pistacchio Sessions, which tapped heavily into early-80s minimal-wave percussiveness, the New York-based electro-crafter shapes this collection with a slightly wider selection of sounds.

This translates into probing filmic-noir with shades of the Blade Runner and Terminator 2 scores darkened and blended with choppier mechanised rhythms (“Yimble” and “Pietro”); bass throbbing yet more gauzy takes on the John Carpenter playbook (“Amviente”); The Home Current’s most nocturnal ambient-techno tributaries (“Some Types of Moon”); and ghost-in-the-modules burbling ethereality (“A Still Mountain Never Seen”).

Although Tre Sfere doesn’t offer much that is radically new, it does consolidate Salvatore Mercatante’s sturdy commitment to capturing and setting after-midnight moods.

After some engaging closet-clearing with last year’s Dick and Stewart soundtrack LP and the recent Castles in Space subscription series collection The Concretism Archive – Volume 1, Chris Sharp returns to the same label once more with the long-awaited official sequel to 2018’s For Concrete and Country under his Concretism nom de plume. Leaving behind the cartoon-horror miniatures of Dick and Stewart and the well-mined Cold War-meets-public information film mash-ups of his earlier works, Teliffusion finds his primary outlet moving on to even more niche fixations.

Influenced by his work in TV post-production in the late-90s, Teliffusion is an esoteric salute to the “last days of tape”, with all the defunct physical formats and machinery that once went with it. Whilst this might suggest a significant aural departure into less synthetically-assembled material, many of the core Concretism ingredients are still mixed in with brutalist greyness and saturated chunkiness. Yet instead of nods to nuclear bunkers, pylons and industrial chemicals, Teliffusion is inspired by televisual time-codes, vision-mixing and disembodied instructional voices, with tiers upon tiers of synths and processed drum layers all warped and smeared like wobbly magnetic tape left far too long in inhospitable conditions.

Hence, along the way, proceedings spool through the likes of the deep clanking “Red, Green, Blue”; the churning industrial murk of “Black and Burst”; the melted Vangelis expansiveness of “One Thousand Stripes Per Second”; the wistfulness of the title track; and the corroded cybernetics of “Chroma”.

Compared to the relative openness and more overt musicality of the aforementioned Dick and Stewart score, the super-thickened Teliffusion is a much tougher experience overall but one that will reconfirm Chris Sharp as one of the most uncompromising godfathers of electronically-fashioned conceptualism from the last half-decade or so.

Adrian
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