A patchwork quilt of sounds from Busy Microbes, Mitra Mitra, Listening Center, The Central Office of Information, Keith Seatman and more

Whilst the grimmest winter parts of January and February are often best fast-forwarded through, it would be a mistake to do so without still pausing to pick through the aural products that still rise to the surface for inspection, particularly of course from those prolific artists high on diode dependency. Such as the below…

Obviously, it’s currently all but impossible to avoid the precision-tuned production line output of Doncaster’s dependable Woodford Halse, whose wares appear in these pages with an almost embarrassing but entirely justified frequency. First up then, from the latest batch you’ll find Studio Kosmische’s Ritual 74, the latest side-project outing from Dom Keen (with the passing-through assistance of Jon Parkes, his fellow bandmate in The Hologram People), ticking some familiar synth soundscaping boxes with some choice celestial ambience and deep-mined drones. Then to satisfy any Boards of Canada-meets-Concretism needs you might have, A Plan for Plymouth from Town & County (AKA Steve Netting) delivers a niche nostalgic homage to the post-war reconstruction of Plymouth.

However, most distinctive of all is Calling, the second album from Busy Microbes, the remotely collaborating twosome of the Halifax-dwelling Katie English (Isnaj Dui, littlebow) and the Bristol-based Nick Edwards (Ekoplekz). Constructed tier-by-tier using synths, flutes, cello and assorted other electronics, the nine wordless pieces carve out some impressively intricate and intimate moodscapes. Shifting through neo-classical evocations (“Scope”), dub abstractions (“Forge” and “Strum”), gamelan percussiveness (“Ice” and “Pluck”), undiluted musique concrète (“Scrape”) and jittery sonic mosaics (“Jig”), there are many challenging yet alluring moments to be enthralled by throughout proceedings.

Having sat so well together on a split seven-inch on Polytechnic Youth back in 2020, it’s no surprise that new albums from Vienna’s Mitra Mitra and Barcelona’s Le Cliché, just released near back-to-back on the same label, should appear as such close but still independently-minded siblings. Both drawing from the cloudiest sonic wells of late-70s/early-80s electronica – albeit from slightly different angles – makes for an imposing one-two punch when picked up as a pair.

Mitra Mitra’s Hands Remain is perhaps the most more straight-ahead selection of the two. Featuring the ongoing collaboration of New Zealander Violet Candide and British expat Mahk Rumbae, the duo double-down on their love of giving early-Human League and Depeche Mode idioms some gritty Teutonic twists and turns, to deliver arguably their tightest and most hook-filled fusions of deadpan vocals, bone-dry drum machines and synth pulsations to date.

Featuring a variety of semi-disembodied voices and a wider range of synthetic elements, Vicarious Life from Le Cliché (AKA Irish-born Spain-dweller Gerard Ryan) contrastingly offers itself up as a more kaleidoscopic and less self-constrained collection. At times it feels as if a savvy musical forager has pulled together a compilation of very obscure but top-grade vintage synth-pop cuts; excavated from the bowels of the Mute warehouse (“The Age of Sound”), the hidden corners of Colin Potter’s over-ample archives (“Thin White Sheets”), Gary Numan’s demo tape store (“All This Silence”) and a crate of long-lost one-off European darkwave nuggets (“Francophilia”). Connoisseurs of the post-punkier end of synth scene history will love this.

Whilst David Mason will also deliver another album as the Listening Center for Polytechnic Youth a little further into 2022, in the interim his own Temporary Tapes enterprise unspools a terrific tape/download split-album with the bracingly inventive Infinitikiss (the alias of Albuquerque, New Mexico-based multi-instrumentalist Nic Jenkins).

The latter one-man project occupies the first side – entitled Pulp – over which is splattered a dizzying array of amorphous instrumentals. Through various combinations of melodica, warped synths, guitars, live drums and other implements, with lateral nods to the Yellow Magic Orchestra, early-Tortoise, Grandaddy and Camoufleur-era Gastr Del Sol along the way, Jenkins hops, skips and jumps through electro-acoustic joyousness (“Andromeda”), balmy lopsided strolling (“Back to the Ocean”), lo-fi avant-funk (“December”) and astral-dub (“Get Well Soon” and “When”) with a giddy yet inscrutable infectiousness.

Over on the Listening Center side – anointed Sendings Found – we find Mason bringing together unreleased recordings that have been filed away in between other releases during the last five years. Although this might mean amalgamating a somewhat disparate set of compositions, positioned alongside the elevating eclecticism of the Infinitikiss it acts an equally embraceable assortment.

Consequently, we’re treated to more of the magnetic tape experiments from 2020’s Non Functions album (“Schools Recorder”), extensions of the minimalist ambient bathing previously heard on Diaphanous Structures from the same year (“Inverted Bridge”, “Roulettes Curve” and “Stepping Stones”), proggier Tangerine Dream-tinged explorations (“Opaque Memory”) and trademark micro-groove-riding (“The Unearthly Cupboard”).

Rounding-out this round-up are two LP-sized affairs from other established characters from the electronic scene of the last few years, which evolve things on from their creators’ past conceptual exercises.

Thus, the affable Alex Cargill returns again as The Central Office of Information with Shadow Work (via Subexotic). Moving on from more analogue-assembled earlier work, to deploy more digital methodologies, the collection captures a sleeker more polished approach than before, which wraps around more modern day – rather than just retro – visions of dystopia, self-described as ‘future hauntism’. This makes for a slow-burning ten-part suite peppered with squelchy beats (“Online Ghosts”), spooked glitchtronica (“New Spaces”) and looping space-funk (the title track).

Yet it’s the two tracks built around the spoken-word monologues of Bob Fischer (“On the Scene”) and DJ Space Terrapin (“I Remember”), which gives Shadow Work its anchoring and the means to bridge the gap between established Generation X cultural flashbacks and Cargill’s admirable attempt to progress the thematic conversations on to fresher yet still interconnected topics. A thoughtful grower of a long-player in short.

In comparison, Keith Seatman’s Sad Old Tatty Bunting (Castles in Space) is more rooted in the past but takes some cues from our still-familiar pandemical living. Drawing initial inspiration from real life worn-out decorations, cited in the album’s name, spotted in an old pub’s beer garden on early morning solitary lockdown walks in 2020, this record forges soundtracks for the true and imagined histories of local neighbourhood nooks and crannies.

Mixing up synths, keyboards, samples, guest-speaking vocals and more into an atmospheric mash, Seatman leads us through blends of industrial noises and ghostly fairgrounds (“A Swish of the Curtain”, “The Grand Alchemists Parade”), the macabre reverberations of vintage circus performances (“Mrs Lawes & the Late Mr Pomfrey”), BBC Micro-infused motorik (“The Gnome Zone”), eerie landscapes (“In the Fields Round the Back”), wonky voodoo rhythms (“Farthing’s Chase”) and strange storytelling (“Burial at Bevill’s Leam”).

Whilst its multi-layered mysteries may take some time and patience to peel back and decipher, there’s much within Sad Old Tatty Bunting to keep fans of enigma-encoded sound worlds locked inside its spell.

Adrian
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