New Year review pile excavations, featuring Marlody, Papernut Cambridge, Theory of Ghosts, Molly, Yves Malone, David Boulter and more

Whilst a few of us who over-indulged in sonic imbibement in 2022 might have benefited from the musical equivalent of a dry January (and perhaps carrying on until December too), it would be tough and remiss to pass through the month unengaged with new things slipping out via some smaller-scale sources before the bigger beasts crowd out the audio field. Hence, here is another plenteous review round-up, not very long after the festive season.

Having had a strong run of releases last year, featuring new and archival outings from their extended family of indie-pop veterans, Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey bring a fresher face to their Skep Wax enterprise with I’m Not Sure at All, the debut solo album from the Ashford-based and covertly-monikered Marlody.

Built around combinations of her own airy often multi-tiered tender tones, centre-stage piano, programmed percussion, bass and assorted add-ons, the record refracts classical-training into alluring and affecting avant-pop. With nakedly personal lyrical themes – touching upon mental illness, personal loss and challenging romantic relationships – embedded into imaginative arrangements, the collected tracks unpeel both beatifically and obliquely.

Along the ten-part journey, Marlody steers her hermetic songs skilfully through Marissa Nadler-meets-Lila Tristram baroque noir (“Summer”); medievally-tinged melancholy reminiscent of Mountains-era Mary Timony (“Runaway”); hypnotic hymnal-electro (“These Doubts” and “Words”); a rousing low-tech take on early-Tori Amos (“Malevolence”); hints of the recently departed Christine McVie’s most plaintive balladry (“Wrong”); and hushed nods to Kath Bush (“Friends in Low Places” and “Otherly”).

Whilst it might take multiple airings for I’m Not Sure at All to truly click for some, it’s hard to put aside once the manifold charms take hold. A sublime intimate introduction into the world of Marlody in short.

Speaking again of the wider Skep Wax community, we find Ian Button – a member of the label’s Catenary Wires and Swansea Sound – return to his main roost as the head of Papernut Cambridge, with Channel Suite (released via Gare Du Nord). As the group’s first set of originals since 2018’s Outstairs Instairs LP, the timing is welcome in helping to pull us through the gloomier end of winter.

Joined by regulars Robert Halcrow, Robert Rotifer, Darren Hayman and Jack Hayter, Button stirs together and serves up a joyous mash of retro-minded songcraft. Assembled with organic and synthetic ingredients, over fourteen diverse dishes, topped by his husky Luke Haines-like vocals, Channel Suite covers a lot of tastes whilst retaining a strong melodic consistency throughout.

Therefore, we’re well-fed with Dexys-like communalism (“End of the Downs”); earwormy affectionate amalgams of Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” and Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime” (“La Cucina” and “Chez Pascal”); slightly sun-melted Ray Davies meanderings (“Sally & Ernest”); lovelorn Bowie-esque spaciness (“Cassiopeia”); miniaturised Burt Bacharach-meets-Scott Walker sophistication (“Look for the Highest Window” and “Trip to America”); the Velvets-go-motorik (“Cobwebs”); an enjoyable educational bit of studio magic tricks exposition (“Grimston Green Hustle”); an all too short bit of White Album whimsy (“River on the Sand”); and a splash of early-T Rex (“Jump in Your Heart”).

Full of nimble musicality and self-effacing eccentricity, Channel Suite is a warmly uplifting pleasure.

Taking a completely different trajectory from Button and co. is a four-track EP – in the shape of Bel (Eukaryotic) – from Katie English (Isnaj Dui, Busy Microbes, Littlebow, The Doomed Bird of Providence) and Mark Kluzek (The Doomed Bird of Providence).

Composing for a two-person string ensemble instead of relying on their own considerable multi-instrumentalist skills feels unexpected – and it certainly strains the sinews of this scribe’s knowledge base in terms of description reference points.

However, the four pieces tap into the Second Language label catalogue’s formative forays into post-classical topography and the modern composition corners of the Village Green canon, as they shift through rousing yet wintery bucolics (“Dream”), commanding chamber music (“Fire” and “Clearing”) and John Williams-laced cinematics on a smaller-scale (“Blind”), in a way that is inviting rather than intimidating.

Certainly something worth stepping out of a comfort zone to visit.

On the newly established Faint Horizon label comes the functionally-titled EP1 from Theory of Ghosts. The first official studio outing of a new trio made-up of Glen Johnson (guitars, synths, vocals), Franck Alba (six-string bass, backing vocals, piano) and Robert Hervais-Adelman (drums), bolstered by guest help from David Rothon (Philicorda) and producer Jon Clayton (cello, piano). The four well-presented cuts pretty much pick up the batons that the former two left behind in their Piano Magic days, albeit with some added spaciousness and looseness acquired in the interim years, which of course is very much a good thing.

Capturing Johnson very much back in full lyrical flow upfront, we’re taken through the lush yet foreboding coiling/uncoiling of “When the Rain Stops”, the somnolent elegance of “Actresses Who Sing”, the muted beauty and twangs of “Got to Let Some Light into My Life” and the dusky tunnelling of “Leaves Upon the Breeze”.

With unapologetic shades of late-period Leonard Cohen, The Durutti Column, Felt’s The Splendour of Fear and choice early New Order 12” singles, in addition to re-finessed flashbacks from the recently reissued The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic long-player, EP1 wraps up a lot of returning touchstones. Yet, crucially it uses a refreshed sonic ribbon to do so, in a way that should satisfy the group’s carried-over fanbase without over-indulging it.

Also returning with a mixture of familiarity and recalibration, are Innsbruck-based duo Molly, who somewhat belatedly follow-up 2019’s All That Ever Could Have Been long-player with Picturesque (via Sonic Cathedral). Inspired to a greater degree by a declared interest in Romanticism culture than alpine vistas this time around, the album is even more epic and ambitious than its predecessor. Although the opening and relatively short “Ballerina” does overcook things a tad, with passages redolent of a fuzz-saturated take on Sigur Rós, the collection soon finds surer sonic footings.

Consequently, the twelve-minute Mogwai Young Team and The Comfort of Madness indebted “Metamorphosis” unashamedly ebbs and flows across three distinct movements like a post-rock-shoegaze opera; the yearning and swirling “Golden Age” feels like Slowdive tumbling through a wormhole; the minimised and murky keyboard-led “Sunday Kid” imagines a latter-day Spiritualized demo recorded in a semi-derelict church; the chiming “So to Speak” rebuilds parts of Radiohead’s “Let Down” from OK Computer with Ride’s effects pedals; and the eleven forbidding minutes of “The Lot” swell from languid reflection to gut-churning noise and back again, as if it were a time-travelled-enabled collaboration between Vini Reilly and Bad Moon Rising-era Sonic Youth.

In rallying the most maximalist and serious-minded ends of the latter-day Sonic Cathedral congregation with Picturesque, Molly might still remain an acquired taste for the less devout, but it’s hard to not be stirred by the grand questing scope on display.

With reassuring reliability, 2023 already has further substantial waves of recorded works in the pipeline from Mat Handley’s trio of labels (Woodford Halse, Preston Capes, Fenny Compton), Colin Morrison’s Castles in Space and Frances Castle’s Clay Pipe Music. They all start as they mean to go on with the ensuing arrivals.

Hence, alongside an enigma-encoded eight-part suite of Central Office of Information-meets-Concretism-infused micro-pieces on a Woodford Halse lathe-cut 7” – entitled The Dead Astronaut – from Portugal’s Aural Design and some no-prisoner-taking Throbbing Gristle-meets-musique concrète sounds across a split-cassette from Romania’s Centrul Isteric and Michiu, comes the decidedly groovier Mechanical Man Land (also on Woodford Halse) from Buckinghamshire’s Fingerwolf (AKA Jon Dickinson).

Electronically funnelling personalised 80s aural flashbacks, we’re served-up some fun but far throwaway home-studio baked stews, mixing-up dollops of Herbie Hancock and Tom Tom Club as well as elements part-cribbed from the scores to Miami Vice, Magnum P.I. and Beverly Hills Cop, with lashings of squelchy clavinet and body-popping bass sounds to boot. Quite peculiar yet tasty stuff.

With several pallet loads of vinyl products already arriving and queuing-up for disbursement, Castles in Space’s first long-player drop-off of the year comes in the shape of Yves Malone’s A Hello to a Goodbye, in its eye-scrambling artwork. Created by an established alias of Canada’s Dylan Marcus McConnell (also known for truckloads of recorded material as Adderall Canyonly, Oxykitten et al.), the seven synthetically-sculpted and stretched-out segments pretty much fit together like a multi-coloured mosaic from McConnell’s various overlapping outlets.

This translates into bright Art of Noise-meets-Electric Café-epoch Kraftwerk chunkiness (“A Splash of Palm Razors Across the Sky” and “Stiff Starter”), slower slightly warped 80s filmic ambience with shades of some recent Rupert Lally recordings (“Smoke and Ash, Hand in Hand” and “In Desperate Nights They Flee Towards Anything Safer”) and slightly dizzying neon-lit retro-beatscapes (“Another Empty Night, Another on the Wing”).

Those with a pre-existing capacity and fondness for keeping track of its creator’s convoluted catalogue will be right at home with A Hello to a Goodbye, whilst for newcomers it should make for a welcoming enough late entry-point.  

Appearing on Clay Pipe Music for the third time, Tindersticks mainstay David Boulter continues the label’s increasingly essential 3” CD series (previously populated by Modus, Apta and Cate Brooks) with the wonderful Factory. Compromised of the single multi-part 20-minute titular track, Boulter revisits childhood memories of visiting the Nottingham lace-making factory that his mother once worked at.

Making salutes to Steve Reich, leaning back towards the serene European soundtrack work he’s co-authored previously for Claire Denis films and tapping into an inscrutable sense of English wistfulness channelled by many in the Clay Pipe family, the suite glides through shimmering minimalistic symphonics and balmy mysterious atmospherics, layered – it seems – by various configurations of piano, acoustic guitar, drum machines, strings, brass and other more indeterminate instrumentation.

Clearly the creation of a master craftsman covertly flourishing in his solo spotlight of recent years, Factory is another elusive evocative treasure from David Boulter.

Adrian
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