2023 shifts into second gear, with new and archival offerings from Polypores, Faten Kanaan, Amber Arcades, The Orchids and more

It’s hard to gauge what kind of year 2023 is set to be at this still fledgling stage, but one thing is pretty much certain, there will continue to be a lot of music vying for space in the shelves. Like some of the below…

With Castles in Space having already turned on the taps for what looks likely to be another steady and heady stream of content for the next twelve or so months, starting with Yves Malone’s A Hello to a Goodbye last month, we now see the dual deployment of a pair of LPs from two lynchpins of the synth scene – namely Polypores (AKA Stephen James Buckley) and Field Lines Cartographer (AKA Mark Burford) – who are now fast-approaching veteran status, just in terms of the body of work they have generated between themselves in a short amount of years, through a variety of curatorial outlets. As last year proved though, slightly slower and more spaced-out scheduling, whether by accident or design, for the main album output of both operations has allowed things to breathe more easily.

So, after two very well-measured ‘official’ long-players appearing in 2022 and with side-releases funnelled through lower-key routes for those who need them, Praedormitium has the opportunity to carve out another milestone moment for Polypores. Completing, as it does, a new age-tinged triptych for CiS, that follows loosely on from 2019’s Flora and 2020’s Azure.

Although actually cut during Christmas 2020 – sandwiched between the recording sessions for the boundaries-pushing Chaos Blooms and Gargantuan that were released in 2021 – the now chronologically-scrambled late-arrival does this LP no disservice. Possessing a sunlit frosty morning freshness that belies it being held back by pressing plant production lines for some time, the twelve-part suite crystallises and celebrates the prettier side of Polypores. Whilst it carries over some of the amorphous ambience of Flora and Azure, this is a more structured and musical affair, with Buckley moulding his modular set-up into a variety of shapes to appear noticeably un-synth-like in many places.

Gliding through percussive minimalism that astutely nods towards Steve Reich and Snow Palms (“Frost and Moss”), Cluster & Eno-infusions (“Yolk”), TNT-era Tortoise interludes (“Growing Crystals”), Steve Roach-meets-Mary Lattimore rippling (“Enchantments”), mesmeric voodooism (“Lattice”), space-age gamelan (“Nonsensical and Fragmented”), the elegiac languid side of Mogwai’s soundtrack work (“Our Tiny Orbits”) and weightless exhalations (“And Slowly Open Your Eyes”), Praedormitium traverses a lot of entrancing environments without ever feeling overwhelming. Another very likely contender for the ‘must-keep’ section of any storage-straining Polypores collection.

Contrastingly, having taken things off to otherworldly and interstellar realms respectively, with last year’s still-desirable Dreamtides and Superclusters long-players, Fields Lines Cartographer’s synth-sculpted This Vibrating Earth is a far more out-inside affair, with an atom-level delving intensity.

This translates into lengthy passages of brooding pulsations (“Still Canyon”), subterranean moodscapes (“Thawing Ice Temples”), forceful but beatific burbling (“Rain Clouds Descending”) and unsettling drones (“Hypogeum”), that are more challenging to absorb compared with material on the aforementioned predecessor albums. However, aficionados of the murkier and more abstract side of the FLC spectrum should have no complaints with the wrap-around sound world This Vibrating Earth ambitiously assembles.

If that wasn’t quite enough one-man electronic artisan action, then Woodford Halse brings us Everyday Dust’s punningly-anointed Witching Hour Lineman for some skulking Radiophonic Workshop-meets-The Home Current essays, whilst sibling imprint Preston Capes serves up some ear-bleeding noise extremism in the form of VX’s The Unpleasant Archive. More interesting and easier on the senses, from the former label stable, is Ryan Shirlow’s Ullstair University Vol. 1.

Constructed with the help of some semi-anonymised ‘visiting students’ cited in the sleeve notes, this first-of-hopefully-more-to-come selection is an intriguing amalgam of musical travelogues, drawing upon Shirlow’s multi-instrumentalist agility, childhood memories from the north Irish coast, his role as a contributor to Fortean Times and more on top.

Rendered with bass, banjo, mandolin, guitars, field recordings/samples (foraged from trips across parts of the UK, Europe and Lebanon), violin, cello, live percussion, occasional wordless vocals and various electronic elements, there is a lot going inside this multi-flavoured sonic stew.

Hence, along the way, proceedings spin to the pastoral-prog ends of the kosmische kaleidoscope (“Enter the Archive, Praise #1”); segue through embryonic OMD, early-Brokeback and Full House-era Fairport Convention settings (“First Drone, Further Steps”); cross-fertilise Six Organs of Admittance’s psych-Americana with the Pink Floyd refiltrations of Plankton Wat (“Irish American Studies, Manifest”); draw from the back porch-modes of Papa M (“Sad Cowboy”); allude to gorgeous Gastr Del Sol-like electro-acoustic explorations (“Aliss (Loop), Improv A”); and soak spiritualistic ululations in an ambient-motorik bath (“Ascension, Fade Out”).

Like a mixtape compiled by an eccentric but talented uncle – who has a great record collection that seems almost entirely attuned to the tastes of Stuart Maconie’s most fervent Freakzone listeners – Ullstair University Vol. 1 leaves you wanting more, whilst warranting plenteous plays inside its own off-piste bucolic bubble.

Having rebooted her creativity somewhat in a shift over to Fire Records with 2020’s elaborately thematic A Mythology of Circles, Brooklyn’s Faten Kanaan returns with further renewal on her fifth album, Afterpoem, via the same outpost. Whilst sadly there is still no real return to the spectral songs-based material that was sprinkled into some of the grooves of her earliest appearances, there is an alluring intimacy back in play across combinations of electronic and neo-classical idioms.

Paradoxically at first, the concise 35-minute collection feels a little too fleeting and unanchored as a whole, yet when listened to more intently on an individual basis the thirteen miniatures manifest as worlds-within-a-world set-pieces.

Thus, “Fin août, début septembre” uncoils like a baroque meditation warmly warped through a Vangelis wormhole; the churchy organ and harpsichord-like sounds of “Trenchcoat” feel ripe for a high-brow period drama soundtrack; the loops and backwards-effects queasiness of “Ebla” feel in need of a dystopic film scene to underscore; the wordless treated vocalisations of “Votive” plug a gap left by Julianna Barwick’s reduced latter-day work-rate; the chirruping “Castling” returns to familiar Wendy Carlos corners; and the stretched-out synth symphonics of “Storm Signal” bring an eerie yet airy denouement to close proceedings.

Although Afterpoem is a demanding proposition, it is laden with patience-rewarding pockets of mesmeric curiosity.

Following somewhat in Faten Kanaan’s footsteps – in the sense of coupling some artistic rewiring with a move over to Fire Records – is the Netherlands’ Amber Arcades with Barefoot on Diamond Road. Shifting away from the more indie-rocking realms of previous releases for Heavenly Recordings, this third album puts more avant-pop tangents on Annelotte de Graaf’s collaborator-assisted enterprise.

This leads to the delivery of Nina Persson-goes-cosmic-country yearning (“Diamond Road”), commanding strings-driven statements (“Odd to Even”), windswept Flaming Lips-like expansiveness (“Water Stains”), stretched electro ruminations (“Life is Coming Home”) and prowling atmospheric balladry (“I’m Not There”).

Despite the multiple directions, the album flows along with a consistent fluidity, even if it perhaps lacks some truly strong standalone pieces. A promising progression in short, that leaves the door open for even better things to come.

For the all the mind and stylistic expanding properties of the above new releases, the comforts of further excavations from the BBC’s bounteous archives through the public service by proxy endeavours of Precious Recordings of London are a welcome diversion.

Two sessions cut for John Peel in 1990 and 1994, packaged-up as separate 10” EPs from Glasgow’s The Orchids, provide particularly joyous jangling revelations. Again, debunking historical music press views that most onetime Sarah Records signees were insubstantial and twee, this pair of BBC studio time capsules are suitably stuffed with melodic momentum and invention.

From the earlier set’s Wedding Present-meets-proto-Belle & Sebastian rugged bliss (“Caveman” and “Frank De Salvo”) and chiming Byrds-meets-The Pastels charms (“Dirty Clothing” and “And When I Wake Up”) to the later one’s third-album-VU-meets-Felt twists and twangs (“Patience is Mine”, “Waiting Seems Vain” and “The Searching”) and funkified Happy Mondays-meets-New Order leanings (“A Living Ken and Barbie (Back to Basics Mix”), there is a great deal to cherish.

For those who of us who have recently devoured Nige Tassell’s hyper-readable Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? tome, one of the major frustrations is tracking down the recorded works of some early-Creation Records curated bands, who briefly flew towards the top of the indie charts in the 1980s. Even harder is access to pivotal radio sessions for the Beeb – also often cited in the book – that powered such groups like The Bodines towards fleeting minor fame.

Satisfyingly then, sessions from said Glossop-gestated quartet, originally put to tape for Janice Long in 1985 and 1986, also appear as a double helping of 10” EPs. Whilst not quite so outstanding overall as The Orchids twin outings, there are still plenty of vintage pleasures to be unpacked.

The crème de la crème is certainly the 1985 incarnation of the subsequent much-loved 1986 single “Therese”, which is perhaps the definitive take on the song’s Orange Juice vs. The Jasmine Minks call-and-response delights. There’s more to enjoy elsewhere too though, like the shimmering chugging “Scar Tissue” and “William Shatner” from the 1985 session to The Smithsian thrum of “What You Want” and the jerky propulsions of “Naming Names” for the later 1986 commission. C86 and Creation connoisseurs will find much to re-celebrate here.

Adrian
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