A broad spread of freshly-pressed sounds from The Declining Winter, Gilroy Mere, Death And Vanilla, Jilk, The Van Pelt and more

Spring may not be here quite yet at time of writing, but the longer lighter days are gradually lifting us through last vestiges of winter. With it comes an even higher review pile, demanding another disassembly process… as below.

Although Richard Adams has recently retracted strong hints that the double-length Really Early, Really Late (Home Assembly / Rusted Rail) would be the very last long-form outing for The Declining Winter – it still feels very much like a culmination point in his loosely-gathered group’s story to date.

Joined ably by new and returning accomplices – that include Keith Wallace (Loner Deluxe, Cubs, Moving Statues et al.), Cecilia Danell (A Lilac Decline, Cubs, etc.), Gareth S. Brown (Hood), Sarah Kemp (Brave Timbers, Last Harbour), James Yates (epic45) and Joel Hanson (Memory Drawings) – in various configurations, the album redistils as well as finds fresher uses for the ingredients Adams has sprinkled into his work with Hood, Great Panoptique Winter, Memory Drawings and Western Edges, and on previous releases from The Declining Winter. Moreover, there is a much greater sense of space in the nine largely lengthy tracks.

Yet, for all that has gone into the mix, this is not an unwieldly hodgepodge but a sublimely cohesive collection full of beatific sadness, graceful calmness and understated desolation. With Adams’ breathy vocals sat somewhere between those of The Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop and – curiously – James Johnston of Gallon Drunk in non-snarly mode, they convey some of his most poetic lyrics to date, as they weave across wide-open wintry landscapes.

This initially leads us to the redolent chamber-folk of “The Darkening Way” and the plaintive State River Widening-like post-pastoralism of the “Song of the Moor Fire”, which feel like the most familiar matches to the earthiest elements of The Declining Winter’s prior oeuvre. Things evolve quite differently with the elegiac eight minutes of the title track, wherein jazzy weightless drums and piano push along most of the proceedings, as if it were a lost outtake from the last two Talk Talk albums. Thereafter, Really Early, Really Late continues to enchant and inspire.

Hence, after an instrumental interlude through the Nick Drake-tinged “Yellow Fields” comes the bleak languorous Labradford-meets-Bark Psychosis airiness of “Project Row Houses”, the pulsing swirls of the Western Edges-shaded “This Heart Beats Black”, the aching Last Harbour-laced flickers of “The Fruit of the Hours”, the immersive swelling and discord of “How to be Disillusioned”, and the haunted up-close lo-fi of “…Let These Words of Love Become the Lamps That Light Your Way”.

Within that said latter closer piece, Adams near-whispers “The world is sad, we know that / But don’t be scared, there’s hope left”, to aptly sign-off an album that sublimely encases intimacy with expansiveness and melancholy with uplift. One of this year’s finest 57 musical minutes so far, without question.

Amidst a fresh wave of activity – notably with the live-friendly kosmische ensemble Aircooled, side-man duties in Miki Berenyi’s charming semi-solo live trio and a conjoining with D Rothon on last year’s mesmeric Estuary English – Oliver Cherer returns again in his Gilroy Mere guise with a third album for Clay Pipe Music, entitled Gilden Gate.

A more abstract but no less engaging set-piece in comparison to its much-admired predecessors – The Green Line and Adlestrop – instead of historic bus routes and lost rail lines as the conceptual creative starting points, Gilden Gate takes thematic cues from the ‘lost city’ of Dulwich on the Suffolk coast. With side one sub-titled Rising and side two named Falling, this is a journey of a different, more otherworldly, kind. Accompanied by Naomi Burrel on violin, vocals and Chinese bells, and himself on a variety of synths, guitars, bass, electronic drum sounds and field recordings, Cherer takes us on a quite ethereal trip.

Through ghostly Robert Wyatt-like ululations (“Sea Breeze”), Musik Von Harmonia-meets-Meddle electro-acoustics (“Hercules”), balmy echoes of Ambient-series Brian Eno (“Heat Haze” and “The Downs”) and radiant spacey hymnals with hints of early-OMD (“Ramblers’ Dance”), the first side extends upon familiar strong terrain from other Cherer projects.

The flipside proffers more radical rerouting, with Burrel’s participation appearing more pronounced. Thus, we’re transported through Dead Can Dance-meets-gothic-years-Tom-Baker-Doctor Who (“Greyfriars”), serene neo-classical movements (“Blackfriars”), new-agey atmospherics with lateral nods to the original Star Trek TV theme (“St Nicholas”), shadowy symphonic soundscapes (“St Katherine”) and spoken-word folkloric storytelling atop ecclesiastical evocations (“St Leonard”), all with a hypnotic allure.

Coupling together two distinct but not ungainly halves, Gilden Gate makes for one very satisfying whole, worthy of repeated exploration. Yet another Oliver Cherer triumph… 

Staying in an intensely hybridising headspace, we step into Syrup House (Castles in Space) from Bristol collective Jilk. As the proper follow-up to last year’s Haunted Bedrooms, this is a strikingly impressive step forward, with seven predominantly sprawling pieces that fuse together strings, piano, synths, sumptuous wordless vocals and more, with broad yet snug sophistication.

Sailing through rippling communalist-voice-topped orchestrations (“Funny Voices”), fidgety chambertronica with hints of Tortoise’s most Steve Reichian moves (“The Love That Pulls You In” and “Misunderstood Minotaur”), throbbing motorik (“128 Rushes”), Kid A-goes-classical (“The Bewilderment Inside Syrup House” and “Lessons in Ghosts”) and somnolent lullaby-making (“Flags”), there’s a lot to unpack inside Syrup House but the rewarding contents are manifold.

In another conceptual spot, we find David Colohan’s A Lunar Standstill on Woodford Halse. Inspired by a rainy day visit to the Neolithic stone circles of Stanton Drew in early-2020, the ten-track set – constructed using alto saxophone, clarinet, trombone, electric guitar, harmonium, field recordings, mellotron, modular synths and fleeting vocals – is quite an intimidating prospect at first. Laden with dronescapes that join the dots between the pagan, the liturgical, the spectral and the post-apocalyptical, the album does at times feel like a soundtrack selection in search of several films. Yet surrender the senses to a full airing – particularly on an appropriately murky afternoon – and its uneasy enchantments gradually come to the fore.

Whilst some on the experimentalist fringes found themselves creatively cranked-up during pandemic-driven staying at home living, Swedish trio Death and Vanilla suffered a slowdown, in part due to the direct medical effects of coronavirus itself. Consequently, the belated sequel to 2019’s Are You a Dreamer?, in the shape of Flicker (Fire Records) feels very much like a post-convalescence recalibration affair – albeit all within the three-piece’s subtly moving internal mechanics.

So, whilst there remains a hauntological fog across proceedings, that continues to keep Marleen Nilsson’s elusive tones submerged in the mix, there’s a lighter melodically-enriched feel to the song arrangements themselves, with more lithe guitar lines and live-sounding drum layers edging things further into dream-pop avenues, slightly away from synth-cloaked artiness.

The net effect is somewhat akin to a curious lost collaboration between Slow Buildings-era Pale Saints, Movietone and an embryonic Broadcast. Not a remarkable shift forwards or sideways it’s true, but existing fans will be more than content with Death and Vanilla’s incremental self-adaptations across Flicker.

Clearly continuing to revel in the free-reining ‘what Dom likes’ A&R ethos of his reinvigorated Feral Child imprint, Dom Martin serves up the debut LP from Blauer Montag. The brainchild of the semi-nomadic Richard Montag – aided by Kath Gifford, Gareth McNicol and Jono Podmore – the influences-disclosing Ding*r does pretty much what it says on the tin, in a good way.

Consequently, there is plenty of motorik classicism (referencing the Klaus Dinger-propelled Neu! and La Düsseldorf, naturally), palpitating psych-rock gliding (strongly akin to Free/Slope), Spacemen 3-meets-Spectrum sprawling and rambunctious recollections of early-Stereolab, all thrown into one bubbling cauldron that has been tipped across two sides of vinyl. Radically original it might not be, yet the unrestricted driving focus makes for a bracing aural avalanche.

Having been well-served with reissues and archival releases after reforming in recent years for on and off live duties, New York’s The Van Pelt finally unveil their first official new studio album since 1997, in the shape of Artisans & Merchants (Gringo Records / La Castanya / Spartan Records).

Still led by Chris Leo, but with a partially reconstituted line-up, this is not a straightforward follow-on from the band’s formative blending of Fugazi-meets-Karate sonic angularity with Jonathan Richman-meets-Stephen Malkmus wordplay density. Musically more layered and lyrically less jam-packed, Artisans & Merchants paints with a lusher refreshed palette overall, whilst skilfully revisiting the alchemy of old.

Certainly, the two sublimely soaring openers – “We Gotta Leave” and “Images of Health” – suggest Leo and co. have been listening more to Ride than Rites of Spring lately, signifying the biggest stylistic shift. The ensuing more gangly title track and the majestic “Punk House” contrastingly bring more of Leo’s semi-spoken tangly prose back to the fore though, whilst still sustaining a generally more textured approach.

From there, proceedings carry on pushing and pulling between the twin tensions of reflective maturity and rekindled restlessness. Which means the yearning blurriness of “Old Souls from Different Epochs” gives way to the gnarly “Grid”, the shimmery “Cold Coconuts”, the mutated-art-funk of “Did We Hear the Same Song”, and the harmonies and synth-coated finale of the languid “Love is Brutal”, with compelling adroitness.

Although it takes a little while to adjust to the split personality methodologies of Artisans & Merchants, it does capture The Van Pelt in redemptive rude health, with a slow-burning infectiousness.

Adrian
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