An autumnal inundation of new and archival audio from Suzy Mangion, Makushin, The Home Current, The Jasmine Minks, The Chills and more

Taking a month or so off this column to concentrate on other Concrete Islands projects didn’t of course curb the ceaseless tide of releases washing up on our virtual shores. But with year-end activities also fast approaching, this sonic beachcomber has had to gather up and document things with a slightly truncated trawl. So, with apologies to things left behind and under-documented, here we go…

Having reminded us of her solo-trading talents, albeit under a largely instrumental veil, with the Location: Gilsland film, book and soundtrack affair late last year, Suzy Mangion has heeded calls for a fuller song-based return, with the delivery of Days Lost to Snow (Turning Circle).

Mangion’s first vocal-led collection in a staggering fifteen years – which was originally started in 2008 but left incomplete until earlier this year – is rendered across a string of warm, intimate and inventive home studio arrangements. Built primarily around her often-layered vocals and piano, with occasional added organ, banjo and rudimentary percussion, the material remains rooted in one emotional spot throughout, yet subtly slides across a broad stylistic range.

Hence, we’re taken through acres of Judee Sill-meets Dennis Wilson troubled dreaminess (“Upside of Down”, “Ladybird” and “Come on My Star”); the balminess of an Anglicised by-the-fireside Joni Mitchell (the titular track and “The Story”); hymnal radiance reminiscent of Low’s sadly departed Mimi Parker (“Feast of Sant’Antnin”); spectral British folk-spun spirituality (“Standing in the Shade of Kingdom”); echoes of Mangion’s recent work with Mark Brend’s Ghostwriter (“Winter Hymn”); and hushed lullaby sketching (“The Snow Line (Reprise)”).

Highly personal whilst being communally comforting, the divine Days Lost to Snow is an album to wrap ourselves up through the shorter and colder days of the next few months.

Going down a more atmospheric and ensemble-assembled songcraft avenue, is the super-group-of-a-kind Makushin, with debut LP Move into the Luminous (Blackford Hill). Combining the core trio talents of singer Nancy Elizabeth (solo artist, James Yorkston collaborator), guitarist/synth-player Pete Phillipson (Fenella, Jane Weaver accomplice) and double-bassist John Thorn (Yorkston Thorne Khan et al.), the record also contains guest contributions from the likes of drummer Andrew Cheetham, guitarist David A Jaycock, violinist Olivia Moore, modular synth manipulator Raz Ullah and Clay Pipe-affiliated multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk.

Deeply engrossing from the outset, with Elizabeth’s delicate but intoxicating tones gliding and weaving through various configurations of the wider band operation, the ten assembled compositions more than live up to the album’s chosen title.

Shifting through airy space-folk (“Everything New”); John Martyn-meets-Pentangle jazzy languidness (“More Easily” and “Drupelet”); astral ruralism with flavours of David Crosby’s If I Only I Could Remember My Name (“Divers Searching” and “No More Rush Hour”); Sun Ra prowling and skittering (“Landscape”); and Brian Eno ambience melded into Robin Guthrie-laced guitar textures (“Something Something”), this is a sublimely sophisticated statement.

Naturally, across October and November, the electronic world has plenty of produce to offer up, too numerous to dissect in depth. Here, however, are few handfuls of wares vying for our shelf space…

After further side-project detour hook-ups (specifically in a duo with Peter Wix and as one-quarter of Atom Brigade), Martin Jensen returns as The Home Current to end the Modern Aviation label’s recent hiatus. On first spin, the cassette/digital dispensed Weekend Shark feels ostensibly like a back-to-basics selection, but on closer inspection there are a few more twists and turns to raise up new points of interest.

Certainly, the eponymous seven-minute centrepiece track, is a significantly impressive smorgasbord – with its sampled serene ululations and galvanising wordless chants, X-Files theme tune flashbacks, Morricone nods and cybernetic squelches – that would sound particularly awesome spread out on a club-friendly 12”, with an Adrian Sherwood remix on the flipside.

Although nothing else quite comes close in terms of magnetic pull and musical scope, there are passages of pleasure to be drawn from the techno-noir of “Ghost Kicks”, the hip-hop-funk shapes of “No Meaning No Joy No Soul”, the prowling cinematic beatscaping of “Drama Junction” and the almost-dainty bliss out of “Natten”, that should please The Home Current faithful as part of the overall package deal, which includes more imaginative artwork from regular Modern Aviation sleeve artist Sarah Batchelor.

Over on the super-prolific Castles in Space, there has been much to keep turntables far from empty of late. In the recent flotilla it’s Wave Construction, the second album from Lone Bison (AKA Nick Bonell), that sticks out the most.

Picking up where the Polytechnic Youth-enabled Transistor Memory inaugural outing left off, this eleven-track sequel draws together utopian synthscaping (“Learning Poly”); motorik-post-punk topped with Bonell’s own pleasingly tiered vocals (“Talk About It”); swelling electro-acoustic essays (“Increments”); prog-adjacent psych-rock (“Slow Piano”); and low-tech Richard Wright-goes-kosmische experiments (“Low Organ, Piano and Pro1”).

Whilst Wave Construction might lack the sleekness and finesse of other recent offerings from Castles in Space, its looseness and vibrant diversity is commendably endearing.

Never too far away from Castles in Space in the monthly electronic output stakes, is Woodford Halse. Most notable from the latest batch is Changeable Depths, which finds Gayle Brogan (Pefkin, Burd Ellen) and Jonathan Sharp (The Heartwood Institute) newly teaming up as Greenshank, to deliver a nine-track suite of ghostly folkloric vocals, eerie coastal field recordings, disembodied drones and sinister synths, that very much puts the ‘haunt’ back into hauntology.

Elsewhere, in the same incoming label pile, The Xenakis Station from Audio Obscura (AKA Neil Stringfellow) fuses shadowy pulsations and shortwave radio transmissions into a deeply mysterious aural affair, conceptually constructed in honour of an abandoned research station; Above Inlets from Duolant (AKA Jeff Mettlewsky) brings forth a selection of murky and at times entrancing moodscapes that imagine Throbbing Gristle recording with Tangerine Dream’s earliest equipment plugged into the emergency power supply of a nuclear fallout bunker; and Between Shadows and Lore finds Pennycross Coven (AKA Steve Netting) drawing cinematic occult-tinged lines between vintage John Carpenter and latter-day Dream Division.

Whilst a third album from Jilk this year might seem excessive, given we’re still processing the hybridising delights of the preceding Syrup House (Castles in Space) and It’s OK to Be Quiet (Woodford Halse), the just-one-more release of Found Little Lost (Noci Miste) is still welcome. Constructed less around multi-musician line-ups this time, by favouring the forging of largely laptoptronica-like frames around found sounds supplied by primary school children, the overall end product provides a series of enjoyably agile redistillations of the glitchy sonic palettes of artists associated with Warp Records and Morr Music in the early-to-mid-2000s.

Meanwhile, for those requiring more retro-futuristic modular and polyphonic synth explorations, then Listening Center’s Exteriorizations (Temporary Tapes) finds David Mason sustaining the purple patch of the still-fresh Past the Clocktower, The Walled Garden. Segueing through swirling burblescapes (“The Silver Cord”), mesmeric undulations (“Completion Projection”), Radiophonic Workshop pastoralism (“Sunday Patch Program”) and new-agey ambient (“The Journey Home”), this is another otherworldly round-up of Listening Center landscapes to get lost in.

Anyone requiring an idea of how some of the current leading synth sculptors translate themselves into the live arena, then the multi-artist Tone Science Module No.8 – Tone Science Live (DiN) gives an epically-proportioned 2CD indication. The results are surprisingly absorbing and vivid for the most part, with Fields Line Cartographer’s oceanic sprawling (“TSL Set 1”), Polypores’ free-range upside-down symphonics (“TSL Set 3”) and Ian Boddy’s sci-fi meditations (“TSL Set 4”), being the taped performance highlights.

In an entirely different part of the music world, there is still vitality to be found from guitar-led veteran operations.

Having potently launched his solo career as the Poor Performer with last year’s Like Yer Wounds Too LP, Simon Rivers (Last Party and The Bitter Springs chief) finally delivers a long-promised first album heading-up Oldfield Youth Club, a trio rounded-out by Kim Rivers and Neil Palmer (also formerly of Last Party). The Hanworth Are Coming essentially provides a rawer and generally more upbeat take on The Bitter Springs’ combinations of dark-witted lyricism and genre-fluid settings.

Consequently, we’re treated to stompy pre-punk singalongs (“Good News I’m Afraid” and “Cutbacks”), rougher-around-the-edges Kevin Rowlandisms (“Lightbulb Moments” and “When Bob Grant Ruled the World”), warped Ziggy-era Bowie (“Talk 2 People” and “Baby Joy”) and melted spoken-word synth-pop with a hint of Pulp’s His ‘N’ Hers (“Net Curtains”), as sturdy vehicles for plenty of reassuringly rambunctious as well as occasionally wistful wordplay. Another embraceable grower set from the house of Rivers.

Following on from a clutch of choice archival releases courtesy of Glass Modern and Precious Recordings in recent years, erstwhile 80s Creation Records signings The Jasmine Minks return with their first studio album in over twenty years, with the meta-anointed We Make Our Own History (Last Night in Glasgow / Spinout Nuggets).

Cut with the production aegis of old-hand Pat Collier, the eleven assembled tracks amiably possess the ruggedness of their not-long-ago-excavated BBC sessions and the melodic-richness of their full-length eponymous 1986 debut. Crucially through, this is all without sounding like a band trying just a bit too hard to rekindle old glories.

Thus, we’re rewarded with plenty of rousingly-gutsy jangle-pop (“She Knows” and “Never Been Lucky”); Caledonian harmony-topped twists on Blonde on Blonde-era Bob Dylan (“Kill” and “Wild Heart”); craggy yet twinkly nods to early-Bruce Springsteen and Reckoning-epoch R.E.M. (the titular track); and an entrancing psych-folk finale (“When They Fall”).

A more than worthwhile late-reblooming for The Jasmine Minks all told.

Digging into the history re-curating seams of the latest reviewables landslip, a very-long-overdue expanded reissue of The Chills’ first long-player from 1987, Brave Words, is found on Fire Records. Although an extensive remix as well as remastering job by band leader Martin Phillipps, designed to peel away some now-regretted dated production layers, may have robbed late-arriving-converts of a truly authentic insight into the original record, this refreshed expanded presentation is still a very redemptive route into experiencing The Chills between their run of terrific early singles/EPs and their major label years.

From the main album there is much to love, through the gliding chug of “Push”, the twangling majesty of “Rain”, the aching “Wet Blanket”, the transcendent grandness of “Night of Chill Blue” and the rippling churn of “Creep”. Amidst the accompanying bonus rarities, there are some essential moments to be found too, such as the carnivalesque buoyancy of “The Oncoming Day”, the stirring “Party in My Heart” and the tumbling punk-ish “Living in a Jungle”.

Aficionados of New Zealand’s indie antiquity should be more than pleased with this lovingly reworked bundle.

And finally once more… another curio emerges from Precious Recordings, in the shape of Cuban Boys’ John Peel Session 13.01.99. Reminding us that Peel’s tastes were never less than deeply eclectic, these four tracks will certainly divide the label’s faithful fanbase. Swerving through Pop Will Eat Itself-meets-South Park-meets-The KLF mashing-up (“Oh My God! They Killed Kenny”), glam-electro-punk (“(Let’s Get) Raunchier”), indie-pop-goes-techno (“Stardust (Part 3 Ariana in Space)”) and a dub-liquefied Blondie cover (“Hanging on the Telephone”), the four tracks will fox and entertain in equal measures, as they no doubt did on their original broadcast airings.

Adrian
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