A hearty delve into locked-down springtime releases from The Home Current, Polypores, Listening Center, Grand Veymont and more

This could be the strangest spring in some of our lifetimes, with so many routines upended by new COVID-19-cloaked ways of living. Yet thankfully, there are still some comforting rays of continuity to brighten – or at least distract from – the distances between us. As already mentioned on these pages, the artists and labels that encircle the Concrete Islands world are arguably more able than others at working within the current complexities. So although many artists have understandably had to postpone recording sessions, releases and gatherings, our review piles have still amassed unabated, creating the need for another seasonally-adjusted column to keep on top of things…

Uncurtailed in a bid to put out as many home-studio-fashioned wares on as many record labels as he can find to push them through pressing plants, comes Martin Jensen’s first album as The Home Current for the fledgling Lonely Mountain Records. As one of two long-players being brought into the world via the recently founded Walsall-based operation, Cylinder Moses captures Jensen in vibrant form. Funnelling retro yet refreshing sounds, this eleven-track selection steers a course between the enterprise’s ambient-motorik and club-centric dance music extremities, in favour of satisfyingly chunky percussion deployments, squelchy synth stratums and rubberised basslines that feel more organically-played rather than precision-programmed, even if everything is still part of an almost entirely synthetic construction project. Hence, the record shifts from New Order-meets-Art of Noise propulsions (“Melting Blue” and “The Bottom Walk”), through Kraftwerkian clanking and pulsing (the title track and “MXLL”) and on to a kaleidoscopic finale (“Autumn Jukebox”), with an elevating verve that will only heighten the hunger for the soon-to-come follow-up of The Coyote Kiss.

Still comradely competing with Jensen for the title of the most-prolific man in the DIY electronica business, is Stephen James Buckley in this primary Polypores guise. Dropping two Bandcamp-only digital albums within a matter of days, all newly composed and recorded in lockdown conditions, Buckley has counteracted anxieties of separation and insecurity by continuing to burrow even deeper into his meditative modular-synth dug inner worlds. Of the two self-releases, Universe B is arguably the most complete and rounded affair, casting its immersive net widely to include mesmeric dronescapes (“Earthshines”), harp-imitating rippling (“Hashtag Virtual Hug”) and Isan-like ornithological chirruping (“Birds of Suburbia”). The contrasting Isolation Jams – Volume 1 rounds-up the first batch of previously self-filmed-for-YouTube live-at-home improvisations into one neat yet sprawling bundle. Again, finding Buckley rapt by his collection of vintage kit and cables, these slightly looser compositions capture him lost in watery atmospherics (“Untitled”), engrossed in elongated expansiveness (“Equanimity”) and blissed-out in elegiac burbling (“The New Age of Krell”) with hypnotic grace and gravitas. Taken as a pair, these two enveloping offerings unquestionably reinforce the transporting talents at the heart of Polypores.

Having only unveiled the divine Diaphanous Structures a matter of weeks ago, David Mason provides another low-key Listening Center digital-only set in the shape of the even more abstract Non Functions (Temporary Tapes). Exploring the textures that have often filled spaces in his music, to see if they could stand-up on their own, this eight-track collection splices together all manner of material forged between 2002 and 2019 from magnetic-tape experiments and analogue-synth sculpting. Although not as substantial or accessible as its immediate predecessor, the album’s ambient questing is never less than interesting and is at times profoundly entrancing. Moving through post-apocalyptic enigmas (“Chromium” and “A Wasteland Game”), looping submersions (“Optical T-Grouping”), tranquil Eno-isms (“Refuge in Projection” and “Microdensities”) and ghostly ecclesiastical murmured vocal manipulations (“Ictus Phased”), Non Functions reveals plenty of hidden and compelling curiosity with each listen.

Sticking in a similar mindset for uncompromising yet slow-burning rewards is the third full-length outing from Grand Veymont. Pushing the Lyon-based duo’s envelope even further, Persistance & Changement (Objet Disque/OULS) is one forty-minute piece split into multiple movements over two sides of vinyl or across one digital track. In lesser hands this could have been a hideously indulgent and pretentious affair. Yet, the multi-instrumentalist twosome of Béatrice Morel Journel and Josselin Varengo unfurl a balmy captivating travelogue that shapeshifts through pastoral-kosmische, soothing chanson and psychedelic-folk, built with keyboards and synths, flute layers, drums, percussion and studio treatments, without ever feeling laboured or over-long. It might miss the relative concision of the group’s preceding long-players but at a time when fast-living has taken a backseat for many, Persistance & Changement is a welcome exercise in meticulous sonic marinating.

Whilst Polytechnic Youth has had to temporarily pull-back from issuing as many regular-sized vinyl products as usual, due to reduced record shop sales routes, it hasn’t stopped Dom Martin’s resourcefulness in the face of adversity. Reverting partly to the label’s micro-boutique beginnings, Martin has inaugrated a short series of mail-order-only lathe-cut 5” vinyl singles to plug the interim gaps. The first two entries embrace the challenge and the ethos of the cut-down format adroitly. Thus, Sweden’s one-man Free/Slope uncoils the two-part Isolation Drones as a gloriously radiant homage to the fuzzier corners of Spiritualized’s seminal Laser Guided Melodies and Vorderhaus slides out the Berlin-era-Bowie-meets-early-Depeche Mode synth-pop moodiness of “This European Sky” and “Velvet Chains”. With more still to come, this is another PY endeavour to keep a PayPal account primed for purchasing action.

Assembled to raise funds for NHS PPE and forged remotely between collaborators old and new, the Signal Records-curated digital-only 22-track Music Over Distance compilation is a triumph for comradeship and invention in this testing pandemic period. Naturally, cuts featuring artists already-acquainted with the Concrete Islands world stick out with the most highlights. This leads us to gorgeous Sea and Cake-sliced electro-acoustic warmth from The Declining Winter (“Nothing Is Stopping Us Yet”), a serene conjoining of Western Edges with Gareth S. Brown (“Of Old Cares”), the Leonard Cohen-goes-hauntological murk of Cédric Pin and Glen Johnson (“Machiavelli”) and The Central Office of Information’s Alex Cargill teaming-up with Martin Jensen as the shadowy beatscaping Transient Visitor (“Nowhere Dark”). However, the overall standout moment comes from the 70-voices/70-locations closing majesty of the unfamiliar Commoners Choir, with the sublimely uplifting “Singing Together Apart” sealing the whole commendable deal serenely and altruistically.

Adrian
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