The Pattern Forms – Peel Away the Ivy (2016)

Peel Away the Ivy opens with a teasing snippet of bending guitar and electronic crackle, clearly cueing up an eerie 1970s television drama set among standing stones, somewhere in England. This is no surprise: Peel Away the Ivy is release No.26 from Ghost Box, the label famed for creating the genre sometimes described as hauntology which luxuriates in early digital soundtracks and library music. But then the beat kicks in, and the track transmutes into a piece of early ‘80s funk pop, with a driving bass and a wailing keyboard solo. This is new territory from a new collaboration, The Pattern Forms.

One of the lead Ghost Box acts is The Advisory Circle, headed by Jon Brooks, responsible for forming and growing an instantly recognisable signature sound. In The Pattern Forms he joins forces with two-thirds of Friendly Fires, Ed Mcfarlane and Edd Gibson, who have brought their more 1980s, synth-based musical instincts with them. The result is an intriguing set of songs, soaked in atmosphere, groove and melancholy.

‘Black Rain’ is the most Friendly Fires track on the album, with persistent hints of early Scritti Politti meeting Afrika Bambaataa, alongside what could be music from repurposed ATV idents. It is compelling stuff. ‘Daylight’ occupies solid Advisory Circle territory, with a nagging xylophone adding shimmer to an insistent drum machine. Vocals are high and harmonious, fading in and out of swirling, orchestral keyboards, intoning “Make it go away”. Nothing is held back. ‘Man and Machine’ is the epic its title suggest, a celebration of a utopian social vision that died with the ‘70s. Although reflecting the synth precision of Kraftwerk’s ‘The Man Machine’, The Pattern Forms’ elegaic sound is submerged in layers of atmospherics.

‘Sparrowhawk’ is a synthesiser instrumental with breathy organ effects and bird flutters. It is library music recreated with unstoppable enthusiasm. ‘Polymer Dawn’ has an irresistible rubber-band synth rhythm, deep, echoing drums and chiming top notes. It sounds like a lot of fun to play. Final song, ‘First in an Innocent World’ builds to cymbal-washed climax, as The Pattern Forms drive through what sounds like a musical accompaniment to the dawning of time.

 Ghost Box has a singular vision and its music is irresistible, shamelessly indulging in much-missed sounds, all beautifully presented by designer Julian House. The music it releases is identified as much with the label as with the band. The danger is that it could become a dead-end nostalgia trip; however enjoyable the result, the energy will eventually run out unless it is renewed. The Pattern Forms suggest this process is underway. New artists, with their own spin on the founding Ghost Box forms, are changing the music. Peel Away the Ivy, its title a conscious parody of The Advisory Circle’s back catalogue, could be the start of something new. Despite the deep awareness of recent musical history at the heart of this album, nothing else sounds this way.

North Sea Radio Orchestra – Dronne (2016)

The Dronne, a river in south-west France running through the Dordogne carries double meaning when used as an album title, evoking both place and avant-garde music. North Sea Radio Orchestra seem at first glance to be a light classical ensemble – beautiful wind instruments, trained singers and tinkling percussion. However, they combine musical influences from wherever they please, including folk, and even kosmische drone, while drawing on 20th century composers such as Malcolm Arnold, Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Peter Warlock, or Jim Parker, writer of music for the poems of John Betjeman. The end result, though, is the most English thing you have ever heard.

Revolving around the gorgeous, infectious songs of Craig Fortnam and the clear, precise voice of Sharron Fortnam (the two are husband and wife), NRSO sound like nothing else. They made their name playing smaller festivals such as Green Man, and have released three albums since 2006. Dronne is their fourth, and a contender for their best work yet. It returns, to some extent to sunnier territory than 2011’s I A Moon. NSRO are closely linked to uber-cult band The Cardiacs, who infamously switched from classical melody to noise at the drop of a hat. A darker record than its predecessors, I A Moon was overshadowed by the serious illness which incapacitated Cardiacs singer Tim Smith. Perhaps because of the difficult circumstances, the album had new depth. 

This tone shift can be detected on Dronne in early track ‘Vishnu Schist’, named after a layer of purple rock in the Grand Canyon. It is a piece that has the delicious melody and arrangement that are NSRO’s speciality, with oboe and bassoon. Over this Sharron intones a slow, sweet lyric which, it becomes clear, is addressed to dead person, offering them the care they should have received during their life. It is troubling, yet comforting at the same time.

Dronne is structured around five longer songs, surrounded by shorter tracks. Single ‘The British Road’ is an undefinable piece of political sarcasm about British assumptions of superiority, delivered among deep and satisfying thickets of strings, woodwind, snare drums and keyboards which create a remarkable sound. The title track is an 8 minute instrumental, a swirling mood piece with waves of strings and minimalist keyboard, a stormy emotional centre to the record that eventually blows itself out over calm seas. Other instrumental tracks are mysterious and evocative, with ‘Arcade’ a tumble of cymbals and oboe tunes like a soundtrack to a lost film and ‘Guitar Miniature No.4’, a teasing, aching acoustic guitar solo which raises questions and leaves them gently floating. ‘Dinosaurus Rex part 1’ builds from contemplation to an infectious, joyful jig.

‘Alsace Lorraine’ is a lullaby, with Craig taking the vocal lead and spinning a duet with Sharron that is both particular to a place and time and universal in its message to “Keep on floating above and above”. Dronne could be described as comfort music, which is a compliment. In a brutal world, songs that bring reassurance while acknowledging misfortune and tragedy are a precious commodity. 

Bert Jansch – From the Outside (2016)

By the time of his death in 2011, Bert Jansch was acknowledged by peers and a new generation as a guitar genius and a folk pioneer. However, the ride had not been smooth. From the Outside was released in 1985, as Jansch’s drinking reached a peak. Two years later, having come close to death, he had given up the booze and begun to get things back on track. From the Outside was a vinyl release on a small Belgian label and promptly vanished, reappearing briefly on CD in 1993 with two of the best tracks mysteriously removed. Now it has a posthumous re-release with missing tracks restored, and is ripe for reappraisal or indeed appraisal of any kind. 

Self-penned, From the Outside is a difficult record, but it begins in upbeat mood with pretty banjo-picking on ‘The Sweet Rose’, a teasing, nature-themed love song. However, its chorus of “Will you let me get to know you / I’m called the wild flower seed” contains hints of the themes of rootlessness, rejection and self-pity that dominate as the album progresses. Jansch writes melodies with the artfulness of early Crosby, Stills and Nash, but the 60s afterglow soon fades into parody. ‘Shout’ is a protest song that proclaims “You gotta shout that you don’t want the bomb”, but is a transparent and hollow piece of nostalgia. ‘Who You Gonna Kill Now’ is similar, but worse.

Other tracks are deeply uncomfortable listening, tracking the disintegration of relationships. ‘Change the Song’ is full of promises of a new start and commitments to “see how other people cope with pain”. ‘Why Me (Still Love Her Now She’s Gone)’ says it all in the title, and features Jansch’s drunken Joe Cocker roar as he belts out the title, which is also the chorus. It is a deeply self-pitying song, musically remarkable but emotionally repulsive. ‘Get Out of My Life’ is equally upsetting, incoherent and far from sober. Jansch sings that he will “drink and drive the sins away”, addressing a ‘she’ who is either the drink or a person. By this point there seems to be no difference. However, at least two songs makes the album worthwhile. ‘River Running’ is a fluid and beautiful song, with tumbling guitar arpeggios and magnanimous lyrics. ‘High Emotion’ is introspective, but lacks the sourness found elsewhere. Instead, it has the authority that comes from music that transforms personal trauma into something with universal meaning. 

From the Outside is a strange and harrowing listen. However, even at his lowest point Jansch was a consummate musician. Few have been able to make an acoustic guitar talk the way Jansch did. He may have been embittered and drunken, but he could not stop himself from writing the most gorgeous tunes and or stop his guitar from telling the story.

3 Bucket Jones – Take These Ghosts (2016)

Recorded in the depths of the Monmouthshire hills, the second album by trio 3 Bucket Jones is shaped by the landscape of the Welsh borders. It reflects both the dark, uncanny aspects of the hills and valleys, and the beauty to be discovered in unexplored territory. 

The title track features singer Gitika Partington’s melancholy incantations to “take these ghosts away”, while the music is haunted by whispering backing vocals and a spooky melotron. ‘Amazing Grace’ is reconfigured and reimagined, with new verses relocated to a landscape of rain and chapels. Circles of hands link the living and the dead, and the familiar hymn becomes a strange, gothic invocation. ‘You Love Me More’ is a stark, Nick Cave-esque ballad, featuring the muted brass of the Tredegar Town Band.

Melancholy washes over the first half of the album, with ‘Love Called You Home’ a gentle but sinister, and ‘Gravity’ struggling against the forces of nature: “Doesn’t help me / That I fall down”. The mood shifts with ‘Anchorman’, a rollicking blues song, with bluegrass harmonies and serious momentum. It also has a vocoder bit, a guitar pretending to be a banjo, some and a final electric guitar wig-out. 

The second half of the album takes a more upbeat turn. ‘Draw a Line in the Sand’ is about new beginnings, and Gitika’s voice floats over a psychedelic swirl of acoustic guitar and mellotron. ‘Colouring by Numbers’ has the gentlest of harmonies and a shuffling bass. There are hints of 1990s acid jazz bands such as United Future Organization, extra deep grooves combined with alternative manifestos for living. Final track ‘One Day Soon’ has gorgeous keyboards, reincarnated from The Small Faces, and is full of optimism and summery sounds. 

Take These Ghosts has it all covered. Andie McCrorie-Shand’s guitars give the album texture and variety, and Garry Hughes uses his subtle mellotron to take things to another level. The band write heart-on-sleeves, and their musical variety takes them on from dark folk to delicate, shimmering sounds. Strong vocals and inventive instrumentation make this absorbing, multi-layered – a real pleasure for listeners. This is an album full of top quality songwriting. 

Neil Michael Hagerty and the Howling Hex – Denver (2016)

The name may have changed, from The Howling Hex to Neil Michael Hagerty and the Howling Hex, for reasons unknown, but the music is as consistent as ever. When he was half of Royal Trux with Jennifer Herrema, Hagerty carved out a very particular sound – scuzzy, Roky Erikson guitars, relentless rhythm, and general degradation. Nothing fancy, but plenty of amp fuzz, dissolute atmosphere, and strangely enticing lyrical mantras. It was an irresistible formula with songs that seemed simple, and simply refused to go away. Listen to ‘Juicy, Juicy, Juice’ from Royal Trux’s Accelerator, which more or less repeats the title over and over, then try getting it out of your head.

Denver is the latest instalment in a labyrinthine world of Howling Hex releases, and Hagerty continues the theme with an ever-changing line-up. This time he has actually produced a concept album, with a geographical focus along the same conceptual lines as Sufjan Stevens‘ Come On Feel the Ilinoise and Greetings from Michigan, but musically inhabiting a very different United States. Songs are themed around Denver, Co. ‘Colfax West’ references just one end of Colfax Avenue, the USA’s longest street. It is a particularly wild track, played faster than seems feasible, and carries warnings about “conmen” and “coconut latte”. ‘Canyon’ is presumably nearby Waterton Canyon. It has a killer riff, and lyrics that seem to reference its recent closure to stop visitors taking selfies with bears.

‘Mountain’, makes the Rockies sound like the coolest place on the planet, with riffs carved out of limestone slabs. ‘Random Friends’ is a full-on, kerosene-fuelled, band rock out, and few bands do it nearly as well. ‘Lookout’ is much melancholy, with the lead guitar playing a liquid, meandering solo line instead of thrashing out its sounds. Hagerty sings about feelings, and feeling lost, contriving to sound something like early Neil Young while his guitar chops the song into small, shimmering pieces. 

‘Guided Missiles’ is a stand-out track with a chorus that repeats the title, Royal Trux-style, on a climbing phrase that leaves you wanting more. The album ends with “300 Days of Sunshine”, a weather forecast-cum-advert, based around a rollicking tune and lyrics about spending time outdoors which have odd Blur resonances. It is like a heroine-addled, Western ‘Parklife’. It moves through several different tunes, finding time for an extended xylophone and snare drum break halfway through, before returning in renewed bursts of dirty psychedelia. It is messy, unexpected, charming and alarming in equal measure – just like the album, and possibly Denver itself. 

The Loved Drones – Good Luck Universe! (2016)

Two guitar notes chime in the void, drums launch into a relentless beat, and the first track sets off down the autobahn. Dusseldorf, 1971? Liège, 2016. The Loved Drones new, instrumental album can be found on Belgian label Freaksville, home to a selection of musicians defined by their oddness and prone to the drone. The industrial heritage of one of Belgium’s less visited cities has found a particular musical expression, one foot planted over the border in Germany and the other in North East London where Good Luck Universe! was produced.

From its motorik beginnings the first track, ‘Nomad’, opens out to encompass a trippier, less rock-driven landscape of overdubbed, wordless choirs, wow and flutter, and jet plane feedback. The Loved Drones clearly love the drone of West Coast stoner heroes Wooden Shjips. As the album builds, their range of influences becomes clearer. The theremin wail that pervades ‘Escape From the Terror Drone’ has overtones of Jean-Jacques Perrey, while the off-kilter multi-instrumentalism recalls London underground fixtures, NOW, both of whom are Freaksville label mates. The Loved Drones themselves have invoked Can, Stereolab and Chrissie Hynde.

Good Luck Universe! wears its carefully assembled influences on its sleeve and, although they are very well chosen, this inevitably holds the music within expectations. The soundscape, developed over the course of six tracks, is familiar but expertly delivered. ‘Drone Alone – Crimson Skies’ has an eastern flavour, courtesy of a lead sitar, and a clear geopolitical context in the skies of Afghanistan. ‘Pulsar’ and ‘Electric Blue Moon’ combine sitar, elegiac multi-layered synths, propulsive percussion and sound like themes to lost 1970s radio sci-fi serials. Closing track ‘Canyons’ is the pick of the bunch, with a rich arrangement embracing an alluring melody, instruments gleefully layered to create a satisfying, deep and crunchy analogue sound. This sort of thing was undoubtedly popular in the mid-90s, when Stereolab ruled and Kosmiche re-emerged, but The Loved Drones do it particularly well. Freak music can be reassuring too.  

Qluster – Echtzeit (2016)

Qluster emerged in 2011 when Hans-Joachim Roedelius joined forces with Onnen Bock to reform a version of the project he has been pursuing since 1971, first as Kluster, then Cluster, and now with a ‘Q’ Roedelius, a musical legend in his own lifetime, is one third of a Kosmiche trinity with Dieter Moebius and Michael Rother. Together they formed Cluster and later Harmonia. Moebius died in 2015, but Rother is still performing with Neu!, his subsequent musical legacy. Meanwhile, Roedelius reforges K/C/Qluster to fit his evolving musical direction. Qluster came into being in 2011, but Echtzeit is the new bands’ fourth album already, with Armin Metz now making up a trio.

Echtzeit, German for real time, describes Qluster’s new album precisely. The music is quiet, low key, and enthralling. Each track evolves within its own time zone, drawing the listener into hermetically sealed compartments. Inside, the era is impossible to name – any time post-synthesiser – and the genre is as much classical as rock. Solo keyboard lines are augmented by gentle sound effects from far-away synthesisers. On tracks such as ‘Vereweile Doch’ (which translates as ‘But Linger’) and ‘Best Freunde’ (translation unnecessary) the space within the music seems vast, as though the instruments were recorded at either end of a galaxy. The delicate interplay of counterpoint lines, recalls Steve Reich, as well Tim Hecker’s Virgins. ‘Von weite Ferne Ganz nah’ (something about distant and close) is an intensely meditative swirl, while ‘Das seltsame Tier aus dem Norden’ (‘The Strange Animal From the North’) is a slow burning space epic, complete with antiquated communications equipment ringing out across time and space. It is as though Brian Eno had continued his ambient trajectory from the 1970s, developing even deeper, stranger and more inevitable music. 

Qluster, using only analogue instruments, built an utterly confident, all encompassing soundscape which is richly rewarding. Repeated listens are absolutely essential to appreciate the subtle delights on offer. Snatches of forgotten tunes, radio bleeps, delicious synth effects – everything you might want in your head is folded away somewhere within Echtzeit.

Steve Mason – Meet the Humans (2016)

Famously denouncing their debut recording before its release, The Beta Band were at odds with themselves and everyone else from the start. Their music was built on the twin talents of Steve Mason and Gordon Anderson who, buffeted by mental instability, fitted uneasily into the music scene. Since they split, Steve Mason has recorded a series of below the radar solo albums as King Biscuit Time, Black Affair and eventually, stepping out from beneath the disguises, himself. He also shed electro-Goth-funk, which consumed him as Black Affair, for a return to guitars, drums and keyboards. Meet the Humans is the third instalment is this latest, most personal and most impressive phase. 

‘Water Bored’, with its gauche yet alarming title, opens the album in extra-upbeat style. Its lyrics are indeed cheerful, a message of hope albeit from a low starting point: “Cos you can make it / don’t think this pain is forever”. The melody is infectious and the mood ambiguous, which proves a good description for the whole album. Any record with tracks called ‘I’m Alright’, ’Alive’, ‘Another Day’ and ‘Words in My Head’ wears its emotions on its sleeve.

Although Mason reports that hypnotherapy has ‘sorted out’ his long-term depression, Meet the Humans seems to exist in a mental fog, as life is taking place in the distance and not making a lot of sense. Total alienation alternates with determined, flailing attempts to connect. The music declares ‘this is fine’ but the lyrics strongly suggest otherwise. Perhaps the music is to blame, as in the paranoia-flavoured ‘Alive’ where “the songs that they sing to you baby / they’ve made you crazy” is paired with a deeply sad chorus “Don’t you want to see me alive?” On ‘Through My Window’, Mason sounds desperate as he croaks “Is there anybody out there?” from behind dirty glass. 

This sounds like tough listening, and certainly parts of the album are affecting, even upsetting. However, as if to remind us that few writers produce music from a neutral emotional platform, Meet the Humans is laced with the most gorgeous tunes. ‘Planet Sizes’ sounds like Love – and no higher compliment is possible for a spaced out songsmith – with a touch of The Kinks’ ‘Apeman’. ‘Another Day’ counterpoints ecstatic horns with Mason’s lyrics about burial and disappearance. ‘Hardly Go Through’ employs a slow, mesmeric beat and burningly intense lyrics, a track that could have been written by Low. 

Meet the Humans is a work of a top quality musician, laying Steve Mason’s talent and his struggles bare for all to see. His song writing rearranges psychedelic pop and indie influences into a disarmingly honest, morphia dream bearing a strange resemblance to life as we know it. As Mason sings, “I love you, on my day”, perhaps a more accurate representation of romance that most would care to admit.