Plutonic Rainbows

Listening to the exquisite audio rendered on the 24Bit edition of this, my impression is of quite an ambient album compared to their older works. The world music elements that marked earlier incarnations of the ensemble have disappeared altogether.

This latest album begins with the beautiful and bumbling rhythm of Ricercar - it's summer music for driving with the top down. Control 1 Interlude is an atmospheric piece that reminds me of American minimalist, Harold Budd. Subtle and somehow menacing strings are broken by careful and considered piano notes. Protection builds very nicely before Rescue heads away into darker territory before exiting into sunlight with strong piano chords and insistent, driving strings. Now Nothing Rock Music is an excellent piano piece that has a strong 1980s feel to it (although I cannot explain exactly why) - maybe it reminds me of a film score or something. The last piece, Wheels Within Wheels feels like it is heading somewhere but fails to arrive at any sort of conclusion. Maybe that's the point.

What I enjoy most about The Imperfect Sea is that Penguin Cafe have been able to alter their style significantly and yet the essence of what makes the group so nice to listen to remains as always.

Audio CD and Vinyl. A 24Bit edition is available from HD Tracks.

Nobody seems to know the true identity of this enigmatic electronic producer - one theory is that it's another alias for Richard D. James. Listening to this EP, one could easily imagine the tracks having been conceived in the Aphex Twin studio. Whatever the truth, there are some very nice moments on this record, harking back to the early 90s.

Bleep Records:

Brainwaltzera wears the '90s electronica influence on his sleeve with the Aescoba EP, a one to watch artist if you are plugged into any AFX'ian channels.

Having gained attention in 2015 when a certain user18081971 commented on the Sound Cloud upload quilat spring 1 [outtake], the ambient electronica masses have been waiting for some extended sessions from the mysterious artist to emerge, and the Aescoba EP carries on the level of high-end production that has seen his work catching the ear of a certain Aphex Twin.

Aescoba moves between late period Wisp style fuzzy rave cave techno as on ghaint [berl] with detro[id] to more Bogdan style breakbeat exertions such as 10_muddy_puddle Trot, its looped drums calling to mind many moments from the sadly deceased Rephlex imprint. While the whole vibe gets distilled into a hazy memory on poly_ana summers [schoolyard surph beat] capturing perfectly the flashback memories of a very unique time in electronic music.

Vinyl & Digital at Bleep.

This is the new album from the prolific and talented electronic musician, Jon Brooks who also operates as The Advisory Circle releasing some wonderful music under that name with evocative albums such as From Out Here and Other Channels. Brooks belongs to those artists mining the hauntological detritus that litters the 1970s and early 1980s.

However, Autre Directions finds him turning his attention to rural France, with evocative atmospheres and gentle ambience. There is preview track, Lanverec on YouTube.

Jon Brooks:

I have a natural affinity with France, which seems to span a large proportion of my adult life. This album is based directly on experiences, feelings and emotions garnered from times spent fairly recently in Brittany and Normandy, on different occasions.

There’s a certain feeling, when you enter a rural French village on an Autumn mid-afternoon. It’s a slower pace of life than we’re generally used to; the Centre Ville can feel deserted, as many of the inhabitants are, ironically, away on holiday. As the village church clock tolls, it strikes home a simplicity, a purity of existence that couldn’t really exist elsewhere.

There’s a feeling of unabashed romance upon waking up in the early morning, opening a window onto a field of fog, as the sun hasn’t quite started to rise; with the only real movement belonging to a car headlight in the distance, making a journey to somewhere undisclosed.

Whenever I’m travelling, I take with me a means of recording ambience and constantly listen out for interesting situations where sound can be captured and transformed. Field recordings play a significant part in the tapestry of the album. The textures underpin, envelop and frame the work, adding a sense of context and grain.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted the textures and atmospheres to be on an equal footing to the melodies. The ‘wake up’ music which begins the album, I composed as a piece that could, theoretically, be played by a ferry company to wake passengers upon their early morning arrival into dock, over the small speakers installed in ferry cabins. To create the atmosphere, I took the recorded piece onto a ferry, bound for France, and played it back in the cabin over a speaker, capturing the playback with a microphone, allowing the sound and reverberant space of the ferry cabin to influence the ambience of the piece.

Other ways of bringing the ambience of situations into the recorded pieces involved playing back textures (that I’d created electronically in the studio) in various places (disused barns, country lanes etc) and capturing them again on a microphone and building pieces around those atmospheres. I also noticed that, preparing to leave the ferry, there were various metallic pitched drones that just seemed to hang in the air, combining naturally with idling car engines - these became music and it was from these distinct pitches that I added complimentary electronic textures around them.

I also liked the idea that various people that I encountered on my travels could be featured on the record. For example, the woman who owned a Boulangerie in one of the villages probably didn't realise that she would become part of a recording, but fragments of her voice can be heard, contributing a distinct texture.

All of this leads to, for me, an interaction between the studio and the elsewhere; bringing two distinct worlds closer together, to form an impressionistic aural painting that lives and breathes in a manner that hopefully puts the listener in a situation where they can feel these experiences in quit a tangible way.

The new album is available (tomorrow) May 5th on vinyl - although it's out of stock right now, there will be a second pressing on transparent orange vinyl sometime in June.

You can also find digital editions on the Cafe Kaput site as well as Ghostbox - who specialise in this music.

A 12-track album of never-before-heard collaborations, mixes exclusive to this collection of tracks from their forthcoming album of analogue improvisations, and some Delia Derbyshire archive material which has been worked on by the likes of Tom Middleton (Global Communication) and Dot Product.

The CD album comes in a gatefold sleeve and initial quantities include a unique tape loop obi, a little reminder of the physical roots of the Radiophonic Workshop’s method.