Today we listened to the 1612 Underture by The Eccentronic Research Council on the way home.
There, one of the nicest things that's ever been said to me was said to me.
I've checked, and it is allowed to repeat compliments when said comments might not be taken as compliments by others.
I was told that this album is what it would sound like if my very existence were set to music.
So I suppose that, right there, here I have an album of the year by default.
But even without that personal touch, here we have glorious gobby Northern poetry as recounted by Maxine Peak set to an addictive atmospheric soundtrack of analogue synths and windswept field recordings.
And it's a concept album about the Pendle witches with a delicious album cover by Andy Votel.
And it has a song about the A666 – the road to hell/the road to Bolton – down which we drive every time I go to visit my dad.
And it contains such choice meaty cutlets as “We took photos with Apples, modern magic on a monthly tariff” and “Curse the smiling bus driver for being an abnormality of his profession”.
And it contains a three part, eight minute epic which opens with the wind and the rain and ends up sounding like an even blacker electronic Sabbath.
And it contains Another Witch Is Dead – apparently a traditional arrangement, here it's been re-imagined into an irresistible and sexy-as-hell hauntological disco smash.
So yes, this might well be my album of the year. Choice pick!
I might have uploaded a download link, but they've just started following me on Twitter and, as such, they could very likely press charges.
So instead, here's a link to a place from which you can BUY IT. WITH MONEY.
Worth every penny, mate!
I had nothing to do with the creation of this video. I just embedded it, sir!
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Did you hear Paul Rooney's Lucy Over Lancashire? Very similar in both concept and execution, but one more long-form electro-hauntological work about the Northern landscape can't hurt.
ReplyDeleteOh you can never have too many. But no, I never heard that one. I'll take a peek.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of the Northern landscape of music, if we step away from the hauntological pool we have Richard Skelton's breathtakingly gloomy Box of Birch album (recorded under the Broken Consort name) and, of course, The M62 Song by the mighty Doves - a beautiful spectral acoustic King Crimson cover apparently recorded beneath a flyover on the titular road.
I feel a mix CD coming along.
COMMENT EDITED BECAUSE I INITIALLY WROTE "PEAK" RATHER THAN "PEEK" - oh, Maxine, what have you done to me?
Maxine Peak as in from the first few series of Shameless? Interesting.
ReplyDeleteParts of it sound a little bit Delia Derbyshire-ish, which is even MORE apt, as that's where you live.
It's almost too perfect.
ReplyDeleteAdore this record, straight up. I love the soapboxiness of the last track, as well as the more tuneful parts ('Another Witch..' is the absolute stand out). I play it and immediately get terrible pangs for the North.
ReplyDelete