You may remember Eric Phillips, otherwise known as Kennebec, from his previous appearance on Arcana. We were rather taken by his debut album Departure, released on Night Time Stories back in 2020 – and now he returns with a sequel.
The press release paints an intriguing picture. Phillips has clearly been busy, completing second album Without Star Or Compass, due for release on 7 October. It is a collaborative piece, made with and for friends – with guests including Sudan Archives, Yazz Ahmed and Future Islands frontman Samuel T. Herring, aka Hemlock Ernst.
Hemlock Ernst and Sudan Archives front the album’s lead single, the urgent stream of consciousness Tall Tales, which you can experience here:
We look forward to welcoming Kennebec back with a full album review nearer release date, but for now enjoy the prequel to what should be a very fine piece of work!
James Vella returns with a companion piece to his 2020 album as A Lily, Sleep Through The Storm. Where that record was about loneliness and coming to terms with the challenges of the modern world, Nocturne Thunder is built as a more celebratory affair, dancing in the face of adversity. Its five tracks are linked, lasting around 25 minutes in all.
What’s the music like?
Ambient, but active at the same time. Vella’s music is full of primary musical colour, the dappled textures dancing on the surface as the opening track, Like Rising Smoke, takes shape. Its stately bass progression is offset by the figures up above which circle like birds in the half light. There are no drums, but still movement aplenty.
The mid and lower ranges take over for Unnatural Animals, which pulses with movement, driving forward more obviously even though still operating without the influence of a kick drum. This sonorous section promises deeper blues and more nocturnal activity, whereas To Seek Ecstasy In The Dawn brings us to the first light itself. The music gains a deeper and more obvious warmth, shimmering again in the heat haze.
Balafon Heart is an imperious sequence, beautifully judged as a slow bass and gradually shifting treble operate together, before Like A Hymn picks up momentum, light on its feet as we seem to take to the air. Consonant harmonic loops bounce off each other in Vella’s working.
The songs were built live by Vella, and it shows in their instinctive execution. His ear for structure is just right, knowing when to make the most of a mood and when to switch forwards to the next.
Does it all work?
It does. Ideally Nocturne Thunder should be experienced in one sitting, as it is effectively a short DJ set by one person on a bank of synthesizers. It is a descriptive and involving whole.
Is it recommended?
Yes – warmly so. If you have not yet heard Sleep Through The Storm then you should rectify that immediately, and by contrast if you are already familiar with Vella’s work then you will lap this one up too.
A nod in the direction of the Awamu Together festival, due to take place over the long weekend of 29-31 July 2022. All profits from the festival go directly to the Awamu charity’s work with vulnerable women and children in Kampala, Uganda, which explains the festival hashtag, #fundraving!
Together 2022 will once again be set on a farm surrounded by the Chiltern hills, with the location made available to ticket holders nearer the time.
The line-up is tempting to say the least, with – among many others – Echaskech, BUNKR, Steve Cobby and Alucidnation all confirmed. The instruction on the festival website is to take Monday off, with appearances from Bunty & Jomotopia, The Mauskovich Dance Band, Bill Brewster, Yidah and Tom Blip all scheduled on the Sunday.
For more information, and to buy tickets, head to the festival website
O’o are a French duo, Victoria Suter and Mathieu Daubigné, who are based in Barcelona. Their name makes an immediate impact, but is not an attempt to beat Google searching or make things difficult for fans to find. In fact their venture is named after the Kaua’i Ō’Ō bird of Hawaii, which has sadly been extinct since the late 1980s.
Touche is their debut album, a record of profound longing that speaks of their love of Laurie Anderson but also Björk and Kate Bush. The duo mostly use synthesizers to create their sonic picture, though there is a wealth of lavish scoring throughout the record.
What’s the music like?
Enchanting – and fulfilling the promise of the extremely colourful cover. Suter’s voice is perhaps the main reason for this, a beautiful instrument that responds well to multitracking, creating a velvety wall of sound. The production responds in kind, with a whole variety of different settings bringing the text to life. The sung texts appear to be in French and English, though the warmth to the productions takes them towards the Mediterranean.
Dorica Castra is one of the standout vocal cuts, the production retreating to minimal electronics so we can hear Suter’s voice, which here bears the powerful influence of Kate Bush. The backdrop plays around with echo effects that have a great impact on headphones, with a fulsome beat to go underneath.
Aquamarine is a beauty, with a dubby beat and rich vocals, building from small beginnings to an all-encompassing whole. Moon and Touche itself dabble more in the melancholy, with a longing arc to Suter’s singing above minor-key harmonies.
There are folksy tinges to the melody of Somewhere, which dispenses with drums and creates layered tunes, while the triple time Spin is pure fantasy. The final song, Tohu Bohu, is an enchanting story, taking all manner of musical turns as the electronics squiggle and squirm beneath, and ending with what feels like a heavenwards ascent.
Does it all work?
It does – and if anything on repeated listening the spell of Touche is cast deeper still. These are multilayered songs with much to reveal, and the structure of the album means there is a beautiful ebb and flow of emotions. They really do tell a story.
Is it recommended?
It is – O’o are quite a find for the InFiné label, and on the strength of this wonderful debut they could really go places.
John Wyndham’s classic 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos has inspired a number of big and small screen responses, the most recent being from Sky with their starry interpretation that has been all over digital TV of late. It tells (plot spoiler alert!) of a group of children arriving by stealth in a leafy English town, then growing quickly both physically and mentally as a unit until their power eclipses that of their parents. As the seven-part series takes shape, the tension between the two reaches breaking point, and a number of startling events lead to an extremely fraught battle of the minds.
Reviews for the series, fronted by Keeley Hawes and Samuel West, have been lukewarm, but to this writer at least the story remains a compelling and disturbing one, the tension rarely letting up, with the idea that such dark things could be afoot in ‘normal’ English towns proving to be profoundly unnerving.
The job of portraying these elements in sound has been given to Hannah Peel, who is building up an impressive arsenal of music for the screen, both in analogue and digital form. For her score to The Midwich Cuckoos she uses analogue synthesizers to replicate the ‘hive mind’, shared by the group of children whose initial purpose is to take over the suburbs, but whose greater aims become even more disturbing.
Peel adds drones and tape manipulations to dislocate the perspective of the viewers, but also dips into more obviously English and pastoral references when writing about the setting and the ‘home’ personalities involved.
What’s the music like?
Deeply unnerving but weirdly consoling at the same time – rather like the children who have mysteriously arrived in the town!
Peel’s ability to portray pastoral scenes through her electronics is a massive bonus, for some of the scene setting is exquisite, matching the rich green shades of the production. Yet there is often a dark undercurrent to the writing and a sense of profound unease, especially when describing the hive mind the children have in place. This is done with a single pitch of changing colour and tonal quality, an eerie echo rebounding as though off the walls of a quarry. Lasting comfort is hard to find, though there is brief solace in the mother-child relationships that are formed.
Peel writes descriptively, her melodies portraying the strength of emotion on show from the mothers towards their children, but the deep drones and atmospherics tell a very different story, revealing the layers at work in the youngsters’ minds.
The title music itself is otherworldly, suggesting the intervention of beings from well beyond this planet, and quoting the birdsong of the cuckoo which has at its heart the promise of spring. The Cuckoo music takes the form of the bird as it grows, with the telling lyric “In June, I change my tune”. The Midwich Cuckoos Theme is dark indeed, blotting out the light in a haunting 20 second salvo.
Does it all work?
It does, with the caveat that some of these pieces are short pockets of music written to score specific scenes rather than hang together as part of an album structure. That said, The Midwich Cuckoos makes for compelling if unsettling home listening, which might end with you positioned behind the sofa!
Is it recommended?
Indeed it is – another auspicious addition to Hannah Peel’s discography, revealing a powerfully dark aspect of her writing for the screen.
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As an aside it is worth purchasing the soundtrack on Bandcamp below, as that gives you four bonus tracks.
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