With the arrival of July 1st, here are two very different musical responses to the month. The first is an extract from Tchaikovsky’s popular cycle for piano, The Seasons – designating July to be The Song of the Reaper:
Then, with the weather here in the UK having been a little downcast this morning, a very different response from Bomb The Bass. Winter In July is a wonderfully moody song, with vocals from Loretta Haywood. It could only be from the early 1990s!
by Ben Hogwood
What’s the story?
The second album from Creep Show follows five years after their debut – in which time a great deal has changed. The line-up remains the same, with John Grant the charismatic vocalist to beats and soundscapes fashioned by Wrangler – who are synth and electronics wizard Benge (Ben Edwards), Cabaret Voltaire frontman Stephen Mallinder and Phil Winter, creator of many weird and wonderful sounds for Tunng. Their 2018 debut, Mr Dynamite, is described by the four protagonists as ‘a fairground ride into the dark corners of a world that was on the brink of being blitzed in a blender’.
With so much source material for the follow-up, Yawning Abyss would seem to be all about the impending disasters seemingly awaiting the world, as well as the one big disaster – Covid – which has been with us during the period of composition.
And yet, the quartet make room for optimism. Mallinder and Grant headed to Iceland to make some unfiltered vocals, while Winter and Edwards were given the task of bringing it all together for the final cut.
What’s the music like?
Creep Show make some incredibly varied music! At times this album feels like a reflection of the times in which we live, being wildly unpreditable and disfunctional, but then at other turns with an elegance and poise that shows the craft with which it was made.
The two immediate stand-out tracks are Moneyback, with a brilliant couplet from John Grant (“You want your money back? I don’t think so!”) and then the madcap Yahtzee!, which pretty much sums up the state of play in the media at the moment! Sitting on the more elegant side is Bungalow with a mellifluous and stately vocal, while Stephen Mallinder excels up front on Matinee.
Does it all work?
It does – assuming you have the bandwidth to accommodate the wide range of styles on offer!
Is it recommended?
Yes. While sometimes far from easy listening, Yawning Abyss is very much an album for our times.
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by Ben Hogwood
What’s the story?
Gordon Chapman-Fox moves onto his fourth album under the alias Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, which finds him in a conflicting position. “I’m nostalgic for an optimistic future”, he writes on his Bandcamp page, pining for the time when the future really did seem a boundless set of opportunities rather than a state in which to be fearful.
As before this is a wholly solo album, one man and his electronics – but painting vistas far beyond those means.
What’s the music like?
Wonderfully moody. There are some dark thoughts here, shot through with a windswept beauty that gives them impressive grandeur.
The stern countenance of Just Off The M56 (J12) sets the slightly industrial scene, and though the initial impressions are stern, the way Chapman-Fox works his ideas together brings out the optimism in his thinking as the synth line cuts through the cloudy texture.
There is a winsome elegance here, very English in its restrained but telling emotion, coming through most obviously in the excellent Rocksavage, with its steadily oscillating figures, and then allowed more mechanical energy on Thelwall Viaduct.
Chapman-Fox secures a wonderful ebb and flow, and on brooding soundscapes such as London’s Moving Our Way there is a sinister undertow bringing John Carpenter to mind, not to mention a powerful sense of occasion.
Meanwhile Europa Boulevard presents a colder climate, the airiness and relative dead air of industry captured in music, though it soon warms up when extra layers are added.
Does it all work?
It does. These are vivid evocations of cityscapes that we would maybe rather not have but which are an intrinsic part of English life. Chapman-Fox treats them with respect but also highlights their unexpected angles of beauty. There is also, in the closing A Brighter And More Prosperous Future, a stern yet assured hope for better times ahead.
Is it recommended?
Very highly. This music has its roots in the 1980s, and the likes of Cabaret Voltaire or John Foxx, but Warrington-Runcorn Development Plan is a gateway to some accomplished and very meaningful electronic music.
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Lomond Campbell continues to write thoughtful, affecting music – certainly if his new EP Interference Patterns is anything to go by. It is a collection of alternative tracks and remixes taken from his 2022 album Under This Hunger Moon We Fell, and will be released on 28 July through One Little Independent Records.
The first track, Draw Breath, is now available with a video of natural beauty. “It was written and recorded around October or November, just before the north of Scotland plunges into deep, winter darkness”, says Campbell. “The drone footage used in the video was shot in an area called Strongchreggan Glen, where I often take portable equipment to write music”.
You can enjoy Campbell’s deeply meditative music and visuals here:
by Ben Hogwood
Unless you were under a rock all weekend, it won’t have escaped your notice that a certain music festival was taking place in the south of England. Glastonbury has lit up the music world since the 1970s, and even though it is bigger than ever before it seems to have retained a lot of the qualities that have made it so successful.
One of those qualities is bringing music of all genres to all people, crossing over all manner of boundaries – and one of the stages to do that most proficiently was the West Holts stage. With acts such as Young Fathers and Gabriels excelling earlier on Friday evening, the way was clear for Kelis to remind us just what an amazing vocalist she is. Here is just a snippet of her set, a powerful performance of Acapella, which you can watch as part of her full set on BBC Sounds:
