5 Tewns Vol.27
Read Time: 4 mins
It’s just before Calan Gaeaf/Samhain/Halloween/whatever you celebrate, and winter has finally reached us in the valley. The mornings are Exorcist-misty, the leaves are falling, there’s a chill in the air and I’ve got five lovely bits for you to listen to…
Erang – Vampyric Music for a New Dark Age
Calan Gaeaf is almost upon us, and on the day of the full moon, I find myself deeply immersed in Medieval Noir, the new album from French dungeon synth aficionado Erang. For this week’s list, I’ve chosen the aptly titled “Vampyric Music for a New Dark Age”, where organ drones seep through tape hiss, echoing through the catacombs of Erang’s dark imaginings until the track reaches its orchestral climax; goths rejoice.
Ian Hawgood – The Heart Thaws Again [Whitelabrecs]
And so, we exit the dungeon and head on back above ground, toward the light. “The Heart Thaws Again”, taken from Ian Hawgood’s latest release on Whitelabrecs, is a cathode-ray trip through a half-remembered past, where field recordings, soft distortions, remote pads, and distant voices merge through a prism of nostalgia and melancholy that really transports me.
Cluster – Hollywood [Bureau B]
From the Sehnsucht of Ian Hawgood we move to the nervous stimming of Kosmische Musik mega-group Cluster, with the opening track from 1974’s Zuckerzeit. Originally released on the seminal Brain Records and recently re-released on Hamburg’s Bureau B, “Hollywood”, with its skittish drum patterns, woozy lo-fi synth and guitar arpeggios, is nothing short of the template for so much of the electronic music which I adore. I plan to play it loud to my peppers and tomatoes, in the polytunnel, before the November frosts take them away from me.
Dub War – Generation [Tempa]
Waffle alert! “What we’re gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time” to when the second wave of Rave culture was collapsing in on itself with the pop appropriation of UK Garage, and the godawful Americanisation of breakbeat-orientated music was flexing its mooscles. Yours truly was a young(ish), chubby Wild West Country deejay, whose breakbeat sets were fast becoming tributes to Chris Carter, Rat Records, and Bingo Records, peppered with long passages of Old Skool Hardcore and Jungle. This was early-doors Yahoo!/MSN chat; internet culture, and information was still pretty slow-moving – especially down in Somerset. In all honesty, I’d lost faith.
And, in the newly minted age of the superstar DJ, I had pretty much ceased buying any new dance records, when suddenly a few people who I’d been chatting to on the internet started sending me tracks from the dusky netherworlds of Grime and Dubstep. The most important for me being the darker, garage and dub-orientated sound of the mighty Horsepower Productions and, of course, Benny Ill’s other project with South London Hifi, Dub War. Tracks like “Generation”, recently re-released on Tempa, changed my whole worldview, marrying, as they did, dub sensibilities, Old Skool Hardcore and sexier bubbling UK Garage breaks. Stick it on loud and turn the bass right up.
The Cosmic Tones Research Trio – Creation [Mississippi Records]
I’ll end this week’s recommendations with the gorgeous, celestial jazz of “Creation” by the Cosmic Tones Research Trio. I’m not sure how I came across this track, but I’ve recently shone the light of my generally obsessive nature onto reading up on the Upanishads and the Vedas, so maybe it’s some kind of cosmic message? I dunno. Whatever the reason, I’m so glad I did. I like to listen to this one early in the morning when the air is thick with magic Atlantic mist, watching the sun rise over the mountains in the distance. Just close your eyes and let the strings and flutes lift you into another long week.
Ta-ra, Jammo x