Pioneering British electronic musician Mark Van Hoen releases his latest solo album, 'The Eternal Present' via Dell'Orso, a remarkable collection of tracks spanning nearly three decades of recordings from 1998 to 2024.

'The Eternal Present' embodies its philosophical title, inspired by Joseph Campbell's concept that "Eternity isn't some later time... Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off." The album explores music as the ultimate expression of existing in the present moment, transcending time and creating a sonic experience that is simultaneously "spectral, ghostly, melodic, harmonic, and decayed."

TRACK LISTING

1. Gone To The Unseen
2. It’s Not You (In A Way)
3. Only Me
4. Frontier Song
5. Multiplex
6. No-one Leave
7. Shine
8. Theme From The Present II
9. Xmas
10. Somewhere 

“I like to work with a variety of instruments and set ups,” says Mark Van Hoen, sometimes known as Locust or Autocreation but here working under his own name on the excellent Plan For A Miracle, his first physical release of solo music since 2018’s Invisible Threads. ”Sometimes it’s literally in my studio, with all the hardware electronics available. Sometimes the laptop, using software instruments. Some of the tracks on this record were recorded in the desert (Joshua Tree) using a 4-track tape machine and small modular synthesiser set up. Each track was recorded in different location using different instruments, which accounts for the distinction between each piece. It’s also about my own reaction to my environment, and what’s going on in my life at the time.”

The Croydon-born Van Hoen started musical life in the early 1990s, signing for R&S records in 1993 but developing his own, myriad and distinctive style across a range of releases on Touch, Editions Mego and other labels, using a battery of instruments, including analogue synthesizers and taking a number of different approaches to recording, rather than ploughing a single sonic furrow. He has worked on a number of collaborations, including with Nick Holton and Neil Halstead of Slowdive, under the moniker of Black Hearted Brother - their Stars Are Our Home was released in 2013. “I have known Neil Halstead since 1992,” says Van Hoen. “He shared a house with me for a couple of years, and the music I was making and listening to along with clubs I was attending had an influence particularly on Pygmalion, the final Slowdive album on Creation.”

Each track on Plan For A Miracle does indeed sound like a world unto itself, a mini-environment, a weather condition, an ecosystem created for the moment. It’s a collection of tracks recorded over the past few years, released on Bandcamp - despite his apparent absence, Van Hoen works constantly. Opener “Climates”, in its exquisite limpidity, feels like a homage to Brian Eno, one of his most formative influences in his teen years, commencing with Music For Films, which he bought in 1979. “This Is For Them”, feels like a ghostlike throwback to early drum & bass or electronica, reminiscent of his own, earliest outings. “There have been a number of requests from labels to make some more music like my very early releases on R&S,” says Van Hoen. “This is part of ‘letting go’ and realising that there’s nothing less creative about going back to those styles again.”

“Pencil Of Spheres” is something else again, a magnificent, imaginary glass structure, shimmering, refracting, without visible means of suspension, a thing of impossible beauty. “Electric Lights” evokes an abandoned fairground, its lights still pulsating, its music lingering. “The Underpass”, meanwhile, insofar as it reminds of anything at all, is faintly reminiscent of Cluster or Neu’s! West German ambience, the urban mundane rendered magical, the sodium lights, the whitewashed walls. The reverberant, faintly oriental chimes of “Insight” transport us yet again, burgeoning and intensifying.

The landscapes, the skyscapes rendered on Plan For A Miracle feel unpopulated as a rule - but when he does introduce vocal elements, Van Hoen has a history of doing so to spectacular effect - think of “Real Love” from 1998’s Playing With Time, the seductive intonation of its title recurring throughout like a series of massive holograms, echoing, stuttering, breaking up, surging. Here, there are just the faintest of vocals, barely distinct, disquieting. “There’s been a bit of a game changer in recent times,” explains Van Hoen. “AI software that enables you to extract vocals and instrument parts from virtually any recording. That means sampling individual parts from existing sources is no longer limited to the original mix exposing certain parts soloed. The vocal parts I use are from multiple sources and often pitch shifted altered rhythmically and melodically.“ There’s further vocal chatter on “I Really Do”, proceeding at a faster pace as if giving chase, or being pursued - distant, enigmatic. “The Music”, meanwhile, its beat tolling, lost in its own fog of static, features a curious intonation, like the ghost of a lost Walker Brother.

Sadly, the album’s title is in reference to a personal tragedy on Van Hoen’s part - the loss of his wife. Titles such as “I Won’t Give Up”, which faintly reminds of another Eno masterpiece, Another Green World, in its nautical hurly-bury, or the pastoral strains of “Mrs Who”, heavily clouded with sadness, seem to allude to this. “In fact the record was recorded entirely before she passed away,” says Van Hoen, “most of it before she even became very ill. The title was given to the album when it started to look like she wasn’t going to make it beyond a few months. It was something Osho said - “plan for a miracle” - so it was a statement of hope. Unfortunately it was not to be.” Although the album is non-thematic, non-specific in its atmospheres, sound paintings, elegant structures it most certainly stands as a magnificent monument to Osho’s memory.
-David Stubbs.

TRACK LISTING

Side A:
1) Climates
2) This Is For Them
3) Pencil Of Spheres
4) Mrs Who
5) I Won’t Give Up
Side B:
1) Electric Lights
2) The Underpass
3) Insight
4) Redwood
5) I Really Do
6) The Music

After taking time out from working together to focus on separate musical projects, maverick composer Alan Roberts (Jim Noir) and crowd-rousing vocalist Leonore Wheatley (International Teachers of Pop / The Soundcarriers) have re-joined forces to introduce Co-Pilot. Each the other’s wing person, they’re plotting an escape through Manchester’s claustrophobic grey skies with the pencil case colour of a hand-sewn multi-coloured primary school patchwork quilt. “We are both the creators in charge of navigating Co-Pilot’s overall sound which changes from track to track,” Leonore hints at what to expect. “There are about 6 different genres on one album, it's a pick n mix record!”

Happy in the haze of many boozy hours the album was recorded over just a few months whilst holed up and hanging out in Al’s city centre Dookstereo studio. The former Mill allowed the pair to relax, laugh and create without constraint. Armed with their original demos and vocal recordings from Al’s flat, they’d nip by the offie to pick up some Dutch courage before setting to work: building arrangements from a drum beat and basic chord pattern, the pair were so in tune they rarely spoke, allowing only the music to lead the way. “We’d communicate through nods of agreement or grimaces of dismay,” Leonore recalls. “Using the instruments with Al in production mode, we let the sound dictate the process whilst being drunk enough to follow it.”

The sound of life coming full circle after honing their separate crafts, Leonore had previously played keys and vocals in Jim Noir’s live band before moving on to front International Teachers of Pop for two critically lauded albums of joyous dancefloor filling bangers - their self-titled debut (2019) and Pop Gossip (2020). During that time Al would further expand Jim Noir’s universe with AM Jazz, which was celebrated as the no.1 album in Piccadilly Records’ ‘End of Year Review’ (2020), followed by the Deep View Blue E.P. (2021) cementing his status as one of Manchester’s finest songwriters.

As Leonore added her vocal magic to Al’s early demos of what would eventually become Co-Pilot’s ‘Spring Beach’ and a crooked original version of closing track ‘Corner House’, the vibe was prophetic “like the ending of Grease as Danny and Sandy take flight through the clouds”, letting their imaginations fly. The songs were the catalyst to spark a new phase of the pair working together, picking up where they left off. “From messing about with sounds during rehearsals in the very beginning it was always clear we liked the combination of sounds we made,” Leonore recalls.

Powered by a ‘try anything’ approach, Co-Pilot blends the musical DNA of what you’ve come to expect from each of the pair’s previous flight paths. “Whatever is switched on or nearby gets used. There's no 'correct' for us. If it sounds good, record it,” Al tells. United through typically turbulent wonky pop and lurking samples, whether culled from 70s TV themes or recreations of past and found sounds (see Al’s 60s tropicalia guitar on ‘Brick’, or the innocent ‘Swim to Sweden’ which opens with an ice cream van jingle Al recorded from his bedroom window) their process offers up a bucket load of Easter eggs. The album even features snippets from dearly departed pal Batfinks whilst ‘Motosaka’ is perhaps the most expensive 2-minutes on the album, featuring a Columbia Records Japan-cleared sample of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ‘Thousand Knives’. Its synth squelches and Tom Tom Club funk also received the blessing of Haroumi Hosono, Godfather of Japanese Electronica, who agreed to being sampled in an original version of the song. “We just kept listening back and hitting gold,” Al recalls. “I was thinking ‘yeah, not sure what this is but I like it! We were buzzing with what we had made.”

But the sound wouldn’t come without self-imposed instrumental challenges. Thanks to an old mellotron sample on ‘Move To It,’ the moog riff and nautical accordion breaks on ‘Swim To Sweden’ and the 6/8 and 7/8 jaunt of ‘Brick’, time signatures were lovingly skewed to create Co-Pilot’s unique mood. “It was a bastard getting the drums right,” Leonore reveals, “but I like the wonkiness”. Levelling up through the lyrics, the words of smoky and evocative ‘She Walks In Beauty’ are based on a Lord Byron poem, with the sentiment of remembering Leonore’s late grandparents. “I wanted to see how much I could get away with just singing on one note, and how I could harmonically change everything else around it vocally,” she says. Elsewhere ‘Can You See’ was written from the perspective of a concerned sister to a brother which tells of keeping someone safe. “The lyrics are quite metaphorical about day-to-day happenings, people loved and lost. Others are rhythmic nonsense! It’s up to the listener to figure out what’s true.”

It’s clear from Al’s productive production techniques and Leonore’s knack for vocals and lyricism, Co-Pilot’s course is engineered by two aeronautically adept sonic storytellers. “We share a pretty similar sense of humour,” Al tells, “It is funny listening to this quite serious album but knowing we were giggling as we recorded it all. It’s been great to have another brain to bounce off.” Their destination might be unknown, but the clouds are about to part for a sound that is light years ahead. “You'll like at least one song,” Leonore suggests, “and hopefully them all.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: What else would you expect from Jim Noir's Alan Roberts and the endlessly talented Leonore Wheatley from ITOP (and many others), than an evocative, beautifully written selection of grooving psychedelic beauties. 'Rotate' is swimming with fractured melodies, crisp melodic synths tempered with crunchy sycopated percussion and Leonore's haunting, beautifully rendered vocals. Stunner.

TRACK LISTING

1) Swim To Sweden
2) Move To It
3) Motosaka
4) Brick
5) Can You See
6) I Am 1
7) She Walks In Beauty
8) Spring Beach
9) Cornerhouse

Wirral band By The Sea return with their third album.

By The Sea come from the lineage of firework pop, bursts of colour and squeeze-your-hand intense love aligned with grey skies & work things.
Recall the first time you heard The Chills’ ‘Pink Frost’ or Television Personalities’ How I Learned To Live The Bomb’?

That’s the encounter.

Liam Power formed By The Sea in 2011, the band’s debut single Waltz Away coming out on The Great Pop Supplement label that year. In November 2012 the band released their self-titled album through Dell’Orso and GPS. The NME noted how there was “a beautifully bruised element to this Wirral act’s debut from the subdued, morbid production to Liam Power’s heroically battle-weary vocals”.

They have also often been tagged for their kitchen-sink dramas though they’re more akin to something like ‘Wish You Were Here’, both funny and dark without being maudlin. There’s an end of pier melancholy to By The Sea records though, something more than a scribble of sentiment on a souvenir postcard.

For their second LP ‘Endless Days, Crystal Skies the band turned over production duties to their friend Bill Ryder-Jones (formerly of The Coral) and released that bounty of melodic pop in 2014. It’s a partnership they have retained for the new third album ‘Heaven Knows Magnolia’ released on limited purple vinyl, CD and digital formats on October 21st. The song ‘Bedbound Melodies’ is also a co-write with Bill.

TRACK LISTING

1. ESP
2. Heaven Knows Magnolia
3. Desire Paths
4. Shall We Put On How I Long?
5. Harry And Stevie
6. Bedbound Melodies
7. Anywhere You Like
8. Carl’s UFO
9. Love Letter
10. Mt Pleasant
11. The Let Downs

In 2021 Bristol hip-hop duo Ree-Vo released two singles from their forthcoming album ‘All Welcome On Planet Ree-Vo’. The first was the electro-fused, LFO-surfing ‘Combat’ with a remix by techno legend Surgeon. The second was the dark, submersive ‘Groove With It’ remixed by New Jersey’s legendary Dälek and ‘Protein’ remixed by The Bug.

Ree-Vo begin 2022 in contrast with this their hookiest track on their album, a party throwing chorus spinning tipsy visitors around the intergalactic control booth of mission control. “Lift off, blast off, shirt off, pants off, bra off, Dance off! Naked in the dance hall SPACE BOX!” is the beamed mantra, rapper Relly transmitting to all occupants of the galaxy. “We wanted to make a hedonistic and colourful dancehall track, a bold response to the suppressive circumstances of the last two years”.

Helping them on this seven’s mission are two remixes, one by NØISE (the musical collective of Joe Cassidy, Shepard Fairey, Merritt Lear and John Goff) and BATBIRDS (the duo of Joe Cassidy and Aaron Miller). Common to both of course is Joe Cassidy who recorded for Dell’Orso (as well as Rough Trade and Dedicated) as Butterfly Child. These mixes were made at the end of 2020, the record sent off to print in February 2021, five months before Joe’s incredibly sad departure from this planet, at least physically. So for all involved it’s a very bittersweet release, but another piece of art that Joe was undoubtedly thrilled to be involved with.

TRACK LISTING

A) Spacebox (NØISE Remix)
AA) Spacebox (Batbirds Remix)

In life and music, Emma Tricca is an explorer. Just as ‪Davey Graham set sail for Morocco and ‪Vashti Bunyan for the Outer Hebrides in search of their elusive ‪muse, Rome-raised singer-songwriter Tricca has journeyed to London, New York, Texas and further afield to seek the heart of her own music. And like those renowned voyagers, she's returned with a set of songs that refresh the tired old folk form. Tricca's new album St Peter – created with a cast of supporting artists including global icon ‪Judy Collins, ‪Sonic Youth's ‪Steve Shelley and Dream Syndicate guitarist Jason Victor – takes a bracing plunge into the unknown, leaving the folksinger tag far behind with a rolling collection of reverie-inducing raw diamonds.

It was encouragement from ‪Pentangle legend ‪John Renbourn that started Tricca on her lifelong path. An aspiring young player, she met Renbourn after a solo gig in Rome and impressed him with her fresh-cut songs. A move to the UK was inevitable, gigging around folk clubs first in Oxford and later in London, honing her craft as a songwriter and a fingerstyle guitarist. Extended stays in New York and Texas followed, before Tricca returned to London to begin work on her first melancholic masterpiece, 2009's crystalline long-player Minor White.

The album was released on Bird Records, an offshoot of Finders Keepers run by husband and wife team ‪Jane Weaver and ‪Andy Votel, who'd been thrilled by Tricca's talent (and her Italian leather boots) at the Green Man Festival in 2006. They secured her a show at ‪Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown Festival in London, ensuring international exposure, a major European tour and a run of shows with her old friend Renbourn.

Five years later Tricca released Relic, an album even more poised and precise than its predecessor. Scoring rave reviews across the board – 4 stars in Record Collector and Mojo, 5 in Time Out – the album added gentle percussion and plaintive orchestration to the established pattern of hushed guitar and heartfelt vocals. A collaboration with longtime friend and guitar wizard Jason McNiff led to 2017's sparkling Southern Star EP, while a song on the soundtrack of Patrick Stewart-starring US indie film Match raised her profile. But encouraged by Weaver – who urged her to 'explore the weirdness' in her music – Emma Tricca was hungry for a new challenge.

The road to St Peter began with a chance meeting at South by Southwest between Tricca and producer and musician Jason Victor, and the formation of an instant friendship. During a Skype call one Christmas morning the pair decided to start work on a new project together, hauling in ‪Sonic Youth drummer ‪Steve Shelley and New York bass hero Pete Galub to help Tricca explore the rougher sound that was in her head. Recorded near-live at Echo Canyon West in Hoboken, the album draws on crunchy country rock, homespun psychedelia, Morricone soundtracks, New York underground grit and English folk grandeur to weave a wholly unique and surprising spell.

More musical guests soon joined the party – gruff songwriting hero ‪Howe Gelb put in a brief cameo, while Tricca was able to live out a childhood fantasy by inviting ‪Judy Collins to appear on the album's penultimate cut, Solomon Said. As a teenage folkie Tricca had recorded one of Collins's TV performances onto VHS, and worn the tape out trying to mimic her picking style. Now they were working together, on perhaps the album's most startling, transporting track.

The album is one so loaded with texture that is almost feels tangible, a rare record that feels precise and pristine in its executions but never sterile or lifeless. Electric guitars fizz away like a controlled electricity, Tricca’s guitar playing flows gracefully at the core with her vocals existing in the perfect state between slight rasp and caramel-smoothness. Shelley’s drumming and percussion gives a steady heartbeat to the record which is further brought to life by a variety of deft instrumentation, including piano, bass, cello, violin, glockenspiel and of course the variety of guest backing vocalists.

Whilst St Peter’s deep-seated roots can perhaps be traced to traditional folk music, its finished existence feels far from such a thing - its ever-flowing essence skipping through genres, tones, paces and rhythms with a gliding grace. Perhaps even a touch of the spirit of Hoboken’s own Yo La Tengo has seeped into the finish record in its quiet yet stirring beauty. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Moving from haunted demi-melodies and tenderly plucked guitar, imbued with tastefully echoing reverb and Tricca's delicate voice, influenced by decades of classic Americana and folk but sounding like none of the above. Brimming with emotion, and thoroughly enchanting. Superb.

TRACK LISTING

1. Winter, My Dear
2. Fire Ghost
3. Julian’s Wings
4. Buildings In Millions
5. Salt
6. Green Box
7. Mars Is Asleep
8. The Servant’s Room
9. Solomon Said*
10. So Here It Goes
*Featuring Spoken Word By Judy Collins

“Bridging perfectly the space in between Butterfly Child’s astonishing early EPs and the ravishing ‘Honeymoon Suite’ set, ‘Onomatopoeia’ is perhaps BC’s most startling opus – as gnarly and grainy as it is shot through with radiant light, as interested in the turbid sonics of street life as it is in the magical transportation enacted by great song writing, as prone to wide-eyed innocence as red-eyed reflection . The sounds here are spacey, dazzling, sometimes bumping with A.R Kane-style beats, sometimes a beatless chiaroscuro of analogue and digital wonder – always changing, always opening up new antechambers to wander and wonder in. Contemporaneous to Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis and other 90s UK bands keen on finding new ways to make pop matter to the listener, ‘Onomatopoeia’ throughout stakes out its own unique turf - Cassidy’s sound and vision drawing in jazz, folk, psychedelia, industrial-noise and dreampop to craft an aperture through to other worlds, a window still stained poignantly with the detritus and drift of earthly life. Both stellar and concrete, hard-boiled and impossibly hopeful ‘Onomatopoeia’ remains a uniquely ambitious, properly transcendent masterpiece. Essential.”

Neil Kulkarni, 2017.

TRACK LISTING

1) Ave 2) Our Lady Mississip 3) Lunar Eclipse 4) Who Said What To Whom 5) Young Virgins Call For Mutiny 6) X: Celcius 7) Cancer Killed Capricorn 8) Triumphant 9) Verte Ecole 10) Stars Light Up Orleans 11) Queen Glass 12) Eva