Electronic explorer James Holden returns with a generically unconstrained new album of rave music for a parallel universe that seeks to reconnect with the feelings of hope, freedom and possibility that characterised the earliest days of dance music, coming to terms with his own musical past in the process.

In contrast to its jazz adjacent live band predecessor The Animal Spirits, Holden's trippy fourth solo artist album is more of a continuous sound collage, artfully juxtaposing audio worlds and field recordings with an anything goes approach in the style of early nineties pastoral classics like The KLF’s Chill Out and the sprawling radioscapes of Future Sound of London.

Physical formats include a colourful 12 page booklet of original illustrations by Jorge Velez (Professor Genius).

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: James Holden has been an inspiration for many a year, deftly moving from jagged instrumental genius ‘The Inheritors’ through jazzy ambient fare ‘Animal Spirits’ to this latest album, imbued with the spirit of both. It's a sprawling and multi-faceted triumph, another indication that Holden is one of the greatest producers around.

TRACK LISTING

1) You Are In A Clearing
2) Contains Multitudes
3) Common Land
4) Trust Your Feet
5) The Missing Key
6) In The End You’ll Know
7) Continuous Revolution
8) Four Ways Down The Valley
9) Worlds Collide Mountains Form
10) The Answer Is Yes
11) Infinite Fadeout
12) You Can Never Go Back

How do you follow up one of the most legendary, yet rarest albums said to signal the birth of doom metal?

If you’re Randy Holden, you give everyone about 50 years to catch up, then casually drop a tastefully modernized reinterpretation of that sound. Population III picks up where Holden’s 1969 solo debut left off, updated with several decades worth of technological advances and personal hindsight.

Following his tenure in proto-metal pioneers Blue Cheer in 1969, the guitarist aimed for more control over his next project. Thus, Randy Holden - Population II was born, the duo naming itself after the astronomical term for a particular star cluster with heavy metals present. Along with drummer/keyboardist Chris Lockheed, Holden created what many say is one of the earliest forms of doom metal.

“Godzilla just walked into the room. People just stood there with their eyes and mouths wide open,” Holden says of the audience’s reaction to their live debut performing with a teeth-rattling phalanx of 16 (sixteen!) 200 watt Sunn amps.

Likewise, their 6-song debut album Population II delves into leaden sludge, lumbering doom and epic soaring riffs that sound free from all constraints of the era. It’s incredibly heavy, but infused with a melodic, albeit mechanistic, sensibility. However, troubles with the album’s original 1970 release bankrupted Holden, who subsequently left music for over two decades. For good reason, it’s widely hailed as a masterpiece, and until finally getting a proper formal release in 2020 on RidingEasy Records, was a longtime Holy Grail for record collectors.

Flash forward 40 years to 2010, we find the guitarist/vocalist quietly coaxed into recording a followup album by Holden superfan and Cactus member Randy Pratt. Joined by drummer Bobby Rondinelli (who has played with Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Rainbow), the trio cut the 6-song collection of leaden future blues, Population III. “Randy Pratt had written the basic song structures, he understood my music and where I come from quite well,” Holden says. “He nailed it.”

But the recording was ultimately shelved for over a decade. “A year ago, in 2021 I listened to the songs and was delightfully surprised,” Holden says. “I think it’s the best album I’ve ever done.”

Throughout Population III, Holden effortlessly dishes out squealing, soaring leads and skull-thwacking riffs with his signature low end grit and penchant for Middle Eastern scales. Coupled with Pratt’s pocket-locked bass, the slight flanging effect on Rondinelli’s drums and his pugilistic beats, the album occasionally brings to mind Presence-era Led Zeppelin, particularly on the 22-minute epic “Land of The Sun.” Elsewhere, “Swamp Stomp” echoes more the troglodyte blues of Holden’s older work, with his evermore searing solos showing hints of early Clapton/Hendrix era guitar prowess to drive home the stomp of the song’s namesake. At times, Holden sounds reminiscent of Neil Young leading Crazy Horse’s ruptured grunge as his lilting falsetto vocals push and pull his guitar’s siren’s call. Taken as a whole, there’s a very distinct difference between the way these veterans of hard rock’s formative years carry the songs compared to the more lugubrious riffing of today’s young doom purveyors. Population III is the real deal — a powerful continuation of a sound forged 50 years ago, that almost didn’t happen. Somehow, Randy Holden’s music always finds a way to stand the tests of time. 

UK synth wizard James Holden teams up with Polish clarinet guru Waclaw Zimpel for a four track mini album of deliciously Krauty improvisations, recorded back in the summer of 2018 when Zimpel (and, on "Tuesday" and "Wednesday", his longtime collaborator guitarist Jakub Ziolek) joined Holden in his London studio for a series of musical experiments; with the goal of completing one track per day. The resultant "Long Weekend EP" is a captivating, in-the-moment lyrical conversation between alto clarinet and modular synth, judiciously supplemented by guitar, organ, voice and assorted percussion and glued together with atmospheric syrupy tape overdubs. A meeting of two like-minded masters of their instrument, whose disparate musical journeys now converge in a shared love of all things hypnotic and trancey. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: A well trodden path but none the less arresting when done proper; the merger of advanced synthesis and organic instrumentation can yield dazzling results - perfectly demonstrated here by two master craftsmen.

TRACK LISTING

Saturday
Sunday
Tuesday (ft Jakub Ziolek)
Wednesday (ft Jakub Ziolek)

The latest addition to the James Holden archive is an album of solo synth work originally written to accompany the critically-acclaimed documentary ‘A Cambodian Spring’: fourteen tracks of pulsing melancholy, foreboding drone and even the occasional burst of beatless trance in the form of the uplifting arpeggios of surefire album highlight ‘Solidarity Theme’.

Picking up where his classic 2013 album ‘The Inheritors’ left off (and giving ‘Self-Playing Schmaltz’ a new cinematic airing) Holden’s debut soundtrack project combines the sound palette of his beloved Prophet 600 with a cranky old Hammond organ to showcase the full breadth of his musical tastes across the epic documentary format.

The LP includes digital download code and sleevenotes by ‘Imaginary Cities’ author Darran Anderson.

TRACK LISTING

Srey Pov’s Theme
Monk’s Theme Part I
Downturn Medley
Solidarity Theme (Villagers)
Monk’s Theme Part II
The Villagers
Disintegration Drone I
Solidarity Theme (Release)
Monk’s Theme Part III (Exit)
Reprise
Disintegration Drone II (Torn Cone)
Disintegration Drone III (Death Rattle)
Self-Playing Schmaltz
Srey Pov’s Theme (End Credits)

Let electronics guru James Holden and his newly-expanded band The Animal Spirits transport us to a magical other world with this third album: a bold new set of synth-led folk-trance standards, fusing elements of psychedelia, krautrock, world and spiritual jazz with Holden's usual propulsive melodic vigour into his most ambitious - but also most accessible - work to date.

The synth-and-drum core of Holden's Inheritors-era live touring outfit has picked up several members along the way, incorporating saxophone, cornet, recorder and cosmic percussion, all recorded live together in one room under the direction of band leader Holden to produce a genre-blending new form of universal music that feels inherently fluid and alive.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Holden, and his newly inherited (pun intended) band segue away from the dense, fractured electronic excursions of yesteryear, into a genre-bending percussive world-music odyssey. Progressive, multi-layered and incredibly rewarding. Another slice of genius from the Border Community head honcho.

TRACK LISTING

Incantation For Inanimate Object
Spinning Dance
Pass Through The Fire
Each Moment Like The First
The Beginning & End Of The World
Thunder Moon Gathering
The Animal Spirits
The Neverending
Go Gladly Into The Earth

Of all of the Class A synth jams contained within James Holden’s monumental album proclamation ‘The Inheritors’, the tape-softened fuzziness of ‘Circle Of Fifths’ may not seem like the most obvious single candidate, but in these three not-on-the-album alternative interpretations we see the foreboding-filled interlude assume surprising new proportions.

The modestly titled lead ‘Tool’ version is more of a deep-and-dirty primal club freakout that brings the lunatic gibbering of the mysterious Shimble right to the forefront, to overwhelmingly disorientating effect.

The ‘Dub’, meanwhile, transposes the pagan aesthetic of the album for the communal ritual of the club dancefloor, whilst the final, bonus, ‘Gibbersolo’ lets Shimble’s Gollum-esque madness rip in a more than a little disturbing accapella form.

Another handy 12” of DJ tools, de- and re-constructed from the raw materials of James Holden’s ‘The Inheritors’ album and thoroughly road-tested in his own DJ sets. This time it is the turn of trippy instrumental album interlude ‘The Illuminations’.

In its ‘12” Version’ club incarnation, Holden’s mystical cascading arpeggios are juxtaposed with a skittering Detroitian thump to cater for a multitude of bewilderment-inducing dancefloor moments the world over.

The ‘Drumsolo’ strips things back to functional old school techno basics as we get to eavesdrop on Holden jamming with his modified DR-110 drum machine.

Finally, the extended ‘Arpsolo’ draws out the melodies of the original into a dreamy Boards Of Canada-esque bonus indulgence.

‘The Inheritors’ is the eagerly awaited follow-up to James Holden’s rightfully acclaimed ‘The Idiots Are Winning’ milestone of 2006: a whole new world and complete mythology in album form, which stretches way beyond the traditional confines of ‘dance’ music.

Holden has woven a rich aural tapestry that treads a singular path. Bold, epic and psychedelic, striking a delicate balance between weighty tome and transformative trip, and with a production aesthetic that is all his own, Holden is certain that this is the album he has always wanted to make.

‘The Inheritors’ is an album that fully immerses you in a timeless space with abundant hidden depths.