New Towns, Mountains and Other Moons
For this final post of the year we could have included a rundown of the best reissues of 2023, of which there have been many, from artists including Fairport Convention, Lush, Warrington-Runcorn, Hologram People, Kate Bush, Sun’s Signature and Slint. But, for now, we shall just focus on the now, looking at the best new sounds and sights that have crossed our path in the past 12 months.
And that’s where we will begin, with ‘The Path’ (Ghost Box), the latest album from Jim Jupp and Belbury Poly, released in August. This isn’t about naming a favourite album of the year, but we’re kicking things off with this one because it has a bit of everything; it’s evocative, wistful, bucolic, and, thanks to the meandering flute of Jesse Chandler and the soothing spoken tones of Justin Hopper (@oldweirdalbion), it’s jazzy and poetic too – amounting to an otherworldly collage with poignant words and groovy bass lines. In fact, it encapsulates many of the things that this site was intended to represent when it was still just an idea, way back in the mists of 2022 – ambience, psychedelia, folk, electronica, and an attempt to reconnect with nature and a history long since forgotten.
So, with Belbury Poly leading us Pied Piper-like through the year we soon discover mountains, in the form of Vic Mars haunting tribute to Bannau Brycheiniog, ‘The Beacons’ (Clay Pipe), and Ivan The Tolerable’s psychedelic smorgasbord, ‘Under Magnetic Mountain’ (Library Of The Occult). From there our path takes a spectral turn as we travel to the East Anglian coast and happen upon the lost city of Dunwich, revealed to us by Gilroy Mere’s ‘Gilden Gate’ (Clay Pipe). From there, and staying in a hauntological mood, we make our way through a murky woodland, which echoes with Wooden Tape’s ‘Music From Another Place’ (God Unknown).
Tribal sounds abound as Goat lead us on through the trees with ‘Medicine’ (Rocket Recordings), but our attention is soon drawn to a mysterious sound that reminds us of Kraftwerk and John Carpenter. Following our ears, we enter a clearing, within which stands a stone circle, and we watch, bemused and a little afraid, as two groups of shadowy figures, calling themselves The Burial Group and Linoleum Department, perform a bizarre ritual for which they skip ‘Seven Times Around The Stones, Then Scream’ (Pylon Phaser). After consulting the Wicker Man tribute zine ‘Ritual’ for advice on what to do in such situations, and wanting to avoid suffering a similar fate to poor Sergeant Howie, we make ourselves scarce.
We then take a much needed refreshment break on a hillside overlooking a building site, via Warrington-Runcorn New own Development Plan’s LP, ‘The Nation’s Most Central Location’, and EP, ‘Building a New Town’ (Castles in Space), from where we gather ourselves and traverse remote moorland alive with the desolately blissful drones of Craven Faults ‘Standers’. Then, hopping aboard a worryingly flimsy looking fishing boat, we enjoy a surprisingly smooth crossing to an uninhabited Cornish Island for a surreal and vaguely sinister diversion in the company of Mark Jenkin’s soundtrack to ‘Enys Men’ (Invada). Our odyssey then takes an unexpected twist as Field Lines Cartographer fires us skyward to investigate the ‘Phases of This and Other Moons’ (Castles in Space), continuing our celestial explorations with the spiritual jazz of The Circling Sun’s ‘Spirits’ (Soundway).
Cast adrift in our cosmic shed, we find that we now have plenty of time to peruse some of the reading matter that has come our way in 2023, including the wonderful Weird Walk tome ‘Weird Walk: Wandering and Wondering Through The British Ritual Year’, but, strange as it may seem, in it’s pages we see no mention of the mysterious stone circle we chanced upon earlier, and we start to wonder whether it might have all been a dream. A quick flick through Michael Sumner’s ‘101 Terrible Record Sleeves’ lightens our mood, and finally we can relax and drift onward to the trippy, psych-pop grooves of Death and Vanilla’s ‘Flicker’ and Vanishing Twin’s ‘Afternoon X’ (Fire Records), and the playful electronica of Cate Brooks’ ‘Easel Studies’ (Clay Pipe). We are soon shaken from our reverie, however, by the thought that at the start of the year we’d been looking forward to a new album from Beautify Junkyards, which wasn’t forthcoming, but we find consolation in the fact that their main man, Kyron, did release an album and we lose ourselves further in the heavenly sound of ‘Dreaming Eden’ (Belbury Music). Before sleep can take a hold, and remembering to put out the fire lest we burn the shed down, we set the controls for 2024.
See you there…
