Issue 119 / 31 July 2026
The essential DIY electronic music lowdown: Track Of The Week: Gilroy Mere + Album Of The Week: Warmfield + Jessica Roch + Ben McElroy's 'Allotment Tapes' + Spike + more...
This is the last Moonbuilding Weekly until the autumn term, which kicks off on 4 September. Whatever will you do with your Friday mornings? I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us this year. I simply can’t do this without our wonderful paying subscribers and advertisers. You are the best. If you want in on the action, you can subscriber for just £3.50 a month (links below) and there’s a half price £25/week offer on ads placed until the end of September. Slots are filling up nicely. I’ve only got two spaces left for both the 4 Sept and 11 Sept issues!
I’m not going to be far away so communication channels remain open. We should be able to officially announcing the first Moonbuilding Label Market very soon. The date for your diary is Sunday 1 November at The Social on Little Portland Street in London’s glittering West End. There’ll be a ticketed gig in the evening too featuring three Moonbuilding-friendly acts, which we’ll also be announcing soon. Keep an eye on our socials for all that. We’re on Insta and Bluesky.
Righto. That’s us then. School is officially out. Have a great summer, see you in the autumn.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 119 Playlist: Listen
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GILROY MERE ‘On The Road’ (Clay Pipe)
As I’ve said once or twice before, but what France Castle’s Clay Pipe label lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. There’s been three releases so far this year – Andrew Wasylyk’s ‘Irreparable Parables’, D Rothon’s ‘Angel Pavements’ mini CD and Richard Bundy & Anna Phoebe’s ‘From The Edge’. All great, and come September, Gilroy Mere’s ‘Furlongs’ will be added to that list. Much more about the album when Moonbuilding Weekly goes back to school on 4 September, but the first seeds are here to keep you keen.
The work of Gilroy Mere should need little introduction. His incredibly thoughtful contemporary pastoral work celebrates times and places that no longer exist. That said, the new album is rooted in the present, although it does it’s share of looking back. The record is based on the route Oliver took on many occasions through the Downs travelling to Brighton Hospital while he was being treated for cancer last year. You will be pleased to hear he has had the all clear and is back doing what he does best.
“Every day for six weeks I made the 40-mile train journey from my home in St Leonard’s-on-Sea along the foot of the Downs, passing the Long Man twice a day,” says Oliver in the release notes. “With my laptop and some headphones, I filled the journey time making music.”
It’s such a lovely idea, just a musician and his laptop weaving new work while travelling. He talks about the painter Eric Ravilious who worked with the same landscapes some 90 years earlier. Ravilious’ work and that of his wife Tirzah Garwood is very Clay Pipe. Do look it up. Oliver talks about how the “muted colours and undulations” of Ravilious’ landscapes became “textures, tempos and modulations” in his work.
“After more than a month immersed in his scenery,” notes Oliver, “my laptop sketches crystalised into something that began to sound like a record, and by the end of the six weeks, I had more than enough material for this album.”
This first track, the album opener ‘On The Road’, is glorious. It’s a gentle build of a track opening up from just a finger-picked guitar to a full-blown band – drums, strings, swirly synth, flute, the lot. Lovely. As is the whole album. You are in for a treat especially as on release day, so that’s 4 September, two previous Gilroy Mere Clay Pipe albums, ‘The Green Line’ and ‘Adlestrop’, will be reissued on a double CD for the first time.
And one last thing, Oliver will be performing music from ‘Furlongs’ in two rare Gilroy Mere shows. The first is TONIGHT at The Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, on 31 July (tickets here) followed by a show at The Horse Hospital, London, TOMORROW (1 Aug, tickets here).
WARMFIELD ‘Calder – River Of Industry’ (Die Das Der)
Words: NEIL MASON
Paul Broome returns with a fourth long-player from his Warmfield project that charts the “parageographical exploration of the people, places and folklore of the West Riding and its fringes”. You can always feel the glow of pride Paul feels for his ’hood, which must be quite something. I’ve never been all that bothered by location or felt drawn to a particular place. My family are from Yorkshire, so I was quite pleased to return there to study for my degree. Not sure I’d be making four albums about it, that said I did go to Sheffield, so…
We’ve had some corking albums from Warmfield that circle around his beloved Wakefield. There was ‘The Dreadnoughts’, perhaps the one and possibly only tribute album to the mighty Wakefield Trinity RLFC. Each of the four tracks was based on a game and drew on reports, memories and locations of the action, so ‘14th May 1960 – Wembley, London’ was the first of their three Challenge Cup wins in the early 60s. There was ‘Strip Saver’ that charted a lost afternoon in the metropolis for a young Paul circa 1984. “I’ve got a Strip Saver / A pocketful of change / And I have to be home by tea”. A Strip Saver is a rover bus ticket if you’re wondering.
There’s a brace about people. ‘The Strange Life of Charles Waterton (1782-1865)’ deals with the inspiring naturalist who created the world’s first nature reserve at Walton Hall, his family estate in West Yorkshire. Interesting chap was Charlie. Then there’s possibly my favourite – ‘Barbara & Henry’, two lengthy tracks each one dedicated to the West Riding’s most famous artists – Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, complete with the voices of the artists themselves drawn from archive TV interviews. I described ‘Henry’ as “a super mellow version of Daft Punk’s ‘Moroder’ with the narration and the way the lovely melody explodes”. High praise there.
Like Warrington-Runcorn, Warmfield is an artist who has properly thought through the projects he lays before us. There’s a method to the madness. And it’s all connected. By location, yes, but also through execution. Or at least I like to think that even if it might be happy accident.
For example, his 2024 debut ‘Warmfield-cum-Heath’ was set in the “civil parish in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire” and that “downstream from the city, the river Calder flows through the west of the parish in a north-easterly direction”. Which is exactly where we find ourselves for this latest release. The River Calder. I do like to think that Paul planned that first release reaching forwards and likewise, the latest release reaching back to the starting point for all this.
In his notes Paul talks about having spent his childhood a stone’s throw from the river and how this release is a 45-mile personal journey from the head of the river, Heald Moor near Todmorden, to its end in Castleford. “For the thousands of people who live along its route,” he writes, “the river is more than just a brief stretch of water – it’s the reason their towns and cities exist, it’s the reason they live where they live, it’s a life source that can take away as much as it gives, it’s a blessing and a curse – and it’s been that way for centuries. The river has always been there.”
Which sounds like a film voiceover doesn’t it? Say it in a deep voice. See! And indeed, ‘Calder – River Of Industry’ comes on quite soundtracky. The thing is, especially with subject matter like this, you kind of expect something very different from what you get. This kind of work does tend to have a certain vibe. Rivers tend to suggest pensive work, delicate, flowing, ambient drifts.
Paul does tend to confound expectation by turning all that on its head. And so it is here. ‘Calder – River Of Industry’ is vibrant more than pensive. The eight-minute opening track, ‘Calderhead’, smoulders for nearly three minutes, warm synths layer up until the beats kick in. The whole track continues to build as melodies queue up to compete with each other.
Like much of Paul’s work, he uses field recordings that he manipulates into “ghostly fragments”. Only Paul knows where all the field recordings come from and where they are buried, which is quite nice. It’s like he’s embedding history in his work. There’s no need to be all attention seeky about it, just knowing it’s there is probably enough. It’s headphones on for a closer listen and yup, there in ‘Sowerby Bridge’ you can hear the river flowing. The track itself with its bubbling synthline and bright tsk-tsk-tsk drum machine is a delight. The opening of ‘Elland’ sounds as if it was recorded on location, and there’s the twitter of birdsong on ‘Brighouse’, which opens up into lovely warm chimes and a deep throb of a bassline.
I’m not sure you’d call them intros, but a lot of these tracks have lovely long builds like the opening Space Invaders-y thrum of ‘Dewsbury’, which opens up into a bright arpeggiation and pulsing bass before a beat finally takes hold around the two minute mark. It’s a lot like what Underworld do, they’re not songs as much a movements that unfurl over time.
The album is also inspired by a book published in 1972 called ‘Yorkshire’s River Of Industry’ by local historian John Ogdon and “the many changes to the river, communities and townships in the 54 years since it was published”. And indeed, the album comes with its own little book where you can find maps of the river from Ogdon’s original book as well as images, drawn from over the years, and text surrounding the featured locations.
It’s a great little package and an essential addition to our growing Warmfield collections.
warmfield.bandcamp.com / diedasder.bandcamp.com
Got something you need to tell us about? email moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: NEIL MASON
GOOD STUFF #1
JESSICA ROCH ‘Human Music: Live Improvisations I’ (Past Inside The Present)
Jessica Roch is someone who always seems to be passing through my Insta feed. There are a few artists like that, people who seem to pop up all the time. Or maybe that’s just my echo chamber. South London-based Jessica first caught my attention with her ‘Pandemonium: Music for Parakeets’ piece, which she performed at Clapham Common Bandstand in April 2025.
I don’t know if you’re aware, but South London is awash with rather noisy, bright green parakeets living in the wild. There’s hundreds of the buggers, visit any park and you’ll see them. We’ve even had them in our back garden. There’s some great urban myths about their origins. Some say Jimi Hendrix started it all by releasing a breeding pair on Carnaby Street in 1968, or was it George Michael who had some in an aviary at his Hampstead home that escaped during a break in? Did a large flock escape during the filming of ‘The African Queen’ at Worton Hall Studios in Isleworth in 1951? Or going further back, did they flee from Henry VIII’s royal menagerie at Hampton Court? I do know the real reason, but it’s not as good as any of the above theories.
You already like the sound of Jessica don’t you? Her latest project is a real eye catcher too. Under the banner “Fuck AI Music, Listen to Human Music”, she makes her debut on the excellent Past Inside The Present label with ‘Human Music: Live Improvisations I’, which she says is “an unambiguous protest and rejection of AI generated music. It is imperfect, it is raw, and it is unpredictable. That is the beauty of live improvisation. It is innately human”.
And it is all those thing. The seven tracks were performed in “concert halls, intimate venues, and assembly rooms across England” between 2022 and 2025. “Each piece unfolds in real time,” say the notes, “free from predetermined outcomes, embracing the subtle imperfections, fleeting decisions, and emotional responses that define genuine human expression.”
How do you tell if something is entirely improvised? I don’t think you’d know these six tracks were unless someone told you. This whole thing was performed live by Jessica on violin, synth, vocals, pianos, vibraphone and she says “many pedals and (many) electronics”.
The opener, ‘London Live Session, Oct 25’ is a lovely piano/vocal drift. The voice, as it appears throughout, is ethereal, all choral drones that only add to the atmosphere she creates. ‘St John On Bethnal Green, Oct 24’ is heavenly, the choral voices joined by pensive, soaring violin that give way to a deeply resonant piano. It’s excellent stuff. There’s the two-part ‘Liquid Light Session’, the first part comes on like Philip Glass with its bright repeating piano motif, the second leads the way with some magnificent violin work. Closer ‘Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, June 24’ is perhaps my favourite. There’s a lovely repeating vocal tick that appears around halfway, it’s like a Kate Bush kind of noise. The whole thing feels quite soundtracky when the violin, peeling like bells, is joined by some lovely rich, warm synth chords.
The whole thing clocks in at a very listenable 35 minutes-ish. I’m still of the mindset that everything should fit on one side of a C90 tape. I used get quite annoyed when an album overran. What do you do with the tracks that don’t fit and why didn’t the artist think about this? Anyway…
This is great stuff. Jessica Roch is clearly a huge talent. If you don’t know her work already, you probably need to.
PS PITP are doing 10% off your order via their website with the code PITP10, click here to get shopping.
GOOD STUFF #2
BEN MCELROY ‘Allotment Tapes #7 – Nostalgia For Broad Beans (with Cathy Symes)’
Broad beans are easily my favourite vegetable so I was looking forward to this, as I do with all of Ben work. The more of the ‘Allotment Tapes’ series I hear, the more I like it. Just to catch you up, Nottingham-based Ben has been spending his time in and around the city’s St Anns Allotments making these wonderful monthly audio diaries that brim with music, field recordings and interviews.
July’s tape visits writer and gardener Cathy Symes to “discuss her philosophy on gardening, growing, allotments and writing about it”. “The music for this one,” says Ben, “comes from an extended jam on prepared fan organ and clarinet/viola with other elements – field recordings, conversation, fragments of other recordings, some viola/vocals recorded in an abandoned church up near Penrith – hung upon it.”
These things are such a delightful listen. You’re as keen on hearing the chat as you are immersing yourself in the sounds. I really love the fan organ drone here, it’s such a pleasing sound especially when set alongside the field recordings of the allotment, the bird song, the rumble of traffic in the distance, the crunching footsteps, a hoe raking the earth. The music does this lovely build towards the end, the organ is joined by a repeating viola phrase, vocals, the bird song is still there…
And yes, sure, there’s not a synth in sight, but Ben absolutely belongs in the Moonbuilding world through his sheer invention and commitment to the cause. Some things are just in our orbit, Ben’s work very much is. It is not easy producing work like this to a monthly schedule. I’m really hoping when he’s done that they’ll be some kind of album release charting his work this year. It’s a labour of love that is for sure. And again, at 22 minutes it’s so listenable.
As if all this audio isn’t enough, Ben has also been producing accompanying short films, this month’s, ‘The Fungal Root Library Vol 1’, is especially good. It takes you a little while to work out what’s going on. Or maybe I’m just a bit slow. You can watch that here…
This is all very fine work. Highly recommended.
GOOD STUFF #3
SPIKE ‘Spike’ (Gob Nation)
This is such a curious record. The work of Hannah McLoughlin, a film composer and experimental musician “linked to Cafe OTO”, the accompanying notes says her work brings to mind Chris & Cosey and Fad Gadget. I mean, if you’re going to drop names, drop some big ones, right?
Dig a little deeper and “lyrically, the album draws on science fiction to express an intensity of emotion”. There’s references to Ursual Le Guin’s feminist sci-fi classic, ‘The Left Hand Of Darkness’ (‘Unending’), talk of black holes (‘Event Horizon’) and ‘Fortuna’, “a retro-futurist ode to Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram”. She is ticking all the right boxes isn’t she?
If the opening track, ‘Disappear’, doesn’t hook you in there is no point in having ears. It sounds like a lo-fi version of Pet Shops Boys’ ‘Heart’ (the video for that, I mean, do watch it if you’ve forgotten, it’s insane). The lesson you learn in under three minutes is Hannah can’t half write a hooky pop song. Her voice is really distinctive to in a Cosey Fanni Tutti kind of way. She doesn’t really have a pop voice, it feels more left field, or maybe it’s more classical. A friend of mine said, she sounds like you wish Florence Welsh sounded. You get the feeling there is some real power there, but the pop is keeping it dialled down. ‘No More’, an almost Cindi Lauper-like ballad, is a close as we get to it being unleashed.
The thing is, whatever she’s doing, it really works delivering these retro-fuelled missives. Is there an underground pop genre? Perhaps there should be. That ode to Delia and Daphne, ‘Fortuna’, is great, a swampy synth rumble marks time while a bright topline tiptoes all over it. I really like ‘Unending’, the chorus is a huge swoop of melody over pounding drums and rumbling bass and the rasping synth and hectic beats of ‘Event Horizon’ are great. Closer ‘You’re Missing’ is the perfect partner to the opener, another bright pop belter that you could almost hear grazing the Top 30 and bagging Spike a ‘Top Of The Pops’ appearance in the 80s.
If you like your pop hooky, but want to keep it wonky, this is the record for you.
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THE ROUND UP’s ROUND UP
Righto, let’s see what we can get through before I run out of time or steam! Can I say first of all a huge thank you to Evolution/Sharl and Alias Zone who you will have noticed have been advertising their wares in the newsletter this month. Without people like this, Moonbuilding Weekly wouldn’t exist. If you value what we do here, I hope you’ll be good enough to click on the ads each week and have a little explore. It is well worth your while as we have very discerning advertisers.
‘Kurayami’, from the Birmingham-based Evolution/Sharl has a flicker of Massive Attack about it. It has that early dark dubby thing going on with music and there’s a similar haunting delivery to the vocals. The opener ‘Ground’ is a really good example, a representative taster of what to expect from the rest of the album. ‘Sakura’ is rather lovely, I like the way it shifts its weight halfway through. There’s a great slappy bass sound kicks in too. I don’t want to make big heads here, but there are a couple of vocals, especially evident on ‘The Quiet Voice’, where you can hear a twang of Sylvian. There is very much a Japanese flavour to proceedings too. I would assume they are fans of Japan (the band and the country). I’d be disappointed if they weren’t. It never ceases to amaze me how high production values are at grassroots level. This whole thing sounds great.
Alias Zone is the New Mexico project of producer Chris Meyer and here he teams up long-time friend Robert Rich to create ‘Passage’. It’s an epic four-tracker, each track sailing into double figures. Again, this release sounds great. I’ve had it on the headphones a few times and it’s a treat. It’s sophisticated work and it makes me think of Ian Boddy and his DiN label and that goes doubly so when you clock there’s a synthy kit list that will take some googling to decipher. Do look up Chris’ Folktek Nano Garden, that looks cool. Likewise Robert’s Haken Continuum and his eoWave Metallik Resonator. Damn, that looks good. And once you know what it is, you’ll hear it all over this. It’s rather gentle ambient work with some deliciously dark edges. I really enjoyed just letting the lengthy tracks unfurl and fill Moonbuilding office. I especially like how menacing the opener ‘Elegy’ becomes as it reaches its conclusion. Nice. Very nice.
Can I point you in the direction of a record that isn’t out until next week? In the old days, you’d review everything a week upfront of release. New releases came out on a Monday, we wrote about them in the paper that came out the Wednesday before. There was no other way of knowing about them. You read the music press or just took your chances. I liked that world. Test Card, as you should know, is UK-born Canada-dwelling Lee Nicholson. His new album, ‘73 & Good Luck’ (Home Service Recordings) is out next Friday (7 August) and it’s his first in a while and it follows the brilliant ‘Signals’ from January 2025. I have to admit getting quite excited when I see Lee has a new album on the way and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s very mellow, super slo-mo, which I really like. I love ‘Nearly Past Our Future Gone’, it has that shuddery feel of Art Of Noise’s ‘Moments In Love’ about it. There’s a beautiful intermission in the shape of ‘Tempus Relaxat’ that just seems to sparkle, and the amateur radio station crackle of closer ‘Bravo Uniform Station’ is a delight. The album title comes from amateur radio terminology, where “73” is a sign-off, ending a broadcast… which has me worried. “Is this album his final chapter or the start of something new?” say the notes. I know which one I’d like it to be. Lee has a sound all of his own. It reminds me of Steve Cobby, it has the same downtempo vibe. Super mellow, very assured. Do check out the striking artwork for this and his last album too. It’s by the glorious Nick Taylor, who you will know does the Moonbuilding mag covers. Rarely does a week go by when I don’t see something or other by Nick. Genius work. There’s three tracks from ‘73 & Good Luck’ up on Lee’s Bandcamp to keep you going until next Friday. The limited edition (250) coloured vinyl is only available at Norman. Chop chop. Love this.
There’s a new Hunter Complex album, ‘Call Of The Wild And Void’ on the Seattle-based SFI Recordings that I’ve been meaning to write about for a few weeks. There’s a couple of essential Hunter Complex albums that still get a regular airing at Moonbuilding HQ. There’s 2020’s ‘Dead Calm And Zero Degrees’ and the rather wonderful, guest-strewn ‘Airports And Ports’ from 2022, both released by the much-missed Burning Witches label. Both with excellent artwork too, the former from Kid-ethic, the latter by Luke Insect. Hunter Complex is the work of Netherlands-based Lars Meijer, who has been pretty quiet of late. Since ‘Airports And Ports’ there’s only been an animated film soundtrack, ‘Oars And Ears’, which is rather lovely admittedly, but it’s great to have Lars back. I was only just talking about artists with a sound of their own and he’s another one. Where ‘Dead Calm’ was a pure synth album, since he experimented with collaborations on ‘Airports And Ports’, Lars seems to have gone over to the “new age, ethereal jazz and krautrock” side. Is that a genre? Is now. ‘Offshore Oblivion’ is glorious. It’s the sort of thing Vince Guaraldi would be making if he were around today – lovely piano melodies mixed with synthy swirls and field recordings. You’re such a synth nerd Charlie Brown. The smoky jazz trumpet and electronic beats on ‘Voice Of The Coast’ are a delight. This is so good.
We’re doing well here, cracking through the releases. Italian electronic quartet Cloud Canyons dropped me a nice email pointing me in the direction of their second album, ‘Body Wisdom’ on Berlin’s Berliner Tonaufnahmen label. We’ve been talking today about brevity, about records fitting on one side of a C90. Yeah, no chance with this. The notes say it’s “a 70 minute-long intoxicating journey that spans psychedelia, ambient, techno, wave, kosmische musik and more”. More? Heck. I mean it is quite prog too. And quite folky. They’ve also boldly spread it out across four sides of vinyl. Proper. Think something like Beautify Junkyards meets the interesting end of Fleetwood Mac. You know, ‘Tusk’ really, and pack it to bursting with warm synths, let it get all krauty (see the thrumming ‘Body Wisdom’) and you’re almost there. It reminds me of a couple of other things. The opener, the 10-minute ‘Double Vision’ descends towards the end into an incantation that you can imagine Polly Harvey working with, while ‘Spirit Invocation’ is almost Karl Hyde like in its vocal. I mean, there are worse things than having an Underworld influence. I can see that I am going to be listening to this a fair bit.
Pentu’s ‘Liquid Error’ comes to you via my pals at Salmon Universe. Which is a sure fire seal of approval if you like the wilder end of digital synthesis. “Pentu,” say the label, “is a London-based producer, sound designer and guitarist, exploring experimental and ambient soundscapes, focusing on sounds that mirror the splintered reality of living in an online world”. This album is the conclusion of the “doomscroll trilogy” that includes 2023’s ‘Second Nature’ (Surf) in 2023 and 2024’s ‘And I Saw My Devil...’ (Mappa). It is, as you might be able to imagine, a wild ride. “The trilogy is my attempt at articulating the experience of living in physical reality against a digital landscape of infinite overstimulation,” says the artist. Goodness me, it does that. I’ve had it on headphones a couple of times and feel very over exposed afterwards. There’s all manner of stuff going on, going off actually, but you know what I mean. Flickers and rumbles and squelches, field recordings drop in and out, melodies jump at you and disappear as fast as they arrive, digital beats appear and dissolve. There’s some moments of total beauty, like in ‘Hotel Erotica’ when a bright arpeggio bursts to life, or the hectic piano rumble that appears fleetingly in ‘The Power Of Angles’. And there’s moments of calm, like on the drifty ‘There’s Been Time This Whole Time’. This is way more interesting than doomscrolling. It is in places as disorienting, but I don’t feel nearly so helpless or lost, which is a good thing, right? And then some death metal kicks in…
Quick one to finish up with. Neil Scrivin has repressed The Night Monitor’s total classic ‘Spacemen Mystery Of The Terror Triangle’ (Fonolith) from 2020. This is a second edition of 100 silver cassettes that look flipping lovely. Hurry, they won’t last long. To refresh your memory, the album is based on the strange events in South Wales in the late 1970s. “A classic wave in the annals of British Ufology known as The Welsh Triangle or The Dyfed Enigma,” say the notes. “It is a tale which takes in a UFO landing at a primary school, encounters with faceless silver-suited humanoids, a terrorised isolated farmhouse, mysterious underground facilities, ley-lines, fairy lore, and even teleporting cows”. Your usual night out in South Wales as I recall. I love the narration on ‘Bovine Bilocation’, it sounds like ‘Ivor The Engine’, which was Oliver Postgate himself, fact fans. Neil provides some excellent sleevenotes, you’ll find them on the Bandcamp page. Here’s what he says about ‘Bovine Bilocation’. It “features the voice of local vet turned UFO investigator Randall Jones Pugh, who wrote (with one-time Loch Ness monster hunter Ted Holiday) ‘The Dyfed Enigma’, one of the books which informed the album. He would later denounce the entire UFO phenomenon as Satanic and burn all his research material.” So there you have it.
Right, that really is me. I’ve turned in an average of 5,000 words a week since Issue 93 (30 Jan). This is Issue 119, that’s 27 weekly issues so around 135,000 so far this year. We used to joke at Melody Maker that by the end of the year we needed a week off as we’d run out of words and we’re hoping for some more for Xmas. I’ve not run out, just need to recharge. And I need to use some words elsewhere. See you in September.
MOONBUILDING ISSUE 6 … SOLD OUT
Holy cow. MOONBUILDING Issue 6 is completely sold out, so it isn’t available from moonbuilding.bandcamp.com Sure someone is trying to cash in via Discogs.
Let’s look at what you missed, although it is still available digitally of course. Our cover star, illustrated by the peerless Nick Taylor, is the unstoppable force that is LOULA YORKE. In our bumper interview we talk about how she got here and where she’s going. As usual, it is an in-depth piece that lifts the lid on the brilliant mind behind the excellent music.
We meet Loula at her home in Suffolk where we have a proper rummage around in her world, musically, humanly, psychologically, probably even a bit metaphysically. It is a cracking read and opens the doors on what makes this most remarkable artist tick.
As always the issue comes with an accompanying CD. This one is a Loula Yorke collection called ‘How Did We Get Here’, which is compiled by artist herself and charts her rise and rise. The resulting 11-tracker will take you on a journey through her career to this point and it is utterly, totally, absolutely, exclusive to Moonbuilding.
Elsewhere, there’s a great chat with Clay Pipe Music supremo Frances Castle as we profile her wonderful label, A’Bear gets in on the There’s A First Time For Everything act, we round up an absolute mountain of recent releases and serve up our thoughts on the best albums from the last few months, which feature Loula Yorke, Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan’s Gordon Chapman-Fox, Cate Brooks, 30 Door Key and Sarno Ultra.
We talk to ‘This Is Memorial Device’ author David Keenan about ‘Volcanic Tongue’, his debut collection of music writing. He is one of the last generation of music writers who could actually call themselves journalists. He talks a lot of sense and his work is a shining example of what music writing should be. It’s an unmissable interview.
Elsewhere, we round up an absolute mountain of recent releases and point you in the right direction of some mighty fine independent magazines and books. The Orb’s Alex Paterson tells us about his ‘Top Of The Pops’ experience when he appeared on the legendary show performing ‘Blue Room’ in 1993. I say performing… There’s a new Captain Star cartoon strip from the brilliant Steven Appleby. I constantly have to pinch myself that this strip, that I first read in the NME in the early 1980s, is now in my little magazine.
Find us at moonbuilding.bandcamp.com.
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Thank you for the extremely kind words. Glad you enjoyed it and I’m glad there was a whole paragraph about my parakeet pals