Issue 71 / 20 June 2025
Your essential DIY electronic music beano – Track Of The Week: David Boulter + Good Stuff: Soft Cell, The Black Dog, Mark Van Hoen, Jo Johnson + more, more, more...
We’re counting down the days until the Moonbuilding Weekly summer hols begin. I love doing all this, and I’ll miss you all, well some of you, but I need a break. Not least so I can finish Issue 6 of the printed version. There just aren’t enough days in the week at the moment. Can we do something about that? Petition or something?
BNDCMPR is up the spout again. The playlist is the very last thing I do on a Friday morning before sending the newsletter out. If it goes wrong, which it has this morning (can’t edit and there’s no permalink for embedding) it’s a bit aaaargh! I’ve reverted to buymusic.club again. It’s a great little playlist this week, but then it is most weeks. The link is below.
We’ll be back in the saddle for August, which is looking #tumbleweed as far as advertising is concerned. It’d be great to get a pile lined up for when we come back. It’s what keeps this newsletter free. Details of how to advertise are here.
Happy reading.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 71 Playlist: Listen on Buymusic.Club
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DAVID BOULTER ‘The Cinder Track’ (Clay Pipe Music)
I think it’s pretty clear round these parts that I have favourite artists and favourite labels. There’s a rather lovely ebb and flow to it all with those labels and artists coming in and out of focus and many others always moving into view. I think it’s what I like so much about all this, the shifting sands nature of releasing music and keeping interest engaged in a world that’s so noisy you often have to shout, and loudly, to be heard.
A label that is absolutely one of my favourites and rarely needs to shout is Frances Castles’ Clay Pipe Music. They seem to have been so utterly consistent for the whole time I’ve been writing about them. Which has been a while. The whole thing, the artists, the music and the packaging, is all spot on.
And it’s work by the likes of David Boulter that makes it such a special label. He’s just announced a new mini album, ‘Whitby’, which will be released on 2 August on 10-inch vinyl. Pre-orders opened during a listening party on Wednesday so I wouldn’t hang around. I also hope if you went to the party you weren’t late because the record clocks in at under 25 minutes. It is though a bite-sized treat. Keeping the eating metaphors going, the first fruit, ‘The Cinder Track’, is available to hear above.
More about all this closer to release, but unlike releases such as ‘Yarmouth’, ‘Factory’ and the fabulous ‘St Ann’s’, this isn’t a biographical outing, Whitby holds no particular memories for David, but during a family visit on a grey day last year the desolate beauty inspired him to revisit the place – the beach, the dramatic abbey and the old Cinder Track railway line – for this release. It is, as you’d expect from David Boulter, beautiful work. But chop chop, suspect this one is going to sell out before we get round to writing the album review.
Got an upcoming release? We’re all ears. Email moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
SOFT CELL ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’ (Universal Music)
Okay, so Universal Music aren’t exactly the sort of label I’d usually want to be covering in Moonbuilding, but exceptions need be made sometimes. I can’t tell you how important ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’ was on my formative musical education. For those who don’t know, it’s the remixed version of Soft Cell’s debut ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ debut album and, along with The League Unlimited Orchestra’s ‘Love And Dancing’, Martin Rushent’s remix of The Human League’s ‘Dare’, it had quite the impact on teenaged me.
‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’ was released by Some Bizarre in June 1982 and clocked in at just under 28 minutes. but what minutes they were. It wasn’t a full reworking of the entire album (‘Love And Dancing’, released hot on the heels in July 1982, remixed eight of the 10 tracks on ‘Dare’), it was more a selection of key moments remade for the dancefloor. It was also put together whacked out on ecstasy, of which Soft Cell were early adopters thanks to their pal, New York socialite/drug dealer Cindy Ecstasy. The Happy Mondays would have you believe they were at the forefront of the drug arriving in the UK. Soft Cell were years ahead of them. Not that anyone should be boasting about this sort thing you understand.
There were six tracks on ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’, full-blown remixes of ‘Chips On My Shoulder’ and ‘Sex Dwarf’ from the mothership LP, their cover of ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, which was chopped out of the famous ‘Tainted Love’ medley, new versions of ‘Memorabilia’ and ‘A Man Could Get Lost’ (the A and B-side from their debut single) as well as a box-fresh cover of Judy Street’s 1968 Wigan Casio anthem ‘What!’.
So it’s not really a remix of ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ as it’s often billed, it’s more a snapshot of the time, but it is an important release nevertheless. You have to remember that in the early 80s the mainstream wasn’t awash with remixes so this was novel. Around the same time, I discovered Martin Rushent’s Altered Images remixes, especially the ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘See Those Eyes’ 12-inches, the latter remains one of the greatest pop remixes of all time. Up there too is Pete Shelley’s ‘Qu'est-Ce Que C'est Que Ça (nsnS Dub Mix)’ from March 1982, also remixed by Martin Rushent.
These kinds of things really chimed with me. Not just chimed, they rang massive clanging bells. I had no idea what dance music was, what clubs were, but I loved these extended reworkings of tracks I knew quite well. There was something thrilling, almost subversive, about the idea that someone could take someone else’s song and make something new from it.
So anyway, back to ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’. This release is part of the ongoing series of deluxe Soft Cell reissues that kicked off in 2023 with the debut album. So here, on this double LP colour vinyl version (pink and blue) we get the six original tracks remastered, plus original 12-inch versions of ‘Torch’, ‘Insecure Me?’, ‘What!’ and ‘So’ as well as two new-ish remixes, Erasure’s take on ‘Bedsitter’, which was previously only available on the ‘Keychains’ boxset and the ripping, until now promo-only Jon Pleased Wimmin version of ‘A Man Could Get Lost’. There notes from the band’s manager, a lovely man called Chris Smith, who I had many pleasant dealings with during my time at Electronic Sound, and an extended essay from the brilliant music writer, Adrian Thrills. The double CD version comes with an absolute slew of previously unreleased newer remixes from the likes of The Hacker, HiFi Sean, The Grid and Daniel Miller.
There’s a great piece in the press notes by Dave Ball who describes the making of the album at Mediasound in New York in February 1982 as “a bit like a party in a the studio”. I bet. “It was created to encapsulate the atmosphere and influences of all the clubs we went to, the music we danced to, and the drugs we took during our nights out in New York,” he adds. He also talks about their extensive use of the Serge modular system. “It generated fantastically dirty, random chaos and synthetic scratch sounds that just added to the intensity of the album.” It does feel hectic, energetic, frantic almost. Much like a night out in NYC you’d imagine. There was apparently a lot of coke blowing round at the time as well as the popping of the new-fangled ecstasy, I think the influence of both is there to hear on the record. It’s a stone-cold classic that still sounds totally great now.
GOOD STUFF #2
THE BLACK DOG ‘My Brutal Life 2’ (Dust Science)
Sheffield’s The Black Dog have long celebrated the Brutalist buildings of their home town. The follow-up to 2023’s ‘My Brutal Life’ release, this second volume builds on their celebration of Brutalism that the band describe as “a profound part of our lives”. The say that the striking buildings of the movement are “something we cherish deeply” and that “inspired by the photographs we have been taking for a new book, the music emerged effortlessly”.
But before I get to the music, I was really struck by the imagery they’ve used for this series. They are such warm photos of people who actually lived in these incredible, future-facing buildings. The photo on the cover of this latest release is particular resonant. It’s of two girls in Sheffield’s Hyde Park flats in roller-skates, presumably on the way to or from school. Anyone with teenagers will recognise the vibes being given off by the older girl. I love the streaks of sunlight bathing the famously wide landings, these “streets in the sky” were built to accommodate milk floats, which were transported up the 18 floors by large service lifts.
The photos are by Bill Stephenson, renowned photojournalist and social documentary photographer, who in 1988 undertook a project to photograph the last residents of Hyde Park before they were vacated to provide accommodation for the World Student Games in 1991 and then, between 1992-93, three of the original four blocks were demolished.
The flats were an imposing sight, built on one of Sheffield’s famous seven hills (you know, Iike Rome) they looked out across the city and couldn’t fail to be struck by their stark beauty. I lived there in the late 80s/early 90s and I always knew I was nearly home when I saw either the Tinsley Towers of the old Blackburn Meadows Power Station if I was driving, or the high-rise Hyde Park and low-rise Park Hill estates if I arrived by train. The Tinsley Towers were demolished in 2008, and, like I just said, there’s one block of the Hyde Park flats left, while Park Hill, now the largest listed building in Europe, has been massively updated, the flats refurbished and it’s a sought-after place to live these days.
That said, Brutalism does get a bad rap. Both Hyde Park and Park Hill, build in the early 60s, were places people liked to live. Bill’s photos, as he writes on his website here, became not about the projected image of this kind of living as a stark “dystopian concrete jungle”, but a friendly welcoming community of people who loved living there.
The Black Dog have long been synonymous with soundtracking the architecture of the city and, more broadly, buildings in general. You’ll find it scattered throughout their extensive back catalogue, both in the music and the imagery. To name but a few, there’s the four-part ‘Dubs’ series where they look at their relationship with Sheffield, the fantastic ‘Music For Photographers’, which was made to be played while taking in the architecture of the city in person, their various ‘Airport’ releases, and the ‘Music For More Street Substation’ album, which was a remix of the first ‘My Brutal Life’ album made to accommodate the almost 10-second reverb of the substation where they hosted an exhibition for the album.
And so to this second offering in the series. I think The Black Dog are at their most surprising best when they work ambiently like this. So this is more in line with last year’s excellent ‘Sleep Deprivation’ than their more overt techno pieces. It feels like such a gentle record, the mournful soft waves of a drone like ‘And Then They Are Gone’ butts up against the powerful bass rumble and bright pings of ‘The End Of Back To Back’.
I love how TBD make you think. So here you have a list of tracks titles, some obvious like the filmic score of ‘Park Hill Forever’ and the cheery blooms of ‘I Dream In Concrete’ and others are not so route one, like the spacey ‘Foxton Stop Off’. I immediately thought of estate agents, but no, there’s no Foxton’s in Sheffield. And some titles are in need of a google, like the gentle thrumming heartbeat of ‘Béton House’, a brutalist student accommodation block within the Park Hill Flats, the name of course pays tribute to the raw concrete… béton brut, or there’s the gentle to and fro organ-y hum of ‘B6070’, which is a B road that runs straight through the Park Hill area of the city.
This is great stuff from the trio, as always, and comes in various bundles containing a desirable supporting cast such as the 24-page Brutal Fanzine 002, an 80mm sticker, prints, cards and the like. They’ve made this a whole world all of their own and it’s one you need to be living in.
GOOD STUFF #3
MARK VAN HOEN ‘The Eternal Present’ (Dell’Orso)
A second long-player on the fab Dell’Orso label from Mark Van Hoen. Following last year’s excellent ‘Plan For A Miracle’ it’s a collection of recordings stretching back to 1998, which I still think of as being fairly recently, you know, like 10 years or so ago. I don’t need to point out that it’s nearly 30 years ago. Either time is playing tricks on me or I’m in denial. La-la-la I can’t hear you.
Mark Van Hoen is one of those people who just has music in his bones, he’s been recording almost non-stop under various guises, most famously Locust, for decades. He was a founding member of Seefeel and in Sing-Sing with Lush’s Emma Anderson, has released on such legendary labels as R&S, Apollo, Touch and Editions Mego and is a contemporary of Aphex, Autechre, LFO and Boards of Canada. That’s quite the big-up isn’t it?
His work has the sort of sonic heft you get with people who have been around for a while. These tracks, he says, were made between 1998 and 2024 in places like Somerset, London, LA and New York as well as various airport lounges. I always think it seems to lazy to trot out musical influences, but Mark nails it so well it’s hard to ignore. And it’s so hot I’m feeling quite lazy… “My primary influences are the music I loved as a teenager, Eno, Kraftwerk, OMD, Tangerine Dream, Japan, Cabaret Voltaire, Cocteau Twins, and then music that inspired me to make more music after a brief pause in the late 80s, MBV, LFO, and early 90s R&S releases such as Robert Leiner, CJ Bolland”. I mean, sign me up for listening to someone who lists those influences eh?
Marc doesn’t disappoint. The focal point here is ‘Shine’, a cover of the Slowdive song, with the band’s Rachel Goswell on vocals. I say vocals, she’s there for sure, but it’s all tones rather than words. Some of it sounds chopped up, there’s a lot of processing too. She is very definitely there though.
This is clever stuff. There’s another vocal track that we featured as Track Of The Week, ‘Multiplex’ which was recorded in LA in 2016 and in keeping it’s not full-blown singing. You can hear the word “multa”, which was “constructed from samples of an undisclosed, but very famous, female vocalist” and means “many” in Latin, referring to the multiple changing elements of the music. And change multiple times it does. The whole thing has this woozy, blurry feel, like you’re tuning into something being beamed in from another world. You wouldn’t want something like the growling prowling ‘Only Me’ following you home at night, until it morphs into a groove locked dance-fuelled swirler, while ‘Xmas’ comes on like an off-kilter musical box that’s about to collapse in on itself.
In this world of give me everything right now and keep it coming all the time, ‘The Eternal Present’ is one of those records that you could very easily pass by, but you’ll be kicking yourself if you let it do that. It’s very good indeed.
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THE ROUND UP’S HANDY ROUND UP
Ok, after a lengthy ramble for the Good Stuff picks this week, let’s see how much I can round up here before I run out of time. In our regulars slot this week it’s the wonderful Jo Johnson with the fifth track from her slow album, ‘Alterations’. Jo writes the best emails, they’re so full of information, which is music to a journalist’s ears. As is actual music. There was a lot of news in our email exchange this week (I’m sure you don’t need to know where either of us is going on holiday this year) including a preview of that fifth track, ‘Unpicking’, which is rather wonderful. It’s at the noisy end of what Jo does, still beautiful, and noise is relative isn’t it? There’s some gorgeous string swells, but there’s some controlled chaos in there too. All good. She say after this track she is pausing to reflect on the project so far and get a few other ideas underway. It’s so exciting how she’s embraced her goal of an increased work rate this year, the music coming out of her studio is top notch too. Talking of which, I discovered the next quiet details release will be Jo, which makes me giddy with excitement. How that label so consistently pulls rabbits out of hats like it does I do not know.
Summer Solstice is somehow upon us. It seems incredible how fast this year is going doesn’t it? Why is that? Time never used to move this fast did it? It’s the second time I’ve talked about time in the newsletter this week, I must be feeling it for some reason. Anyway, tomorrow is the longest day and to celebrate the Plenty Wenlock label is releasing Wildly’s 'Solstice', an album written to celebrate Litha, the longest day. The title of each track is the time of sunrise, observed at Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle in Shropshire, on the solstice for the last five years. I’ve had its ambient loveliness on a few times this week in the early mornings, windows open, as the heat builds.
Just a quick nod in the direction of the ‘Rough Trade 45s Volume 1’ set that celebrates the legendary label’s formative years, which in case you were wondering they say are 1978-1993. This first boxset consists of eight seven-inch singles, hand-picked by co-MDs Jeanette Lee and Geoff Travis, that covers off 1978-1980, an especially ripe period. Included is RT002, Augustus Pablo’s ‘Pablo Meets Mr Bassie’, RT018, Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Nag Nag Nag’ (a pat on the back from a person of your choice if you can name the b-side?) and RT043, Young Marble Giant’s ‘Final Day’. There’s also Stuff Little Fingers, Subway Sect, Swell Maps, The Pop Group and The Raincoats. I’m assuming that these sevens are new pressings with reproduction sleeves. Imagine if they were the original thing! What a bunfight they’d be. Looking forward to what else is coming in future sets.
I’m such a fan of Chicago-based cellist, composer and sound artist Lai Kohl, she does such a lovely newsletter full of information about her latest adventures, it’s right here… She did a great performance piece recently-ish called ‘Music For Union Station’ where she filled Chicago’s main train station with musical pals and performed from among the passengers. Her latest album, Lia Kohl & Zander Raymond ‘In Transit’ (unjenesaisquoi) has been built around field recordings made in liminal spaces, train stations (again!), taxis, bus stops, and so on, which are then blended with the pair’s synths, Zander’s accordion and Lia’s cello. It’s lovely stuff, feels like you too are on a journey.
Experimental Bristol outfit O$VMV$M, Neek’s Sam Barrett and Amos Childs of Jabu, serve up ‘Shroud Of Fear 2’ a mixtape that “occupies a loose space of cocoon-like ambience tied together by iPhone recordings, MS DOS one-shots and beds of reverb” and there’s an absolute raft of guests providing everything from additional production to sax and vocals. It’s pretty wild as you can imagine. There’s all sorts going on in here, sounds coming at you from all the place and from all manner of places, there’s loops made late at night, horror film intros, phrases sung, wind buffeting. The many, many vocal guests – I think there’s a dozen – and how they all lock together across this release is really interesting. As you will know, I’m a fan of ambient offerings that make themselves at home as the office comes to life in the mornings. This has been doing that job rather nicely of late. Musically it’s fascinating stuff, you’ll have noted that it’s coming out of Bristol, there’s a rich history there that has clearly seeped into this. Try the weirdy cry baby squeak of ‘Cry5me.wav’ or the wonky soul loop of ‘Sayido ft mutil umila.wav’ for good examples of what’s on show here. Well worth investigating.
Audio drama production house Mulgrave Audio seem to have stepped up a the ladder a rung or two with their latest offering. ‘Patchwuff’ is written by Andrew T Smith, with original music by Sandra Kerr and it’s narrated by none other than Valerie Singleton, which would seem to be quite a coup. Perhaps it’s not all the surprising when you see that sound design is by Bob Fischer and the whole thing is mastered by Ghost Box big chief Jim Jupp. One look at those names followed by the ‘Patchwuff Theme’ and you will know the world you’re stepping into here.
Lipsticism ‘Wanted To Show You’ is a real curious one to find on Phantom Limb. It’s the work of Chicago (second mention for the Windy City today) solo artist Alana Schachtel who uses all manner of synths, voice, field recordings and samples to create her “textual sonic atmospheres with strong pop sensibilities”. It’s called all sorts, pop psychedelia that draws in elements of shoegaze, house, hyperpop (!), experimental pop and ambient. She has, apparently, on earlier releases dabbled in freak-folk and bent-Americana. There’s a lot of labels going on there. This is here debut album and it sounds, to my ears at least, like a rich, accomplished pop record. I’m tempted to say think Johnny Jewel, the songwriting is very hooky, but what’s going on here is a lot darker than synthwave. Something like ‘Tonight (Wake Me)’ mixes up a driving dancefloor groove with light pop melodics and a killer bassline. I love that Phantom Limb are behind this. It’s really thrown me.
A MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP
***MOONBUILDING ISSUE 5 IS OUT NOW***
Bloody hell! Will you look at that? MOONBUILDING, Issue 5, is a scorcher. On the cover, depicted by the untouchable Nick Taylor, is the awesome Polypores. In our free-wheeling chat we get right under the hood of Stephen James Buckley’s musical operation, offer up a listening guide to help you safely navigate his extensive back catalogue and we also have an whole new Polypores album exclusively for your ears.
Yes, we are giving you a not-available-anywhere-else new album called ‘The Album I Would Have Released In An Alternate Universe’, which happens to be the sister recording to his recent Castles In Space opus ‘There Are Other Worlds’.
Want to try before you buy? No bother. If you’d like an extract from our Polypores cover feature interview where Stephen Buckley talks about his formative influences, which probably aren’t what you’d image, you can do that here… moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-28a-26-july-2024
Elsewhere in the issue there’s a profile of our new favourite label Mortality Tables, Pye Corner Audio 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, including Loula Yorke and Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. There’s a column from The Orb’s Alex Paterson, which starts off about Jah Wobble and ends up about Andrew Weatherall, and an all-new instalment of Steven Appleby’s brilliant Captain Star cartoon strip.
This issue also features a pile of great book reviews (that’s great books, reviewed, rather than the reviews being great, although they are pretty good). There’s a cracking chat with Justin Patrick Moore, the author of ‘The Radio Phonic Laboratory’, and a bonus chinwag with the world’s finest music journalist, Mr Simon Reynolds.
The virtual shop doors are open at moonbuilding.bandcamp.com for your purchasing pleasure. This magazine ain’t going to buy itself.
Moonbuilding Weekly is a Castles In Space publication.
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Thanks for the Solstice mention! ☀️
I will take an ad or two in August - did you get my email?