Issue 75 / 15 August 2025
Your essential DIY electronic music lowdown: Track Of The Week = Maps + Album Of The Week = ‘Silberland Vol 3 – The Ambient Side Of Kosmische Musik 1972-1986’ + worriedaboutsatan + Jo Johnson + more
At the risk of repeating myself, as if, the new issue of Moonbuilding, the print version of all this, still isn’t sold out. Incredible. This situation can’t go on… I feel I should mention it until every last copy has gone.
Get yours at moonbuilding.bandcamp.com
It’s a relatively quiet week for releases, which is unusual, no idea why, so I’ve been catching up on some releases I missed out on while on my hols. Almost there, which is good. Once I’m up to date we can all move forwards.
Talking of moving forwards, it was A Level results day yesterday. I hope everything went swimmingly if that involved you in any way. It’s the turn of GCSEs next Thursday. Fingers crossed for everyone involved there, sure they’ll be high drama whatever the outcome.
In the meantime I hope you enjoy this week’s witterings. Happy reading.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
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MAPS ‘Chapter One’ (Mute)
The soundtrack to an imaginary film is a well-loved vehicle that is much utilised round these parts. ‘Welcome To The Tutor Gate’, the new album from James Chapman’s Maps, brings something of a new take on the idea. It’s the soundtrack to a half-remembered horror film watched late into the night years ago that James has been unable track down since. He’d forgotten about it for years when scenes began to come back to him and he decided to fill the gaps by creating its soundtrack. And it’s not only a lost film soundtrack, but a lost lost film soundtrack. It seem James recorded this back in 2014 and the tapes have laid undiscovered until now.
“Inspired by a film that I was never able to trace,” explains James, “I set out to create a mysterious, strange and uneasy soundtrack, with a nod to the fantastical. I imagined a protagonist venturing into a foreboding land of immense forests, filled with mysterious beings - where magic is real, and witchcraft is feared.”
Sounds like it’s something you’d expect to find nestled on the excellent Library Of The Occult label doesn’t it? And while it is Maps-y, it feels like a different sound for James. There’s a real edge of dark menace to it and indeed he talks about how it’s influenced by 60s/70s horror soundtracks by the likes of Dario Argento and John Carpenter.
More about the album, which is being released by Mute on… wait for it, Halloween, nearer the time, but we’ve had it on at Moonbuilding HQ this week and it’s excellent. It’s presented as one continuous 40-minute piece that’s split into eight “chapters” and follows the hero’s journey, which James says ends with “a triumphant return, before disappearing into the night”. There is much here to enjoy.
VARIOUS ARTISTS ‘Silberland Vol 3 – The Ambient Side Of Kosmische Musik 1972-1986’ (Bureau B)
There is something rather magical about krautrock. I’m not sure if it’s the myths and legends that accompany it, the longevity, the infectious driving beat that seems to be in time with the blood pumping round your veins or the fact that no matter how you much you listen to, there’s always more to discover.
The Hamburg-based Bureau B label has been at the forefront of this voyage of discovery for many of us since it was founded in 2005. Re-issuing work from the likes of the legendary Sky Records catalogue, the label has played host to offerings from the likes of Cluster, Eno, Roedelius, Mooebius and Conny Plank as well as adding newer names to the party such as Tarwater, Kreidler and Die Wilde Jagd.
Of course, when you’ve been releasing stuff along those lines that for a while, there’s going to be a whole hog of tracks at your fingertips and so compilations do seem the logical conclusion. This is the third volume in the ‘Silberland’ series and the fact that it’s got to a Volume 3 say much. This set is a little different to the first two though. They were straight down the line Kosmische Musik – the first was plain and simple ‘Kosmische Musik (1972-1986)’, the second volume was ‘The Driving Side Of Kosmische Musik 1974-1984’, the notes staying it was “home to neon lights, straight lines and open roads”, while this third volume in the series, ‘The Ambient Side Of Kosmische Musik 1972-1986’, opts for “an unhurried itinerary, coasting far beyond the familiar rhythmic terrain to explore crystal caverns and emerald pastures, immersing listeners in the ambient side of this alternative Allemagn”.
And there’s some incredible stuff here… it opens with the stall being set out by Cluster & Eno and ‘Ho Renomo’ from their self-titled 1977 LP. It’s a beautiful piece of music, you can hear the influence of its parts, the lush melodies of Eno rippled with the out-thereness of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. Talk about a high bar. Fret not because Bureau B are wearing the trousers here. Yes, there’s work from recognisable names like Harald Grosskopf, Thomas Dinger, Faust and Conrad Schnitzler, there’s more Moebius, on his own and with Conny Plank, there’s solo Roedelius, but there’s also a lot of discovery to be had here too.
Berlin Schooler Rolf Trostel’s ‘Hope Is The Answer’, from his 1982 ‘Two Faces’ album, is great as he lets an insistent sequencer take charge and tinkers over the top with bright keys. Sege Blenner’s ‘Phrase IV’ “begiles” says the notes, with “minimalist yet celestial synth lines”. While Vono’s ‘Hitze’ sounds like it’s being played on a dripping tap with the teeth of comb knocking out a tune. I had to dig around, but it turns out they’re brothers, Norbert and Volker Schultze and Stephen Kaske who’s band was Mythos and they had an album on Sky in 1982, from which this curio is taken. The rest of the album, ‘Dinner Fur 2’, is delightfully off-kilter synthpop of sorts.
But while these Bureau B compilations are very good indeed, diverse they are not. You do tend to wonder what the women were up to during this period. I mean, where were they? Punk and its aftermath seemed to bring them to the fore in Germany, krautrock not so much. Can you name a single woman from the krauty/kosmische scene? It’s terrible isn’t it. Or maybe it’s not a huge surprise. It wasn’t widely documented outside of the UK music press (the Germans didn’t call it krautrock did they?), which in the 70s was proper church of man stuff. When you consider that Julian Cope’s ‘Krautrocksampler’, published in 1995, was the first organised history of the genre, maybe that didn’t help. Until then it was kind of folklore, with men tell the lore.
So this is what I know about the women of krautrock. If anyone can add to the story I’d be very grateful. Renate Knaup sang/played tambourine with Amon Düül, Amon Düül II and briefly Popol Vuh, there’s Rosemarie Müller who as Rosi is credited with “voice and vocals, vibes, concert harp, lyrics” on Ash Ra Tempel’s ‘Starring Rosi’ album from 1973… there’s an interesting piece on a band called GIRLS here, an all-female four piece from Bavaria who were around in the late 60s/early 70s. There’s Gil Funccius, an illustrator who did artwork for the likes of Amon Düül and Embryo. Christa Fast, Conny Plank’s wife and co-founder of their famous studio near Cologne in 1974, was not unimportant. Along with their son Stefan, they continued the operation after Conny’s death in 1987, selling the place due to her own ill health in 2006. She is credited on various albums, including “voice” on Eno’s Music For Airports’, that’s also her laughing on Eurythmics’ ‘Revenge’ from the Conny-produced ‘In The Garden’. There’s also Hildegard Schmidt, another prominent krautrock wife. Married to Irmin, she was instrumental in Can’s success and is still very much involved today.
It’s really not Bureau B’s fault that the climate at the time was almost entirely sans women, but it’s not a good look for the genre, is it? That said, and I know it’s a biggie, but these compilations really are a delight.
Got a release you need to tell us about? email moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
GOOD STUFF #1
WORRIEDABOUTSATAN ‘Subtle Manoeuvres’ (This Is It Forever)
worriedaboutsatan’s Gavin Miller has always been an artist working to the beat of his own drum. I mean, most featured here do to some extent or other, it’s in their nature. What I mean about Gavin is he is completely DIY. Recording, releasing on his This Is It Forever label, promoting, he does it all totally by himself. He reminds me of Steve Cobby who releases via his Déclassé label. Doing it this way is not for everyone, but keeping everything “inhouse” clearly works for some.
‘Subtle Manoeuvres’, Gavin’s 19th album, is a rather languid, free-range four tracker that Gavin made earlier this year when, he says, “the weather was really nice”. It came after bad news, his uncle, his mum’s brother, had lost his fight with cancer and Gavin felt like he needed to pay tribute to him in the only way he knew how.
The nice weather put Gavin in the mood to make something that sounded like a “jam session in a big warehouse”. He created some relaxed backing tracks (“ironically painstakingly” he says of the process that that was supposed to be mellow and laidback) over which he jammed with guitar and synth. They were all one take each to keep everything feeling “loose and jammy”. He admits to having cut out a few bums here and there, but for the most part what you hear is what happened live.
The opener, the 11-minute on the nose ‘My Mouth Tastes Like Copper Red’ sounds like the longest Underworld intro ever. It’s got that shimmery Rick Smith synth swell about it, all deep and warm and, well, languid. It’s met by a a very lazy, shuffley drum pattern and a rumbly bassline, played on “a really knackered old bass guitar” Gavin has had since he was 16. The whole thing feels like sunshine.
I really like how slow burn everything is, nothing is done in a hurry, tracks are allowed to build and stretch themselves out over however long they need. ‘A Spectrum Stuck In Slow Motion’, all nine minutes and 41 seconds of it is exactly what it says on the tin. It really is super slow motion, it’s nearly five minutes before a delicate bassline arrives. The track titles feel as warm as the weather too. There’s copper red, which you picture as sun-like, or maybe sunset like, ‘Orange Ferric Acid’ again has that sunset burr to it. The track itself is quite abrasive, much more experimental than the others that’s for sure. It kind of clicks away, like a Geiger counter, building so slowly over 10 minutes of so. A hi-hit kicks in around halfway.
Gavin is donating “every last penny to Cancer Research UK in the memory of my uncle, Brian Davis”. If you’d like to make a direct donation, you can do that here.
worriedaboutsatan.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #2
SENDELICA ‘Nirmata’ (Friends Of The Fish)
I always feel Sendelica don’t really get the sort of love they deserve. I’ve always seen them as a psyche/space rock version of The Orb, they certainly come from the same sort of place as Alex Paterson… only they have guitars. The West Wales-based duo of Pete Bingham and Colin Consterdine, who are the core of Sendelica, are ridiculously prolific, their Bandcamp page shows their full discography as standing at 91 releases, and there’s some belters among them. There is so much stuff it’s hard to know where to start exactly. A listening guide wouldn’t go amiss, but I fear it would take some time to put together. Maybe one day. I do like the guides in Moonbuilding, the mag (buy yours here), so you never know! I can recommend The Lost Stoned Panda stuff, which is a Pete/Colin offshoot with various friends. My old pal Kris Needs was involved at some point.
Pete and Colin have not been at all well of late. Colin survived liver cancer this year and Pete had a double whammy of a heart condition followed by an enlarged, blocked bowel. Thankfully the pair seem to be out of the woods and are channeling their experiences into the music as the opening track of this, their umpteenth album says ‘Wish You A Good Health’. It starts with a heartbeat and turns into a typically beautiful nine-minute Sendelica opus that comes in movements, full of strings and melody, spoken word, ambient interludes… there’s just something so utterly lovely about the songwriting of Sendelica, they make music that feels like a big sigh. Deeply satisfying.
The album is a mish-mash of inspirations. Colin feed into it while travelling around Asia, hence the title, which is Sanskrit for architect/creator. The pair say it “seemed a fitting title for such a project as we both felt we had come out of a very long tunnel into the light”. Not one to be wasteful, Pete contributed audio samples of his ultra scan… “who knew that heart valves opening and shutting could sound so trippy” he writes. His talking blood pressure monitor at home also features.
It comes not on their own label, but on Friends Of The Fish, an offshoot of Keith Jones’ maverick Fruits de Mer label. It comes in various formats - CD, colour vinyl, download and USB in tin with a jigsaw puzzle of the cover artwork. Which is a new one on me. Following their health scares, I wish all strength to these guys, may they live long and prosper. And make a load more records.
GOOD STUFF #3
JO JOHNSON ‘Escape Now’ (quiet details)
Here’s something I missed while I was away that I wanted to catch up with as it’s an essential release. Now I look at it, I seem to have missed two quiet details releases, which is some going, not on my part to miss two, but on the label’s part to release two. I might have missed three – there’s a release from June, Jolanda Moletta and friend of Moonbuilding Karen Vogt’s ‘Sea-Swallowed Wands’ that I don’t recall hearing let alone writing about. My mind might have been slightly demob happy when it came out… in June. The other release I missed was Brad Rose’s ‘A Life We Once Lived’ that came out at the end of July. I’ll endeavour to catch up with those and report back.
For now though let’s tackle the quiet details Jo Johnson release, which in my mind is a pretty big deal. Jo doesn’t release albums that often, in fact, following her debut solo outing ‘Weaving’ in 2014, this is only her fourth solo long-playing offering. Not that she’s been tardy, there’s live appearances, collaborative albums with Hilary Robinson and plenty of EPs.
It’s funny and I don’t know why I think this, but I sort of expect people working with modular synthesis to have very specific, individual sounds. You know how Blur sound like Blur? Like that. I often wonder why bands have a certain sound, I get that the singer is going mark them out, but why instrumentally do they sound the same? Is it because of the lack of range a guitar with its mere six strings offers?
I don’t know why I think people using modules should have their own sounds when the noises coming out of these things are almost limitless. I get that maybe choices of certain modules might lend certain sounds, but the choice is so wild, the options so vast, the processing ever endless, you'd need bionic ears to discern.
Anyway, my point is that Jo isn’t sounding like Jo sounds in my head here.
As I said earlier, she doesn’t make albums often so I know how much time and energy and effort will have gone into this. She will have thought about this. Really thought about it. She would have wanted to ensure it’s just right, and boy is it just right.
The tracks feel like songs to me. They feel like compositions rather than the improvised wrangling of electricity.
There’s a couple of lengthy, more jam-like offerings. The warm and woozy ‘Stop The Transmission’ builds like Jo builds with expansive sounds locking into repeating patterns and clocks in at 9.09 (always appreciate tracks coming in at the Roland numbers!) and the gentle swells and calm beats of ‘Lessons In Listening’ that morph into something more insistent, more hypnotic, which is a whopper at 18.57.
The rest, as I was saying, do sound like songs. The opening ‘Escape Now’ is such a quite start, so gentle and such a hush-hush tip-toe bassline it’s almost not there. It’s a six-minute whisper of a track. Lovely, but a whisper. The bubbly ‘Return To The Expiring World’ is epic in scale. It explodes with sweeping string sweeps halfway fair stopping you dead in your tracks. I know Jo is determined to release more music this year and so far she’s good to her word. I think having a bunch of work either in progress or coming out is really helping Jo grow. This feels like such an assured release, can’t wait for more.
I must say sorry to Jo’s partner Emile Facey, sorry Emile, whose Plant43 project celebrated 20 years since the first release with the release of ‘Feeding The Machines’ while I was away. Maybe July isn’t the best time to take a holiday. I missed so much! Emile makes wonderfully human-sounding techno, not sure how he does it, but I figure his machines might be getting vibrations from Jo’s. There’s certainly something going on in their house as the quality coming out of it, from both parties, is off the scale. How about a Jo/Plant43 collaboration? Now that would be interesting.
GOOD STUFF #4
XLMXKHFI ‘In The Throat of Evening’ (Waxing Crescent)
I’ve said it before, but Phil Dodd’s Waxing Crescent label is such an underrated gem. Almost every releases says so and this one is no different. xlmxkhfi, which is “Al-makhfi”, an Arabic phrase meaning “the hidden one”, is the work of Beirut-based editor/audio visual artist Sarah Huneidi. Oh, hang on, I can do “the hidden one” in Arabic… المخفي, yeah, showing off I know. Phil came across Sarah via the excellent Clair HotGem who pointed him in the direction of her ‘afterthought’ EP on Beirut label VV-VA, which is well worth a listen. Like many, Sarah began making music during lockdown and describes her sound as “dreampop”, which is fair. The notes say her sound is “produced through processing textures, vocals, and melodies on both hardware and software to create lush and layered soundscapes.
Even more interestingly, when I said Sarah was an editor, I assumed she edited film/video, but nope, she’s an editor of words, a trade I’m not exactly a stranger to myself. She co-founded Barakunan, an experimental publisher and literature collective. Their website is here. It seems they’ve been quiet for a little while, a couple of years, which is a shame as it looks like an interesting project. She also founded another collective called Shatr, whose aim is “galvanizing and championing poetry in Beirut” and seems much more active. Start at their Insta. All interesting stuff.
But back to the music. Let’s start with the ‘afterthought’ EP that caught Phil’s attention. It’s described as ‘chromatic ambience”. It’s a mixture of drones, buzzes, hums, spoken word and melodies, it sounds like something being beamed in from somewhere else entirely. This latest release, a five-tracker, sounds like progress, coming on in leaps and bounds from the earlier release. The opening track, ‘A Star Dies Only To Be Seen’ is lovely. An organ growl sweeps up and down as delicate electrical buzzes appear underneath. ‘The Long Goodbye’ makes the satisfying rumble of a huge intergalactic craft travelling through deep space on a mission to new worlds. You know that sound? Right down in your bones. And then it stops. The whole thing. Just stops. And them it reappears, without the rumble, just a delicate breath of electronics… oh hang on, here it comes again. Bigger and louder and more rumbling than before. It’s pulsating now. ‘It Always Feels Like Rain’ drones to the sound of rain, big drops hitting a roof I’d imagine. It’s big rain, loud rain. And so we go on, each track drawing you in, making you listen, making you think, wondering what the sounds are, where they come from, why they’re holding your attention so nicely.
This is excellent stuff.
waxingcrescentrecords.bandcamp.com
THE ROUND UP’S ROUND UP
A quick nod to Marc And The Mambas’ ‘Three Black Nights Of Little Black Bites’ (Cold Spring) as it is very much sold out and I’m not surprised. I’m a big fan, they remind me of being at art school. No idea why as I wasn’t at art school when they were around. They must’ve been something I picked up later on, which would have been unusual as I always very forward-facing when it came to music. Anyway, this release is the fabled live shows the band played in 1983 at The Duke Of York Theatre in London’s West End. The three performances total the complete live recordings of the band and were recorded by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson. I mean this stuff just seeps history. That’s also Friend Of Moonbuilding Annie Hogan throughout on piano, vocals and farfisa. There’s a really great extended version of ‘Black Heart’ that wigs out over seven minutes with Annie pimping on the keys. I love that basic drum machine the Mambas used, very effective, sounds great on stuff like ‘Torment’ and ‘Untitled’.
Staying in the quick nod department can I point you in the direction of Micro Moon’s ‘Public Health’ album, which the band are drawing attention to as it celebrates its fifth birthday this month. Micro Moon you should know form their recent-ish Clay Pipe-released mini CD that we really loved here at Moonbuilding Towers. They’re a “classical piano with rich electronic textures and melodies” duo who here make use of spoken-word extracts from JB Holmes’ ‘The Centre’ and Iain Sinclair’s ‘Living With Buildings And Walking With Ghosts’. The clang-clang-clang on opener ‘Alto’ doesn't half make me thing it’s going to burst into ‘Chariots Of Fire’ at any minute. Fine work. And happy birthday to it from us.
We mentioned Adrian Lane’s ‘Where Once We Danced’ on Whitelabrecs a couple of weeks back, but at the same time the label also released JARR’s ‘Sun Swift Swoon’. I really liked both, but only covered the former, so I’m circling back to pick up the latter now. JARR is British ambient guitarists, Jon Attwood (Yellow6) and Ray Robinson (Wodwo) who is also an “award-winning novelist and screenwriter”, which is nice. Here they say that they were “interested in what happens when you let the guitar repeat itself, when you set a phrase looping and then play into the gaps it leaves, layering delays and modulations so the time signatures start to breathe against each other and chords blur into drones”. What happens is you have an incredibly peaceful record that’s been something of go-to in those early mornings and late evenings before the heat properly gets hold of the day and the sounds of outside are drifting in through open windows. Very nice indeed.
While we’re in ambient mode a mention for Wil Bolton’s ‘Rusted In The Salt Air' (Home Normal) that comes with an image of Sizewell on the cover. Always like an image of Sizewell round here. The title of this comes from a description of Orford Ness in WG Sebald’s ‘Rings Of Saturn’ and “features environmental sounds, radio waves and found objects recorded and collected on the Suffolk coast in August 2022 and July 2023”. So that’s insects in he reed beds by Minsmere’s anti-tank blocks, birdsong over he Iken salt marshes and “plants rustling in the wind outside the abandoned atomic weapons research centre in Orford Ness. It’s all augmented with a raft of synths, including Buchla 100 and 200, Serge, Nord Wave and spring reverb record at EMS in Stockholm as part of Wil’s ongoing residency there. That’s quite the line-up is it not.
On more for today. It’s been very hot in the Moonbuilding office this week and I need to go sit in the garden. I do feel like I’m writing about stuff that has great artwork this week. Kuma’s ‘Your Taped Up Heart’ (Frosti) has really lovely artwork, but the whole Frosti label always does. Just to remind you, should you need it, but Frosti is Thomas Ragsdale’s label. He’s promising a busy second half of the year and is kicking it off with this from “veteran Canadian DJ and producer James Graham. Not sure how I’d feel about being described as a veteran. In running terms I am, which I don’t like much. Veteran male. Anyway, ‘Your Taped Up Heart’ was recorded througout 2023/24 and lives in guitar-centric territory. There’s a lot of guitars in this week’s newsletter, I must be going soft. Or have heatstroke. It is, say the notes, “a record devoted to the idea of transience with the only constant being change”. It shimmery quivery sort of record that gently builds delicate walls of sound that melt as they wash your way.
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MOONBUILDING ISSUE 6 … OUT NOW
Holy cow. MOONBUILDING Issue 6 has arrived. This new issue is out now and available from moonbuilding.bandcamp.com
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 met 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 really 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 as 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 our little magazine.
The shop doors are open at moonbuilding.bandcamp.com for your pre-ordering pleasure. This issue has a short print run and will sell out fast. Do not hang about.
Moonbuilding Weekly is a Castles In Space publication.
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Great edition Neil - thanks for including qd36 Jo Johnson and mentioning the others 🙏🩵