Issue 97 / 27 February 2026
The essential DIY electronic music lowdown: Track Of The Week: Loula Yorke + Album Of The Week: The Solid Doctor + Keith Seatman + Glok/Timothy Clerkin + Solar 76 + more...
After putting up with me from start to finish last week, we welcome the excellent Ben Willmott to the Moonbuilding writers’ pool. Ben was the long-standing editor of NME’s dance music section (proper NME, not the current pale imitation) and was one of my key writers at Electronic Sound, where he still writes, as well as running The Juno Daily, the editorial offshoot of the Juno online shop. He’s got great taste and tells a cracking story. I’m sure you’ll agree he’s another welcome addition to the team.
In other news, I’m getting ready to roll with the first bonus for our brilliant paying subscribers. We have a series of Moonbuilding Sessions that we’re going to be putting your way soon. They’ll be a new session each month. Everyone who is subscribed between now and the end of March will get the first session. Who is it? You’ll need to sign up to find out. I hope that sounds tempting.
Same time next week? Good, good.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 97 Playlist: Listen
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LOULA YORKE ‘Bundle Of Styx (feat. Charlotte Jolly) (Truxalis)
Photo: Loula Yorke
With her second release of the year, Loula Yorke is mixing thing up. The ‘Salix’ EP, which is set to land on 3 April, finds Loula going to work on an antique reed organ. She describes the EP as “a sonic archive of a singular instrument”, which she inherited when it was left behind in a local studio space. It is, it has to be said, in poor nick. It has broken reeds, creaking treadles and it’s rather out of tune. And yet…
You see, this is Loula Yorke. And this time she has a friend in tow. Conservatoire-trained Suffolk-based clarinettist Charlotte Jolly brings her bass and soprano instruments to the party. The work is inspired by a weeping willow tree that Loula has photographed over the period of a year, and indeed Polaroids of the tree form part of the super limited edition (sold out already) cassette release. Loula says that ‘Salix’ is like “watching the wind in the willows; hundreds of thousands of identical tiny leaves moving in confluence on its branches; at once one thing and many things; moment-to-moment our perception makes out different individuals parts within this expanse of texture, before sinking back into the whole”.
The EP does indeed do this, building across three hypnotic tracks. The first is just Loula, the reeds, and the click of keys returning to rest. It sounds like the countryside, woodland, the outdoors. Our featured track, ‘Bundle Of Styx’, welcomes Charlotte in a one-take improvisation where she uses the organ drones as her jumping off point. It pits self-taught Loula against her classical training and the whole thing just buzzes with life. It gets almost jazz in places, weird jazz admittedly, but there is a richness and warmth the musical flutterings. The final track, ‘With The Red Dawn’, is a belter as it sees Loula unleash her modular box of tricks up against the shifting bass swells of the organ drones, Charlotte’s clarinet, Loula’s vocals and even some chatter between the pair.
This is glorious stuff. My goodness, just when you think Loula can’t get any better. She is an artist full of surprises. And it is only February.
‘Salix’ is released by Truxalis on 3 April
THE SOLID DOCTOR ‘Struck Off’ (Déclassé)
Words: BEN WILLMOTT
Who knows what items of invaluable historical importance were lost when the NME and Melody Maker moved, with the rest of the IPC magazine empire, out of its long-term offices in King’s Reach Tower on the south side of London’s Blackfriars Bridge? The photocopied sign that would greet visitors to the NME on its 25th floor, declaring in bold letters “I remember when this were all Fields of the Nephilim”… the makeshift shrine to Kylie Minogue that was one side of the battered office stereo… the yellow guitar that belonged to New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, donated by his grieving mother in recognition of the paper’s support on his death in 1991.
Lost forever in the mists of time, too, we suspect, is The Baggy List. This document, across several pages of simple A4, was created in the mid-90s and named every single last musical act from the immediately preceding era of Madchester, using the collective mental energy of a room full of music hacks who’d finally tired of arguing about whether Oasis or Aphex Twin were more punk, or whether it really was true – as the publication’s features editor of the time genuinely insisted – that no good film had ever been made that didn’t have loads of big explosions in it.
Printed out and annotated with handwritten additions, it was a lengthy, lengthy list. The obvious names like the Roses, the Mondays and so on had their place at its summit, but it went on and on, through Flowered Up and the New FADs right down to Bridewell Taxis, Rig and Ashley & Jackson. That last name might well be quibbled over by a purist, but when it was pointed out by myself that I’d witnessed them supporting Inspiral Carpets at a massive gig at Manchester’s G-Mex in July 1990, that was considered enough evidence for inclusion.
It’s funny what lingers in the memory. I have only vague recollections of the headline act and was alarmed to discover, researching this article, that The La’s also played. I like them a lot, but I’d completely forgotten their presence on this bill. What I recall much more vividly were two things. Firstly, hearing 808 State play an monstrously epic acid track I later discovered was called ‘Flow Coma’ (and actually the work of A Guy Called Gerald). And secondly, Ashley & Jackson opening the show in a colourful rush of funky breakbeats and soulful power, probably closer to what we’d know as acid jazz now, but making sense in a world that had fallen for the Technicolor grooviness of De La Soul, Dee-lite and S’Express.
I never imagined then that more than three and half decades on I’d be reviewing a new album from the man responsible for putting Ashley & Jackson together, but that’s where I find myself. Steve Cobby, for it is he, is probably best known as one half of era-defining trip hoppers Fila Brazillia, but in his time he’s done everything from cutting his production teeth at Sheffield’s seminal FON studio to collaborating with iconic ambient pianist Harold Budd and producing an album by Nirvana’s SubPop labelmates Afghan Whigs.
From his base in Hull, he’s also produced a succession of superlative solo albums, often with fantastic titles like 2019’s ‘Sweet Jesus’ and 2024’s ‘Fuck No’. As his recent press shot, which pictures him flanked by a bevy of showroom dummies in underwear of questionable taste, will tell you, he’s got little time for carefully sculpted cool or posing. But don’t confuse that levity for a lack of seriousness. His devotion to soul, groove and irresistible hooks is unquestionably complete.
‘Struck Off’ sees the revival of one of his portfolio of aliases, The Solid Doctor, returning after “30 years in exile” to re-open his “Kingston practice”. From the squelchy bassline and mechanised handclaps of opening ‘Rag Bone’ onwards, it’s evident this is a more electronic-slanted and altogether livelier side to the Cobby sound than the more traditionally blunted Fila Brazillia moments, with ‘Come On’ also building up around a hypnotic, wriggling synthetic bass tones and light, but pulsating beats all grounded by gorgeously descending chords on the keys that echo the delicate melancholy of Carl Craig’s ‘Desire’.
It’s eminently listenable, sure, but it’s more music to get you up on your feet than declining into a horizontal pose. If you were reaching for a suitably Northern analogy for the uninitiated, you might say it’s like the acid-era A Guy Called Gerald and downbeat-period Nightmares On Wax got into a studio together and recorded something for fun, like.
‘Made It To The Future’ even references those glory days of bleep, but its drum machine flexing is more on the border of hip hop and electro than house and techno. It’s gorgeously cheeky sounding, and like the marble-toned Rhodes piano workout ‘We / Us / Our ft Vivek Santosh’, there’s loads of supremely deft musicianship going on, but it’s never at the cost of its infectiousness and directness. ‘Most Things Happen Unseen’ adds a 3/4 time shuffle, Afrobeat-style guitar picking and cascading piano notes, ‘Capodemonte Bong’ takes a darker and more kicking turn, while ‘Felix Culpa’ pairs raw early hip hop beatbox power with stuttering glitchy snippets.
Dubwise legend Dennis Bovell lends his resonant vocal tones, alongside, we’d suspect that shuddering rude bass guitar, to the slow motion glory of ‘Serendubity’, also revived later as a bonus track in more explosively dubbed version form, before ‘D Is For Death’ and the Vibert-esque ‘A Resting Kestrel’ both paint with the vivid (Techni)colors of 70s TV themes, always rich but never cheesy.
As we draw near to the album’s close, ‘The Quiet Air’ proves a fantastic showcase for Hull Philharmonic Orchestra harpist Stephanie Halsey’s nimble plucking, about as close to floating on a cloud as music gets. ‘Sayonara Auchtermuchty’ is the final send off though, again up in the ether as crisscrossing keyboard lines are held in mid air by oozing, vaporous chords.
‘Struck Off’ covers a lot of ground and spans many moods, but it’s unmistakable Cobby through and through, not so much wilfully fighting against the current whims of musical fashion as operating in a realm that’s blissfully ignorant of them. Quite the tonic, indeed, and one that will surely demand multiple repeat prescriptions.
Ben Willmott is the editor of Juno Daily
Got something you need to tell us about? email moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
KEITH SEATMAN ‘Counting To 10 And Then Back Again’ (Castles In Space)
This release completes an accidental triptych of outings on CiS that sits with 2020’s ‘Time To Dream But Never Seen’ and 2022’s magnificent ‘Sad Old Tatty Bunting’, an idea that still resonates every time I see old tatty bunting, which is a lot. The label talks nicely about how Keith “continues to lift the pavement slabs to unearth what it is to be British,” they say. “Endlessly inventive and beautifully weird.”
Yup, Agreed. As ever with Keith Seatman, there is method to the madness and here it’s some obscure visual imagery from his formative years. This album is inspired by packaging, boxes to be precise. And it’s all rather specific. There’s the myriad board games that were brought into school on the last day of term with their “interesting artwork and fantastic layouts with all sorts of cards and paraphernalia”. A magic set he got for Xmas one year where “the packaging, images, type, colours on the box and instructions were wonderful” and perhaps most evocative of all is a book on old firework packaging a friend gave him that prompted memories of his annual trip to buy bangers, rockets, sparklers and the like at a local shop “that was packed with fireworks encased under smudged and fingerprint stained grubby glass”.
Keith recalls the the vivid colours and images and in particular the names like Martian Ray, Fireball, Silver Rain, Lightning Chaser. You’re in that shop aren’t you? It’s funny, that particular image is also loud and clear with me. Fireworks close up seemed pretty exotic. The packaging was great, bold design, wild typography, vibrant colours. They were cartoon-like, using the imagery of comics, you know, all biff, bang, pow in jagged bubbles. The appeal was… well, what was it? The close proximity of fire and gunpowder? The noise? The whiff of danger? The idea of rockets firing into the sky from our own gardens evoking a mini space race of our own? All of the above? Yeah, probably.
Nick Taylor’s artwork for the sleeve is probably worth the admission price alone here, while the vinyl is quite something, I’m not sure how you’d describe it. It’s like a splatter, but more firework-y. Red, white and blue smudges complete with delicate wisps. Not sure what you ask for at the pressing plant to get that effect. Sure someone will tell me.
And so to the music. Sounds to me like ‘Counting To 10…’ finds Keith Seatman entering the pop years. Tracks like ‘Tonight’s Guests Are?’ and ‘Between Tide And Town’ are proper belters, moody, melodic, dark and rich with much atmosphere. They’re the hits. And in between there is some proper Seatman madness. It’s full-blown electronics firing on all cylinders. This is the stuff. This is what we want. It’s like driving a sports car with the roof down. And no seatbelt. Drunk.
‘Clip Clop To The Shop’ sounds like two songs playing at once. There’s this early Mute/The Normal kind of cool synth and there’s the theme tune to a children’s show about a cowboy’s horse. And the whole thing does this wonderful short circuit halfway before galloping off again.
‘Smoke And Mirrors’ sounds like a fruit machine in a haunted house, ‘Starting First As A Pastime’ is like something off Eno’s ‘Apollo’ being played in an amusement arcade, while ‘Before Your Very Eyes’ sounds like early 80s Banshees. All dark and mystical, which is at odds with the young Keith’s attempts at conjuring tricks for the family. Maybe he thought he was mysterious.
The title track, and album closer, is a glorious seven-minute plus sweep of buzzing, fizzing sound. When Keith is in this sort of mood he’s the cashier in an amusement arcade, sat slap-bang in the middle of all these machines making noises, conducting. Oh and I love the wakey-wakey siren at the end.
I’d recommend lining up all three of the CiS long-players and having a back-to-back session. Your mind won’t ever be quite the same again. All hail the mighty Keith Seatman.
GOOD STUFF #2
GLOK/TIMOTHY CLERKIN ‘Alliance Remixed’ (Bytes)
As you will probably know, I do like a remix album. One of my favourite albums of all-time is a remix album, The League Unlimited Orchestra’s ‘Love & Dancing’, which for those of you who don’t know (tsk-tsk) is Martin Rushent’s entire reworking of The Human League’s ‘Dare’ album. It is a magnificent piece of work. Of course, you would have to be going some to top that, but I like that the spirit seems to live on.
Of course, the purity of one album/one remixer isn’t often maintained. There’s ‘Pentamerous Metamorphosis’, Global Communication’s reworked version of Chapterhouse’s ‘Blood Music’ (I know the remix album way better than the original, in fact I only bought it to get my hands on the remixed set), and last year there was ‘Subconsciousology’, Lomond Campbell’s entire rerub of Dot Allison’s ‘Consciousology’. While these moments of purity are rare, finding a whole album remixed, even if it comes via a cast of remixers, is still a treat.
‘Alliance’ is the 2024-released album from Glok, the electronic alter-ego of Ride/Oasis’ Andy Bell and producer and Insult To Injury label chief Timothy Clerkin and the cast of remixers they’ve lined up for this version is rather cool I have to say. Timothy Clerkin provides two new mixes, remixing yourself is obviously pretty common, but it must be quite an odd thing to do. He offers up a rather brilliant Jungle Mix of ‘AmigA’ that retrains the ethereal ah-ah vocals and lathers them in rip-roaring breaks. Bdrmm’s take on ‘AmigA’ is pretty almighty too. Starts nice and easy, pretty mellow, and descends into absolute acid squelching madness.
Keeping things drum ’n’ bass, Planet Mu’s Xylitol (whose new album ‘Blumenfantasie’ we’re very much looking forward to telling you about when it’s released in a few weeks) takes on ‘Nothing Ever (Reprise)’ and brings a sharp snare rattle to proceedings that reminds me of Capricorn’s ‘20 Hz’. Damn, that is one heck of a tune. Tom Sharkett of WH Lung turns in a deep, growling version of ‘Nothing Ever’ while DJ and left field producer Yu Su gets spooky with her slow, low, slightly wonky take on ‘Scattered’, which she entitles ‘Yu Su’s Scattering Cross-Section’).
Richard Sen’s remix of ‘The Witching Hour’ is a humdinger, but I think it’s Legowelt’s ‘Rave Filter Remix’ of ‘E-Theme’ that takes the biscuit, the packet and the box it was kept in. Some amazing noises kicking off in there. Bleeps, blips, pings, handclaps, rattling drums, electro riffs, synths running amok, huge rave chords, it’s proper hands in air stuff. Oh, and talking of Two Lone Swordsmen, which we weren’t but we will be in a minute (see below), this comes mastered by Keith Tenniswood.
Nice work everyone. Liking this a lot.
GOOD STUFF #3
SOLAR 76 ‘Sun Angle’ (Lunar Module)
And now the end is near, and all that. So this is LM009, the penultimate release in the first Lunar Module season, the Castles In Space spin-off CD label. I was privy to a conversation at Synth East last weekend where season two was being discussed. Can’t say too much, but the look of the whole season, all 10 discs, could be put in the hands of one designer. That would give the stable a really strong identity. I know Colin has been listening to that recent-ish Obscure boxset of late. The one where the packaging is created as if those 10 hallowed releases are all one body of work. Our great friend DJ Food wrote about it here. I didn’t know ‘Music For Airports’ was supposed to be Obscure 11. Every day is a school day, eh Kev?
So anyway, to the matter in hand. Solar 76 is the work of Belfast’s Jonathan Stainer. This isn’t what you expect from CiS, but I’m glad they can boldly go in these kinds of directions. This very much reminds me of the sound of the Muzik magazine office very late night. I loved a bit of deep house, Two Lone Swordsmen, St Germain, Wamdue Kids, 16B, Deep Dish, Eric Kupper… the thing about the original Muzik office (we had three during my time) was it lived on the 25th floor of King’s Reach Tower perched on the south side of the river at Blackfriars. The views from the floor to ceiling windows were spectacular, especially at night. You can imagine I’m sure.
I can hear ‘Sun Angle’ playing as London glitters below. Indeed, in the notes it says “‘Sun Angle’ consolidates and deepens the contemporary sound that Solar 76 has been developing over the past few releases, inspired by and incorporating influences from tech and deep house from the mid-to-late 1990s, but also recalling – and infused with nostalgia for – currents of older movements in electronic music going back as far as the 1970s”.
Now, those “current of older movements” have had me listening hard. It all sounds very contemporary to me, I mean as contemporary as the 90s is these days. There is very little you can put your finger on older wise. Although Jonathan talks about influences including Tangerine Dream, Manuel Gottsching and early Floyd, I’d say it is more infused than recalling. Influence by soaking stuff up even if it doesn’t come out the other end is just fine.
I love how sprawling the cuts are here, there’s seven tracks nothing under seven minutes. Indeed, the first three are all seven and half minutes. This is such a great album for sticking on letting it soundtrack going about your business. It seems to get more and more groovy as it goes on. The longest track, the nine-minute ‘Derniere Sortie En France’, is delicious, very French Touch, very Motorbass funky, which you’d probably guess with a title like that.
This is very tidy. Liking it a lot.
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THE ROUND UP’S ROUND UP
Righto, this round-up needs to be nifty. I have a target word count for the newsletter, aiming at about a half-hour read, and we are sailing off into the distance some way beyond that this week. I’ll try and keep things snappy.
The excellent Moolakii Club Audio Interface serve up the latest edition of their rather fine magazine. ‘MCPM018’ comes with the usual compilation album, this issue it’s 16 tracks drawn from the North West, where they label is based. The magazine too likes to keep itself themed and they’re looking in the same direction with features drawn from the same north-west scene. The full colour 68-page mag really puts Moonbuilding’s tardy production schedule to shame. Their last issue was November, that’s impressive however you cut it. It’s such a thoughtful, well put together piece of work and it’s a great read too.
In this edition we get chats with Forest Swords’ Matthew Edward Barnes, there’s Moonbuilding fave, Lo Five’s Neil Grant, noise artist and DIY synth builder Elim-Rae/Bone Music, community-based experimental electronic music event folks Sonic Developments and The Hive Collective as well as a very nice potted history of Merseyside electronica and a bunch more stuff beside. The compilation is packed with quality, running the gamut from the ‘O Superman’ meets Cocteau Twins of The Metamorph’s ‘Volatile Power’ and swirly pings and guitar twangs of Wooden Tapes’ ‘Saturday Morning’ to the wonky vapourwave of Cooper Vane’s ‘Short Wave’ and beyond. Quality stuff, highly recommended. And all for just £10. Buy, buy, buy.
Another month another quiet details release. Machinefabriek’s ‘Lijnverkenning’ is qd46, which is an almightily impressive tally. We’ve written about Rutger Zuydervelt’s Netherlands-based Machinefabriek before. We’re fans. He did an album a little while back as Associated Sine Tone Services that I loved, a collaboration with Montreal-based analogue oscillator wielders Jeremy Young and Nicolas Bernier. He says that this offering came from “taking time, letting my machines softly hum”. In the process he says he found “a strange form of intimacy within the sounds – as if eavesdropping on the ghosts inside the machines I was using”. I really like the buzzes and hums and the sounds of the electrical current swirling around. ‘Lijnverkenning 2’ is a great example, it flutters with energy, that kind of feeling of something being plugged in but not turned on. Loose wires. Rutger explains that lijnverkenning means “line exploration”. He once saw it on a public bus, “presumably indicating a test of a new route. I hope listeners of this album will feel like explorers, lijnverkenners, too”.
Kevin Richard Martin, who you will also know as The Bug, serves up ‘Sub Zero’ (Pressure), which is a remaster of a Bandcamp-only digital release from 2022, when we were deep into Covid. It went on to become his best-selling title on the platform and calls for its vinyl release have finally been heeded. The notes call it “a slow-motion excavation of drug-tech, dub, dreamy noise and frozen ambience” full of “hypnotic pulsations and melodic melancholia”. There’s a track called ‘Destroyed’ that I especially like, you can feel the thud of a beat somewhere way off in the distance. Lovely stuff. Kevin does seem to be going as slow and low as possible of late. At the tail-end of last year there was ‘The Bug vs Ghost Dubs’ where he teamed up with Michael Fiedler, aka Jah Schulz, a proponent of Germany’s new school of sound system reggae culture, which is well worth a listen, sounds like a super slow-motion Massive Attack in places.
Only the other week we told you about Laura Cannell’s ‘Medieval Drone Society’ and her she comes again with ‘Medieval Drone Society II’ (Brawl). Where Part I took 13th century monophony as a starting point for improvisation and drone, Part II is “inspired by the 14th century polymath Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377), a composer whose music has been a mainstay in Cannell’s score collection for over two decades”. But she’s not arranging old music, more re-interpreting it inspired by fragments of Machaut’s poetry and melody and improvised on cello and violin, where she uses “overbowed” playing, using a shorter bow that brings “the sense of faster, raspier breathing, bringing a grainy vocalisation to the music”. ‘A Feather A Fur’ is a rather dynamic exploration of these ideas. Like she says in the notes, “This is not medieval music, but it carries the DNA through its 700 year old fragments”. It’s brilliantly listenable stuff.
Maria BC’s ‘Marathon’ (Sacred Bones) isn’t entirely up my street, but merits a mention for the parts of it that is. Nothing wrong with their work, they are an impressive singer/songwriter and often plays that with a straight bat, which sounds lovely. But there’s moments, like on the opening title track, where you get a mangled guitar squall sitting over that delicate vocal and almost swamping the melodies that really are a sonic treat. They are also not afraid to get all electronic on sketches like ‘Port Authority’, which is a frantic, almost Philip Glass-like hurry of a tune. And it is a hurry, it’s just a little over a minute. There’s another sketch called ‘Channels’ that’s just as good, a kind of mechanical, melodical swirl that’s over far too quickly. They are a classically trained vocalist and a talented guitarist, why wouldn’t you make records that showed all that off? But to drop experimental soundpieces in and around that is, I think, rather bold. I do like it when talented folk like Maria move into more experimental territories. Well worth a listen.
‘LISTENING TO LANDSCAPE – HAUNTOLOGY AND THE ECHOES OF ALBION’ Phil Hubbard (Bloomsbury Academic)
The launch party for ‘Listening To Landscape’ tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the book. It was held in London, at the old BBC World Service Building, Bush House. It featured a live set from Frances Castle’s The Hardy Tree, a discussion chaired by Justin Hopper (who penned the book’s foreword) with Oliver Cherer (Gilroy Mere), Frances again (Clay Pipe hat on, multitasking) and Jim Jupp (Belbury Poly/Ghost Box). There was also a premier of Stonecirclesampler’s ‘Old Haunts, Landscape Soundtracks’, an ambient work inspired by Iain Sinclair’s ‘Lud Heat’, which you will probably know takes a wander through Hawksmoor’s London. All this and nibbles and drinks too. I mean.
On top of all that, I was asked to write a blerb for the book, which rather flatteringly appears prominently on the back cover, where there is also mention of acts like Belbury Poly, Craven Faults, epic45, Gilroy Mere, Spaceship, Vic Mars and Warrington-Runcorn NTDP… and Moonbuilding appears in the footnotes, referencing quotes from our interviews. I think that might be a first. It is safe to say this book is right up our street.
Hauntology is an area that continues to capture the imagination and is perpetually ripe for coverage. We’ve previously featured Will Burns’ ‘Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror and the Spectre of Nostalgia’ and just skimming the Moonbuilding bookshelf there’s Simon Reynolds’ well-thumbed ‘Retromania (Simon of course floated the idea of hauntology music in his 2006 piece in The Wire), a whole raft of Stephen Prince’s excellent ‘A Year In Country’ books, there’s Rob Young’s ‘Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music’ and Ian Preece’s ‘Listening to the Wind: Encounters with 21st Century Independent Record Labels’, which isn’t so much haunty, but is close and great never the less.
This latest swing at the subject comes at things from a cultural theory angle and asks “questions of national identity in the post-Brexit era, offering a distinctive take on the way contemporary culture deals with the ghosts and memories of Albion”. All of which is made more complex in the face of the rise of nationalism and the very real potential of a populist government in the near future. Obviously, making a case like that isn’t something you pluck out of thin air.
Thankfully the author, Phil Hubbard, is a seasoned pro, a Professor of Urban Studies at London’s King’s College no less. In ‘Listening To Landscape’ he draws on, well, Neil Mason of Moonbuilding says he “weaves a delightful narrative around the vibrant underground music scene that draws on the English landscape”, he also says it’s a “magical mystery tour for the 21st century”.
Phil’s angle finds him talking early on in the book about the “dark politics of Brexit” and “the idea of England’s lost rural idyll” - you know, people harking back to cricket on the village green, picket fences, warm beer, and everyone pulling together. Without mincing my words, this idea of England’s post-Brexit green and pleasant land is a gossamer thin veil covering up a whole lot of racist bollocks. Not that Phil says this, he’s much more diplomatic than I am.
So how does our music, the music that is featured week in week out in Moonbuilding Weekly, fit into all that then? Well, as the book’s title suggests, it’s all about ‘Listening To Landscape’. Why? As Phil explains, “idealised rural landscapes” are used extensively by politicians to “shape ideas of nationhood”. It’s Boris Johnson’s promise of sunny uplands post Brexit, you know the ones that turned out to torrential rain falling on the plain.
But landscape is so much more than something hijacked for political means. It’s more than a way of seeing and today’s music makers aren’t using it to look back fondly, they’re “offering a distinctive take on the way contemporary culture deals with the ghosts and memories of Albion”.
Books like this do tend to be academic tomes and as such they need to be presented in certain ways, with a certain tone. It is safe to say that academics do not write like me. Fortunately, Phil doesn’t write like an academic. He covers the full nine yards here and he does it clearly and with style. From chapters entitled ‘A Broken Concrete Utopia’ to ‘Weird Walking And The Prehistoric Path’, he features interviews with a who’s who of DIY artists - Gazelle Twin, Hannah Peel and the aforementioned Will Burns, Belbury Poly and Ghostbox, Mark ‘Spaceship’ Williamson, Dave Clarkson, Conflux Coldwell, ‘A Year On Bonfire Hill’, Jonathan Sharp, Martyn Stonehouse, Twilight Sequence, the list goes on. It’s come illustrated with plenty of images, artwork and the like and a suggested further reading list at the end of each chapter.
It’s taken me a while to get round to writing about this book and you’ll see why if you get your hands on a copy. It’s easy to see how you can get completely lost in this. Almost every page has a name you know or one you need to look up. There’s often a story you don’t know, or a new point of view, a fresh context you’d not considered. There’s a good chunk about ‘A Broken Concrete Utopia’, that starts with Laura Grace Ford’s wonderful Savage Messiah zine that traces London’s transition between 2005-09 through drawings, collages, handwritten notes… there is, of course, a goodly slab of Warrington-Runcorn in there too.
I especially liked the chapter called ‘The Sound Of The Edgelands’ that traces the music that lives at the urban/rural fringe, the suburban, with easy access to green space and yet all the amenities on your doorstep. Getting in on the act here are artist such as Matthew Saunders of Twilight Sequence, ISAN, Jack Cooper’s Modern Nature, Manchester’s Hayley Suviste (whose excellent 25-minute soundscape ‘Edgeland’ gives the chapter its title), Sheffield’s Liz Hanks, the epic45, and my old pal the artist George Shaw, whose evocative paintings of the Coventry estate he grew up made with Humbrol paint of his youth, even gets a mention.
No sooner are you pondering the points made in the section you’re reading than the next is hovering into view. And the next. There’s a whooping 12-page discography in the back that should keep you quiet for some time. There is also a read-along playlist on buymusic.club and what Phil describes as a mood mix on Mixcloud. ‘Listening To Landscape’ is a book-shaped Moonbuilding. You’re going to love it.
The author has kindly offered Moonbuilding Weekly readers a generous 35 per cent discount at the Bloomsbury website with the code GLR AT8. All royalties to Kent Refugee Action Network. Visit bloomsbury.com/uk/listening-to-landscape
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 will try cash in via Discogs soon.
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 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 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.
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Thanks for the shout and positive vibes Neil! always appreciated
Thanks for the excellent book discount on Listening to Landscape 👍