THE HAUNTED GENERATION
BOB FISCHER ROUNDS UP THE LATEST NEWS FROM THE PARALLEL WORLDS OF POPULAR HAUNTOLOGY...
“The general reaction from the press seems to be surprise, but also that it makes perfect sense,” says Jim Jupp, cofounder of Ghost Box Records. “It certainly does to us. His eclectic career takes in a lot of the areas that are part of the Ghost Box landscape – psychedelia, folk, electronica – and more generally I think it’s probably fair to say that his work often re-explores sounds and styles from the past, without them being straight reenactments. It’s a central idea of the label’s manifesto. If we had one, that is...”
He’s talking about one of the most unexpected musical collaborations of 2020. And some of us have barely taken the Christmas tree down. Ghost Box, the home of haunted electronica stalwarts Belbury Poly, The Focus Group and The Advisory Circle, have teamed up with the Modfather himself. Paul Weller’s experimental EP In Another Room, released on 31 January, combines abstract sound collage with a distinctly melancholy musicality. Wistful piano passages collide with mournful cellos, all infused with the sounds of distant church bells, summery birdsong, and juddering spirals of disquieting radiophonica. Unsettlingly pastoral, it evokes jumbled memories of crackly Percy Grainger 78s, of Ivor Cutler’s wheezing harmonium and the shocked delight of hearing The Beatles’ Revolution 9 for the first time. It is the sound of that late summer’s evening walk in the woods, when the darkness settles just that little too quickly for comfort.
“We loved the four tracks he put together,” says Jim. “They connect directly to the world of vintage electronic music, musique concrète and tape music. But as you’d expect, they add a very musical sensibility, shot through with all kinds of instrumental passages. Sometimes just little sketches or dead ends that wrongfoot the listener. In talking to me and Julian [House, Jim’s Ghost Box co-founder], it was clear that he’s very into early experimental electronics. Amongst others, Third Ear Band and Trevor Wishart came up in conversation.”
So how did the collaboration come about?
“We discovered through an interview he did for Shindig magazine that he was a fan of the label,” explains Jim. “And he mentioned to the editor that he’d like to do something for us at some point, so he put us in touch. We were absolutely thrilled and honoured, as you can imagine.”
The vinyl 7” is immaculately swathed in House’s trademark artwork; gloriously evocative of some strange, faded textbook in a dusty school library. It’s a beautiful object from a gentler, stranger era, and Jim hints tantalisingly at further collaborations. In the meantime, In Another Room is available from ghostbox.co.uk.
Elsewhere, the prolific boutique label Spun Out of Control continues to release perfectly-crafted cassettes of eerie electronica, often with impressively high concepts. Glasgow’s Alan Sinclair – recording as Repeated Viewing – explains the genesis of his wonderfully sinister new instrumental album Nature’s Revenge: “The inspiration came to me whilst sitting up a hill in the middle of the beautiful Scottish wilderness,” he says. “The rugged landscapes of my homeland provide unparalleled moments of awe, often mixed with a sense of dread as the inevitable foul weather moves in. Is there an underlying narrative? Perhaps a poorlyplanned woodland wander gone sour, creepy encounters with strange forest beings, or ramblers frantically fleeing their unfortunate encounters with the ‘hill folk’...”
Meanwhile, Rupert Lally’s album The Prospect provides the soundtrack to his own short story, the tale of 19th century stagecoach robber Jack Delaney, whose bungled heist in the remote Canadian Rockies sparks a terrifying tale of supernatural visitations and blood sacrifice, all infused with a woozy, dream logic that bleeds into his epic, synth-drenched compositions. And I can’t trumpet enough the talents of Spun Out of Control’s resident sleeve artist Eric Adrian Lee, whose darkly beautiful artwork is both tasteful and outré, the meeting point between vintage Hammer Horror posters and lurid 1970s prog-rock sleeves. Visit spunoutofcontrol. bandcamp.com/merch.
I’ve also become entranced by Wrappers Delight, a book compiled by Trunk Records’ irrepressible Jonny Trunk, showcasing the incredible, house-filling collection of sweet wrappers, crisp packets, drinks cans, bubblegum cards and other 1960s and 1970s ephemera amassed by Stockport man John Townsend. Over 500 of them have been scanned and photographed, and are – ahem – a giddy confection. An overwhelming reminder of the days when Anglia Shandy, Count Dracula lollies and Doctor Who sweet cigarettes were produced by tiny factories in Brentford, Slough and Cricklewood, it’s also liable to give you an insatiable hankering for the taste of a Rowntree’s Fingammy. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, it goes on general sale in February, published by FUEL. More about John Townshend, and other people with ‘interesting’ collections, next issue...
Visit the Haunted Generation website at www.hauntedgeneration. co.uk, send details of new releases, or memories of the original “haunted” era to hauntedgeneration@gmail. com, or find me on Twitter... @ bob_fischer