Hannah Peel

HHHH Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia MY OWN PLEASURE. CD/DL/LP Brass band and analogue synths forge an unlikely, elegant union. HANNAH’S DIVERSE musical canon includes covering the likes of Blue Monday, membership of an experimental supergroup (The Magnetic North, with The Verve’s Simon Tong and Erland Cooper) and an album exploring dementia. Here, Peel adopts the persona of Mary Casio, an elderly Barnsleyite with a yearning for astral travel. The Yorkshire-born multi-instrumentalist and vocalist melds together the massed ranks of her analogue synths, found sounds and clamorous majesty of the 29-piece Tubular Brass band. When the latter first appear, midway through Goodbye Earth – after a serene opening, where Peel’s arpeggiated chords slowly unfurl – it’s like a blast of hot sun in the face. On Life Is On The Horizon, the chill of Peel’s synths is counterpointed by the restrained, warming grandeur of a solo trumpet. The resulting sound is suitably celestial, mysterious and awe-inspiring.