Cobalt Chapel_______
“We’re not Ace Of Base,” the dark psych prog duo tell us of their latest album.
On their official second album, Cobalt Chapel take listeners on a psychedelic journey through the history and folklore of Yorkshire. Cecilia Fage and Jarrod Gosling tell a curious Prog how they turned an ill-fated music festival, lark song and a disused railway tunnel into a dreamy concept record.
British rock festivals have always been slaves to bad weather. Bickershaw, Deeply Vale and the Glastonbury mudbath of 2005 immediately spring to mind.
But by far the worst casualty was 1970’s Krumlin Festival, a threeday event held on a hillside above Halifax. Torrential storms devastated the site, tearing down stone walls and electricity cables, with only the stage left upright.
The final day was cancelled altogether. Hundreds of people were treated for exposure, having huddled for warmth in orange plastic bags.
One promoter was supposedly found days later, wandering the moors in a semi-catatonic state.
The ill-fated festival feeds directly into Orange Synthetic, the title track from Cobalt Chapel’s latest album. It also serves as an end-of-days metaphor for uncertain times. “It’s that thing about starting out with a dream and ending up wrapped in a survival blanket,” says vocalist and woodwind player, Cecilia Fage. “A great idea that ends up being disastrous, with people confused about what’s happening next. We actually finished the album at the end of 2019 and had no idea what was coming. So it was quite odd when
2020 happened: ‘Okay, we didn’t mean that apocalyptic!’”
The album cover itself continues the motif. Fage and multi-instrumentalist Jarrod Gosling are pictured on desolate Yorkshire moorland, wrapped only in orange sheeting. “That was actually taken last winter in the field above my house in Cragg Vale,” adds Fage. “It was absolutely freezing.”
This is all part of the duo’s wider narrative. Orange Synthetic is a concept album about Yorkshire, reaching deep into local folklore and myth, its themes and protagonists rooted in the surrounding landscape. These are often unsettling tales: murdered sheep farmers, cursed villages, struggling families, bloody Civil War executions, weird surveillance stations in the back of beyond.
“It happened organically,” Fage explains. “We started with the idea of the North, then it became more focused. The stories we find most interesting concern the darker side of life and we realised they were based on what was around us. There’s definitely a bleak edge to it, especially as a lot of them delve into history. It’s the weird and wonderful, the unexplained.”
Adds Gosling: “Dark music is just what we do. We’re not Ace Of Base.”
Orange Synthetic is a significant forward step for Cobalt Chapel. Their wondrous self-titled debut of 2017 was built around Gosling’s swirling array of vintage organ sounds and Fage’s choral vocal arrangements, making for a spectral kind of psychedelic folk. A reimagined version of the album,
Variants, landed in early 2019, although the follow-up proper feels much more expansive and ambitious.
Fage has brought along clarinets and recorders this time, part of her repertoire with Matt Berry & The Maypoles. Gosling, also known for his work in I Monster and Regal Worm (incidentally, he reveals, a new Regal Worm album, The Hideous Goblin, is due soon), adds guitars to his dizzying arsenal of electric pianos, effects, tape loops, Mellotron and percussion. “The original idea behind Cobalt Chapel was just to do something around organs and bass pedals,” explains Gosling. “[Twisted Nerve Records co-founder] Andy Votel meant it as a compliment when he called our music ‘Vertigo-go’, as in the Vertigo swirl label – very 1970 psychedelic into progressive. But there’s a limit to what you can do with that format and we wanted to keep it fresh. Having different instruments makes you write in a different way. Orange Synthetic still has vintage equipment, but sounds more modern.” The duo’s reference points for the album range wildly, from Sandy Denny to Flying Lotus, Basil Kirchin to Beach House, Mandrake Memorial to the Bulgarian State Television Female Choir. “We both love a bit of Vaughan Williams too,” says Fage. “There’s a very English quality to that music. One of the songs, Cry A Spiral, was inspired by a walk on the moors near Hebden Bridge. I heard this weird, all-encompassing noise up there and couldn’t understand where it was coming from. What I didn’t realise was that the skylarks were all nesting in the grass. Then they fly up and make another noise to protect their position. I’ve called it a chorus of psychedelic penny whistles. So I was listening a lot to [Vaughan Williams’] The Lark Ascending and thinking about that.”
Another key song, the majestic Our Angel Polygon, was inspired by RAF Fylingdales, an imposing radar base and early warning system that dates back to the early 60s. Situated on the North York Moors, its distinctive white geodesic domes have since been replaced by a vast pyramid structure. “Being from Sheffield, we used to go over there quite a lot when I was younger,” Gosling recalls. “I remember the giant golf balls and how amazing they looked. It’s not quite the same without them, but it still has that eerie, Cold War/Doctor Who kind of vibe. I can imagine Jon Pertwee being up there, surrounded by people in white coats. We just started talking about what a really bizarre place it is, looming over the moors. It’s surreal.”
Our Angel Polygon’s chilly choir effects were created in a disused tunnel on the Trans Pennine Trail, where the duo set up their recording equipment to capture its sustained echo. “The sound in there is huge,” notes Gosling, “like St Paul’s Cathedral.” Thematically too, the song manages to reflect both Cold War paranoia and modern-day qualms about new technology. Like everything on Orange Synthetic, it mines the past to amplify the present, raising questions about fear, insecurity and freedom. Similarly, other songs address justice, working life and the value of compassion.
Fage moved from London to West Yorkshire with her family only fairly recently, but instantly fell in love with the place. She still has the enthusiasm of a tourist for her adopted home. “There’s something very solid about Yorkshire,” she concludes. “The stories on the album are all about the permanence of things, rather than the frenzied panic that revolves around so many things now. I think that’s what we’re kind of attracted to – that sort of reassurance, the idea that something has endured for hundreds of years. In that way, Orange Synthetic is actually kind of escapist.”
“Dark music is just what we do. We’re not Ace Of Base.” Jarrod Gosling
Orange Synthetic is out now via Klove. See www.bit.ly/cobalt_chapel for more.