O Yuki Conjugate - A Tension of Opposites Vol. 1 & 2

Lengthy cassette collection of new O Yuki Conjugate material, recorded over the last twelve months. OYC are into something like their fourth decade now, but their inspiration has yet to run dry and music still retains an almost mystical power. Perhaps because of lockdown restrictions, the writing is divided in two, Roger Horberry contributing the eleven tracks that make up volume 1 (subtitled At Variance), and Andrew Hulme the four that constitute volume 2 (Into the Pleasure Garden), and it's interesting to hear their approaches separated. Volume 1 adopts a more short-form approach, defined by an airy new age ambience that recalls classic Windham Hill and, in parts, an element of the grander aspects of Eno circa Discreet Music. Volume 2 forgos the lightness of the preceding eleven tracks, embracing what i would understand as some the more 'classic' elements of the O Yuki sound - ie their storm cloud forming, heavy weather, post-industrial, fourth-world dystopia. This probably speaks more to my own expectations than anything else, but i find it remarkable that music-making both this singular and texturally refined continues to emit from the same source some forty years on. Will soon be time to start considering this pair a British institution.