Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew - The Tree of the Left Hand

The highly fruitful collaboration between Arianne Churchman and Benedict Drew continues apace with this latest long player for the increasingly vital Folklore Tapes. The last we heard from the pair was 2024's MAY, a sprawling double disc compilation of early recordings that weaved a tapestry of traditional folk song melody, ghostbox magick, droning electronics, and trance-like ambience. If it lacked focus, then it certainly made up for it in ambition. The Tree of the Left Hand doesn't so much abandon that approach as refine it to a sharper edge. We're down to a single disc this time with less the sense of a data dump of ideas as an interconnected song cycle, an unsurprising shift given the conceptual focus on mycelium networks and the life cycles of plants & trees. The pagan folk overtones draw us in a few directions, both back to the Order of O.T.O. horror-of-the-countryside mysticism of the Hidden Reverse sect (Current 93, Coil and the like) as well as towards the more contemporaneous spooky lamentations of Annelies Monsere, Brannten Schnure and Shackleton. The ghostwalk aesthetic is a well trodden path, running all the way back to John Barry and the Radiophonic Workshop, and The Tree of the Left Hand is certainly well versed in the tradition. But it's also immaculately conceived, a densely layered set of compositions replete with subtle flourishes and surprises, clearly the product of extensive revisions and arrangements - it's clear this was recorded and revised over multiple sessions. if the subject of Churchman and Drew's sound is elemental, their practice is certainly one of craft, and not just the witchy kind.  
 
FFO: Annelies Monsere, Brannten Schnure, Focus Group, Avvitagalli, Tomaga, John Barry