K.S. Eden - Passed Beyond

More vital archival work from Stroom, this time turning their attentions to the work of Stockport's Kevin Eden, a strangely overlooked figure in the post-punk firmament, especially so given his work as a Wire biographer and Eno assistant. Funny how it takes a Belgian label to reveal a history that was standing on your feet. This ten track collection features four recordings made under the 41 Degrees moniker, a Cold Storage style project with, somewhat inevitably given the locale, Factory overtones, and six further tracks as K.S. Eden. Taken together, they represent an intriguing evolution not atypical of the more progressive aspects of post-punk ideology and creative enquiry. The opening two 41 Degrees songs are very much Martin Hannett indebted productions, recalling the transitional period of early New Order and Factory's Belgian connections ala The Names (which is where Stroom enter the picture?). Enjoyable additions to the ever-widening post-punk canon, but it's the shift into more unusual spaces precipitated by the adopting of his own name that really caught my ear. These downtempo, ethereal, Northern-dystopia instrumentals reflect the electronic adventurism of the times, much like John Bender, Dome, Robert Rental, Bourbonese Qualk et al, and see Eden exploring post-industrial territory before industrial itself was really an established sensibility. Mostly though, there's an affinity with both O Yuki Conjugate and Nocturnal Emissions in how Eden expresses a crepuscular ambience that's near-spiritual, vaguely psychedelic, but most crucially, unaffected or hurried. That's the best aspect of this kind of DIY experimentalism, how the untrained way of finding ways to communicate bigger ideas uncovers previously hidden spaces, and builds a new lexicon