Thorn Wych - Aesthesis

Thorn Wych is the alias of an otherwise unnamed musician from Lancashire specialising in "work made from tree branches", which from what I can deduce means self-made, mostly bowed string instruments constructed from trees native to the UK. Such an approach immediately invites questions concerning process, practice, traditional musics and, as the name would infer, the pagan associations long connected with endemic British folk. That in itself is interesting enough, but the results easily surpassed my expectations, haunted, sinister drones, glitched electronics and vocal incantations that reestablish the coordinates for England's Hidden Reverse. There are obvious neo-folk orientations, though there's something also distinctly (other)worldly at play also, the timbre and tonality of the various unconventional instrumentation bringing to mind the hypnotic whirl of Maalem Mahmoud Gania and the witchy vocals recited in an indiscernible language reminiscent of Brannten Schnurre's purgatorial Fourth World. That this is a debut is frankly astonishing (and there must be more to the story here), sounds and song that pull post-industrial and traditional music into a ghostly, mesmerising fog that's wholly unique. We had to wait to December to get one of the best of 2024. Expect a significant amount more on Thorn Wych in 2025. Essential for anyone with an interest in the intersection of Jon Collin and Zoviet France (which really should be all of you).