Cassette
Glasgow label Somewhere Press curate an 11 song compilation built from responses to an undisclosed text by art historian, Eloise Bennett, which is said to focus on ritual, voice and myth in Scottish folklore. Contributions come from a range of acts both familiar (Teresa Winter, Dania, The Dengie Hundred, Alliyah Enyo) and less so (pretty much the rest of them), merging into a sinuous, cohesive body of work that could almost be the product of a single group effort. Such cohesion is perhaps a product of the label's already well-defined aesthetic, what could arguably be understood as a combination of a contemporary reimagining of early 4AD ethereality, trad. folk song and 21st century underground electronics. Given the subject of the source material, there's a clear psychogeographic quality to the work as a whole, suffused with liminal drift (is the land from which these songs are broadcast imagined or real?) and the glossolalia of layered voice/choral vocals to varying dreamstate effect. There's an elemental feel to much of this, unsurprisingly really, given the importance of terrain in the constructed identity of Scotland - even when the words aren't clear here, and the music lissom, spectral or vaporous, clear visions of the land and its history aren't difficult to parse. I wont pick out particular contributions as that would appear at odds with the overall concept, but it is worth noting the curatorial vision of the label as well as the collective commitment from all the artists involved that make for such a well realised final text.
FFO: Cremation Lily, Dengie Hundred, Malvern Brume, Felicia Atkinson
