#28 Feat. Hype in Electronica

Original goth, Annie Hogan presents an extraordinary regression session of astral planing organs, keys and submerged field recordings on a new album for her pals at Downwards, reminding us of everything from Mihaly Vigs Bela Tarr score to Sun Ra jams, Nate Youngs gunk to Pauline Oliveross deep listening works. From her seaside perch, Studio Blue in The Wirral, she supplies a wholly absorbing hour of layered and mulched organ and field recordings that pushes the aesthetic of her Downwards works deep into silty oblivion and re-wilded beauty. The music here is supremely unyielding in its brooding convictions, invoking a concentrated transition from clouds of coruscating organ to the bleakest dockside noir and belly rumbling low end harmonics offered as her emotional response to my connection to Earth. As with much of Annies solo work, her native Wirral landscape of ancient sandstone and gorse, surrounded by the rivers Mersey and Dee and the Irish Seas brown churn, heavily informs the music. She conjures the hard-bitten communist-era scenery of 80s Hungary evoked by Mihaly Vigs Bela Tarr scores as much as Welsh mountain ranges, and even 60s sci-fi exoplanets spied by Sun Ra. Using Wurlitzer Organ (1961), Farfisa Bravo Organ (1980), Eko Piano 200 (1976), Marimba, Kawai Baby Grand Piano, Glockenspiel, Harmonica, Swanee Whistle, Clarinet, Bells, and Field Recordings in a way where its hard to discern each source, her timeless melodic touch holds a torch thru the darkness, sometimes flickering just out of earshot further along the path, beaming like a lighthouse from distant shores, or dappling scenes with the light of multiple moons. Truly remarkable stuff, and a high water mark of what we know of Annies more than 40 years in the business. Aye, its definitely got under our skin, this one.

Annie Hogan

#29 Feat. Hype in Electronica

Stunning hour-long soundtrack from Regis and Anni Hogan; a suite of gentle, highly evocative nocturnes that weave and wind through wonderful melodic episodes and glistening atmospherics, landing somewhere between shoegaze bliss and melancholy romance. Anni Hogan and Regis have collaborated many times before - most notably on the Reversing Into Tomorrow tape for our Documenting Sound series, and on Regis Hidden in This is the Light That You Miss album last year. This score for Hospital For Beasts (shot by director Andreas Kiriakou, and acclaimed cinematographer Antonis Kounellas) is on another level entirely from anything weve heard from the duo before though. Featuring sounds collected by Karl OConnor then arranged into original compositions by Hogan, the music here plays out like a fever-dream; every time you think you catch a glimpse of something tangible, it all turns to vapour, blurred into the sublime. Of course, Hogan brings over 40 years of experience playing piano and synths for legendary new wave, goth and industrial bands including Marc Almond, Deux Filles, Nick Cave, Jacques Brel, and Barry Adamson, to name just some, so when factored into the romantic gloom of Regis blossoming post-techno phase, the elements swirl into something multi-dimensional and new. While weve enjoyed everything weve heard from the pair so far, they hit on something thats more fully realised here, producing almost an hour of music thats in places almost unbearably moving; a flourish of evocative vignettes, a thorny bouquet of keys, heatsick strings, flute and spectral electronics spun out by an encroaching industrial thrum thats always lurking. Moving between daylight, dusk, and nocturnal moods, the soundtrack is largely shorn of percussion and tendered by Annies classically expressive keys. Imprinted with the tonalities of traditional strings and head-less choral arrangements that hint at ancient Greek musics, the whole thing is set around reverberating room/field recordings, with Annis voice echoing through like pretty much nothing weve heard before. Weve literally no idea what the film is about, but trust when we tell you weve been in tears just listening.

Regis, Ann Margaret Hogan

#38 Feat. New Releases in Bass / Club

2024-04-03 Downwards

British Murder Boys