Another item from the lovely Ian Holloway, the Ray Bradbury of Swansea, here performing under his guise The British Space Group. The album The Machinery Of The Moment (WYRD BRITAIN wyrd2) is explicitly intended as a continuation of the story set in motion on The Ley of the Land, released in 2020, and a very fine example of musical sound-art musing on the English landscape viewed through his occult binoculars.
I have long thought it’s only a matter of time before the name of Holloway will be in the mouths of all those who espouse or profess their interest in “hauntology”. In terms of story-telling – and it’s good that Holloway is a composer who freely embraces narrative elements and devices in his work – The Machinery Of The Moment is, if anything, even more subtle and allusive than its predecessor, barely even suggesting the outline of a conventional tale with characters, events, and development; yet it’s there, outlined in the track titles and the gradual progress of the music itself, plus the over-arching theme which the author tells us is about “the point where perception of time…collapses and we exist in a state of timelessness”, a notion which will sit well with friends of Doctor Who and readers of time-travel stories. Holloway writes his stories in pure sound, treated synthetic emissions where the very surface itself is both plain-spoken and yet strangely mysterious, concealing weird truths under a layer of blue mist. These cryptic sounds appear, execute actions or motions across the terrain which are halfway between mountain hiking and the eerie gliding of a phantom, then disappear unobtrusively. The listener’s imagination is paramount in contributing to the process, assembling the tale from scant clues and hints.
With these understated wraiths of synthesised sound, Holloway comes close to unlocking the portals to the strange dimensions he proposes for us to visit. Very evocative cover art superimposes Renaissance-science engravings on top of 19th-century wallpaper, evoking a power that might help us to pass through the very walls of the living-room of H.G. Wells himself! From 19 April 2022.