Jack Anderton – Archives I & II

Jack Anderton – Archives I & II (Jerky Oats Records)

In the past year or so, Jack Anderton has become known for his two popular albums, The Moment and The Missing Couple, which combined electronic synth music and sample-based collage ambient with choral vocals and acoustic guitar work. Released in the summer of 2010, these two archive releases feature highlights from the wealth of material Anderton recorded before The Moment.
Archive I: Ambient Acoustic is based around the style of elegant, slow-moving atmospheric music Jack Anderton spent some time creating using an array of unexpected instruments; instead of creating ambient music using synths and heavily treated drone work, he instead approaches the genre armed with an acoustic guitar, a keyboard and a television. This lends the collection a soft, intimate feel that is more human than most ambient music, yet no less evocative. Somewhere Sealed features gently strummed guitar and layers of vocals, both wordless and intoning the title, and samples from a television documentary. Its uplifting feel is given a note of sadness when the documentary fades in with “…but it was a poor exchange for the destroyer of so many lives”. The balance of dreamy warmth and wistful sadness is present throughout the collection. Closing In and Air Pockets are definitely more on the sad side of things, while Shiver and Shaken twinkle with layers of beautiful guitar work. There is quite a diverse stylistic variation throughout the record, regardless of its simplistic approach, with a variety of keyboard and synth work appearing, and on Asleep at the Wheel, which Anderton describes as ‘throwing the kitchen sink at it’, strange wailing samples and dance beats. The archive ends on the fitting End of an Age, with a subdued feeling of drama. Although the albums these songs came from may have been a little overloaded with material, Anderton has managed to condense them down to a perfectly concise collection that proves how adept he is at working with a minimal setup. The record acts as a precursor to the more expansive ambient acoustic sound he produced on The Missing Couple. Beautiful.
Archive II: Electronic takes a very different approach which, a scattering of tracks aside, is a less personal affair, but contains higher production values. After the ambient acoustic sessions, Anderton decided to attempt creating more traditional ambient/ambient techno music and, over a series of albums, came up with a lot of material of interest. This is collected here, and begins with the dreamy Noyer, which is connected to the first archive in spirit, but explores this washed-out sound through layers of fuzzy synths and mid-tempo drum loops. Naturally, this is a considerably more varied work than the first archive, as exampled in the second track, Too Early, which is a breakbeat piece with a definite groove to it (a sound explored elsewhere on Trust). Tomb Under the Moon and Caligny fall furthest into the moody electronic music category, with light clattering beats and grim sounding synths that are a light year away from the friendliness of Anderton’s early work, but just as evocative. The much lighter sound of Spires; Echoes and Funicular indicates their close proximety in recording to the sessions that led to The Moment, and they are relatively similar in style and mood, featuring field recordings and more upbeat synth loops. Of all the tracks, Flair is the most telling, with its layers of synths and samples sitting alongside acoustic guitar playing that acts as the perfect halfway house between the two styles of recording, and showing that no matter how different the approach, there is a definite consistency in ideas between all of Anderton’s releases.
Both albums feature artwork helpfully highlighting from which album the individual pieces originate and the year of their recording, and many of the MP3s feature id3 tags with snippets of information in the comments section. The two archives act both as wonderful albums of their own right, and good introductions to those who may wish to explore the artist’s earlier work (which can be found on Last.fm, uploaded by Jack himself).

EL Heath – A (Rather) Dead Sea Liner EP

EL Heath – A (Rather) Dead Sea Liner EP (Dead Sea Liner Records)

One of the joys of buying independent music is the wonderful packaging they often come in – unlike the majority of larger scale releases, despite their larger pot of funds. El Heath’s A (Rather) Dead Sea Liner EP comes housed in a hand-numbered, paint splattered card sleeve, accompanied by a page from a suitable sea related book. In my case, I get the opportunity to read about ‘Offshore oilfields, and oil pollution organisation’ when listening to the EP. Whether this adds much to the musical experience is not important, it’s the individuality and care put into each copy that gives it that magic touch.
The DIY packaging is perfect for this particular release, which has been described as a collection of “ambient sea shanties”. That title isn’t necessarily true of the whole EP, although the aptly titled Tom’s Colwyn Bay (“Ambient”) Sea Shanty mixes lonesome sea-faring according melodies with layers of background sounds. The music is best described as ‘lo-fi’, tracks building up from layers of tape hiss and acoustic instrumentation to form fragile, humble soundscapes. Opener Felixstowe Sirens (Sing to You) is sinister, a lone piano motif repeating as if to ward the listener away; Bees’ is a warm contrast, with beautiful rolling acoustic guitar and an almost jovial cut up spoken sample with helpful gardening tips. The sample re-appears on closing track Waves “Goodbye” (“Good Luck!” Mix). More electronic souding than the rest of the EP, the piece forms into a beautiful, warm drone as it slowly moves out of earshot: a beautiful end to a beautiful EP.
The warmth present in the melodies and lo-fi production of A (Rather) Dead Sea Liner are the key to its success: it is a very human record. When it ends – after little more than twenty minutes – it is most definitely too soon. How long are we to wait until Eric Heath releases a full length album?
Highly recommended.