Finally that month of the year where we start to catch-up on the pile of records we ordered before the holidays, digging in to those plates that got slept on for a few weeks.
No better place to start than with Moon Wiring Club aka Ian Hodgson, and the thus far underrated masterpiece that is Leporine Pleasure Gardens. That’s right, the club is one man, and in a classy move he’s released totally different music on the CD to the vinyl version of this LP. Love it. And while we were unable to yet get our hands on the wax edition, we’ve been told that the CD we do have is the rhythm-driven equivalent to the ambient recordings on the record.
Not the first time that Geocophonic or Moon Wiring Club have done this, but it’s still an impressive move, and probably a nice solution to producers who end up with a collection of tracks in addition to what they want their album to sound like.
But we digress. Since 2007 Hodgson has maintained the Moon Wiring Club alias in splendid form, releasing a total of thirteen full-length LPs (some doubled or tripled up with different music per format, including cassette), played some critic-favourite live shows and overall maintained a positive and mysterious aura around this project like no one else in the underground. From the bits and pieces that I’ve collected in that time though, Leoprine Pleasure Gardens is the absolute finest.
Twenty-two tracks in total across sixty-three minutes make up an electronic journey of samples and clean cut wired music. We recently dropped something from Bruce Haacks 1978 Haackula album, breakthrough and banned at the time of release, and I can’t but help draw comparisons. Like Haackula, Moon Wiring Club manages to explore the full spectrum of electronic music without overplaying his hand, or overindulging in to the weirdness that crosses albums over from listening music to chin stroke dissection.
In some ways Leoprine… throws up exactly what you’d expect from a one man electronic band, without overlaying his sounds, structures or samples too much he manages to keep some form of poppiness and accessibility in his the album. It’s an incredible listen that goes from retro-futuristic synths to horror library music and back to modern-day house with field samples.
Making it extra nice is that you can picture a band playing this live if they had to. Let’s not second-guess the amazing composition work of Mr Hodgson, and I can’t wait to see what the vinyl version holds when I can grab one.
Make sure you click the link below the video and above the wording to read the most bizarre press releases and self-reviews you’re likely to come across from a label or artist. Wonderful stuff, I like everything about this project, and I’ve just updated my end of year charts to reflect as such.
via Geocophonic Audio Systems
As the cold fingers of winter daintily peel the wrinkling fruits of brighter days, a new album from the MOON WIRING CLUB has leapt deftly from within the Blank Workshop ~ LEPORINE PLEASURE GARDENS. The exquisitely crafted duel delights presented here will thaw even the most glacial aural dwelling, swiftly infusing seasonal gloom with an ornate twitch of irradiated glamour. Unique in application and enchanting in effect.
LEPORINE PLEASURE GARDENS envelopes you within a kaleidoscopic attraction of charming fancy and consummate variety. For the determinedly discerning thrill-seeker there is the CD version ~ 22 tracks of splendid audio chicanery, often propelled by intricate rhythms and a newly devised complexity that precisely mirrors a half-remembered long-eared trance-speed world of warped dimensions and jugged kinetosis.
For the patient botanical connoisseur there is the LP version ~ Two intricately crafted long-form compositions baked full of impressively smudged and misty effects that will have you endlessly revisiting a slow-drift dream-tour of intangible garden realms: one by day, and one by night. Both are smothered in a rich, ethereal and satisfying syrup of narcoleptic blur.