Aya
im hole
(Hyperdub)
★★★★

AYA is one of Hyperdub’s latest signings and her debut album for the label is a heady mix of innovative, provocative poetic experimental dubstep influences combined with left field understated whispered folk.

It aims to pull the listener through tangled moments within her life that are in conversation with each other.

Having only publicly come out as trans a few years ago, the album reckons with making parts of herself public, that coincided with a move to London, away from her musical home of Manchester.

Using contorting language, dialect, gender and sexuality between intermittently controlled bursts of rhythm and noise, Aya has sculpted a set of autobiographical vignettes that challenge form, question supposed truths and affirm a spectrum of interlocking experiences.

Highlights include the slow tempo electronic orchestral drama of still i taste the air, and the narcotic hypnotic synths and town crier vocal delivery on backsliding.

The Fall
Are you Are Missing Winner re-issue album
(Cherry Red)
★★★★

WHAT would Mark E Smith have made of Brexit or the pandemic? He surely would have revelled in lyrical possibilities, but we’ll never know.

By way of some compensation for Smith’s untimely death in 2018 Cherry Red have re-issued a number of The Fall’s albums with added rarities and live recordings.

The band’s 22nd studio album, Smith having replaced the line-up, released in 2001, is full of twists and turns, scrawling guitars, rockabilly influences and foreboding basslines laced with Smith’s relevant surreal outpourings.

Cover versions include Leadbelly’s Bourgeois Blues. Crop Dust is abrasive with paired down production. My Ex-Classmates’ Kids, a lo-fi stomp. Kick The Can does exactly what it says on the tin. A drum pattern sounds as if recorded in a coal shed. Gotta See Jane another slice of Mancunian rockabilly twist. Glorious.

Jon Hopkins
Music For Psychedelic Therapy
(Domino)
★★★★

A FORMER prodigy of Brian Eno, Jon Hopkins is now  a leading composer in neoclassical trance fusion in his own right. His sixth album carves an ambitious path, both sonically and philosophically.

Enveloping his journeys across the geographical and cosmological spectrum, including an inspiring visit to Ecuadorean caves in 2018, during which Hopkins made field recordings. They set the tone, with sounds of nature and ambience to the fore and no beats in the mix.

Other elements fuse drone, dreaming synth pads, rain storms, crackling fire noises and floating classical influences. Highlights include the single Sit Around The Fire complete with spiritual guidance courtesy of the voice of the late American spiritual teacher Ram Dass, opening up into multiple layers evoking a glowing fire. Another highlight: Singing Bowl Ascension, a title that speaks for itself. Worthy healing remedies for those in a state of flux.