Dragon’s Eye Recordings – 7th June 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
There isn’t really anything funny about Yorkshire Modular Society, conceptually or otherwise. But one never really fully appreciates one’s own locale, especially not when it’s in the north of England, a region renowned for its pithy, gritty nature rather than its glamour. People will tell you that Yorkshire folk are welcoming and friendly – and tight – and as a non-native whose lived in Yorkshire the majority of my life now, it’s probably a fair summary. The county boasts some of the most magnificent countryside, and I only need to walk ten minutes from my house to be in woodland or fields – not bad considering I live twenty minutes from the centre of a cathedral city, not to mention twenty minutes from the train station, which will land me in Leeds in under half an hour. But for all that, and despite the huge number of outstanding bands to have emerged from Leeds over the years, mention Yorkshire and people will probably think of brass bands, cobbles, and Hovis, flat caps and equally flat brown beer. People tend not to think ‘Yorkshire, the county of experimental electronica’. They’re missing something significant.
There is a thriving modular / electronic scene in Yorkshire, notably with electronic music open mic (EMOM) nights in Leeds, York, and Halifax, all giving platforms to acts who aren’t necessarily on the main gig circuit, although venues like Wharf Chambers in Leeds and The Fulford Arms in York will often feature weird and wonky stuff from across the electronic spectrum.
Like many electronic experimenters, the YMS BandCamp page presents a prodigious self-released output, so if you’re wondering where to start, a release selected by a label seems like a fair point.
Of this continuous hour-long ambient work, Yorkshire Modular Society says, “As the cityscape pulses with electric fervor, oscillations emerge like whispers in the rain-soaked streets. LFOs, like elusive shadows, guide the listener through a maze of sonic intrigue, each modulation a glimpse into a world of mystery. Within the depths of digital tape modules, time unravels and reconstitutes, casting a veil of uncertainty over the sonic landscape. Reverb and delay wash over the senses like urban decay, adding depth to the sonic architecture that surrounds.”
Fiery the Angels Fell is a lot calmer, more soothing, and less apocalyptic than its cover art suggests.
As is often the case with ambient works, I find my mind – like the music – drifting, and my contemplations following divergent trajectories. Here, I found myself wondering what the end would – or will – really look like. Growing up in the 80s, I envisaged the white light of nuclear annihilation, but on recently watching Threads, came to realise that this may not be the spectacular moment of silence prefacing perfect oblivion my younger self had fantasized. But no part of me ever envisaged an globe, or an egg, colliding and splitting in half with molten flames as something I may witness. The cover art, then, harks back to pure 60s / 70s sci-fi vintage. The artwork propagates tension. The sound soothes it.
While there are some billowing clouds along the journey that is Fiery the Angels Fell, this is a delicate, graceful work dominated by organ-like drones and soft sounds which ebb and flow. If this is the soundtrack to the end, I will likely sleep through it, and awake pure nothingness.
AA
Aural Aggravation 