Aural Aggravation

1st May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Since debuting in 2017 under the break_fold moniker after some time away from music to concentrate his energy on the demands of adult life, Tim Hann has maintained a steady flow of output – not exactly a tempestuous spate, but with the release of an EP or an album every year or two, he’s built a respectable body of work. And over the course of these releases, the break_fold sound has evolved – again, not at rapid pace, whereby one release is a huge departure from its predecessor, but the music he’s making now has developed significantly when compared to the sparse glitchtronica of 07_07_15 – 13_04_16 and 27_05_17 – 21_01_18.

Hann continues to mine his memories and experiences for inspiration, serving to document his life through sonic abstractions, an aural memoir of sorts. The Tracker EP is a counterpart to its predecessor, The Planner EP, as he explains:

“The Tracker EP is a reference to my Dad, who gave himself nicknames that others in the family then started using,” Tim explains. “‘Tracker’ is a reference to his persona when on holiday or away from work. If we were on holiday and were trying to find a place of interest, he’d be in Tracker mode. Planner is when my Dad was at work.”

Families are strange, but it’s only as one grows older, and when one takes a step back to reflect on formative experiences that it becomes apparent just how strange. As a child, you assume your family life, and your parents, are normal, and that every other household is the same, at least more or less. Over time, you come to consider the things some of your friends’ households do are weird. And they probably are. Mealtime rituals, Easter, Christmas traditions… but it’s likely not until later, after leaving home and starting your own family that you begin to analyse your own upbringing, and to compare the relationship you had with your parents growing up to the one you have with your own children.

I’m often startled by just how close to their parents a lot of my friends are, and how much time they spend with them. But then, they also stayed close to their parents geographically, living just a few streets away, with their parents providing child care and doing school runs several days a week. And that to me seems strange. I’ve no issues with my parents, but my main aspiration growing up was to attain independence and live my life in my own way.

As the accompanying notes add, ‘across the EP, break_fold ties together nods to family sayings, misheard phrases, and the small but defining details of growing up in the North East of England in the 1990s… for Hann, both Planner and Tracker serve as time capsules; deeply personal yet universally resonant snapshots of childhood, family dynamics and regional identity’.

In this context, the details matter. None of the inspiration is rendered explicit on Tracker: instead, what we get is a sonic articulation of all of this. And it works. You may not take away the intended interpretation, but that’s both the beauty and the downside of a project like this: it’s as much about the listener’s experience and input as the artist’s.

‘Pet’ amalgamates an almost club-friendly dance sound with a trawling, trudging grind of a foundation, while ‘Climbing Flowers’ pairs soft synth washes that hover between Krautrock, ambient, and prog, with flickering, fluttering beats, low in the mix, fading like memories around the midpoint. ‘Workie Ticket’ – a term I first learned on my thirtieth birthday in a pub in Conwy, Wales, where, having climbed Conwy mountain, I had a bowl of chips and a pint of Mordue Workie Ticket – brewed in North Shields. While the meaning and use of the phrase seems varied, it’s most definitely a North-East thing. There’s a trance-dance vibe to ‘Carrying On’, although the bass and overlaid guitar are more post-rock, and what we get, ultimately, is a hybrid.

The Tracker EP doesn’t sound confused as much as a work that’s deeply immersed in the process of processing, bringing together disparate elements in order to sift through an array of stuff. ‘This Concept of Sharing’ is upbeat, light, accessible, even danceable, but there’s a sense of something darker beneath the surface, and this emerges on the final track, ‘Every Penny’s a Prisoner’, which swerves and bends and twists and warps, but all along rides a pulsating groove pinned in place with a whipcrack snare.

It’s hard to place The Tracker EP. As much as its ambient, there are harder dance elements in the mix. But for all its surging buoyancy, there’s a tinge of sadness beneath, and the complex twist of inner conflict and uncertainty. On the surface, The Tracker EP sees break_fold bursting out in a bloom of elation, but there are currents beneath which are deep, and darker, perhaps revealing far more than is ever rendered explicit.

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