Plutonic Rainbows

Somehow I missed this excellent soundtrack when it was released a few years ago. The music is meant as an accompaniment to the documentary directed by Nichola Bruce regarding the moon landings. The film follows renowned photographer Steve Pyke on his extraordinary journey across America to meet, interview and photograph his childhood heroes – the men who went to the moon.

This 80 page deluxe hardback edition features 17 new tracks from THE THE, portraits of the Apollo astronauts by Steve Pyke, an extensive interview with Steve Pyke by Matt Johnson plus notes from the director and stills from the film.

It can be found on the Cineola site here or on Amazon here.

This is currently only £4.99 from Trunk Records. A beautiful, haunting record.

The ever-reliable Johnny Trunk has outdone himself yet again, pressing up and reissuing the previously unavailable Edward Williams soundtrack to the 1979 BBC TV series 'Life On Earth'.

According to the backstory behind this treasure, a lucky digger stumbled upon one of the original handful of copies privately pressed up by the composer for the musicians involved with the score. Trunk got wind of this, and as you can imagine became quite rightly overjoyed, as to his knowledge it was never commercially available. David Attenborough's original series was considered a groundbreaking piece of natural history television, and as anyone who has viewed any of the BBC's nature programmes will know, the music always plays a crucial role in the narration and ambience of such viewing. In contrast to the slightly ripe ebullience of soundtracks to todays HD, slow-motion nature-porn, 'Life On Earth' has a rich, and often haunting chamber suite backing, played by a majestic orchestral array of flutes, clarinets, strings and harp with subtle embellishments of Radiophonic electronics.

The effect is remarkable still, even without the visuals, but we do have small markers in the titles, like 'Fish of the Sea - Shoals and Loners on the Reef' mirrored by shimmering harps, warbling clarinets and dreamy washes of synthesizer, or the gracefully alien drift of 'Comb Jellies - Gymnopedie for Jellyfish', with Satie-like flutes and angelic harps.

It's an overwhelmingly wonderous and magical listen that any fans of Trunk records should be salivating over, while everyone else should really make the investment for the good of your record collection. Amazing.

A surprisingly powerful and varied album. It features a suitable selection of pieces that hark back to the classic 'Oxygene' sound. It feels a bit short. I somehow wish it was longer but its sleek, minimal sounds are wonderful in places. Parts 17 & 19 are probably the most immediate things on here but there are other sections that will reward you.

You can get it from places such as Amazon and other retailers.

New album will be available for pre-order from December 7th. It is due out on release on January 20th 2017.

Pre-order link.

Just started reading the new novel by Warren Ellis, 'Normal'. This was originally issued as monthly publications but has now been collected into one.

Some people call it "abyss gaze." Gaze into the abyss all day and the abyss will gaze into you.

There are two types of people who think professionally about the future: foresight strategists are civil futurists who think about geo-engineering and smart cities and ways to evade Our Coming Doom; strategic forecasters are spook futurists, who think about geopolitical upheaval and drone warfare and ways to prepare clients for Our Coming Doom. The former are paid by nonprofits and charities, the latter by global security groups and corporate think tanks.

For both types, if you're good at it, and you spend your days and nights doing it, then it's something you can't do for long. Depression sets in. Mental illness festers. And if the "abyss gaze" takes hold there's only one place to recover: Normal Head, in the wilds of Oregon, within the secure perimeter of an experimental forest.

When Adam Dearden, a foresight strategist, arrives at Normal Head, he is desperate to unplug and be immersed in sylvan silence. But then a patient goes missing from his locked bedroom, leaving nothing but a pile of insects in his wake. A staff investigation ensues; surveillance becomes total. As the mystery of the disappeared man unravels in Warren Ellis's Normal, Dearden uncovers a conspiracy that calls into question the core principles of how and why we think about the future—and the past, and the now.

Amazon Kindle

Third album in the series is released this Friday. This comes after the last album back in 1997. Jarre was someone I greatly followed back in the 1980s and early 90s but he slipped off the radar sometime after that - I found his stuff lacked any real inspiration. Lately he has been involved in some collaboration work but I guess most fans have really been waiting for this new work.

I'll post my thoughts on the new album later in the week.

Revered artist Burial releases a two-track EP of gritty, urban atmospherics evoking distant city lights and last trains home.

Enigma return with a new album that sounds very much like all their others. The Japanese SHM-CD comes with two additional tracks.

Beautiful if fairly obscure 1987 album available on vinyl only. Copies regularly go for high prices on Discogs. If you can track this down, it's well worth it. Lots of wonderful late 1980s new-age bliss.