Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Dean Honer and Kevin Pearce - a pair of musicians and critics enmeshed in the British music landscape since day dot - grew so sick of the manufactured children's songs they'd heard on vinyl and CD over the years that they decided to create their own version, albeit with a twist. 'The Sound Of Science' is a tongue-in-cheek rendition of this unique utility music format, designed to bypass its tendency to quickly "become a form of torture" for the adults in each other's families. Instead, this album is fun for both the kids and the parents, with science and astronomy forming the bulk of its themes.

Review: 'A Shared Sense Of Purpose' is a fittingly collectively-minded name for a new Gordon Chapman-Fox aka. Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan release. The first glimpse of his latest full-length LP, Your Community Hub, this first sampler hears the artist continue to develop his totally singular vision in eerie modernist electronica, deploying lilty arpeggiations and contradictorily Utopian, yet at the same time, sinister, melodies and ambiences; all with a view to producing an uncanny deja entendu. These are deployed to mourn the slow, increasing privatisation of Chapman-Fox's native Warrington-Runcorn, specifically its singular bespoke town centre - its walkways, its local postal system, its gridded shop lots - which were all designed to make it a five-minute city, long before the concept of fifteen-minute cities had entered town planning discourse. Though, perhaps this lament masks a more sinister sense of enjoyment, as there is indeed a perverse sort of pleasure that arises in the bittersweetly uncanny perfumes that waft from this latest haunted mood piece. Perhaps just like the experience of revisiting Warrington-Runcorn after having known it in childhood, we hear both sadness and euphoria, at the same time, in the face of its ostensible loss.

Review: Gordon Chapman-Fox's latest album, Your Community Hub, delves into the New Towns movement, particularly focusing on Warrington-Runcorn's community centers and their relevance to modern urban planning discussions like the 15 Minute City concept. The album explores the decline of these centers and the services they once offered, paralleling a broader societal shift away from communal support. Through evocative album artwork featuring architect Peter Garvin's work, notably the Castlefield Community Centre, Chapman-Fox paints a vivid sonic picture of a bygone era of community cohesion. Following the success of 2023's The Nation's Most Central Location, this album is poised to continue Chapman-Fox's critical acclaim and commercial success, offering a poignant reflection on the past and present state of communal life.