Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Polypores (aka Stephen James Buckley) paints music with a modular synthesiser, drawing influence from ambient, new age and experimental electronics. Buckley's latest for Castles In Space is an impressive satchel bag held together by drawstrings of arpeggiation and harmony; the accompanying statement "There Are Other Worlds" is no less ambitious either, suggesting that this is a bottomless bag indeed, one whose opening may perhaps reveal a portal and/or gate to one of said realms. Inside, we find 'Earth 2', and through the port window we spy a misty utopia teeming with uncanny life; we float above it in harmonic serenity, unsure as to whether we should disturb the eco-tonic balance. Further fave macro-bionts include 'Virtual Forest Worlds', 'Reality Hacking' and 'Foreverglade', in which we hear various uses of generative audio and rattling, artifical-organic sounds to evoke associations of life and the creation thereof. In Buckley's own words, "I'd become hyperfixated on the idea of Alternate Reality Games, and the way that through what are essentially acts of play, a person can experience a degree of brain-change." Ours are indeed.

Review: Sure to be one of the best aids for astral projection you'll be able to find this year, Polypores' 'Praedormitium' is a long ambient dream of the new age diaspora. Continuing its mastermind Stephen Buckley's mission to convey the feeling of hypnagogic calm before sleep (a state often accompanied by auditory hallucinations), this is by definition a liminal album. Packed with seemingly incongruous ambient sounds that work together in harmony (many a string-tremble, spaceship bloop and vibraphonic flourish crop up), this is a deeply textural album, likelier than not to lull all you insomniacs out there into better nighttime hygiene.