Hannah Peel

Hannah Peel Comes in from the Cold

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Hannah Peel has had a varied career. Her hands are in the background of our Facebook header; turning the handle of the music box on which she cranked out covers of 80s synthpop. She has performed with John Foxx as part of The Maths. Whole other audiences know her for Ulster-inspired pop, as a Radio 3 presenter, or as part of The Magnetic North.

Peel’s sweet spot is, increasingly, as a composer for television and film. Her commission for the Netflix film, Midwinter Break successfully sits between the glacial restraint of soundtracks for Nordic noir and the evocative Snow Falling on Cedars. Like both, it leans on atmosphere over incident; teasing memories from the darkness.

Like James Newton Howard’s soundtrack for Snow Falling on Cedars, Peel’s score explores closeness and distance. The cues often feel like they’re tracing something just out of reach. The shapes are hauntingly familiar but far from comfortable.

Midwinter Break is a fine addition to Peel’s show reel, but it also works as music for reflection. Sit still and let this be your mirror.

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Kite Base Unfold Latent Whispers

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

So, it turns out that Savages are a pretty big deal. Mercury Prize nominations, top 20 albums, collaborations with big name rock stars – the UK indie trio are the kind of band who appeal to Millennials and their older sisters, while getting rave reviews in the mainstream press. They also put on a storming stage show.

All of that might have passed us by – in our normal, oblivious and contrarian way – were it not for the side project of Savages’ bass player, Ayşe Hassan. Kite Base, a collaboration with bassist and vocalist Kendra Frost, came onto our radar as the opening act for Hannah Peel. Let’s face it: there aren’t many dueling bass duos on the circuit these days, and they made speakers shake while Frost’s voice soared around the room with the richest resonance. They also had a deft drum machine called Alan.

A handful of videos followed, along with a glorious 7″ single, “Soothe/Dadum.” After they covered a Nine Inch Nails track, the legendary producer John Fryer got in touch to borrow Frost for his own project, Black Needle Noise. More live dates won Kite Base a following across the US and Europe.

As summer starts, the duo are able to reveal their debut album, Latent Whispers. Have there been whispers about latency? Is there a delay between the input of whispers and results? We don’t know where it comes from, but the title is part of a rather intricate package. From the Craig Ward logo to the fade-out of “Miracle Waves,” Latent Whispers is carefully wrought: nine songs on white vinyl, any of which could be a single. We are sorely pressed to try to choose between them.

There are other electronics carefully deployed to round out the sound, but Latent Whispers is a masterclass in rhythm. Below Frost’s vocals, beats and grooves intertwine. Alan does his best to keep time as accurately as Jaki Liebezeit, while Hassan plucks at the strings of a million hearts. It’s stripped down but complex; ethereal but earthy; post so much more than punk. A diamond in a rough year for music.

Kite Base on the Web: http://kiteba.se/

 

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Hannah Peel Touches a Nerve

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

“I have neither desires nor fears,” the Khan declared, “and my dreams are composed either by my mind or by chance.” [Invisible Cities]

You are reading a review of Hannah Peel’s Awake But Always Dreaming. Or perhaps a map tracing the path between Irish folk music and experimental electronics. It opens with a reference to neurology.

Hannah Peel Like the brain, Hannah Peel’s latest release is divided into two halves. The first follows a poptastic pattern, filled with the folk-frosted, radio-friendly songs that make Peel one of the most compelling artists in Britain today. The other is an intensely personal set of adventurous material, raw to the touch and unnervingly beautiful. The neural pathway linking them is a track inspired by one of Italo Calvino’s postmodern stories.

“Invisible City” took shape under the spell of Calvino’s novel of similar name. A fantastical imagining of conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, the book breaks narrative rules and questions memory as an element of storytelling. It provides a key point in the trajectory of the album, as memory – and the loss of it – is the dominant theme of the second half.

It was at this point in her writing for the album that Peel started to respond artistically to the dementia that was claiming her grandmother. As her neural pathways began to be closed off, so did the established links between the two women; and the pain of the experience led Peel to change direction.

The cruelty of dementia is that it turns the familiar into the unknown and friends into strangers, and it does it again every day. As Polo says to Khan in Calvino’s novel of one city: “it knows only departures, not returns.”

Peel explains:

It started with Italo Calvino, just because it was a book that fascinated me with the mapping of the cities. Maybe part of the reason I was obsessed with these imaginary cities was that I was imagining where my grandmother was on the map in her mind. A lot of people, when they have dementia, often forget their way home. That tied in perfectly, and it became a bit of an epiphany into why I was obsessed with it.

4The suffering of those living with dementia is mirrored by the pain of those close to them. Both sides are reflected in Peel’s material, starting with “Octavia,” a track named for one of Calvino’s cities which happens to be strung over an abyss. In a way reminiscent of Test Dept’s combinations of industrial rhythms and folk songs in Shoulder to Shoulder, “Octavia” pulses and shudders under an angelic chorus. The crackle of electricity and the grinding of gears are straight from Russolo’s musical manifesto on the art of noises, but in Peel’s hands signal empathy rather than aggression; they might be the sounds of urban activity or inner chaos.

In the beginning, says a different album title, there was rhythm. According to neuroscientists, the response to the beat comes from a different part of the brain than melody or language. It belongs to the more primitive centres that are associated with instinct. The shift towards complex and pronounced rhythms in the second half of the album might have been an intuitive development. Peel reflects:

It just seemed to feel natural – the layering of things and not necessarily being completely straight in time was really important. Sound effects include things I’d recorded like doors and everyday sounds – there is a clock on there. It just felt like the natural way to go. It kind of blends in, so it doesn’t feel like you are listening to a heavy track. When you blend it with everything else, it becomes more trance-like – like a dream state.

This effect is most pronounced on “Foreverest,” which ultimately develops into a danceable groove treading similar ground to Goldfrapp. To get there, though, you have to pass through the title track, which is devastating.

“Awake But Always Dreaming” begins with manipulated voices, and it clearly represents the disorientation of the dementia sufferer. The crackling sounds now more directly evoke the firing (or misfiring) of synapses. Peel resists the temptation to take the literal route, applying sensitive piano passages instead of string stabs, and the effect is hallucinatory. The intensity of the listener’s response is provoked by the very deftness of Peel’s touch.

The sculpting of this material took place in London and Ireland with the help of Peel’s collaborator, Erland Cooper. Of Cooper, Peel says:

The relationship we have is so natural. If I say, I want to do this, I want to do that, he will find a way to interpret that and help me to record it and make it sound beautiful. I’m good at all that, and it’s great, but when you have someone to fire off ideas off to and talk to, it is so much better. He’s a great support to me and understands that I’m not necessarily going to write the classic hits.

There are potential hits on this album, however. “All That Matters,” the current single, opens proceedings with a cascading waterfall of sound that shows off Peel’s ability to craft the type of song that gets Radio 6 into a hormonal frenzy. It was a stand-out track at Peel’s recent show in London, and it’s a no-nonsense love song, but on the album it’s also the first step, Peel notes, “gradually leading you into the rabbit hole of the mind.”


Peel is soon to start a two year residency with the Wellcome Trust, which will allow her to interact with artists and researchers interested in dementia. She’s already been looking down the microscope of UCL’s Selina Wray, and the potential for musicians and scientists to influence each other opens intriguing possibilities – not unlike the conversations between Polo and Khan that were Peel’s initial inspiration for the album.

Which brings you to the end of a review of Hannah Peel’s Awake But Always Dreaming. You might have dreamt it, but you won’t forget it. Unless you already have.

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The Top 15 of 2015

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

If 2013 was the year of new music and 2014 the year of the live show, what was the defining feature of 2015? We’d say that it was the development of collectives organising to support artists outside of the record industry mainstream. The trend picked up steam with I Am Snow Angel joining forces with Dani Mari and Claire London. They called themselves Female Frequency and started crowdfunding to produce an album made entirely by women artists. Over in Norway, the KOSO collective launched with a similar spirit. This was less of a feminist statement than a reflection of feminine confidence. The record industry might be run by men in suits and their hipster-bearded minions, and EDM might have been born in some boys’ bedrooms, but this year the female of the species got tired of waiting for her turn. She sounds great.

 

15. Train to Spain – What It’s All About

We called What It’s All About the soundtrack to summer, and with its effervescent synths and sparkling vocals it was glittery bliss for the trip to the beach on bright weekends. Those days are long forgotten in Europe, suffering in the cold and damp of a stormy December, but we have Polaroids to remind us that Train to Spain’s first album was an accomplished debut.

 

14. Hannah Peel – Rebox 2

Hannah Peel’s first EP of cover songs, Rebox, tackled classic 80s pop gems, like “Tainted Love” and “Blue Monday.” Her second, Rebox 2, picked tracks from more current artists, such as East India Youth (with whom she toured) and Perfume Genius. We love Peel’s original material, but there is no faulting her song choices or interpretations here. As ever, Peel’s voice is the draw – it travels on wavelengths of exceptional clarity and has the impact of a Holi carnival of colours.

 

13. Machinista – Garmonbozia

Machinista’s second album showed off the continued strength of their songwriting, as well as John Lindqwister’s penetrating vocals. Last year’s debut, Xenoglossy, set the template, and there was clearly more Lynchian, dancefloor-friendly poptronica waiting to come out.

 

12. Muricidae – Tales from a Silent Ocean

John Fryer, the legendary producer and songwriter, pushed out two major projects in 2015: Silver Ghost Shimmer, a grinding, sexy project with singer Pinky Turzo; and Muricidae, a Mortal Coil-esque enterprise featuring Louise Fraser. We found it hard to choose between them, but in the end kept coming back to this jewel from Muricidae’s debut album, Tales from a Silent Ocean. Set to repeat, it’s perpetually Sunday after sundown, and that’s our favourite time.

 

11. Marsheaux – A Broken Frame

Reinterpreting a Depeche Mode album with synthesizers might seem a neat conceit from a distance, but when it is A Broken Frame, the Basildon boys’ second, purely electronic album, you might also ask, “Why?” The answer is that Depeche Mode have long turned their back on that masterful set of experimental pop. If Gore and Gahan aren’t going to develop the ideas that were first captured in Blackwing Studios, back in 1982, then why not some fans from Athens who have a line in angelic electropop? By giving the songs a modern makeover, Marsheaux breathed new life into them – if only DM would do the same!

 

10. Vile Electrodes – Captive in Symmetry

There still isn’t a band in Britain that is making music at the level of Vile Electrodes. Their three-track EP, Captive in Symmetry, reminded everyone of that, but so did a show warming up for Mesh and a headline performance at “A Secret Wish.” This was also the year that the BBC discovered the Viles, as did lecturers in media studies at an academic event in Dusseldorf. After years of breaking the fourth wall, surely it’s time they punched through the glass ceiling, as well!

 

9. Pieces of Juno – “Same to Me” VIDEO OF THE YEAR!

In the year of A-Ha’s return, we discovered a Norwegian artist we like better: Pieces of Juno, an Oslo-based songstress, caught our attention with leftfield poptronica and creative video work. We first heard her providing backing vocals for Karin Park at Electronic Summer, which was a mighty performance all-round, and a little digging unearthed a vein of gold and silver.

Nothing against Morten & Co., but things have moved on a little. These days, Juno and friends in the KOSO collective are making their own way without the support of major record labels. As this effort shows, Norwegians are still doing great video work to accompany the sounds from the North.


 

8. Me the Tiger – Vitriolic

One of the stand-out performances of 2015 came from Sweden’s Me the Tiger at Gothenburg’s legendary Electronic summer event. The trio from Falun shook the walls with outstanding songs and fabulous vocals from Gabriella Åström. It turned out that they’d put it all down in the studio, too, and Vitriolic was bottled lightning. With DAF’s management behind them, they’re going to go far.

 

7. Jennie Vee – Spying

The word “muse” comes up a lot in writing about New York’s Jennie Vee. Not in the sense of a glam- and prog-influenced rock band that puts marching teddy bears in their anti-NWO videos, but as an artist who stimulates others. Courtney Love has used the term to describe Vee, as has her photographer, Katrin Albert. We just call her great, because Vee has given shoegaze a shiny, patent-leather kick from behind. Her first solo album, Spying, demonstrated that the preceding EPs weren’t kidding with their emphatic, bass-driven dreampop. We’ll be spinning this for a long time yet.


 

6. Karin Park – Apocalypse Pop

The arrival of Karin Park’s fifth studio album was keenly anticipated. There had been a three year interlude since Highwire Poetry, and it turned out that the extended gestation period did nothing to detract from Park’s sense of melody. With a diverse group of songwriters collaborating on compositions, the album’s flavours change like an American gobstopper candy: layers peel away to reveal a raw, inner core of emotional authenticity that you get from few other artists. “Hard Liquor Man” and “Look What You’ve Done” will become classics of Park’s live show, but we also loved “Stick to the Lie,” which had a single release with this remix.

 

5. Dan Söderqvist – Dark Flowers Awake

Dan Söderqvist’s sidelines from Twice a Man have included a number of collaborations with European and American artists. This year, he picked through the archives for some of the best, which were collected as Dark Flowers Awake. With contributions by the artists behind Building Castles Made of Matchsticks, Narcoleptica and Mono-Drone, among others, the album showcased Söderqvist’s experimental forays but also how far his influence reaches beyond Sweden’s borders.

 

4. Rein – “Concrete Jungle” NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR!

We’ve been waiting for Rein to come along – a fierce, independent woman who combines talent with a capacity for attitude and aggression that can tame the hardest death metal grunt. Armed with a copy of Reason, Rein stormed onto Soundcloud with the old-school EBM of “There Is No Authority But Yourself,” followed quickly by “Concrete Jungle.” The latter proved that she has a fantastic voice, while this mix pushed us out onto the floor all over again. Dance, pilgrim!

 

3. Lau Nau – Hem. Någonstans

Finnish avant-folk composer, Lau Nau, breezed into our consciousness with the soundtrack to Hem. Nagonstans, a film by Lotta Petronella. Readers of The Wire and visitors to obscure festivals will have got there ahead of us, but the musical world of Laura Naukkarinen is one that we are happy to inhabit. A rare London appearance confirmed the organic beauty of Lau Nau’s voice and vision. We’ve been walking barefoot among the birch trees ever since.

 

2. Sista mannen på jorden – …translate EP OF THE YEAR!

R-6954020-1430309974-3662.jpegReleased to mark SMPJ’s first London show, at Cold War Night Life’s “A Secret Wish,” …translate was an ultra-limited edition EP, featuring English versions of some of the band’s best-known songs. With a darker version of “Stadens alla ljus” rendered as “All the City Lights” and the classic “Luft” reprised as “Air,” this was the perfect introduction to Sweden’s best-loved poptronica outfit.

The EP isn’t available as a download – you had to be there. Sorry if you couldn’t make the show, but singer/songwriter Eddie B did share this taster on his Soundcloud account.

 

1. Twice a Man – Presence ALBUM OF THE YEAR!

Twice a Man have been making music together for four decades, but they’ve never lost their bleeding-edge coolness. In 2015, they released a new album, Presence, with the political verve and musical mastery to show the new generation how it is done. This is a remix that appeared on the single for “Black,” proving that there is plenty of juice in the engine yet.

 

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Hannah Peel Goes Underground

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

HANNAH PEEL
KITE BASE
WE ARE WRANGLER (DJ SET)
Servant Jazz Quarters, London
17 September 2015

Dalston is the kind of place where bearded men tie their hair in buns and eat pizza in restaurants named after songs by A Guy Called Gerald. Come off the main street, follow the sound of industrial drones and dance beats into a basement, and you might find Mal from Cabaret Voltaire on the decks with his mate Phil Winter. This night, the presence of We Are Wrangler is to support an intimate, sold-out show by the multi-instrumentalist, Hannah Peel, and the crowd gathering in Dalston’s Servant Jazz Quarters is an eclectic mix of friends, folkies and fans of Peel’s electronic music. Like Tuxedomoon, Peel straddles styles in a way that appeals to very different audiences, and she will cover a lot of ground in her short set.

IMG_5366IMG_5433Before we get there, Kite Base have the stage. It is the live debut for the duo of Kendra Frost and Ayşe Hassan (also of Savages), and their dueling basses issue waves of rhythm while Frost’s vocals float on top. We’ve previously only been let into one track, the catchy and dreamy “Dadum,” so Kite Base’s first outing is full of surprises. A drum machine and Kaoss pad accompany panels of floor pedals, but the core of their sound is Hassan’s hypnotic, sometimes stroboscopic, movement through the bottom end of the spectrum and Frost’s very capable vocalisation.

In origami, a kite base is one of the basic folds, but its significance is that supports many creative possibilities. With two bassists in the frame, there is nothing elementary about Kite Frame’s performance. There are fragments of rock involved, but they are ground so finely that they shift like particles of sound on a current of post-industrial grooves. The resulting shapes unfold like fractals.

IMG_5779The composer Cornelius Cardew was once asked about English folk music, and he replied that he didn’t know of such a thing; whereas, he noted, the Irish people mark every event through song. That tradition is part of Hannah Peel’s background, and the first two songs in her set, “Find Peace” and “Fabricstate,” resonate with the day’s headlines. “Find Peace” was released at the end of 2014, as part of a series of Christmas singles, and it’s an appeal that has lost none of its currency. Peel’s voice is a sophisticated instrument, and her choice of opener shows that it can tame even the wilder quirks of modular synthesis.

“Fabricstate” is the title track from Peel’s 2014 EP. Owing something to the magical realism of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, on one level the song describes the alienation of urban life, but its martial rhythms and soaring synths also suggest the tension between regimentation and resistance. The black eyes of CCTV cameras know where you are coming from but not where you are going. In the same way, Peel’s lyrics seem less revealing than the melody and instrumental track, which becomes more confident and assertive as it progresses.

IMG_6233“Silk Road,” another song from the Fabricstate EP, follows. Inlaid with Occidental and Oriental tones, it’s an expedition inspired by Marco Polo’s travels. In Peel’s hands, it’s like the opening of a mosaic-crusted, sandalwood-scented box filled with exotica. Indeed, for her next offering – Wild Beasts’ “Palace,” a track covered on her recent Rebox 2 EP – Peel brings out her amplified music box. As the punch card feeds through the device, the real depth and delicacy of Peel’s voice is revealed.

The highlight of the evening is the introduction of “All That Matters,” a new song. Arpeggios descend like ribbons of synthetic sound, and passion is added to the evening’s sonic palette, painted in sweeps as wide as the flicks of Peel’s trademark red hair. It is this organic, authentic and – in the way that Robert Wyatt perhaps would describe it – romantic material that most starkly distinguishes Peel from that other talented multi-instrumentalist, Laurie Anderson. Peel could be at home with the crowds at either Cecil Sharp House or Elektrowerkz, but tonight they’ve come to her and the only disappointment will have been felt by those who couldn’t get tickets.

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Hannah Peel’s Wild Beast

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The talented multi-instrumentalist, Hannah Peel, has revealed the video for “Palace,” a Wild Beasts cover taken from her last EP, Rebox 2. A member of John Foxx & The Maths, Peel is well-known to electronic music fans, but her solo work in other styles has been as charming and iridescent as this track. Peel plays in London next on 17 September 2015.

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Hannah Peel – I Believe in Father Christmas

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

I believe in Father Christmas. I believe in music being coded into holes punched on scrolls, which are wound through hand-cranked music boxes. I believe in divine vocal accompaniments, distortion and the soundtrack to a million mobile phone company ads. OK, so the B-side to Hannah Peel’s “Find Peace” single hasn’t made it onto Vodafone’s radar yet, but it was only just released. Give it 12 months and this is going to be the song you can’t escape from, even if it’s a statement against the commercialisation of the holiday. In the meantime, Ms Peel’s version of Greg Lake’s classic, “I Believe in Father Christmas,” is just for us.

Update 21/12/2014: Hannah’s released a charming video with a live take, to add to your merriment:

 

 

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Hannah Peel – Find Peace

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Mankind, Brecht once noted in song, is kept alive by bestial acts. Reading the papers, it is hard to find evidence to the contrary: we have always, it seems, been at war with Oceania, and the only possible response to one murderous outrage is to launch another. Drones and mercenaries are part of the ecosystem now; as ubiquitous as images of Kim Kardashian or Miley Cyrus.

A poptronica single isn’t going to clean up this mess, but Hannah Peel’s “Find Peace” mutes the rattling of sabres for 4:00 with Brechtian directness. Released in time for the winter holiday season, it’s a special edition 7″ from the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, a Dutch label, on white vinyl. Mercenaries, drone pilots and Westminster armchair warriors will dislike its pacific sentiment, but nothing about Peel’s delicate, ethereal vocals nor the modular instrumental underpinning of collaborator Benge Edwards is suited to their ambitions. There’s something of a Robert Wyatt vibe to the piece, in places, which makes it feel as subversive as it is sentimental.

The single is available in a signed edition through the divine Ms Peel’s Web shop.

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