Warp has landed another big hit and its title already gets to you: Children of Alice And no, this doesn’t sound like Lewis Carroll by chance. Carroll‘s children’s book classic was an important inspiration to his late band colleague Trish Keenan. James Cargill, the remaining part of Broadcast, has named his new project after the classic in memory of his partner. In a trio together with Roj Stevens and Julian House, Cargill is continuing Broadcast’s psychedelic works (like the soundtrack to »Berberian Sound Studio« or the mini-album »Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age«), which could be related to the fact that Julian House is also running The Focus Group. At parts, Children of Alice’s sampledelic structures remind us of the early Musique concrète à la Pierre Schaeffer The debut’s central piece of almost twenty minutes, »The Harbinger of Spring«, connects everyday sounds at the beginning and then mixes them one by one with more familiar samples of the sixties. In a way, this construction appears artificial and amorphous at the same time. The structures seem to deteriorate – and happily so. Things are being put together only to tear them apart concurrently. What comes out is a trip; hauntology that does not have spirits of old times sweep by but rather conjures them up in obscure rituals. Children of Alice know how to spellbind their listeners by adding density and tension to this fragile structure: You can get lost in this music – but you won’t lose interest any time soon.
Ayako Shinozaki
Music Now For Harp
WeWantSounds