Bleep

Folklore Tapes present a fascinating musical excavation by Edinburgh group Two Kings. As is always the case with releases on this fabulous label, ‘Two Kings’ comes steeped in myth and legend.

On this record we find Two Kings fashioning strange, mystical electronic music from the legend of King Herla, a leader of the Britons who is left cursed by a dwarf king that he crosses. Born from a now-traditional annual performance that the pair give on Halloween, the first half of the record consists of Herla telling his tale while the second side is delivered from the point of view of the dwarf.

These two pieces are built around the sort of melodious, keening synth tones one associates with both golden-age kosmische music and hypnagogic electronics. Throughout the tracks we find these synthscapes augmented by strings, drum machines and the declamations of Herla and the dwarf respectively. Fittingly for a member of royalty, ‘King Herla’s Tale’ is more stately than ‘The Dwarf’s Tale’ - while the former is full of folkish melodic runs and delicate pitter-patter percussion, ‘The Dwarf’s Tale’ builds to a cacophony of noise and distortion.

On their eponymous Folklore Tapes debut, Edinburgh duo Two Kings use the legend of King Herla to fashion some gloriously inventive contemporary kosmische.