Bleep

It has been a whole decade since James Holden’s last solo studio album The Inheritors dazzled us in 2013. While he has certainly been active in that time, naturally much has changed in those ten years. With his eponymous band on 2017’s The Animal Spirits, his eccentric techno indebted sound radically shifted to one of thunderous “hypnotic ritual musick” mixing krautrock, jazz, and electronica, in between his further afield explorations of ambient / drone, film soundtracks, and Moroccan Gnawa music. With Holden back in the solo saddle, he presents all of these updated sensibilities in his latest full length journey.

As the tribal rhythms and signal bending whistles of the opening ‘You Are In A Clearing’ unfold, it’s clear that the title’s instruction must be taken to heart. Imagine… allows its tracks to build patiently, exploring all paths for its psychedelic, delicately embroidered threads of synth melodies, whisking the listener away on a cosmic pilgrimage to “reconnect with the feelings of hope, freedom and possibility”.

This sonic odyssey manifests in the spaces each song evokes: the glaciers of ‘In The End You’ll Know’, where spectral flutters glittering and expanding until they crack with liquid synths spilling out, or the sharp, raw folk of ‘Worlds Collide Mountains Form’ where warm surges of pastoral violins and jagged guitars trace rays of daylight arching across plains. ‘Contains Multitudes’ is perhaps the most adventurous, never once losing its momentum as it mercurially moves from lighthearted breaks to dramatic, jazzy washes, with deep dubby subs contrasting against the high pitched chirps of buzzing synth sparks flying all around.

James Holden’s fourth studio album is an epic collage of energies, culminating on his history as an artist so far.