Bleep

Originally spread across Bandcamp releases from 2019 to 2021, these tracks take on new meaning after the loss of Van Hoen’s wife, now forming an even more poignant and personal collection that soundtracks the artist’s past few years.

From releases on R&S Records, Touch, Apollo, and Editions Mego, to collaborations with Neil Halstead and Seefeel, Mark Van Hoen AKA Locust has travelled countless musical paths, and from his London origins to his Los Angeles studio and the Joshua Tree desert, the tracks on his latest album have taken him across the world too. Van Hoen now lands on Dell’Orso with Plan For A Miracle, his first physically released solo album in six years.

Texture reigns supreme on these tracks, transmitted through and transformed by layers of distortion. A subdued synth oscillates on the opening ‘Climates’, sitting in a delicate space with sine wave pearls traipsing curiously. Musicbox-like melodies flutter throughout the album’s turbulence, met with solemnly filtered guitar plucks and the occasional burst of rhythm. A glistening echo dominates ‘Pencil Of Spheres’ like ripples across the breadth of a lake, while string plucks are muffled beneath the surface; ‘The Underpass’ later descends deeper into the waves of fog folding over each other. Where the human touch of vocals appears on the album, they are sparse: breathy emanations spew from a buzzing bass heartbeat on ‘I Won’t Give Up’ while on ‘The Music’ a lone lumbering frames a voice, quiet as though from some distant radio.

On Plan For A Miracle, Mark Van Hoen collects evocative recordings of his fuzzy ambient sound design from the past few years.