Words by Grey Malkin

Belbury Poly, Jim Jupp’s long standing project on his renowned and revered Ghost Box label, have made a significant imprint upon popular culture since their debut release ‘Farmer’s Angle’ back in 2004. Instigating and inspiring much of the ‘hauntological’ trend that followed both musically and aesthetically (along with fellow Ghost Box travellers The Advisory Circle and The Focus Group), Belbury Poly have continued to explore the more esoteric corners of electronica, alongside collaborations with the likes of John Foxx, Sharron Kraus and Justin Hopper. Indeed, Hopper reappears as narrator as a part of the line up for ‘The Path’, intriguingly more of a group effort this time around with the addition of erstwhile collaborator Christopher Budd on bass and guitar, Jesse Chandler (of Midlake/Mercury Rev) on flute, clarinet and keyboards, and Max Saidi on drums.

Consciously intended as an album with spoken word included, rather than a spoken word album, each collaborator has been carefully chosen to add particular colour or flavour to the otherworldly yet baroque electronic soundscapes, woven through with woodwind and gentle funk or jazz inflected beats. Using the 1970’s English pastoral soundtracks of composers Roy Budd and Roger Webb (the latter known for his television themes, including that of the ‘Hammer House of Horror’ series) as a foundational starting point, ‘The Path’ is a skilful and emotive blend of both the organic and synthetic, one that also offers a curious combination of warmth and eeriness. The result is not unlike the nostalgic oddness of an old, sepia polaroid photograph.

The album opens with a prime example of the unnerving yet familiar, the ominous warning and megalithic landscape of ‘Co-ordinates’ (‘sometimes still, even now we follow the mounds, when we really ought to know better’), replete with rustic flute and the distant hum of traffic. The title track follows, and we find ourselves back in more familiar Belbury territory with washes and sweeps of analogue synths, mellotrons oscillating below a gentle funk beat and the laconic swirl of woodwind and plucked strings. It’s truly gorgeous, with a pleasing hint of unease, an autumnal woodland walk but with something just out of sight in the woods, a hidden stone circle or cairn unknown to passers-by but exerting its strange pull nonetheless.

‘Highways and Byways’ follows, again anchored by steady yet fluid drumming , allowing Hopper to offer a narrative on the divided landscape, both ancient and modern, occult and ordinary. Jupp’s choral synths add an air of the sacred in this crossing of both ley lines and manmade routes, with vintage strings, whirrs and bleeps creating an enveloping electronic symphony.

‘Pixie-Led’ is next, Hopper describing a childhood memory of being amongst a dissolving magical landscape, and of being drawn in a particular direction (being Pixie-Led is to be guided by unseen hands, perhaps those of the Fairy-folk), his voice set amongst shimmering and glistening  electronica, whilst ‘The Exile Way’ adds gothic guitar lines to portentous timpani and layered synth melodies to create a haunted and spectral hymnal. ‘Between Sea and Sky’, with its jazz inflections and warm chimes, is reminiscent of sitting in front of the television in 1970’s Britain, with its strange but familiar BBC Radiophonic incidental music, Hopper’s calming voice intoning not unlike the commentary in a nature documentary or Open University broadcast.

By contrast, ‘Sunrise At The Crossroads’ is a ghost, a dusty and ivy covered woodwind lament that chills with its vintage air and sense of melancholy, before ‘All That I Am’s gorgeous harp runs and electronic arpeggios adorn a laidback and contemplative mellow patch of sunlight. ‘Going, Gone’ takes a supernatural turn into Arthur Machen territory, a dark foray of a flute filled and disquieting nature; this is (un)easy listening for megalithophiles and woodland wanderers.

Next, ‘Blind Alley’ is a hushed, nighttime urban wandering, tremolo heavy guitar reverberating over electronic footsteps and synthetic whispers. ‘The Wrong Spot’ follows, birdsong leading into a curious woodland waltz, recorder and flute swooping through the fairground rhythms and synthesised brass stabs, with Hopper’s narration becoming more fevered as things get increasingly disorientating, and as maps and a normal sense of direction no longer apply. ‘You Won’t Find Me’ is a macabre and premonitory field recording, before ‘Last Orders’ brings things to a suitably wyrd close with banks of majestic choral synths, analogue whirrs and buzzes, and evocative, chiming guitar; a haunted anthem for rural, hidden England, tinged with medieval airs and culminating with the sound of village church bells.

Though in many ways quite unlike other Poly releases in its musical palette and incorporation of a number of organic instruments (guitar, woodwind, drums), as well as its foray into occasional jazzy, easy listening hues and textures, ‘The Path’ is still absolutely identifiable as a Belbury album; its concerns, themes and atmospheres drawing from the same deep and haunted well as previous recordings and outings. There is a tangibly immersive and musically psychogeographic element to Belbury Poly, their work transports the listener and positions them in a place in time, whether it’s the spooked woodland of ‘The Owl’s Map’, the cosmic disquiet of ‘From an Ancient Star’, or the MR James-ian nightmares of ‘The Belbury Tales’. ‘The Path’ is no different, it is an all-encompassing journey down some welcoming but oft strange and dark fields and furrows. Highly recommended, but leave your map behind, your GPS will not work here. Instead, follow the tracks laid out by Hopper’s voice, and by the sounds of Belbury Poly, for an altogether different and rewarding route. 

‘The Path’ is available from Ghost Box Records as well as all good stockists.