Belbury Poly: 'The Belbury Tales'

As usual, the arrival of my last monthly pay cheque saw me chasing new music purchases, including the new Belbury Poly release, ‘The Belbury Tales’.  For once, I can comment on something that's right up to date.

 

Belbury Poly is the brainchild of Jim Jupp who, with Julian House (of The Focus Group), also masterminds the Ghost Box label and its roster of closely related artists.  Plenty has been written in recent years about the label and the Hauntology genre into which its artists are often pigeonholed.  I recommend Simon Reynolds’ November 2006 Wire Magazine article, [1.]  Adam Harper’s October 2010 Rouge’s Foam blog post, ‘The Past Inside The Present’ [2.] and Ghost Box’s own website and The Belbury Parish Magazine blog for valuable context.  In addition, the current issue of The Wire features Jupp and House in its regular 'Invisible Jukebox' item. [3.]

Jim Jupp of Belbury Poly

Belbury Poly has always impressively combined concept, music, visuals and text into a multi-dimensional imaginative world and this is no exception.  The usual signifiers of a utopian future imagined sometime between The 1951 Festival of Britain and the end of Post War Consensus in 1979 are present and correct alongside references to the Pagan ‘Old Weird Britain’ of folk tradition and the Occult.  The trick of this stuff is always to simultaneously evoke the future within the past and the past within the future.  Science walks hand in hand with fertility ritual and quasi-mysticism through New Town and English Village.

I love how these themes are re-imagined through multiple stylistic filters that allow us to apply our own, possibly nostalgic, frames of cultural reference.  The modernism is of the quaintly optimistic ‘Tomorrow’s World’ brand often accompanied by cheesy, ‘Space-Age’ synths as typified by the brief ‘Belbury Poly Logotone B’ that introduces proceedings.  Folk references usually recall the acid sensibilities of ‘The Wicker Man’ or the genteel Edwardian folk revival more than genuine antiquity, as in ‘The Geography’.  In a track like ‘My Hands’ the occultism is equal parts Arthur Machen and spooky 70s kid’s T.V.  I’ll admit I’m a pushover for these reference points, - some of which recall my own formative years.

Whilst instantly recognisable to Belbury connoisseurs, the album augments Jupp’s familiar electronics and samples with live drums and guitar on several tracks.  It’s a masterstroke that allows hints of Prog. Rock to intrude deliciously and entirely appropriately.  It’s heard to great effect in ‘A Pilgrim’s Path’ with its embroidered drum fills and washes of faux Mellotron.  Belbury might be located somewhere near Canterbury here.  Later, in ‘Chapel Perilous’, motorik drum beats recall German Rock of the 70s.  The album concludes with two tracks of electronic sequencing typical of vintage Tangerine Dream or Jean Michel Jarre.

Of the various Ghost Box projects, Belbury has put the biggest smile on my face consistently.  It’s cheering that, when the project could have been getting a little stale, ‘The Belbury Tales’ extends the scope of an established formula and might be Jupp’s strongest album yet.




[1.]:  Simon Reynolds, 'Society of the Spectral', London, The Wire, Issue 273, November 2006.
2006 was the year when Hauntology became widely discussed as a trend within contemporary music.  This article provided an excellent overview of the genre and was the my own introduction to many of the artists discussed within it.


[2.]:  Harper's post is a lengthy and fascinating discussion of Hauntological themes.  It draws links between the work of musicians like Belbury Poly and Boards of Canada and visual artists including Peter Doig, Luc Tuymans and Neo Rauch.


[3.]:  Rob Young (Interviewing Jim Jupp & Julian House), 'Invisible Jukebox'. London, The Wire, Issue 337, March 2012.
This interview includes insights into various influences and enthusiasms of the Ghost Box protagonists whilst trying to identify related recordings chosen by Young.