Multiview :: Daniel Thomas and Friends

Curator of two small, exciting imprints, Sheepscar Light Industrial and Cherry Row Recordings, Daniel Thomas‘ discography throbs with almost exponential growth. Here are a few things he and his friends have been up to lately. All of the releases are ruthlessly limited runs, but just about everything can be found unabridged on Bandcamp.

Daniel Thomas is one of the herd of independent minds making a beautiful commotion off in Yorkshire. Solo under his own name, half of the duo Hagman with David Thomas (no relation, though the two have a record coming out soon as The Thomas Family), also in cahoots with Kevin Sanders (aka Petals, who also runs the label Hairdryer Excommunication), one-third of TST (with Thomas and Sanders) and curator of two small, exciting imprints, Sheepscar Light Industrial and Cherry Row Recordings, his discography throbs with almost exponential growth. Here are a few things he and his friends have been up to lately. All of the releases are ruthlessly limited runs, but just about everything can be found unabridged on Bandcamp.

Tsim Sha Tsui (Sheepscar Light Industrial) by TST is white noise at the dry cleaners from Daniel Thomas, Kevin Sanders and Ap Martlet (David Thomas again), new supergroup of the no-audience underground. A thick batter being whipped up by a mixmaster with a slightly asymmetrical rotating base, it just is, then putters out. It is what it is and what it is is surprisingly soothing. A tonic for machine souls. TST’s sophomore recording, The Spoken Truth, can be enjoyed via Bandcamp.

Inertia Crocodile (Cherry Row Recordings) by Midwich (Rob Hayler) offers sustained drones in three handy sizes, the eight-minute title track, a ninety-second interlude called “Piped” and then a truly piped organ drone baptised “The Sure,” which sounds as if the Phantom froze at his organ while its pulsations are picked up by bat radar ears sweeping in and out of the rafters. Profoundly brainstem massaging.

Also on Cherry Row Recordings is Daniel Thomas’ barbiturate analogue throb and autistic susurrus Enemy Territory, whose baleful ”Vampierkasteel” is the very definition of “hollow.”

Back in league as Hagman, the Thomas’ release Number Mask (LF Records), their first full-length. The more expansive pieces, ranging from a couple of minutes to a quarter of an hour (punctuated by three interludes that only last seconds but feel jarring and unwanted) are each a concentrated, cold-sweat journey through clammy, concrete ducts, as analogue synthesizer blended with processed field recordings swell and are either stroked or choked. The patient handcraft of “A Sequence of a Short Dream” feels immediately satisfying on a purely visceral level and only grows in intellectual stature with each new listen.

On the Kirkstall Dark Matter label (run by David), Daniel has just released the double album (cover coated in cork) That Which Sometimes Falls Between Us / As Light Fades. (Although long gone it too, the “handmade wooden flower press box” edition is fun to read about and look at.) It is a sprawling compendium of drones, buzzing and pulsing “extraction music” as Hayler has dubbed the sub-sub-sub-genre (cf. the extraction fan of an indoor parking lot or suspended above your stove), drone that can be “heavy, urgent and demanding but is not, as a rule, harsh or aggressive. Instead the sound is enveloping, fluctuating—fully engaged.” Analogue, often incorporating field recordings of the greyest of matter—sparrows, morning traffic—a lot of hard work goes into making such a simple sound speak volumes. Thomas’ eleven pieces are darkly enlightening. It’s the “aum” of the dirty concrete world wishing to be sentient with the occasional frisson of mad scientist Tesla coils. Only on the final track, “Cabin,” are we led down the garden path, following the deepest, darkest note on the piano until it opens up like an entire garden of flowers. A pleasantly surprising end to a deliciously vehement chef-d’œuvre, in a discography that is only getting more interesting and accomplished as it grows.