Belbury Poly - The Belbury Tales

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4...according to our Mike on Thu 23 Feb, 2012.

Ah, Belbury Poly. Not a bad band by any means, but they just can't get the edge over rivals Belbury Uni for some reason...I blame the more stringent application procedures. Undaunted, the Poly have come up with another platter of library sounds rearranged to make new brand new musics, 13 in total. All the synth tones are delightfully familiar from educational material of the '70s and '80s but there's a psychedelic modern edge, and some clear nods to the Canterbury sound, especially when a little girl starts singing a folky rondo in 'Green Grass Grows'. The new age-meets-medieval synth melodies actually remind me of the music from an old Mac game called Warlords which I'm almost certain nobody will remember. I think it's fascinating what these guys (and Ghost Box in general) do, manipulating the listener's own memory as a tool within their music to more easily evoke those images of youth and naivete. Their role is as much as tone archivists as musicians, and they've once again put together a deft collection of old memories cleverly housed in new songs that are immediately likeable.

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The Belbury Tales is the fourth full length album from Belbury Poly. Usually a solo project for Jim Jupp, the co-founder of Ghost Box, but for part of this album he augments the Belbury sound with guest musicians Jim Musgrave on drums and Christopher Budd on Bass & Electric Guitar. In addition to the usual array of keyboards and analogue synths, Jupp himself plays guitar, percussion, zithers, melodica and ocarina. Its a unique yet oddly familiar sound- world drawing on TV soundtracks, progressive rock, radiophonics, and library music.
Like all their album releases the music and artwork expand on the fictional / parallel world that Ghost Box loves to play with. At odds to the anodyne minimalism of much electronica Julian House's artwork like Jupp's music is lavish, detailed and witty. This is very much a concept album in the tradition of English Prog rock taking in medievalism, the supernatural, ideas about the re-invention of the past, childhood, initiation and pilgrimage (both spiritual and physical.
These concepts are further enhanced by a joyfully unsettling piece of fiction penned by Rob Young, author of Electric Eden.

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