(2016) The Magnetic North - Prospect of Skelmersdale



Review: 
To inaugurate Britain’s second wave of post-war development in 1961, the small mining town of Skelmersdale — “Skem” to locals — was designated a New Town. Redeveloped to accommodate spillover residents from nearby Liverpool, the remade Skem slowly deteriorated over the next two decades when all of a sudden it received a totally unexpected new designation. By 1984, when a young Simon Tong‘s family relocated there, Skem had become the official center of the U.K.’s Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement, giving the place an entirely different flavor. Fast forward a couple more decades and Tong is a respected British rock musician — with stints in the Verve and Blur — reprising his role as part of the collaborative trio . The group, which also includes Erland Cooper and Hannah Peel, first debuted in 2012 with Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North, a stirring chamber pop suite informed by the rugged Scottish islands of Cooper’s homeland. For their second project, it’s Tong’s turn to revisit his home on the pastoral Prospects of Skelmersdale. Where the cinematic beauty of the Orkney archipelago must have provided ample inspiration, Skem’s mix of blocky, run-down estates and new age mysticism no doubt presented a unique challenge for the trio. Rather than an outright concept album, Prospects of Skelmersdale feels like an abstract tribute to its strange subject, glancing over different aspects of the city’s still-changing landscape in brief, lightly orchestrated snapshots peppered with strings, brass, and guitars, and threaded with vintage audio samples from the Skelmersdale Development Corporation. For all of Skem’s troubles, the band strikes a decidedly optimistic tone, bookending the album with pieces that reflect its TM heritage.

Tracklist: 
01 Jai Guru Dev.flac 
02 Pennylands.flac 
03 A Death In The Woods.flac 
04 Sandy Lane.flac 
05 Signs.flac 
06 Little Jerusalem.flac 
07 Remains Of Elmer.flac 
08 Cergy-Pontoise.flac 
09 Exit.flac 
10 The Silver Birch.flac 
11 Northway-Southway.flac 
12 Run Of The Mill.flac 

Summary: 
Country: UK 
Genre: chamber pop, indie-folk