Cheju/Shoosh Review At Losing Today

Losing Today

Cheju / Shoosh ‘Split’ (Awkward Silence). No sooner have we managed to wean ourselves off the delights of Cheju’s ‘hutton’ (out now via October Man) then up pops this rather cute split release with Shoosh. Admittedly I think it was prompted by and large by our bemoaning of the fact that it’d somehow escaped our radar to which Wil (Cheju) immediately responded by dropping off a copy. All the same though its been a while since we had a chance to marvel over anything from the Awkward Silence sound bunker in fact quite possibly the last thing might have been that rather spiffing Marcia Blaine School for Girls split with d_rradio (which blimey was about 4 years ago). Now issued on dinky 3” CD’s as opposed to the old style vinyl - which we kind of miss - any strictly limited to just 300 copies Cheju - who really shouldn’t need any introductions in these pages given that he pops up here with more regularity than Weekender and Static Caravan releases - decorates his side of the split with a brace of exclusive cuts. The exotically located ’moody copy’ is a reclining evensong braided with lightly dusted Vini Reilly styled minimalist lunar rustic finger works that sweetly float atop a gyrating and spellbound field of entranced skittering glitch scuffles - very much appealing to fans of both Manual and Ellis Island Sound and gracefully despatched with prickling perfection. ‘drogo’ is equipped with a more expansive sound and hitherto wide screen presence, sumptuously stirred in a beguiling haze of cavernous drone swathes and deliciously invested with soft centred harpsichord florets, this ornamental odyssey swirls in biter sweet climes of melancholic magnificence.
Shoosh are a UK trio who feature among their collective ranks Neil Carlill who was one time member of Delicatessen and Lodger who these days can be found splitting recording duties with his other band Vedette who we recommend you check out immediately via http://www.myspace.com/vedettemusic (we’ll mention them in passing next missive out though frankly I suspect we‘ve mentioned them previously - ah well two mentions never hurt anyone - I hope). Not to be outdone Shoosh’s ghostly alluring ‘elastic soil’ is an off centred though numbingly beautiful work of ethereal psych-ambi-folk, pining celestial sheens, crooked and dust ridden stumbling acoustic flamenco strums serve as deliciously spectral montages underpinning the ether driven wandering vocal mantras - all at once hazy and disquieting though magically omnipresent the individual parts coalesce and caress like heavenly apparitions weaving in and out of view imagining Animal Collective centre stage in a celestial gunfight setting amid supernatural serenades sourced from Neil Young’s ‘eldorado’. ‘come in from the cold’ is an ostensibly more twinkle some affair, tranquil and measured this arresting countrified slice of star watching bliss out groove had us recalling at times Mercury Rev’s lackadaisical ‘Carwash hair’ which in our books is no bad thing - need we say more - I think not. www.awkwardsilencerecordings.com

Further listening -

http://www.myspace.com/cheju - a tiny peak into the world of Cheju - a world of lush glitch grooves, star hopping amorphic ambient love notes and glacially swept melodic monuments that embrace a clinical IDM matrix with a warming analogue persona. Featured here are a brace of cuts from his ultra limited u-cover outings ‘diode’ which we mentioned in these very pages a few missives ago - however we suggest you go direct to ‘pachinko’ culled from 2005’s ‘taito-ku’ EP which admittedly we missed - and smother yourself in the delicate orientalised Faltermayer like sveltely threaded textures within.

http://www.myspace.com/shooshmusic - 6 tracks featured all by and large from the Orpheum Circuit sessions - we suggest you rip the weirdly eerie and spectral oriental chamber like frosted ambi-folk elegance of ’snake eyes’ - quite gorgeous once it gets into its sublime groove.

http://www.myspace.com/solipsism - the alter ego of Shoosh man Craig Murphy who it seems from his base of operations up in Ayreshire has been knocking out EP‘s like nobody‘s business making them all - by and large - free to download from Last FM- the words looking and gift horse spring to mind. Non of your half arsed twiddling about here - no sir - what you get are consuming collages depicting in the minds eye intergalactic voyages to far flung milky ways, gloriously wide screen in stature and vividly fulsome in texture. And while the obvious winner hand down here is ’bastardism’ - a lushly envisaged cosmic pit stop where shuffling statue-esque beats orbit amorously across swirling passages of soft psych ambient blissfulness - think Biosphere trading dialects more appreciable to the polar climes of Amon Düül and Jean-Michel Jarre - a magnificent dreamscaping delight. Though that said our money is squarely on the monumental ’this is our tree and were not getting out of it’ - a desirable and engaging slice of achingly lonesome spectral beauty, frail and fragile yet none the less chilled, charmed and caressing - culled from the ’free’ EP which like it inadvertently says on the tin is - er - free from the aforementioned outlets. Talk about spoiling you.

http://www.myspace.com/weirdfields - its that man Craig Murphy again this time under his guise as Weird Fields - a self described ‘ambient / film soundtrack’ project who not content in dividing himself between his Shoosh and Solipsism identities can be found occasionally orchestrating opining odysseys of cavernous cascades. Delicate, lonesome and hitherto monolithic these somnambulant drone-scapes swirl in frosted pirouette formations applying a stately courtship (none more so than ‘distant star‘). Two free to download albums to his name via Lastfm in the shape of ’a place to call home’ and ’destruct science’ which we thoroughly recommend that you seek out and love - for now though amid the showcase of glacial tides and sparsely drawn and effecting minimalist washes of lilting electronic symphonies we suggest you stop by at your first opportunity to sample the warming radiance of the playfully orbiting oscillations of the melting ’so long good friend’ - bit of a peach by our reckoning appealing to ’magnetic fields’ era Jaare and Vangelis fans alike.