It may seem a little odd 'rereleasing' this album. Form is about 8 years old, has had numerous tracks from it put out on vinyl and various compilations and had a full long player printed as the first Forwind release back in 2008.

Back in 2008 when I went about compiling the album, I took all my finished pieces from the said period and tried to find a track order and listing. Many tracks did not make the cut. Others were shortened with various little edits and then mastered with what tools I had to hand (at the time using Studio 64 linux distro running just Jamin!). Not having the appropriate hardware or monitoring for mastering can be problematic particularly when the source material is a sampled and sequenced digital work. For this edition I have changed the version of Elastic (previously released on vinyl on Psychonavigation - PSY 002) from what was included in the 2008 edition. The reason being that during the recent mastering of Form at Cyclone it became apparent that the previously released mix was essentially distorted !

It seems that in my attempt to master Form on my own in 2008 I had obviously overlooked some glaring problems. Lesson learnt, never master your own output. A mastering engineer will immediately hear glaring issues that you won't.

This kind of audio in my opinion really needs warming up during the mastering which can be difficult to achieve without some nice and expensive analogue kit, something like this Manley for instance. Graham at Cyclone did a fantastic job here. The lower mids as usual were problematic but also I had over EQ'd the life out of it in the 2008 version. Graham managed to restore life to it and also give it a well needed polish.

Form is an album that was written between 2001-03 while I lived in Dublin and in my home town of Dungarvan. For majority of that time I was studying at the Music & Media technologies department at Trinity college Dublin where I was fortunate to be lectured by the likes of Donnacha Dennehey, Dermot Furlong and Roger Doyle. I would like to think the course material (such as electroacoustic composition and survey, Psychoacoustics, DSP) deeply influenced my output during this period. All instruments were originally sourced. Either recorded live or created from scratch from sampling or DSP. It features vocalists such as Laura Hyland from Clang Sayne and Suzanne Spratt whose previous choir experience adds a definite haunted feeling to track 4, In Between.

This remastered version finally has the feel to it that I was trying to achieve way back when. The artwork delivered by Paul Finn back in 2008 perfectly captured the aesthetic that we were after. At last, 8 years later, I can now sleep soundly knowing Form is actually finished. Anal, I know I know ...

Blindlight is the second release from London based electro-acoustic improvisers Sonnamble, again consisting of Conor Curran on electronics and software and Peter Marsh on stringed instruments.

The recording sessions took place not long after the release of the duo's well received debut Seven Months in E Minor and according to Curran it's 'a nice little closer to that chapter'. Again, the focus is on Marsh's lap steel guitar, whose drones, chords and twangs are coaxed into expansive ambient fuzziness or atomised into grains of noise by Curran's home-cooked software. But there's a spareness and a more pronounced spikiness to the music this time round; it's still immersive stuff, but more edgy. There's even some spoken word on the closing Society; a recording of Curran's uncle describing the state of Irish mental health in the last century. It's funnier than it sounds, but the combination with the dolorous swirls of processed lap steel give it a curious emotional resonance. The title is a corruption of the name of an installation piece by sculptor Antony Gormley, in which vistors were invited to wander around in a large, brightly lit glass tank full of thick grey fog. "I went two or three times", says Marsh. "It was a very weird, but kind of comforting experi- ence. You could hardly see your hand in front of your face. The music, when it's really working, gives me the same kind of feeling, so it seemed like a good title for what we'd done..." Opening track ‘Aphelion I’ was selected for the latest Wire Tapper compilation available with the August edition of the magazine.

Quick - drive by - zooming piece of news this!

FWD05 - Fourth Page's 'Along the Weak Rope' has been added to our ever growing label section on wage killing website supreme boomkat!

Similar to Pete I guess I felt a bit strange when asked to write a few words about Fourth Page – while I wasn’t involved in making the album I have been part of the team of beavers at the label trying to get it across the finish line release wise - and these things should be neutral right?! Well yes, but to be fair I had so little to do with anything involving the erm/haha A&R bit of this album ending up on forwind I do feel there is suitable distance between me and the release to not be indicted just yet...

So the album. Well the first thing I thought when sitting down to write about it was how I was going to avoid saying 'dark and moody'. But I can't. Those words were made for this album and it's just not fair if I can't use them here! So there - we are done with it! But review cliches aside the album is without doubt at times a very intense listen. The foreboding title track itself being a perfect example of this. There is a real feeling of menace and danger with the minor piano chords, scattering percussion and Beresford's murky, evocative image of moving 'along the weak rope'. But there is also a real sense of adventure and mischief in there too especially in the vocal that encourages the listener to 'lean across the edge'. There are certain animation studios around the planet I would love to see have a go at providing an accompanying video. But in the context of the album it's a very effective opener that really pulls you in from the get go and grabs your attention before some of the more downbeat reflective tracks that follow.

Tracks like 'Your Warm Silhouette' and 'The Air in Between' are definitely at the slower paced end of the scale on the album but they are still too brooding, mournful and indeed busy to ever feel 'laid back'. This sense of contrast between the introspective feel of the album and the outside danger and chaos is perfectly linked up and aurally represented in what Paul May brings to the tracks with his arsenal of ruzzers, rickles, vwipps and twizzers! (You'll understand when you listen!) They ping their way around the mix in some of the more minimal moments arrangement wise and really add an eccentric, edgy but complementary rhythmical edge to the proceedings, and also gives the songs some extra bite and depth during some of the more traditional sounding arrangements.

The production is excellent throughout and manages to pull off that trick of making the whole experience seem quite intimate – you can hear Beresford's every hiss - while giving the fantastic musicianship plenty of room to breathe and be appreciated. And it genuinely deserves this. Hume's piano performances are engaging throughout and effectively restrained especially in places like the beginning of 'The Air in Between'. Marsh adds a warm and industrious backbone to the tracks where he is a little further down in the mix and puts in as near as there is to a rollicking performance on the tracks he completely drives like 'Citadel'.

So there's my snapshot. If you are looking for something to fill that moody, jazzy, reflective, melancholy etc etc late night slot on your playlist but like me need it to still have some real aftertaste then this is a highly recommended addition..

I played the bass on this one but I'm going to write about it as if I hadn't, because that's a lot easier. Plus, it's not like I wrote any of it. Which isn't a disclaimer, by the way. See? It's not easy writing about stuff you've played on. Particularly when the rest of the band might read it.

So (adopts neutral tone)... This album has already created a wee bit of a stir, picking up some very favourable reviews and airplay since its initial CD release in 2010.

Though the name Clang Sayne applies to any number of collaborative projects involving singer and guitarist Laura Hyland, Winterlands was recorded by a quartet that had worked pretty intensively together.

Clang Sayne's music has often been termed 'avant folk', but it's not really on the money as a description. Someone once described it as 'AMM meets Joni Mitchell', which Laura hated, but at least iit's more specific.

Her songs are deceptively complex, their melodies picked out by her nimbly intricate acoustic guitar and lithe, expressive singing. Meanwhile bass, drums and guitar create a restless, swooping backdrop of drones, soft, clicking pulses and nautical clanging (6th form poetry alert), some of which is more or less scored, some entirely improvised.

There is a distinctly nautical feel to the whole album (see 'Brigantine' and 'Shipwrecks' for the most obvious examples), but it's not all drift; a couple of tunes threaten to rock out and James O' Sullivan's electric guitar often gets feral and nasty.

Some songs are barely songs at all in the usual sense or are put together, while others flirt with more conventional forms. Comparisons have been made to people like Tim Buckley, late Talk Talk and Sandy Denny, but they're really not on the money either.

(Abandons neutral tone) listening now after a long while and so having a bit of distance from it, it does feel like we got something quite special for about 70% of the record. Which isn't a bad hit rate. And that the songs we were working with were all pretty special.

Anyway enough of my yakkin', as Marty Di Bergi would say. Have a listen.