The Humble Bee

Craig Tattersall (The Boats/Cotton Goods) rustles up a second LP of cracked midnight ambience and spectral electro-acoustic details as The Humble Bee for Other Ideas. For the first time on 'She Possessed The Secret For Listening To The Stars', Tattersall augments his usual palette of tape loops and electronics with the addition of analogue synthesiser and Girogio Sancristoforo's Berna studio software - a software simulation of a late 1950s electro acoustic music studio complete with oscillators, tape recorders and matrix mixer - to add soft flesh to the skeletal bones of his wizened, wistful sketches. For anyone familiar with Craig's work, it's as though he's just figured out the focus button on his ear's lens, rending a tangibly deeper field of view where we can pick out globular bass shapes, plonging blips and ricocheting percussion swirling behind the patina of fuzz and frayed melodies. At times it even borders on minimal techno, but worry not, responsible listeners, it's a cup of horlicks compared with the relative double espresso of former Hood band-mate Andrew Johnson's A New Line (Related) project. Simply, Craig's melancholy 2D world has just found a whole new dimension, and it's a place we'd imagine many of you want to visit.