Spunkle - Music For DXing

(First Fold Records, 2011)

Spunkle is the musical moniker of James Davies who, since 1997, has been making music that has not always been easy for writers to describe. Since debuting on Shifty Disco’s singles club with a tape of music created using an old Amiga computer, Spunkle has sporadically performed live and released a few things here and there. Music for DXing was originally informally released to friends and fans back in 2003, but is now getting a proper release on First Fold Music.

DXing, for those unaware, is the hobby of tuning in to distant radio or television signals and attempting to identify them. Enthusiasts often try to make contact with other signals using two-way radios. It’s worth noting that “DX” is telegraphic shorthand for distant. This unusual pastime seems like a solitary affair; one that will occasionally lead to brief contact with something familiar before it gets lost again in a sea of white noise and foreign, alien sounds.

Spunkle somehow manages to create an album that captures the hermetic sense of isolation that the hobby of DXing superficially seems to suggest. A series of cyclical melodies are combined with the sounds of the hobby (ie. radio static) and the results are strangely infectious. During my first, skimmed listen, I never imagined that the songs would distinguish themselves from one another – but slowly, enchantingly they did, and each one revealed its own unique charm. The songs are like musical sprites, each enticing you with its own brand of mischief and otherworldly sweetness.

For example ‘Dass Beeble’ is an intensely sad, lonely song but has an inherent beauty that needs not adorn itself with superfluous instrumentation; a simple, looping keyboard melody is accompanied by the ever-present radio hum in gorgeous inertia. ‘Eastern Interval’ evokes a sense of warped nostalgia – like watching an alternate version of one of your cherished memories. The centrepieces ‘In Search of XPH’ and ‘Jabba’ sound like you’ve accidentally tuned into a radio station from another planet, and it’s broadcasting 8-bit music from an old video game through a distortion pedal. Album closer ‘Wax Paper Capacitor’ is warm and content, perhaps representing a DXer (DXee?) arriving at DX Nirvana.

Of course it is possible to hear influences in Spunkle’s music; ‘OTH’ has a bit of Kid A-era Radiohead about it, and fans of electronic music will be able to pick out the odd nod to artists like Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares. ‘Russian Man’ is dynamic and familiar enough that a remixed version of the song could easily become a club-banger, and there are one or two drum and bass moments scattered throughout the album as well. But for the most part, Spunkle forges his own brand of electronic weirdness, and for an album lacking in conventional percussion it manages to maintain a sense of momentum. The plucky quality of the artificial sounds on the album creates the illusion of bass and rhythm so well that there is genuinely no need for drums or bass. ‘Interlocking Groove’ is a treat of, well, interlocking grooves. But it’s the radio sounds that make the record so compelling. I tried to imagine the repetitive guitar slides of ‘Sweeping’ without the radio ambience, and it lost something indescribable.

Spunkle caught me in just the right frame of mind (having just reviewed a prog-metal CD) to have the best possible effect on me. If you’re too energized, you’ll find the album too slow and uneventful; if you’re too lethargic, it will lull you off to sleep. Basically, you’ll have to listen to it when you’re in the mood for some Spunkle, and that could be a pretty rare occurrence. Songs such as ‘Slow’ will irritate you if you’re not in the mood for them – the Morse-code blips will make you feel like some unpleasant message is being covertly transmitted into your poor brain.

There’s really no point dissecting an album like this, or trying to distinguish which are the best tracks, because there are no actual songs, and it seems to have been designed to be enjoyed as a whole. At 16 tracks in length, it could obviously do with a little editing, but even the tracks that are less showy or memorable than others serve at least a cohesive purpose, holding the album together. Of course, not everyone is going to think of this album as a series of magical musical sprites like I do – it’s an album that you need to experience on your own and either fall in love with or dismiss. A genuine oddity, but the kind we love to come across.

[Originally published on Musicinoxford.co.uk, 06/06/2011]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2011/06/06/spunkle-music-for-dxing-first-fold-records/