![]() "Eventually, I stopped writing the music I thought people would want to hear, and started writing the music I wanted to make. Kenny focused on learning as much about the craft as he could whilst winging his way through recording and mixing everyone from the likes of singer/songwriters to bands, to voiceovers artists and anything in between. I literally had no idea how to work any of the equipment. Kenny figured the best way to move forward was to start a small project studio and learn his craft as a recording engineer. That left me with this hanging sense of ambiguity as to what would happen in that hour after the titles came up.”Įxposure to a work colleague’s tiny project studio in a kitchen cupboard was a lightbulb moment for him and the experience of utilising music technology as a way of writing and producing entire tracks stirred a wave of determination to chase a career in music using the opportunities that technology could offer. My mother would let me stay up to watch the opening sequence of the latter then send me to bed because the story would be too heavy for a kid. From the family orientated stuff like The A-Team, to darker dramas such as The Equalizer. "I loved the pre-title music on a lot of those 80's U.S. ![]() Undoubtedly one of the albums of the year.Born in 1975, Kenny didn't listen to much music, unless it was the opening credits to a TV show or a film score that had caught his ear. On this form, they might yet find the space among the clouds that their music deserves. Lauded by those in the know, overlooked by far too many others, Alpha remain one of those bands who should be talked about alongside their more celebrated Bristolian cousins, Massive Attack and Portishead. It is probably Alpha’s finest moment to date. Over a chilling metronomic beat, an almost dismembered vocal relates a weird tale of the everyday lives of free-spirited forest dwelling folk. Without Walls is an even more haunted affair. Rarely has analog noise been so moving, so utterly human. It sits in the same giant chair as the majestic horrorshow of the excellent The KVB. Loving Nobody starts as if it has been snatched from the Donnie Darko soundtrack and builds into what feels like an endless crescendo of rapturous drone-like electronic fuzz. Both are blessed with enough wide-screen presence to hold up an entire movie. Nowhere is this more impressively realised than on the title track itself and the truly outstanding Without Walls. Traditional futurism, you could call it, if you really want to. There’s drums too, loose wristed and offbeat. Slabs of synth orchestration combine with all manner of fractured sci-fi fiddling that makes every second of the hour plus running time a captivating one. Now relocated somewhere deep in the French countryside, Alpha mainman Corin Dingley has spent a Scott Walker-esque seven years crafting Loving Nobody and it is well worth the wait.ĭarker and more noirish than the woozy 2am Bacharach feel they are often associated with, the new sound is both heavier and more inventive. But almost twenty years after they became the first signing on Massive Attack’s Melankolic label, they remain on the periphery of European electronica when they really should be right at the centre of its gently pulsing synthetic heart. The genre, if it was ever actually a genre, has long been consigned to history, along with Goa Trance and speedcore.Īlpha, of course, were never trip-hop. ![]() ‘Life can be tough if you live in the shadow of what used to be known as trip-hop. This album blows all the downtempo albums that I have out of the damn water.
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