Sold Date: August 21, 2022
Start Date: July 21, 2022
Final Price: £17.99 (GBP)
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A FAREWELL TO HEXES: Rendlesham NEW ltd LP Polytechnic Youth

Year of Release: 2022

Label: Polytechnic Youth

Info: Brand new LP, limited edition of 250 with hand numbered insert

Info: Press Release:

A Farewell to Hexes is one of a number of pseudonym / side projects of Adam Leonard who has quietly – and noisily – tinkered at the edges of eccentric English folk, electronic music, and more recently garage art-rock with Invaderband, (issuing a plethora of original music to critical acclaim via highly regarded boutique labels such as The Great Pop Supplement, Northwestern Recordings, Tectona Grandis, Polytechnic Youth, Castles In Space, Bibliotapes and TDO Cassettes) attaining a ‘Northern Ireland Music Prize’ nomination in the process.

The “Rendlesham” LP is an incredible record of often eerie, Radiophonic workshop-esque electronics and the story behind it is equally momentous. The events across two nights December 25 & 26 1980 in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, have gone down in history; nowadays often dubbed the UK’s most famous UFO incident or “Britain’s Roswell”.

While Adam himself reveals more to the story below, artist and label strongly urge you to further investigate, it’s an incredible passage of events with long lasting repercussions to the present day.

Returning to the record here, and by way of introduction Adam himself says: “the album is an instrumental, electronic record, soundtracking arguably Britain's most remarkable UFO occurrence, from Suffolk 1980. Side 1 soundtracks the bizarre Christmas/Boxing Day case (which includes local Sergeant, Jim Penniston encountering and receiving a binary code from a "craft of unknown origin") and Side 2 which brings to life the curious events witnessed by Lt. Colonel Charles Halt and his team in the forest in the early hours of 28th December 1980, incorporating original micro-cassette recordings (‘The Halt Tape’) captured at the time.

The album ends with ‘Aftermath’, featuring the voice of Attorney Patrick Frascogna speaking at a 2011 U.S. court hearing attempting to gain access to Penniston, and colleague John Burroughs’ medical records (both airmen suffered life-threatening ailments after coming into contact with the “craft” in 1980).

The music on the record is intentionally redolent of British underground electronic music at the time of the Rendlesham Forest incident. For best results this album should be listened to in the dark with eyes closed. You will enter the forest...”

A wonderful record, released as a limited pressing of 250 in reversed board sleeves with accompanying insert, it is expected not to hang around long as it’s predecessor cassette release went within a day!

One of the last full length releases on Polytechnic Youth for awhile (bar a slew of killer upcoming 45s: Pye Corner Audio, Richard Formby | Spectrum etc etc), this one is killer. A mighty split wax LP featuring longterm PY favourites, Canadian GABE KNOX and the UK’s Pulselovers aka Pulsliebhaber here.

The Gabe Knox side collects a trio of hard-to-find rarities and ‘lost’ gems; kicking off with “Student Disco ‘81”, previously available on a limited Record Store Day 7”, it’s a sickly-sweet Krautrock inflected synthpop confection, with just enough bite to fill the dancefloors of a bygone era. The other two cuts, fan favourite “Carbon Bubble” and the ultra-rare “Cosmic Debris”, which amply showcases Knox’s more expansive, experimental-but-still-melodic side, made available for the first time on vinyl.

On the flip, Mat Handley’s Pulsliebhaber project was an exercise in super-fast recording with as little computer use as possible (for sequencing or processing). Although, as Mat explains “my keyboard playing skills are rudimentary (at best), first takes were used just about every time. Each of my seven tracks were written and recorded in a single session with not one of them taking more than a couple of hours to finish, some of them significantly less than 60 minutes. I think the original intention was to record a bunch of tracks and revisit them later, but after sending them to Dom PY it was agreed to release them as they are with just a little sheen provided by Jez Butler’s mastering.

So yes, some of the timings are shaky with the odd bum note here and there, but the process was very refreshing especially after spending five years each on the first two Pulselovers albums. Drums were all provided by Volca Beats and the Volca Kick (with maybe one appearance of the Drum Brute). Synths used were the MFB Dominion X, the Korg MS20 Mini and my trusty old Bass Station 2. Everything was fed through a variety of noisy guitar pedals and recorded either onto tape or directly into Audition, whilst titles were all selected from a half hour spent down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and mean absolutely nothing.

Thanks go to Gabe for agreeing to share this piece of plastic with me, to Jez for making my synth noodles (almost) presentable and especially to Dom for his enthusiasm and for giving us all Polytechnic Youth”

There you have it, a wonderful LP recommended to anyone into Sky Records, Kosmische, previous PY input of course and everything inbetween. Expected to sell out super quick….

Sleeve: Mint

Disc(s): Mint

If you have any further questions then please email me and i will do my best to answer.