One element of the British music culture I’ve always appreciated is their desire to further a dynamic aesthetic, exploring other cultures and foreign systems. Wave and punk groups like Talk Talk, Eyeless in Gaza, This Heat, Japan, Tears for Fears and Normil Hawaiians developed complex identities, striving for music that functioned on a purely emotional level. On the other side of the fence, experimental groups such as Coil, Current 93, Nurse with Wound and Ramleh, spawned from the Industrial scene, but soon turned to the search of spiritual qualities in sound. Their influences were made up of Crowley, Bowie, Blake, Joyce, Lennon – esoteric and strange minds who functioned as gateways to other art forms and unknown places.
A lot of this has to do with the decline of an empire – the dissolution of modern infrastructures and mystical dreams of ancient societies, framed within the urban science fiction of JG Ballard’s semantics and art-school academia. By the 90s, the neighbourhoods had changed. Britpop rejected mysticism for the most part: outside of the lurid romanticism of Suede, most of the contemporaries were inclined to focus on an ironic, diaristic tone. By the start of the 2000s, suburban nostalgia scrapped irony for moral tales among steel and glass giants – Maximo Park, Bloc Party and The Rakes were genuine in their social criticism, but also helplessly caught up in the binary between bedroom and disco.
One of the few exceptions to this rule were the iconoclastic These New Puritans. Interpreted as competitors to Klaxons and Late of the Pier, the quartet combined post-punk, grime, garage and Krautrock into a caustic, alien experience. They soon became embroiled with the fashion world, collaborated with sound effect specialists. When I talked to the band for the release of their second album Hidden, they told me enthusiastically how they hammered melons to replicate the sound of skulls being crushed, and their desire to hire a female Jazz singer for future projects. They had more in common with Liars than any of the British scene at the time.
In only six years, they matured to release their ambient-punk masterpiece Field of Reeds, a distant sibling to Talk Talk’s jazzy Laughing Stock. Reduced to the core duo of twin brothers Jack and George Barnett, the group only released a single album in the following decade: the underrated and sophisticated Inside the Rose, which combined all their previous interests – jazz, dance, ambient, punk, classical, rap – into a fully embodied gestalt. Dropping in 2019, it still sounds ahead of its time, with the world vast asleep to its genius.
Now, a startling six years later, the duo returns with their fifth album, a clerical project that is self-financed and hosts a large list of collaborators. The most spiritually situated and pastoral of their releases, Crooked Wing remains the most elusive work of the brothers to date. It is equal parts gorgeous and oddly sacral – more Sigur Rós and Dead Can Dance than Burial or Radiohead. Many of the compositions focus on organ, piano, choir and bells, to a point where they could pass as neo-classical.
This works well for the longer compositions, such as “Bells” and “Goodnight”, but it also reveals a surprisingly translucent structure. Sometimes, the songs just seem to flow quietly without leaving a discernible impact. Focus on the cyberpunk-infested, hammering “A Season in Hell”, and the following contrast to lead single “Industrial Love Song”. Featuring the great Caroline Polachek, the quiet ballad lacks an impactful climax, functioning as a brief tone poem. It’s not a bad song by any means, but it never transports the tension These New Puritans are masters conjuring out of thin air.
The melancholic “I’m Already Here” recalls David Sylvian’s solo work, but operates in a limited emotional spectrum where Sylvian manages to capture the warmth of autumnal sunsets. That lack of gravitas is especially strange considering how impactful These New Puritans used minimalism on Field of Reeds. Are these compositions meant to be so weightless? “The Old World” fares better at the approach, even if it seems too brief to let its many ideas bloom. Thankfully, when the duo aim for cavernous futurism, they still sound fantastic. “Wild Fields” is eerie, haunted by echoing ghost beats, recalling the images of Blade Runner 2049, while the title track seems situated in an underground mega-cathedral, all echoing organ and tribal drums. The most significant song of the set, the beautiful “Goodnight”, is also the most adventurous, exploring multiple melodies and atmospheres in a way not unlike Kate Bush’s most thrilling album, The Dreaming, finally settling on a wonderful jazz section for its finale.
Crooked Wing proves once more that the Barnett brothers are masters at sound design, composition and mood music. The record sounds fantastic, the instrumental performances are soulful and dynamic – all this conjures an aura of sensual mystique. This aligns with vocalist Jack Barnett’s lyricism, which veers on magical realism, such as when on “Industrial Love Song”, two cranes on a building site are doomed to never touch, hoping their shadows overlap by sunrise. His blossoming writing has always been sophisticated and razor sharp, but I think he might have flowered here. Almost every line is a standout, such as this part of “Wild Fields”: “We’re purified with blissful lies / Running in the lion’s eye / I’ll drape your mouth in every town / With liquorice and violence.”
Yet there are few songs here that reach the band’s most incredible work of the past. As an album, it never feels like a major work, but a transitory interlude between, a journey to other places. It’s unmistakably a work of British perspective that looks outwards, furthering beyond the profane to reach a sacred secret. But the whispered notions and mystical observations remain obscured, the voices from beyond the waves resembling images from dreams, which – hours later – are fragile and cannot be grasped. The Barnetts are sophisticated enough to never make these recollections seem as awkward as the notes in dream journals, but they lack a pivotal cosmology that turns these compositions into startling geometry of bliss. Ambitious and heartfelt, Crooked Wing might have needed more time – or anger – to fully reveal qualities we manage to briefly glimpse only.
