I See All And I See Nothing

Back in October I wrote about a new Justin Robertson project, Five Green Moons, a weirdly wonderful track called One Little Moon which I said had a feel of The Wicker Man meets King Tubbys Uptown, pagan/ folk spliced with post punk dub. Since the album arrived it's had a lot of play on my stereo, eleven slices of Justin's current sound served up in a way that builds on what he's been doing at virous places in the last few years- his novel The Tangle, some of the dubbings he's put out at his Bandcamp page, the Deadstock 33s EP on Pamela earlier this year, and the sounds and feel on the track he gave us for Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Vol. 1, Curtains Twitch On Peaks. Justin knows his stuff- he reads, he paints, he understands where things come from, and Five Green Moons album Moon 1 fits within this demi- world he's sketching out. 

The album opens with some percussive noises, the Space Echo FX unit kicking into life and a distorted PiL bassline bumping into earshot. Several disembodied voices flit in and out of the mix. A detuned guitar line cuts in. The bassline keeps repeating itself. The sound of the ancient, weird, folklore version of the English countryside- not the one the tourists see with Cotswold stone and green and pleasant fields but something darker- hedgerows, thorns, a foreboding cottage in the valley with one light flickering in a dirty window. Strange goings on.  

Tiny Spiral Loom rattles around, the speakers vibrating, guitars and bass running against each other as hi hats hiss. On Dark Wing Soundwave he channels the urban dub that his friend Andrew Weatherall found in Sabres Of Paradise, repetition and basslines combining with acres of space. I See All And I See Nothing is a little lighter, the clouds clearing at least for a while, the bass and percussion gliding and Justin's echo- laden guitars more beatific. 

There are echoes all over Moon 1 and the sounds conjure all sorts of memories too, things happening just of earshot. What did that voice say? What was that? Have I been here before? Memories, echoes, questions. 

Flip the album over and Song Of Dust splutters into life, insistent, stuttering rhythms building and a horn playing an off kilter melody. Another voice, speaking lines of verse about jealous gods and effigies. 

Spider Dub follows, another huge Sabres- esque bassline, organ, the hiss of a steam engine, a slowed down 1950s guitar line fed through a valve amp, all pushed along with the propulsion of PiL circa Metal Box. There's more to follow. In The Emptiness could be a dubbed out children's TV theme tune.  Materials Made From The Blood is wonky, pastoral psychedelia, encountered in a wooden village hall you wandered into accidentally when taking shelter from the elements. Justin's voice returns, intoning esoteric lines. Everything's A Song In A Sound World is beamed in from the dystopian discotheque. Final track Cracked Cloud Before War enters gently, synths and a calming rising and falling bass, massively distorted horns (maybe?) playing a distant haunted dancehall melody. Moon 1 is a self contained album/ world, a moon in its own orbit, the old woodland gods and vanishing 19th century folklore rubbing up against Studio 1 bass, a folked up, pagan dub soundtrack for late 2024.