Ian Griffiths.
Ian was the founder and sole constant member of kult kosmische rockers Kontakte. Following the untimely death in 2020 of his band-mate Stuart Low, Ian released the band’s final recordings last year. You can read all about the painstaking and often painful process here. Below, Ian guest reviews Hidden View, the new LP by Leaving.
Hidden View – could be considered more a case of what’s hidden in plain sight. Let us set the scene for you.
A pleasant afternoon’s easy listening goes awry
What opens with an immediately nostalgic and somewhat comforting Casio-driven bossa nova drumbeat, the imagination draws us a picture of the perfectly suburban 2.4 family sitting around the inherited Bontempi organ for a regular Saturday evening singalong. There are smiles all round. The kids are sitting on the floor, full of lemon barley water; anticipating Dad’s organ-playing virtuosity… Mum’s thinking about needing to get the dinner ready. The opening salvo chords to Tilted View are inviting and pleasant enough, but perplexing somehow… what’s happening here… it sounds wrong.
This isn’t Dad’s normal choice of song to play. This is not his normal jolly rendition of A Swingin’ Safari!
The decayed bassline keys begin to introduce themselves in a particularly ominous fashion and the atmosphere instantly changes. Dad turns to his family. A loving gaze becomes a vacant stare. The smile morphs into a snarl and before we reach the overarching insidious lead melody of Dad’s new tune. He’s gone and thrown a full box of spanners into the works by unleashing his inner John Carpenter. Much to both mother’s and the children’s sudden horror, this family’s little jamboree is not going as planned.
A video nasty soundtrack?
The Leaving LP comes on like a lost soundtrack to an early 80s ‘banned straight-to-pirate VHS’ psycho-horror-slasher-flick. Hidden View, the second LP by Leaving, aka Rupert Thomas, hits the cortex with a deadly fervour and a cranked-up level of tension.
It’s as though Jason, Freddy, and Pinhead themselves had decided to torment the unruly and hormonally volatile teenagers. They had planned to dismember them, but had instead formed an electronica trio to bore their insidious way into their victims’ minds by creating the kind of music delivered on this eight-track, perfectly formed delight.
This is the kind of album Mary Whitehouse forgot to warn us about while she was fussing about those punk kids. After only a handful of listens it has crawled under my skin and is causing a level of irrational fear.
Essentially, the brooding mono-synth-esque tones of Hidden View would perfectly soundtrack a lone walk through the streets of Haddonfield. Or a late-night skinny dip at Camp Crystal Lake if you were either brave or daft enough to attempt it.
So, what on earth does the Hidden View sound like then?
Take the track ‘Journey’. Imagine Kraftwerk performing as a Valium-induced Slipknot rather than rocking out as the benign robots we’ve come to love.
‘Hidden Dreams’ – conjures memories of Satan’s Circus-era Death in Vegas. That is, if they were necking downers instead of a trunk load of uppers at the time. Further menace is played out on the almost groove-laden ‘A Fractured Shell’ with its teasing promise and reveal that… yes, you are being followed right now. ‘Mirrored Feeling’ continues this trend, raising the tension further with its call-and-response-like melody entwining. It makes me think of the fear of the chase. That time, when in a deep dream, you realise that running is futile. There’s just no way out but to hope to wake up.
The spirit of John Carpenter
While it certainly seems clear what Rupert (one half of Australian synth-drone duo Erasers) was no doubt getting his kicks from while growing up – the spirit of the already-mentioned John Carpenter is a key reference for anyone not put off so far. The haunting and subtle overtures of such classic soundtracks as Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, and Escape From New York, as well as the more recently released ‘Lost Themes’ series, all pulse their influence throughout this album, but thankfully not in an overly pastiche way. There is plenty of inventive production going on here to keep the listener fully engaged.
Hidden View would fit perfectly into anyone’s music collection that contains such electro-flagbearers as Cluster/ Harmonia, Cabaret Voltaire, and DAF. The deft use of retro sounds with modern tech and trickery stirs up memories of Add N to X and Aphex Twin at his most tripped out.
While, to this listener, a nod is directed towards the incredible 2019 output ‘A Year Of Wreckage’ from the all-out titans of contemporary electronic brilliance, 65daysofstatic.
Conclusion
The crux relies on the deft weaving of widescreen electronics and simple but often claustrophobic melodies. Thomas creates a sound that is as mesmerisingly absorbing as it is incapacitating-ly intense and… well, sometimes (just for kicks) downright bloody scary.
Hidden View by Leaving is out now via Moon Glyph (here) and Pouring Dream (here).
