Marconi Union: Dead Air review

I suspect that most people who have heard of Marconi Union first heard of them when one of their earlier tracks, Weightless (2012), was declared 'the most relaxing music of all'; my ears, though, were opened by the band's 2016 album, Ghost Stations, which is glorious. Dead Air, however, isn't like those previous masterpieces. 

I loved Ghost Stations for a variety of reasons, not all of them musical. For example, the idea of ghost stations, places that the train passes through but where no-one gets on or off, is a real part of my own personal history. Firstly there is the classic poem, Adlestrop, by Edward Thomas, that describes such a station; but, as a Londoner, I know that there are ghost stations on the underground. I always found passing through those stations fascinating. And of course train rhythms are in my blood. But then I also loved the drums on that album, which in places thunder and motor like a track from African deep House. Naturally, I began looking forward to MU's next release. 

In the interim, the band released live remixes of Tokyo, which I rather liked, but Dead Air is the first proper album since Ghost Stations.

Was it worth the wait? Yes, it's a gem. But... there are no drums. 

This new album resonates in different ways and hooks into different memories. There are a few train rhythms, yes, but mostly Dead Air reminds me of Bowie's Berlin work with Eno, especially side 2 of Heroes. Overall, it's a pastoral cityscape, a kind of urban ghostland, one where you can explore inner-city shopping malls when everyone has gone home. Dead Air is moody, brooding and deeply satisfying; but there are no drums. 

Chems Play Beatles

Listening for the umpteenth time to the Chemical Brothers' magnificent return to form, 2010's Forward, it finally clicked where all the trippiness was coming from -- not so much from allusions to Private Psychedelic Reel, but the Beatles' work circa 1967. Specifically, sections of Forward are reminiscent of the Fab's Strawberry Fields-Sgt Pepper-Baby, you're a rich man-Magical Mystery Tour period. This is apparent from as early as Forward's track 2, Escape Velocity: in this song there's even an upward-scaling chord crescendo that sounds so like A day in the life that at one point I began thinking of Radio London's Final Hour broadcast (A day in the life was the last track played by that pirate station).

But it's not just that crescendo. It's the figuration, the sounds themselves, the swirling effects, and the abrupt shifts in the musical textures the Chems have fashioned here. This album, not those of  E.L.O, is the culmination of I am the Walrus's and Blue Jay Way's legacy. The Beatles, of course, made trippiness a mass phenomenon, so evoking that period makes a lot of sense. On track 4, Dissolve, the trippy elements are there at the beginning, but then there's the refrain, Caroline, Caroline. At first I assumed it was a reference to a girl. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe it's a reference (even if unconscious) to the other big pirate station of 1967, Radio Caroline?