The urge to pack it all in, sell up and move elsewhere is very strong at the moment. I don't think it's realistic and it's probably not wise to make big, life- changing decisions at this point but the pull of just being somewhere else is enormous from time to time- somewhere overlooking the sea in North Wales maybe or south west Scotland. Or Portugal. There are lots of things about Manchester I'd miss but right now the idea of going somewhere else and starting again is attractive.
This album, released in the middle of January, has a good claim to be 2022's first solid gold long player. Hypernatural are from Melbourne, Australia (and include Dan Whitford from Cut Copy who have been posted here before when they had the good fortune to be remixed by Mr Weatherall. In Hypernatural he's joined by Mirko Vogel and Mike Gamwell). Hypernatural is an electronic album, twinkling arpeggios, drums pads, warm, wobbly synth sounds, percussion, ambient and found sounds with widescreen dance music production. Balearic and ambient and something else too. The trio that made it pieced the tracks together from trips abroad, to Sweden and to Scotland, visiting coasts and highlands, writing music that was inspired by the views and the surroundings. The urban world they came from is in there too though- this isn't all pastoral idylls but late night stop offs in service stations and getting home at dawn after dancing all night.
