HONG KONG IN THE 60s Collision/Detection v4

This EP is the fourth in a series from “experimental collaborators” Long Division With Remainders which invited artists to contribute “audio clips into a central pot which is then distributed around the group...to do as they see fit”. I’m not sure which sonic cards Hong Kong In The 60s were dealt as part of Collision/Detection but the result is close to their regular avant-retro-lounge-pop aesthetic (or “Saint Etienne relaxing under cherry blossoms” as it has been magnificently described).


The London/Cambridge trio - Christopher Greenberg, Mei Yau Kan and Tim Scullion – open the four-track digital release with the clicking of machinery and space station console bleeps. Then ‘The Ungrateful Root’ shifts through organ swells and slowly beaten drum into what Sean O’Hagan fronting early Broadcast on Space 1999 might have sounded like. Instrumental ‘Into The Forest Of Eyes’ is a more gentle meander through said arboreal explorations but keeps the sense of space adventure wonder close by with its future-lounge astral atmospherics. The other vocal track ‘Banbury Grove’ combines eerie rattling of pots and pans, drum machine click-and-pulse with a 60s sunshine pop feel, making electronica sound wonderfully human. Closing song ‘The Clearing’ is all quivering ambience, an instrumental hovering in a still point which could equally be the earthbound natural world or far out in deep space.

Previous releases from the Collision/Detection project have come from The Psychological Strategy Board, West Norwood Cassette Library and The Lord and have tended towards more esoteric sound collage sparseness. With version 4, Hong Kong In The 60s’ mixture of friendly pop and experimental tendencies provide a great introductory point to journey forwards or backwards in the series (still to come Sone Institute, The Doomed Bird of Providence, Kemper Norton and more).



Hong Kong In The 60s Collision/Detection v4 [BUY]