Nina Walsh continues to rifle through the recordings of the Woodleigh Research Facility, the prolific musical project that she founded alongside Andrew Weatherall. In the spotlight this time out is the equally labyrinth-like archive of Nina’s late partner, Erick Legrand. Nicknamed The Akashic Library of Sound, the W.R.F. frequently plundered this source for unique samples and loops, to the extent that Legrand could be considered the outfit’s third member. 

Hidden Watchers Part 1 is built about a Korg MS20 kick. The machine’s muted tribal tom tom drives the track’s slow, ceremonial march. A percussive panting, Laurie Anderson / O Superman-like punctuates its progress, while sighing, rising and falling, strings from the main melodic focus. Details are dubwise, twisted and treated, and the emotions evoked echo Sabres Of Paradise’s Smokebelch. Reflective but forward facing. Wounded by undefeated. Ready to go the next round. Hidden Watchers Part 2 fixes elephant-roar fanfares to percolating programmed percussion, and cascades of computerised hand-claps. Rattly Old Puffin rides a TR-808, tumbling drums and big piano chords, but what defines it is Erick’s backwards guitar. His blues-y fuzzbox buzzsaw riffing. Showered with spring reverb thunder and lightning, and with sonar signals deep in the mix, shades of 13th Floor Elevators psyche are also filtered through its swampy, silicon chip funk. The combination conjuring the kind of crossroads where deals for 6-string dexterity are done with the devil. Running some distorted voodoo down, like a levee-breaking electro Led Zeppelin. 

Woodleigh Research Facility’s Apparently Solo Volume 5 is out now via Bandcamp.