Craven Faults

Craven Faults - Springhead Works
Lowfold Works. 12”/DL

Craven Faults - Netherfield Works
Lowfold Works. 12”/DL


Once in a while I’ll check out the Norman Records website to see if I can be induced into going wild with the Paypal shekels. More often than not I manage to keep a hold of them what with most of whats on offer being reissues I originally bought thirty years ago and still have, or new stuff by people I don’t really care about. The main reason I don’t buy anything is usually down to me being in a continual ‘can’t be arsed buying new music’ mood. I’m in one of those ‘can’t be arsed buying new music mood’ phases at the moment. A lack of time, a lack of space [I don’t buy digital ya numpty] a feeling of buying something just to listen to it a couple of times before putting it in the rack with the rest of the stuff.

The last time I went to see Norman I came face to face with the Craven Faults release ‘Springhead Works’ and below it a Youtube video of ‘Intakes’ which is one of the two tracks on it. The magical words ‘pulsating vintage synth to soundtrack journeys across the post industrial landscapes of West Yorkshire’ roused me from my normal lethargy and had me sat ramrod straight. That bleak, black and white cover image, the minimalist design. I went all nostalgic for walks up Stoodly Pike and Greetland. I clicked ‘play’ thinking I’ll give it five minutes and twenty minutes later I’d bought both records and have been playing them almost constantly ever since.

Being a sucker for vintage synths and having an interest in anything of such a musical nature coming from the environs of West Yorkshire my interest was of course piqued. While waiting for the records to arrive [very promptly and well packed by Norman as ever - I do recommend them] I went searching for more information but came back a frustrated empty handed person. The Craven Faults website is a single page with a subscription box. No joy there. Norman talks about ‘a cloaked Yorkshire based producer’ which I’m guessing doesn’t mean the person involved goes around dressed like Batman. So at least they know a little something. Which is more than me and more than any internet search engine you care to mention. I did find an interview with the cloaked Yorkshire based producer where he/she talks about their instrumentation and how its all put together but when the talk turns to gates and sequencers and LFO’s and envelopes I’m soon fast asleep. I know the synth world is a nerdy one but for the listener it doesn’t have to be. Just put the record on, sit back and prepare to enter a world created by machines. Everything else is superfluous. 

These four sides [all one track apiece] are the spiritual home of Michael Hoenig, Klaus Schulze, Edgar Froese, mini symphonies of a classical synth nature where the sounds are introduced to other sounds to compliment and augment before either leaving the fray or bolstering it. My favourite track of the four is the one I first listened to with Norman; ‘Intakes’ from ‘Springhead Works’. On its first hearing I was wondering whether its gentle beat would morph into something wilder or drums would be introduced spoiling the whole thing and leading me back to my Fred Dibnah videos on Youtube but no. I was gripped. I was swayed. I was swooned and intoxicated. I was carried away on a cloud of synth bliss where far below I could see paler synth dabblers making not much but humdrum weak and insipid, easily forgotten synth music. I was in synth heaven. I was taken back to the days of my youth when the intro to Chicory Tips ‘Son of My Father’ rattled my very bones [only much later did I find out that this was a Moroder composition] and where Jean-Michel Jarre and Tomtia could be heard on daytime radio. Not that Craven Faults have that much in common with any of that lot.

‘Eller Ghyll’ from the earlier ‘Netherfield Works’ release is a bubbling sequencer feed, ‘Tenter Ground’ from the flip is Neu! after spending a month in Macclesfield, a brooding composition with a slinky bass guitar straight out of the Hook Book. Think grim tower blocks, burnt out cars and grubby kids in star jumpers playing out in their mothers court shoes, something makes a Roxy Music like sax solo except its not a sax and maybe a sampled sax, Philip Glass like two note fills filter through but always that doom laden bass. The more recent ‘Springfield Works’ is where the sound becomes purer and with it the glory of the head bobbing, driving, pulsing ‘Intakes’ and lastly ‘Ings’ with its foreboding ur-stomp over those bleak, heavy clouded moors.    

All four tracks, all four sides of these two records have rekindled my love of synth and the glory of sound itself. I look on these two records not so much as records but as children I never had. Thank you Craven Faults. Thank you Norman.
   
Bandcamp

http://cravenfaults.com/

Interview