On our radar for closer inspection sometime this week, the hugely anticipated and dare I say, much looked forward sonic event that is ‘Akiha Den Den’. Out just now through Castles in Space on limited appearance, ‘Akiha Den Den’ comes pressed up on opaque clear wax and includes an additional CD featuring over 70 minutes of soundscapes. The sounds composed by Simon James were commissioned for a radio drama written by Neil Cargill. Utilising old school analogue electronics and with a liberal nod to the celebrated BBC Radiophonic Workshop, both the radio drama and the accompanying soundtrack pair together sublimely echoing to a golden era where radio provided the main entertainment, here both the power of the word, the sonic atmospherics engage in a uniquely eerie source of suggestion giving rise to flights of fantasy within the listeners imagination as a result forging a direct conversation and an intimacy whose effect is still more potent than the visual medium. For now, sit back, listen and lose yourself in the mystery, the macabre and the magic of this brief twelve-minute voyage into the shadows of the past.
