50 year old Foster Neville is catching his breath as his new double album The Edge of Destruction is making ambient sound waves in Japan via Durham, Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Australia and the USA.

Originally from Consett, Foster has always been a big fan of German electronic band Kraftwerk, but started off as a singer/songwriter in a punk band in the 1980s.

While the music on the new album is mostly electronic, Foster’s starting point for all of the tracks was simple piano improvisation.

He explained “I manipulated these sketchy jazz-like improvisations using aural patterns taken from poetry and architecture. Once they were in the bag, I re-recorded them using electronic treatments.”

“Ambient music is about a different kind of listening, it has to be taken at another pace and is perhaps more suitable to our lives today and the problems we face”.

“I like to think of it as ‘green’ music – sound structures with plenty of space for sunlight or moonlight to percolate through. Thanks to the internet this sort of music is finding an audience everywhere in the world” added Foster whose music and lyrics are inspired by the landscape around him.

“It’s a northern landscape, often reclaimed from, and bearing the scars of, heavy industry and pollution”.

“The opening track, ‘A Change in the Air’ alerts the listener to the threats hidden in idyllic rural scenes and draws on my own childhood memories of playing out after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.”

The title track, The Edge of Destruction, features a girl’s voice counting down in Chinese to imminent disaster before safety is reached in the album’s remaining tracks.

The double vinyl also has a hidden song, which is a homage to the late electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, who is best known for her version of the Doctor Who theme.

“I went from living in a former mining village to curating art in galleries in the West End of London and at Durham Uni was a founder of one of the largest collections of modern art in any UK university”.

“During this time I became friends with the Maharaja of Baroda Shrimant Ranjitsinh, who was to prove an important spiritual and musical influence. It was ultimately through Ranjit that I re-engaged with music-making on my own terms.” 

On the new album Foster teamed up with producer John Pilgrim, one of the founders of the folk horror revival movement.

“The folk horror movement celebrates British movies with a connection to rural traditions and folklore, like The Wicker Man and The Blood on Satan’s Claw”.

Foster continued “As an undergraduate at Oxford, I was taught poetry by Seamus Heaney. While dropping out of academia, all of my experience in life provides the album with a literate and artistic background”.

The Edge of Destruction is released on SubExotic Records and distributed through among others, the legendary Rough Trade label. The eleven-song discs plus hidden track are on sale in major record stockists in the UK.

Alikivi  June 2023

The Edge Of Destruction | Foster Neville | Subexotic Records (bandcamp.com) 

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/foster-neville/the-edge-of-destruction