EP Review: Antipole - Marble (2021)

I’ve been a bit quiet over the festive new-year period, but with it being a relatively Covid-free summer down here at the bottom of the world, I decided I needed to get out and about more, and spend a little less time slaving over a hot keyboard writing obscure blogposts.

So anyway, I’m just checking in to give a shout out to longtime blog favourites Antipole, and to note that the Anglo-Norwegian collective have released a new EP called Marble. It consists of four tracks, with the title track being a brand new foray into very familiar territory … that of guitar-led dark and dreamy melodic post-punk. 

Well, it is, and it isn’t. ‘Marble’ (the track) is all of that, sure, and yet another fine example of the fastidious attention to detail offered by Karl Morten Dahl, Eirene, and Paris Alexander when releasing work under the Antipole moniker. But I really couldn’t have anticipated just how well that same track would translate into a banging dance number under the guise of the Molchat Doma remix. (Molchat Doma being a Belarusian post-punk outfit). If the original is a retro-flavoured nod to the 80s, then the roots of the remix are firmly planted in the techno-drenched 90s. 

The remaining two tracks on the EP, ‘Narcissus’ and ‘Someday 45’ will already be familiar to Antipole fans, as both appeared - in different form - on Antipole’s stunning full-length debut Northern Flux back in 2017. ‘Narcissus’ gets the edit treatment, while the latter benefits from an extended mix. 

Have a listen and grab a download at Antipole's Bandcamp page:

Album Review: Antipole - Perspectives II (2020)

Antipole’s Perspectives II was released in early April, just a few weeks after the entire planet was forced into an unprecedented lockdown period thanks to the perils of Covid-19, and as the title would suggest, it’s a sister release to Perspectives (2018). 

But where Perspectives revisited and reconfigured Antipole work from the Northern Flux album (2017), Perspectives II offers up remix takes on the band’s 2019 album, Radial Glare. Well, more or less - there’s a couple of exceptions: ten of the eleven tracks from the source album feature, while a couple of additional tracks dig deeper into the band’s archives.

What is most important in all of this is that Perspectives II hits the same giddy high watermark established by all of the aforementioned releases, and like Radial Glare itself, its an intoxicating journey into melodic, hypnotic coldwave.

If I’ve been mildly critical of Antipole’s past work on account of it being a little too retro or derivative - see comparisons to Joy Division, The Cure, et al - or at least skirting around the periphery of such, one of the main benefits of these makeover releases or remix projects is the range of styles on offer. Some tunes are even darker than the source track, while others are more geared for the dancefloor. And all are less one dimensional than the originals simply because that’s the nature of remixes - multiple sets of eyes and ears are tasked with reconfiguring the material.

In the case of Perspectives II, extra gloss is lovingly added by the likes of ACTORS, Adam Tristar, Crying Vessel, European Ghost, The Coventry, and People Theatre, amongst others.

The ACTORS remix of ‘Decade Apart’ (below), which opens the album, is shaping up to be one of my favourite tracks of the year, while People Theatre’s crystalline synth transformation of ‘1983’ is surely attracting the attentions of darkwave club DJs everywhere.

Paris Alexander’s deft production hand was all over the original album, and it remains a feature here. Of the two non-Radial Glare tracks, Alexander adds some standalone love to ‘Please Let Me Sleep’, featuring Eirene, which harks back to Northern Flux, although I’m less sure about the origins of ‘Coral Joy’ (Caidas Libres Remix), which I suspect might actually be older than anything else found on Perspectives II.

Strongly recommended for fans of post-punk, darkwave, coldwave, shoegaze, synthpop, and everything else in between.

You can grab a copy of the album from Antipole’s Bandcamp page here.

Album Review: Antipole - Radial Glare (2019)

Following on from the 2017 album, Northern Flux, and the excellent 2018 remix project, Perspectives, blog favourites Antipole returned last month with another full-length effort, Radial Glare.

Antipole is Trondheim-based Karl Morten Dahl, along with regular co-conspirators, the Brighton-based producer Paris Alexander, and vocalist Eirene. Just like those previous releases, Radial Glare is an intoxicating journey into the netherworlds of dark melodic coldwave, only this time around, the vocal palate is expanded to include a couple of tracks featuring Marc Lewis, who may (or may not) be better known for his work with post-punk outfit, The Snake Corps.

Radial Glare consists of 11 tracks, clocking in at just a few ticks over 45 minutes, and it’s a thoroughly absorbing listen from start to finish, with Dahl’s signature guitar style and careful exploitation of repetition being key to the album’s wonderfully hypnotic flow and wider feel. 

Icy keys/glacial synths add depth and texture, every track dripping with a weighty darkness and brooding atmosphere, and naturally Eirene’s often ethereal vocal – both orthodox and when buried deeper in the mix – only adds to this general sense of unease. 

Much of Alexander and Dahl’s production work is quite remarkable, and there are moments which hint at references to the work of the great Martin Hannett (Joy Division, New Order, many others) for the way the music is allowed to breathe, its use of space, its uncluttered melancholic vibe, and the notion that quite often, less is actually more.

I won’t single out highlights because everything here exists as part of a greater whole, there’s no filler, and after many listens over the past fortnight or so, Radial Glare has truly taken on a life of its own.

Here’s 'Syndrome' featuring Paris Alexander:

Album Review: Antipole - Northern Flux (2017)

If there’s one thing I enjoy almost as much as I enjoy post-punk of a distinctly 1980s flavour, it’s post-punk of a distinctly 1980s flavour being performed by current day artists. Modern-day takes on a genre that simply refuses to go away quietly. The late 2017 Antipole album, Northern Flux, is just one recent example to capture my attention (and my affections).

I really don’t know very much about Antipole. Other than the fact that it’s the handle used by Norwegian Karl Morten Dahl (and friends) to spread the gospel according to the genre we call darkwave. Or goth, as it might once have been known. Even that feels like a rather cheap throwaway label to apply to Antipole’s art, but in truth, all of the album’s most obvious reference points stem directly from the dark post-punk minimalism of a bygone era. 

Northern Flux was on high rotation on my pod throughout the first half of 2018, after I stumbled across it on Bandcamp earlier this year. Each time I listened to it, I heard something new, yet also something from the past, and it really is a terrific example of an artist - or band, if you account for Dahl’s accomplices Paris Alexander and Eirene - successfully mining a formula from yester-year before adding a shiny new sheen. 

It’s a fairly simple formula. Well-worn and tested. Melodic guitar pop blended with icy synths to create music infused with atmosphere, texture, and layers of tension. See Joy Division and early Cure for the most obvious examples. But applying a formula, and doing it this well, are not always the same thing. 

There’s always the danger that any sequence of tunes which rely so heavily on the use of repetition - in this case, chord structure and a similarly hypnotic rhythm throughout - will ultimately result in an album which winds up being somewhat less than the full sum of its parts. There’s a risk that tracks tend to blend together as one, each fresh track being indecipherable from the previous one, and whilst Northern Flux occasionally skirts around the periphery of such peril, it is, for the most part, a hugely intoxicating and thoroughly absorbing listening experience. 

Highlights: ‘October Novel’, ‘Shadow Lover’, ‘All Alone’, ‘Narcissus’ (clip below), and the Joy Division cover ‘Insight’, which closes the album. 

Released on the Franco-Spanish Unknown Pleasures Records label, with 14 tracks clocking in at 64 minutes, Northern Flux is recommended for anyone who enjoys retro-styled pop music at the darker end of the spectrum. And without looking at anyone in particular (*hides mirror*), miserable but dedicated old post-punkers hell-bent on not letting go any of their long-since-departed youth. 

Postscript: This month (November) sees the release of an Antipole/Northern Flux remix project called Perspectives, which features work from the contemporary likes of Ash Code, Delphine Coma, Agent Side Grinder, Kill Shelter, Warsaw Pact, and others. You can grab a copy of that release from Antipole's Bandcamp page here.