Good things come to those who wait, and boy have you been patient. We have taken our sweet time in bringing you the brand-new issue of Moonbuilding, but we’ve been busy. Moonbuilding Weekly busy. Not seen it? moonbuilding.substack.com - the pick of the week’s releases, interviews, round ups, reviews, Track and Album Of The Week selections… delivered straight to your inbox every single Friday.
Moonbuilding 5 might have taken its time, but it has been worth the wait.
On the cover of our Summer 2024 issue we have the sensational Polypores. In our free-wheeling chat we get right under the hood of Stephen James Buckley’s musical operation, offer up a listening guide to help you safely navigate his extensive back catalogue and we also have a whole new Polypores album exclusively for you.
Yes, you read that right. We are giving you a not available anywhere else new album called ‘The Album I Would Have Released In An Alternate Universe’, which happens to be the sister recording to his forthcoming Castles In Space album ‘There Are Other Worlds’. Read all about it in the new issue where Stephen talks you though it track by track.
Elsewhere, there’s a profile of our new favourite label, Mortality Tables, Pye Corner Audio’s Martin Jenkins gets in on the There’s A First Time For Everything act, we round up an absolute mountain of recent releases and serve up our thoughts on the best albums from the last few months, includingLoula Yorke and Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. There’s a column from The Orb’s Alex Paterson, which starts off about Jah Wobble and ends up about Andrew Weatherall, and an all-new installment of the brilliant Captain Star cartoon strip.
We’ve gone book crazy of late and this issue features a sh*t-tonne of great book reviews (that’s great books, reviewed, rather than the reviews being great, although they are pretty good). There’s a cracking chat with Justin Patrick Moore, the author of ‘The Radio Phonic Laboratory’, and a bonus chinwag with the world’s finest music journalist, Mr Simon Reynolds.
Just to remind you that Moonbuilding is brought to you by former Electronic Sound commissioning editor Neil Mason and published by Colin Morrison’s Castles In Space label.
THE MOONBUILDING STORY SO FAR…
During the early days of Electronic Sound, commissioning editor Neil Mason began to notice a steady flow of independent DIY labels serving up brilliant music with beautiful artwork on sought-after, limited-edition vinyl, cassette and CD releases.
He started to review many of the early offerings and soon labels such as Castles In Space, Ghost Box, Clay Pipe Music, Spun Out Of Control, DiN and Burning Witches were regular fixtures on the pages of the monthly mag.
These labels had echoes of a time when the discerning music fan would discover new music via labels likes Mute, 4AD, Small Wonder, Fast Product, Cherry Red, Rough Trade and many more.
The idea for Moonbuilding was to create a home for the artists and labels Neil had been championing for nearly a decade into a new title that is very much in keeping with the DIY ethic of the artists and labels themselves.
Both Neil and Colin fondly recall hoovering up fanzines from the counters of their local record shops in the 1980s in search of their next new favourite band. Moonbuilding is made with the spirit of those indie fanzines spread liberally across its pages. Brace yourself for John Bull printing sets, vintage typewriters and Ben Day dots galore.
ABOUT US
Neil Mason has been at the sharp end of music publishing for a long time. He worked as a sub editor on dance music title Muzik before becoming albums editor, then reviews editor, at Melody Maker, features editor on NME.COM and the editor of War Child’s pre-iTunes music download site, warchildmusic.com. He was commissioning editor at Electronic Sound until April 2022.
Colin Morrison set up Castles In Space in 2015 and has released over 200 titles including acclaimed albums by Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, Polypores, Field Lines Cartographer, The Mistys, Paul Cousins, Keith Seatman, Maria Uzor and many more. In November 2021 he held the label’s first two-day Levitation festival. It was so good it continues as an annual event, this year in the bigger and better space of Esquires in Bedford. skiddle.com/e/37148409
