On The Chalk (Our Navigation Of The Line of The Downs)

As Gorodisch, co founder of The Accidental and regular collaborator with the likes of Fridge’s Adem and Kieran Hebden, Stephen Cracknell is one of the great connectors in British music. But his greatest body of work is with The Memory Band, of which he is the sole constant member. The sound is constantly evolving but has folk at its heart, and one of the most beautiful albums is this, built around a research project into the ancient pathways of Southern England, taking in music, dialect and landscapes. The result may contain ancient folk melodies, but is anything but archaic: blurring them into Eno style ambient piano motifs, Balearic grooves, gentle brass arrangements and found sound, it takes you outside of time into a kind of bucolic dream space.