Cruising through south London neighbourhoods that were once the sort of derelict cyberpunk utopia/nightmare I dream this album as the soundtrack to, a maze of crumbling tower blocks and rusty train lines running across and below the ones am travelling along with tunnels in sight even further below them where the dark puddles of rain never seems to dry. Vivid Oblivion’s The Graphic Cabinet is the perfect motorik driving soundtrack to this south of the river stretch. The artwork was designed by Chris Bigg of 4AD (who I only know/knew as an indie label who way back when signed some 70s/80s post-punk(?) groups I've never got round to checking or investigating - but! I've picked up a next to nowt book on 4AD to learn more following my continuous buzz of this often in recent times daily commute soundtrack) is as visually enticing and mind cuttingly striking as the tunes inside (this has led to me buzzing when working on a David Sylvian box set in work and seeing it was designed by Chris Bigg which led to many pals at work listening to The Graphic Cabinet on my recommendation!) The almost petrol like metallic sheen of the artwork is represented in the icy metal clangs, drones and drifts of the album. That its produced/mixed/mastered by Surgeon, Regis & Simon Shreeve would suggest a muscular modular broken breakbeat drive to the music, but for me it's turned out something that makes me imagine Martin Hannett in Berlin giving Neubauten’s metal sheets a proper good whack (Insight but instead of Stockport 1970s it's NYC 2020s). There are moments that sound like Source Direct making Snake Style with the drums on mute or Nurse With Wound's Homotopy To Marie edited for a classic Blackest Ever Black mixtape. Immediate Possession recalls the early Raime sparse drums that taught us the connection between reverb drenched 90s jungle and cobwebbed 80s goth, while Remnant Corridor submerges that David Sylvian tune (that I now know from the Chris Bigg connection!), that sounds like a UKG intro but here played at 33 rpm in the darkest corner of an NYC nightclub. The rolling on drone and muted jungle atmospheres drifts throughout the album with a cautioned speed and intensity that has all the metallic grip of the train tracks beneath me right now, imagine some sort of serpent like creature raising its sharp spine through the murky water of the Thames for a split second as you fly past, that's the sort of ghosted echoes of intense unease and dread we are deep in here. Think Black Rain's Neuromancer soundtrack transported to a present day NYC never again to rain in an endless heatwave meltdown, while the last track verges on the sort of euphoric blast of White Light/White Heat bliss of the end quarter of BMB's Learn Your Lesson. Jim Siegel's drumming and his music’s directional focus is a hugely heavy force that is expertly framed by Surgeon, Regis and Simon Shreeve's real razors edge precision focused production/mixing/mastering making it clear that this unit (can we call them a group?) is properly interlinked and channelling an exact same cut from cold metal ambience and electronics that make this an album that carries all the dangerous swagger and vitality of an NYC street level cyberpunk-goth with the sickest record collection and production skills going. It’s clear from first hit that this record is a stand-out and in a current world where if you want you can endlessly score a never ending weekly succession of new release paint thinning techno and low-fi/DIY powdered egg post-punk as long as it has a guitar and what sounds like someone whacking some pots and pans together badly (as we know it can be done proper!) our current heat sick drowning world’s soundtrack of always available always new always fast made and always fast moved on from electronic music (not lost on me that I very much contribute to this myself often with my gaffa taped together sounds!!) The Graphic Cabinet is the exact opposite, this is the sort of luxurious drift that has been highly engineered by a crew who know what they are doing and have an aim that is to make nothing if not a properly properly killer record, and as such it's set to catch you in its claws from the moment you see the album cover to the moment the last track extinguishes itself. A gripping listen that's as once exhilarating but also a map to continue the journey forward, you can easily travel both backwards and forwards in time from this album and arrive at Raspberry Bulbs hardcore/punk via Hospital Productions and Blackest Ever Black and all of the worlds they build, Simon Shreeve’s always on point dubstep and drum & bass mutations and the never not worth reminding your mates and anyone who will listen sat around you on the train to work just how next level his records are for the forever never not the best bass rolling labels Swamp81 and Osiris Music that they truly are. Downwards/onwards to all of the Surgeon and Regis records (don't really need to say but obviously all utterly essential lifelong soundtracks) and into the dark ages of the early 4AD universe. For me, this album is the first stone in the water that sends the ripples far and wide for a new era of postpunk/goth/techno/drone whatever we want to call it (am more than open to any genre tag/name!) much like the Againstnature (11 Reclaimed Fragments) 2010 or so edition where Fact magazine said something like parts of it sounded like Joy Division instrumentals and the other was proper throbbing and gristly Birmingham sound techno (not confirmed if this was in fact (no pun intended) what they wrote but it's how I remember and the train internets pretty bad so can't check as am charging through some tunnels ATM) which for me was an album that set my early 20s music interests on a path to follow that led to Blackest Ever Black, Modern Love, Sandwell District, Hospital Productions and all sorts of Hard Wax and Veto and ReadyMade distributed artists and labels that continue to inspire, excite and shape my life’s listening habits (outside of Monday to Friday 9.30am till 6pm) this albums sick and an essential score that you will love if you have made it this far reading this, a far better morning train ride to home work through a decaying cityscape soundtrack you would never find.
When I saw the artwork I just assumed it WAS a 1980s 4AD record!