Adventurous electroprog krautpop
Who?
Alice Hubble is the solo project of London-based Alice Hubley, the Martha to Rodney Cromwell’s Arthur in synthduo Arthur & Martha, keyboardist in Mass Datura and a former member of math-pop group Cosines.
Why Alice Hubble?
Inspired by the luxuriant progginess of Tangerine Dream and Mike Oldfield, but offset by the adventuring sensibilities of Daphne Oram and the accessibility of synthpop, Hubley wanted to free herself from the unwritten rules and strictures of pop songwriting and focus instead on the evolution and developmentofsounds – specifically those from her collection of vintage Korg and Juno synths and the clunky, adaptable loops of the Mellotron. Idling away time on train rides across the UK while daydreaming of distant vistas in Canada, America and the Middle East, Hubley composed melodies while perpetually in motion, giving the tracks on her debut solo album ‘Polarlichter’ a journeying, searching quality executed with homely analogue warmth and depth.
Tell us more…
‘Polarlichter’ is a fantastically diverse set of synth songs, ranging from the defiant glampop luminosity of ‘Kick The Habit’ to the serene, restless ‘Ruby Falls’, to the evocative astral waltz of ‘Search For The Blood Red Moon’. Hubley’s synth nous is writ large across the album, allowing these songs to straddle the pomp and ceremony that was the concern of prog’s big budget modular boys’club and the vicissitudes of electronic pop, each song a discrete and engaging marvel in its own right. The infectious first single from the album, ‘Goddess’, finds Hubley ruminating on attraction and those exciting, enthralling first moments of falling in love, all set to an authentic, vaguely subversive bed of crisp rhythms and insistent, memorable melodies.
‘Goddess’ is out on Happy Robot
