Late Night Final is the solo alias of Public Service Broadcasting’s J Willgoose and ‘A Wonderful Hope’ wasn’t the album he was supposed to be releasing this year. Lockdown delayed a new PSB LP, and while Willgoose found himself bereft of most of his kit, thankfully his creativity remained intact.
‘A Wonderful Hope’ consists of four tracks, each clocking in at over 10 minutes, that progress along similarly spontaneously recorded paths – a quiet start, a build redolent of house music and a series of ensuing minor euphoric crescendos as melodies cluster and spiral. Even as they seem to be drifting latently, as on the glacially slow build that opens the resolute and noisy ‘Slow Release’, there is a sense of expectation, almost like a constant war between despair and optimism.
Like everything about last year, these tracks require patience, each one an allegory for the many lives placed on hold and emerging into an uncertain future.
