Voafose is Jeremy Simmonds, one half of old ambient drum & bass outfit on Leaf Records, Boymerang, and the other half of a collaborative release with Luke Vibert dating from 1993. In fact, as most trainspotters know, the Vibert/Simmonds album Weirs was Vibert’s first full length album. Apparently Simmonds has been around the Rephlex camp for a long time and listening to this self-titled debut as Voafose which draws together 20 years of sound experiments his influence on others on the label is clear.
Full of lovely analogue sound experiments, tape loops and synthesisers which recall the BBC Radiophonic Workshop as much as academic experiments of the 50s and 60s, and a bunch of surreal radio cutups and mutilations, Voafose creates an alternate universe of boffins in their garden sheds trying to make something futuristic circa 1975. ‘Threpton’, which has appeared on a few compilations, is an eerie glimpse of an alien world as envisioned by someone reared on pulp comics whilst ‘Wollard’ and ‘Taptics’ modulate sounds until they blur into a disorienting haze. Sonically this sounds so very ‘English’ to my ears – I’m not sure why, but like releases on the Ghost Box label there is a particular colonial/Commonwealth resonance with sonic memories and imagined sounds.
Highly recommended queasy listening.
