The Breakdown
Joe Harvey-Whyte may be a go-to pedal steel player (Liam Gallagher, Billy Bragg, Josephine Foster, Nilüfer Yanya and more) but as a multi-instrumentalist and solo artist he’s been calmly extending the cosmic-country boundaries beyond its imagined cosmos for a while now. Working with Sheffield based guitarist Bobby Lee, he’s helped conjure up two mind-stretching kosmiche-americana albums, Lee’s solo effort ‘Endless Sky’ from 2023 and this year’s release as a duo ‘Last Ride’. Harvey-Whyte’s own debut from 2021 ‘Flatlands’ was even more genre fluid, a pedal steel/sound processing ambient exploration where his main instrument’s emotive tones became absorbed in some wide-screen expansiveness.
His new album ‘in a fugue state’, out via the discerning None More Records, arcs back to that first release. A collaboration with sound artist and loop alchemist Paul Cousins, the album’s source was a long form improvisation by the pair, broadcast live on ‘The Dream Stream’, Joe’s Soho Radio slot. Stepping back from the session, its immersive impact was too powerful not to share more widely and so we have before us ‘in a fugue state’.
Paul Cousins explains “we remember the recording session, but as it was happening we entered into a flow state, and time and place ceased to exist. The finished album is a result of our collective time travelling back to that moment.” For ‘in a fugue state’ the pair have carefully revised the epic original recording into eight intricate tracks. Maybe this re-framing risked losing the hypnotic intensity of that first iteration of Harvey- Whyte and Cousins improvised piece but their mixing down has been applied with hyper-sensitive insight. ‘in a fugue state’ remains coherent and consistently spell-binding, an album with Stars Of The Lid inner-vision.
The release opens with lift and the sighing resonance of Harvey-Whyte’s first notes. The piece seems to rise skywards effortlessly, the looping pedal steel patterns mesmeric in their combined movement like a swooping murmuration. As hugging bass chords embrace the swirl, the main loop slows and distant guitar chimes strike occasionally before the soundscape gently fades.
The duo explore a similar sound palate inquisitively throughout ‘in a fugue state’: the repeated pedal steel patterns which weave then loosen; other delicate guitar motifs which flicker then fly; the anchoring hum of a low note drone; and the ripple of synth shading. Often field recorded sounds add a natural commentary to this sonic expressionism. On recall bird song mingles with chiming notes while pulses of distant thunder rumble behind the organ-toned synths and zithering guitar runs. Alternatively there’s some scuttling agitation suggested on the yearning depart, the sounds of running through rain, before Harvey-Whyte’s pedal steel curls with emotion.
Feelings seem to merge and mingle throughout the album, there is joy, there is calm, there is mourning and nervousness. On forget, one of the most upfront guitar/William Tyler-esque pieces, a sombre twanged fanfare gives way to more excitable, trilling melodies as the tune stretches out. At times Cousins and Harvey-Whyte use glitchy moments to surprise and unsettle the ambience and suggest their ‘fugue states’ have an instability about them. The minimal, celestial feel includes a brisk interruption to the calm and the softly lapping recur sees the melodious guitar lines judder as a bassy drone submerges the tune.
Maybe the sectioning of the original long form piece was also motivated by an intention to disrupt listener expectations of dreamscape music with more regular ‘shifting’ moments? Listening to ‘in a fugue state’ is like getting absorbed by a painting in a gallery then moving to the next work in another room, there’s an overall connection but also an individual aura about each song. The closing track, flood, definitely thrums with finality as the delicate loops of guitar build then crumble while a white noise roar increases. From here we seem to drop down to the deep ocean with a sudden pitch change and the gradual disappearance of the monotone sound. ‘in a fugue state’ leaves as illusively as it started.
Hopefully though, Joe Harvey-Whyte and Paul Cousins musical partnership will re-convene sometime soon. In the past couple of years Michael Scott Dawson, Modern Nature’s Jim Wallis and Spencer Cullum have all expanded the musical horizons of the pedal steel and made recordings that readily stand alongside Chuck Johnson’s continuing work. With ‘in a fugue state’ Harvey-White and Cousins have added another rich contribution to the pantheon.
Get your copy of ‘in a fugue state‘ by Joe Harvey-Whyte & Paul Cousins from t your local record store or direct from None More Records HERE
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