The Eccentroni​c Research Council — 1612 Underture

Rock artists, musicians, poets, and other artsy types have always been somewhat fascinated by witches and witchcraft; see Broadcast’s last album with the Focus Group or Liars’ They Were Wrong So We Drowned as indie electronic albums that have mined this territory recently. But rarely do such projects come from former dance producers and electronic gizmo purveyors who have invited middle-fame actresses to narrate their albums in an alluringly cynical and brash tone to essentially lambast her own stomping ground.

Enter the Eccentronic Research Council, the very name of which reflects the kooky, electronic, scientific, and historic content of the album. Featuring Sheffield musicians Dean Honer and Adrian Flanagan, as well as Maxine Peake—the TV actress from Bolton best known for her role as the Gallaghers’ neighbor Veronica in the UK version of Shameless—this collective embarks upon an oddball radio play comparing the Lancashire witch trials of 1612 with David Cameron’s modern day UK, especially through the lens of feminism and the struggle of the working class.

The album alternates between Peake’s narrated travelogue segments about the journey of a contemporary nun and priest out of Greater Manchester to Pendle Hill, where in the album’s best episode (“Curious Morbids”) they first visit the heritage center that tries its damnedest to market the hell out of what is essentially now perceived as one of the area’s greatest historical follies, and then go to the cemetery that houses the body of Alice Nutter, the “lucky” witch that actually has a gravestone for tourists to visit. All sorts of variants of kitsch and bleepy retro synth music back these stories up, from an obvious Kraftwerk tribute to numerous pieces that act as a sort of sonic time machine to bridge the gap between the present day and the events of 400 years prior. The best of these is “Wicked Sister Chant,” in which Peake intones repeatedly a surprisingly menacing chorus over electro meandering, and the title track “1612 Underture,” a brief piece that expertly builds a woozy uneasiness around sinister melodic stylings that truly recall the 17th century.

As the setting switches back and forth, Peake presents various diatribes in poetic form, all of which are excellent. “Her Kind” is the best word work here, a sort of beatnik take on witches as modern, independent women, but it is unfortunately dressed up in pretensions to evil, such as discordant suspense chords and screams, that just sound silly. And though the album is meant to be weird and fun, it also appears to be serious and shouldn’t shoot itself in the foot while conveying such an undercurrent of meaning—that contemporary women feel and share the same circumstances that got the Lancashire “witches” put to death. “Trial by Jiggery Pokery” is Peake’s best performance on the album as she makes an impassioned defense to a prejudiced court and strikes out at James Potts, the corrupt judge who oversaw the trials.

But really, 1612 Underture is two albums combined, and though they are seamless and dependent on one another, it is the more musical side without Peake’s narrations that holds the most promise for the group. While some tracks are weak, such as “Malkin Cat Trapped Behind a Wall,” a lethargic exercise in old school electronic pulses that is too arrhythmic to captivate, there are two flat-out stunners that use the retro, rudimentary sounds to service actual songs.

Centerpiece “No Hackney Cab to Gallows Hill” reaches a musical complexity that none of the other tracks do. After several minutes of warbly ambience and cool cat rhythm, the track mutates into a brash, swinging London pop song with spooky garage undertones and a passionate vocal worthy of Beth Gibbons, Trish Keenan, or Cerys Matthews, amounting to high art pop/rock that ends in a powerful psych squalor. (Dear Flanagan and Honer, please write an entire album like this!) Meanwhile, the climax of the record follows a few minutes later, with the sing-songy “Another Witch Is Dead”, an instantly memorable Pulp-like ballad that could be this album’s significant pop hit and the reason that history will be kind to the Eccentronic Research Council.