Nocturnal Emissions - Beyond Logic, Beyond Belief (1990)

I never quite got to the bottom of what this one was about beyond that it was clearly about something. It initially seemed to be some kind of celebration, an acknowledgement of Nocturnal Emissions first decade - the ten year anniversary of the release of Tissue of Lies without necessarily representing an extension of the same, at least not so far as I was ever able to tell. The sleeve claims the material to have been recorded between 1980 and 1990, which I assume refers to sound sources more than it does to any notion of previously unreleased tracks, so perhaps this is Nigel engaging in recycling, or at least making collages from his own back catalogue; which would account for the sample of Caroline K operating a hand drill - which I'd swear I've heard elsewhere, although not on Tissue of Lies at least.

Internet sources refer to some light having been shed in the first issue of Network News, which it isn't because I've checked. In fact I've checked the first three or four issues, none of which seem to contain this observation from our Nigel:

What's important in this culture we're now cultivating is we can gain an understanding of the world which speaks to us directly without the filters of belief which go within a spirit system, without the filters of logic that go with a science system.

So, if that's from the first issue of Network News, then I guess it isn't the one published in my reality; which may actually be approaching the elusive point, at last.

The last decade of the twentieth century had just begun, and Sterile Records was recently reborn as Earthly Delights, sort of its thematic opposite given the preoccupation with fertility and growth, but still releasing art which channelled rather than described its world - not quite refocussing so much as working from a much broader, even cosmic palette rather than limiting itself to the human cultural sphere of society ruined by industry. This was the point at which Nigel noticed how his earlier works had been changing hands for silly money and so decided that some of this money might be better spent in support of living art rather than historical documents, so this was issued in an edition of just 250 copies for what seemed a lot at the time, being more than the customary tenner, but I'm fucking glad I had the foresight to buy one. One bloke on the internet suggested this might even be Nocturnal Emissions' greatest work, and even if it isn't, it's easy to see why someone might have made such a claim.

Beyond Logic, Beyond Belief is well into what has been poorly characterised as the ambient years, but isn't really anything of the sort. It's atmospheric, evocative, and powerfully emotional without quite doing anything musical in the traditional sense, possibly excepting the oddly bluesy Memphis. Aside from the obvious sampling, it's not even particularly electronic. At the risk of turning into Paul Morley, and in light of the few clues afforded by titles, sound, and the above quotation, I'd say this is Nocturnal Emissions scrabbling at a description of reality analogous to Plato's ideal forms, the thing in itself, whatever the hell is there before we muss it up with sentences such as this one, or any language for that matter; and that's what the best art is all about. If I were able to describe it, it wouldn't need to exist.

Genuinely magnificent.