This is Paul Tone, who was associated with both Smell & Quim and Swing Jugend way back in the dawn of time; and I actually had the impression that Megatonewelle was Paul in collaboration with someone else, except I can no longer find the facebook message stating the case, apparently having dreamed that part; so I've no idea, beyond that Neil Campbell contributes to Crystal Airfield, the last of the four tracks.
Well, whoever it is, it's not at all what I expected given the lad's resume. Initial impressions deposited the phrase like a cross between Tangerine Dream and Throbbing Gristle into my head, but I'm trying to get out of the habit of reviews amounting to this sounds like a cross between the Swans and Splodgenessabounds or similar because it's lazy and rarely helpful. Spacious washes of sound combined with busy sequencer invoke the sort of ethereal scale one might associate with new age efforts, but this does something slightly different, hence my subconscious having been reminded of Gristle's abrasive chug. The chug is particularly compelling on the first track, Barry N. Malzberg, named after a science-fiction author I'm not aware of having read, but who John Clute describes as powerful but gloomy, a voice in the wilderness, speaking in wisecracks, which seems to fit.
The twenty-three minute Crystal Airfield on the other hand verges on krautrock with its motorik rhythm and soaring e-bow guitar, assuming it is e-bow I'm hearing.
For all I know, we may be experiencing a glut of this sort of thing right now, but being no longer fully cognisant with what's going down with the kids on the streets, I have to say it's been a long time since I heard anything like this, specifically anything which strikes me as being like a cross between Tangerine Dream and Throbbing Gristle, although neither does it really sound entirely like an exercise in nostalgia. Mirfield Pads is dreamlike, pensive, spacious, and moving. It also sounds a little bit expensive, which makes a pleasant change from the usual.
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