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**North Sea Radio Orchestra - I A Moon**
★★★★☆

In an era when most bands seem content to rehash the same three-chord progressions ad nauseam, along comes North Sea Radio Orchestra with something genuinely otherworldly. Their 2006 debut "I A Moon" reads like a love letter to the golden age of British eccentricity, when the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was soundtracking our collective unconscious and pastoral psychedelia still had the power to genuinely unsettle.

The brainchild of Craig Fortnam – a man whose CV already included the gloriously unhinged Henry Cow-influenced outfit Arch Garrison – North Sea Radio Orchestra emerged from the ashes of England's experimental underground with a mission statement that seemed almost perversely uncommercial. Fortnam, having spent years absorbing everything from medieval madrigals to Krautrock's more pastoral moments, assembled a rotating cast of musicians that reads like a who's who of Britain's avant-garde scene. The roster includes members of Cardiacs, The Shrubbies, and various other purveyors of beautiful strangeness.

What makes "I A Moon" so compelling is its refusal to be easily categorised. This isn't neo-folk, though it borrows folk's intimacy. It's not quite chamber pop, despite the orchestral arrangements. Instead, it occupies that liminal space between waking and dreaming, where nursery rhymes transform into something vaguely sinister and childhood memories take on the weight of ancient mythology.

The album opens with "Kingfisher," a track that immediately establishes the Orchestra's modus operandi. Fortnam's vocals – equal parts Nick Drake's whispered vulnerability and Robert Wyatt's damaged wisdom – float over arrangements that seem to breathe with organic life. Strings swell and recede like tides, while percussion taps out rhythms that feel more ritualistic than merely rhythmic. It's the sound of England's green and pleasant land, if that land happened to be located somewhere in the fourth dimension.

"Mimosa" stands as perhaps the album's most immediately accessible moment, though accessibility is relative here. Built around a deceptively simple melody, it gradually accumulates layers of orchestration until what began as a gentle folk song transforms into something approaching the sublime. The interplay between acoustic guitar and string arrangements recalls the best moments of The Left Banke or early King Crimson, but filtered through a sensibility that's uniquely contemporary.

The album's centrepiece, "Pebble," demonstrates the Orchestra's ability to find profundity in the mundane. What could have been a simple meditation on nature becomes something far more complex – a sonic representation of geological time, where human consciousness becomes just another sedimentary layer in the earth's long history. The track builds with tectonic patience, each instrumental voice entering like a new evolutionary epoch.

"Harlequin" ventures into more overtly experimental territory, with processed vocals and unconventional song structures that nod to the influence of groups like Broadcast or Stereolab. Yet even at their most abstract, North Sea Radio Orchestra never lose sight of melody's power to move the human heart. There's something deeply English about their approach to experimentation – polite, considered, but no less radical for its restraint.

The closing track, "Bathysphere," serves as a perfect summation of the album's themes and obsessions. Named after the deep-sea exploration vessel, it's a song about descent – into memory, into the unconscious, into the spaces between notes where meaning lives. Fortnam's vocals are multi-tracked into an ethereal chorus, while the orchestration ebbs and flows like deep ocean currents.

Sixteen years after its release, "I A Moon" has quietly established itself as a minor classic of British experimental music. While it never achieved the commercial success of more obvious influences like Radiohead or Sigur Rós, it has found its audience among those seeking music that rewards careful listening. The album's influence can be heard in everyone from Pram to The Owl Service, proof that genuine innovation doesn't require volume to make its mark.

North Sea Radio Orchestra continue to release albums of similarly high quality, but "I A Moon" remains their most cohesive statement – a perfect encapsulation of what happens when serious musical intelligence meets an unashamed love of beauty. In a world increasingly dominated by algorithmic playlists and three-minute attention spans, it stands as a monument to the power of patience, craftsmanship, and the courage to be genuinely