Now here’s a thing: a Radio 6 endorsed, post-punk/arty-pop inclined Mancunian artist on a major-indie label whose music I actually quite like.

An unlikely occurrence I realise, but nonetheless, ‘Hinterland’, ‘Bunker Pop’ and in particular, the single edit of ‘Groove It Out’ (represented on the album as a longer, moodier but still exceptionally cool jam) all had us dancing ‘round the kitchen like a god ‘un, in precisely the manner that programmers of aforementioned radio station might have intended.

My initial assessment was that Lonelady sounds a bit like what might have happened if Madonna, rather than making a break straight for fame and fortune in her early days, had instead headed downtown and rocked up at Ze Records – all slinky, club-bound neon pop hits, sailing on a sea of reverb, mixing sinuous Chic-esque funk with big ESG hooks and outbursts of startlingly dissonant, post-punky guitar-work.

All of which is just swell, but, considered as an album, ‘Hinterland’ expands considerably on this reductionist breakdown, offering up a more expansive - nay epic - exploration of Julie Ann Campbell’s particular aesthetic concerns. Broadly speaking, these would seem to include the reclamation of derelict or culturally ‘dead’ industrial/urban spaces as places of life, joy and creativity, with particular reference to psychogeographical type travails around the barren outskirts of her native Manchester. Speaking as someone who has never even visited Manchester to change trains, I can’t really comment on how well she manages to capture the ‘feel’ of her home city, but regardless, ‘Hinterland’, both in sound and lyrics, certainly conjures visions of the kind of ‘un-places’ – sprawling carparks, towerblock-shadowed courtyards, empty warehouses, echoing, white-walled ‘exhibition spaces’ - that everyone in the UK will be to some extent familiar with.

More remarkably furthermore, despite dipping its toes in a bit of grim Ballardian alienation here and there, the album largely succeeds in re-envisioning these spaces as positive, comfortable, even FUN, places in which to exist, live and make things – a fresh and even somewhat challenging rejuggling of aesthetic clichés that immediately gives Lonelady a massive advantage over those still insisting on shilling some thoughtless agenda of frowning, Joy Division-y post-industrial pessimism.

As played out as Lonelady’s reliance on the “post-punk/’80s experimental pop as default” status quo may sound on paper, her work thus becomes strong enough to break down the barriers of that insidious “presenting the past as the future” pose. Rather than thinly veiled retro play-acting, she instead seems genuinely out-of-time, forcing us to recall an era in which radio friendly dance pop could explore big ideas, introduce jarring new sounds, and offer a vision of a sleek and propulsive new world, open to all.

That Campbell somehow manages to pull this idealist vision alive and kicking from the hollowed out ruins of 21st century late capitalist waste is a pretty cool achievement that somehow makes complete sense. And did I mention that it has really fucking good playing & recording on it too, and is great to dance to? Because that helps too.

Lonelady can be visited on Tumblr, and ‘Hinterland’ can no doubt be acquired from your groovy independent retailers of choice.

Labels: best of 2015, Lonelady