"Release My Soul" by Unknown Immortal Project

The new release from Dean MacDonald frankly took me by surprise (I'm not sure that anything to complain about though): it came out yesterday and it's a collaboration with former Session keyboardist Shaun Stenton.

The song is called "Release My Soul" and the duo are going under the name of Unknown Immortal Project.

Although this initiative wasn't on my radar, I had been thinking of Dean recently as I was delighted that he'd met and spent time with his hero Paul Weller: and he really does loom large in Dean's world.

Therefore something of a parallel sprang straight to my mind. Both men have vaguely signature sounds which are best known to the public, but equally they both possess much wider musical interests which they don't want to suppress and which therefore need thoughtful management.

In Paul's case, this has been a deliberate switching from time to time, often having to push back against the expectations of his fan base: occasionally changing bands and more often these days producing very different sounding albums in sequence.

Against this serial approach, Dean seems to prefer more of a parallel one: working on several simultaneously but in carefully curated compartments. So some songs go to The Session, others he feels work better as solo records under his own name & now we have strand number three.

But there's another twist: in keeping with this sense of exploring diverse musical interests in a non-linear manner, the song actually dates from seventeen years ago and has been rescued from "corrupted drives and forgotten folders". One can't imagine that was easy. It doesn't even sound possible to reach this standard of sound quality from such a starting point.

In fact it sounds like we'll be hearing more from Unknown Immortal Project as this is not the only track they've managed to resuscitate.

So what does it sound like? Well if you check it out at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQn5wrAdNuI

you'll hear for yourself that having eased you in with a very Dean-like title, we're straight into something very existential & European in mood: so very easily impossible to mistake for the other two threads mentioned above.

Brooding & atmospheric, it's hardly surprising that they decided to illustrate it in black & white: anything else would jar. In fact their reference points were the electro end of krautrock: think Neu! or Can rather than Amon Dull II and given that this was a guitar free project, Kraftwerk also spring to mind.

The latter group too is a closer comparison because this song goes for melody more than the spikier edges of the experimental electronic groups: in British terms think more of Depeche Mode than Clock DVA or Cabaret Voltaire. And at this point we can discern the thread common to all Dean's work: a desire to connect and make accessible rather than alienate.

In fact it's a remarkable insight into another aspect of his work. The Session by their very nature, have full arrangements with several parts weaving together: and in fact of late they've been experimenting with ever more complex ones featuring multiple overdubs. Dean's solo work too tends to come with quite a few elements operating together for the common good.

Here we have something much more minimalist with the element of space playing as important role as the vocals & synths. Although in fairness the vocals are both processed & layered, I think they bring his voice to a greater prominence than in other settings and in my opinion this works very effectively. It's certainly interesting to see new perspectives on his singing being created by quite a different approach.

Dean has explored many darker lyrical themes in his career: in fact the longer it goes on, the more he seems interested in weighty subjects. However they tend to be set in ways which deliver the messages quite differently to how that of "Release My Soul" where the profundity of the words are matched by that of the accompaniment.

This seems to be a chance to share what they did in years gone by: I'm not sure if there will be new material from the duo or live performances of the songs. I think both would be welcomed but regardless, "Release My Soul" stands up really well on its own and as an intriguing glimpse of another strand of Dean's creativity, complements what we've heard before in other contexts, enriching our understanding of both.