Talbot Fade debuted in 2013 with a self-titled, self-released album. Although it remained underground, it enjoyed relative success among those who knew of it. Later that year, he released November is So Alive for Better and for Worse, a mix of original material and edits which seemed to introspect so deeply into itself that Talbot (cough) faded from musical activity.

Yet everything is better in the light of nostalgia. Talbot’s November Versions is a collection of new material and reworkings of music by the Daybreak collective that Talbot is affiliated with (Rimpleton, Boardgame, James Loon and Talbot’s own Yamaneko moniker). The album deals with ‘memories of places, people and things, and how the brain twists, fogs and sullies them through experience, time and intoxication’. November, for Talbot, is a time for reflection, and his November Versions do just that. From wistful piano intervals to its lethargic pace, the record is coated in a thick syrup of textures and field recordings that make the tracks feel ambiguous and blurred, like recalling a distant memory.

Sonically, the record folds in on itself, each track slowly disintegrating in a Basinski-like fashion, and so giving the impression of distance and uncertainty. Visually, the tracks conjure images of childhood: Underworld resembles the distorted spinning music of a children’s jewellery box, while Tugging Boat mimics the bobbing of a boat on water. Somewhere between the fragmented beauty of Leyland Kirby’s work as The Caretaker and Infinity Frequencies’ Computer Series, Talbot’s music is uncomfortably introspective and, much like the former’s, lingers on moments which feel conclusive or comforting, before veering into sharp etchings of static. At their respective cores, Kirby’s and Talbot’s songs share one key rule – time is malleable, and takes second place to memories and our mind’s distortion of them

Gunseli Yalcinkaya