Metafather is the third limited edition album from Imbogodom and their final part in their BBC Bush House trilogy. The album was recorded back in 2011 during the final days of the BBC's Bush House building as it was going through it's decommissioning process.
Bush House was the hub for the BBC's World Service for over 70 years. With the building positioned in London Imbogodom felt that it was well positioned to tap into London's hidden audible secrets and the duo spent evenings between 2006 and 2011 situated within Studio 6, deep within the building's subterranean section.
Metafather is a sonic experiment that pulls noises together from long lost tapes within the building and uses them for the basis of something new. The album weaves through moments of abstraction but grounds these with moments of psychedelic yet more conventional song-writing. There are moment of haunted elegance such as "Voices of Lists", which feels like a song playing itself, a surreal folk band possessed like something out of Paranormal Activity. "Mirror Dust" is less alienating, a cosmic ballad of glittering gold and silver piano and guitars that bounces around the audible space the duo are creating their work within.
Deeply textural moments provide the album's abstracted pieces, such as the rhythmic and cyclical "The Living Creatures", a track with a distorted and confused spoken word sample and repetitive mechanical instrumentation. Again, it feels in control of itself, the sound of an old studio haunted by reflections of audio that has seeped into the walls over the years,
There are moments where Imobogodom even manage to meld these two disparate approaches successfully - "Behold The Whirlwind" is filled with echoes and feedback set against a series of vocal chants.
In starting with the third part of this experiment it is difficult not to feel like I am interrupting an art installation mid-way through its performance. Everything here feels complex and with little explanation. It only adds to the intrigue - Metafather is a deeply experiential album.
Metafather is released on 14 October through Thrill Jockey, available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk on LP [affiliate link].