Andrew Poppy- …And The Shuffle Of Things (Field Radio)

The very first time I listened to this album it felt like a Best Of Andrew Poppy. This is not a compilation, though – it’s 10 brand new recordings – but it does draw many of the diverse threads of the electronica/classical composer’s work from the past 20 years together into one complete whole.

My Stress Mistress and Wave Machine Parts II and III will be the entry point for those who discovered Andrew Poppy via his early 90s album Recordings. What Else: What Then Now, on the other hand, links bank to the minimalism of his highly collectable early 00s CDRs and private pressings like Why Blink.

Text has always played a part in Poppy’s work, although this abstract poetry has hitherto been confined to record sleeves and CD booklets. But Shuffle has incorporated it into the music, with Andrew himself reading a mixture of memoirs, memories and ideas (which sometimes overlap with Yoko Ono’s instruction pieces) across the music.

Tracks like the rattling, dream-like My Father’s Submarine’s wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mute or 4AD sampler, but only Andrew Poppy can drop in an entire male voice choir (an original recording, not a sample) to make a finished piece that lifts this track – and the style of the whole album – right up into another world entirely.