UNE – Whirl

Autographed by Mark and Paul of UNE.

For the follow up to their sold-out 2021 album ‘Spomenik’, also on Spun Out Of Control, Mark Radcliffe’s electronic duo UNE, the continuing collaboration with electronic boffin and beat-maker Paul S Langley, have taken circular motion as their theme. New album Whirl has a concise six tracks that each play like extended dance mixes, bleeding into one another like a deejay set.

Endlessly inventive, tracks include Twisted, inspired by the anthropomorphic-like names we now give major storms; taking this to its logical conclusion and having a hurricane apologise for the havoc it’s causing.

Dervish is inspired by the Sufi whirling dervishes and their meditation in perpetual motion; with one hand directed to the heavens and the other to earth, channeling divine energy. Copernicus is about the astronomer and polymath who laid down the theory that the earth went round the sun and not the other way round. Molengang meanwhile is the Dutch word for a collection of windmills. It also gives a nod to Pete Townsend’s windmill-like guitar arm and Windy Miller’s musical accompaniment in the classic children’s show ‘Camberwick Green’.

With Mercury being a musical tribute to the planet, the album closes with the pumping Underworld-like banger Velo, inspired by a trip to see Kraftwerk play the Velodrome at the Manchester International Festival, as the GB Olympic team cycled around the track.

Released on Spun Out Of Control as a beautiful limited edition 4-panel digipak CD with 12 page illustrative booklet, the artwork for Whirl is by Kevin ‘DJ Food’ Foakes under his Openmind alias, with album mastering by Antony Ryan.