The Eccentronic Research Council are an experimental electronic combo fronted by actress Maxine Peake who is apparently quite a big star on the telly back home.
Their debut 1612 Underture is a concept album (a “sound poem” they call it — well, la-di-da) about the Pendle Witches, twelve young girls who were executed for being witches in 17th century Lancashire. The primitive electronics have the same haunted, weird-old-England vibe as Broadcast and the Ghost Box record label, and with Peake talking over the eerie bleeps and beats in her thick-as-gravy Bolton accent it sounds like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop playing with Gracie Fields — which I hope you think sounds like a very good thing.
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