Lyrics: Ballache-pop, or synth music with a sense of humour. It’s apocalypse-ready, cold wave club music. Bedroom experiments with something in its teeth. It’s heavy on the reverb, synth-pop, goth shit, all lo-fi sensibilities and maximalist production. It’s cinematic, groove-ridden, occasionally miserable, and genuinely quite funny at times, or at least, it is to me. It’s the first new music to come out of the Hacienda for over 20 years (although I might be wrong so don’t quote me on that), the direct descendent of the synth choirs and basses that set its stones the first time around. It can’t quite make up its mind what it is. It’s messy and that’s just how we like it. Now own up—which of you spilt the poppers? Down here with the sweat and the overzealous smoke machines, it’s all visual, conceptual, pretentious, warm-hearted, kind and difficult and fun; and the slogans—DIY as fuck, as queer as it comes, ethically punk, sonically pink, and orange, and blue. The ghosts of past, present and future make for strange bedfellows, so be careful what you wish for. I don’t want to be an emperor, that’s not my business. It’s a set-up. It’s a strange beast; it’s something else entirely. Is it all over my face? It’s all over my face. Or I could say, Amalgamation, mass noun: the action, process, or result of (combining or) uniting. It’s the sum of its parts (of which I am one and you are now too). Here are some others: cryptic crosswords, Walt Whitman, and Whitey; the climate crisis and Polytechnic Youth; therapy, Metropolis, Diane di Prima; Lil Nas X and Take A Daytrip; Manchester Poetry Library, rampant capitalism and Sleaford Mods; grasshopper, grief, Automatic, Audre Lorde. Douglas Dare, Neil Hale, Depeche Mode; LCD, Broadcast, existential despair. Gaga, The Last Airbender, Dada, Chris Korda’s Church of Euthanasia; Kate Bush, psychedelic experiences, Yves Tumor, and Chipped Polish; Fujiya, Sufjan, DJ Sprinkles, Tempers, Black Lodge Press, and generational discontent. It’s about connection, and ways out of this mess. Never just one approach. The joys and successes of my friends and family pitted against the whole world of ists and isms, phobes and phobias. An exercise in making connections, working hard on what I deem important, proving myself to myself. It’s all my growth and expansion and changes. It’s chaotic good, it’s solidarity always. And what else is there left to say? Fuck the Tories. Black Lives Matter. Trans rights are human rights. There’s no such thing as an ethical billionaire. You see—it’s my shining, silver jubilee, synth-pop record, not yours. I’ve said what I’ve said and I stand by all of it. This, my love, is Amalgamation, available in all good record shops as soon as I can afford it. Record labels, apply within. Thank you for listening.

Lyrics: In the church of discontent, capitalist choirs stand against a difficult generation; their slogans, like smoke, heavy over the human mass. Are you listening, lord? It's the last broadcast of billionaire machines in crisis, a world of actions against the present apocalypse - chaotic grief and future joy.