James Hoff Shadows Lifted From Invisible Hands

There are songs that have been so entwined in shared public consciousness that they barely exist in their original form, viewed as phantasms, haunting the architecture of modern life in the background of adverts, movies, hotel lobbies. Hoff describes this phenomenon as not unlike the "tinnitus effect" in movies - listeners don't hear the compositions themselves, just their overfamiliar pitches. For his Shelter Press debut, he attempts to hack away the flesh from a few of those canonised themes in order to unleash dark spirits inside. "Scratch any pop song hard enough and you'll find sadness underneath it." he explains in the accompanying press release. There's an air of immediacy to each of the four pieces that sounds faintly tranquillising and his choice of instrumentation is similarly near-field: canned orchestral swoops and plasticky flourishes that grate against high-pitched synths and crumbled digital detritus, to remind us that we're fully at the mercy of apps, ads and hypnotic algorithmic propaganda.

From what we can surmise, 'Eulogy for a Dead Jerk' is Hoff's vaporisation of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity', a shimmer of woodwind, piano punctuations and occasional glitches. There's none of the original track's theremin-laced stargazing, but Hoff digs out the message from deep inside, one of isolation and dislocation. Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' meanwhile is simmered into Satie-like slo-mo piano motifs and reverberating pads on 'Everything You Want Less Time' - an almost lackadaisical redux that's fittingly casual for a song that's been used on countless TV shows, movies and adverts. Reed dismissed the interpretation that the song was about his relationship with addiction, but in Hoff's hands its eerie mundanity feels claustrophobic, narcotic and nauseatingly repetitive.

Madonna’s ‘Into the Groove' is almost unrecognisable on 'The Lowest Form of Getting High'. The driving disco-cum-electro pop thrust and the double-tracked vocal melodies are gone, replaced by rainy, operatic woodwind swells and unsettling, buzzing drones. Hoff saves his most effervescent alteration for last, bending the faintest traces of Blondie's 'Heart of Glass' around mangled sonic outcroppings. There's barely anything of Debbie Harry's iconic delivery, just billowing harmonies and occasional flaws that draw a rough outline without filling in any of the gaps. It's a statement on cultural churn, but also a wry wink that acknowledges the popularity of Paulstretch ambient gear - the kind of YouTube-friendly slowed down pop revisionism that's morphed peppy radio-friendly commercial hits into sleeping aids. Hoff takes Eno's original concept for Ambient music and makes wallpaper out of tracks we're all supposed to know inside-out, filling a dry, digital space with cryptic patterns. It's a sad statement, but a vital one.