Have you ever been broken up with by the same person twice? I have. If you thought the first time hurt, it’s nothing compare to the second time, which is as brutal and barbaric as someone running a knife through your already broken heart. 

That’s kind of how I feel as we reach the fifth and final part of Front & Follow’s Isolation And Rejection series. I had only just got over the feeling of emptiness that Justin Watson’s label left when he shuttered it’s operations last year, only to suddenly feel rejuvenated at the announcement of this project. And now, as it draws to a close like the darkening evenings of a lockdown Autumn, I feel utterly bereft again. 

Still, in many ways, Watson saved the best for last, as this collection of rejects includes some of the best material to have appeared in this whole series, the proceeds of which have all gone to The Brick charity in Wigan. The album commences with three grubby, edgy electronic belters – Assembled Minds’s ‘The Eeerie Machine Hums A Barley Song To The Sun’, Accidental Tones’s ‘Mute’ and ARC Soundtracks’s ‘Exhibit F’ – and it really just stays at that same level throughout. Those three set a precarious tone to the album, one that feels like they’re reflecting back our sundry concerns – a bit of paranoia; a skewed sense of purpose; a nagging feeling that things don’t feel quite real. 

And so it progresses, through Simpl_Machines’s hypnotic ‘The Worst In Me’, which sounds like an alternative take on a key cue from the original Teen Wolf; the ceasless mechanistic strut of Bit Cloudy’s ‘Secret Genes’; das fax mattinger’s noisy ‘Sommerhit’; Isobel Ccircle~’s textural ‘Devour Isolation’; Synthetic Villain’s dreamy ‘Rhythm & Weep (Remix)’, which sounds like electronica nodding in the direction of dreamy easy listening; The Kendal Mintcake’s scattergun electro beats and icicle-sharp – almost Christmas-y – melodies on ‘∞%y’; the pulsing nod in the direction of minimal techno on Quartersized’s ‘Limiting’; Laica’s dramatic, submerged atmospherics on the standout ‘(Kakinuma) Traces Of The Soul’. 

As with the previous volumes, it’s the straying away from the electronic template that reinforces Watson’s curatorial even-handedness. Petrine Cross’s doomy ‘Absorbed In An Artificial Night’ is a heavily-distorted metal cut that sounds like an outtake from Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, that was rejected from Trent’s gloomy masterpiece for not being optimistic enough. Sam Underwood and Graham Dunning’s Mammoth Beat Organ (Google it right now!) deliver the acoustic ‘Mast’, which sounds like an afterhours visit to Brian Cant’s shop on Bric-A-Brac. 

The album concludes with the folksy acapella ‘Lo-Fi Symphony For Portslade-by-Sea’ by Dominic Bradnum, a mournful, yet optimistic piece of vocal sentimentality that sounds like a fishermen’s chorus singing Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’. It’s this savagely beautiful piece that I’ll be listening to for comfort as I once more mourn the loss of one of my favourite labels. 

Isolation & Rejection Volume 5 is released October 30 2020 by Front & Follow. RIP. Again. 

Words and tears: Mat Smith 

(c) 2020 Further.