I owe BUNKR’s James Dean an apology.
He sent me a promo download of Signals, his most recent album, and I never quite managed to get around to writing about it. In my defence, there’s been a lot of Life Stuff, Work Stuff and Other Stuff going on at my end and it consequently didn’t make it to the top of the to do list. Then I put the list in our recycling bin without realising. It was only when Dean sent me this companion EP that I twigged that I’d forgotten to review Signals. I can only apologise. I’ll try harder. Hopefully this piece makes up for it.
The sad fact is that I’m a huge fan of BUNKR’s work, and have been since I was introduced to it by my pal David Best from Fujiya & Miyagi (actually, I think I’ve overlooked writing about their brilliant new album also! I really need to get more organised).
What I missed with Signals was a collection inspired by the Surrey Hills. Its EP sequel is about the city laid out just beyond that geographical boundary. Signs, then, is a sort of romantic ode to the sprawling majesty of London and its unique personality. What did Samuel Johnson say? “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” This one’s for you, Sammy.
These four tracks have a journeying quality that is unique to BUNKR and one of the things I like most about Dean’s music. It is an implied vibrancy laced with total wonder at the sights unfolding in front of him. ‘Cruisen’ feels like a photograph taken with a slow shutter speed where the capital’s buses and black cabs become a blur of headlights. It carries a suggestion of energy suffused with nice little Kraftwerk-y flourishes and resolute, searching rhythms.
‘Eternal Cities’ reaches deeper into a kind of latency that eventually yields to post-hardcore beats and sweet melodic repetitions, neatly stacked like that Escher-esque illustration of all the Tube lines clustered below Piccadilly Circus. ‘The Distance Ate Itself’ is majestic and poignant, a tender instrumental electronic love song that has a stately, church organ grandeur to its framing.
Signs is an EP so sharply executed and decisive in its vision that they should play it as trains arrive into Waterloo, just to remind its weary commuters of why they drag themselves into London every day.
Released September 18 2026 by VLSI.
Words: Mat Smith
(c) 2026 Further.
