Album Review: Zoetrope by King of the Mountains

Head here to submit your own review of this album. King of the Mountains is the solo interest of Phil Kay, of Working For A Nuclear Free City fame. Zoetrope is an album of many genres - a jack of all trades, and even almost a master at a couple of them. The album starts rather suddenly, with 'Undone' seeming like it's halfway through when you first hit play.

Full Review >>

Working For A Nuclear Free City, with Phil Kay and Gary McClure on co-songwriting duties, released three albums that, despite not being widely recognised at the time, were featured on a wide variety of television ads and dramas – from being used to sell expensive Jaguar cars to soundtracking a key scene in the pilot of Breaking Bad. Their tracks contained spacey, spiralling and buzzing blasts of synths and keyboards – Kay was very instrumental in that side of their output and it acted as a neat contrast to their ‘live’ textures. Now, under his new solo moniker of King Of The Mountains, Kay has presented himself with a completely blank canvas and, in so doing, given himself free rein to create whatever soundscapes of his choosing without any limitations.

Full Review >>

For a decade, Melodic Records-signed Manchester experimental stalwarts Working For A Nuclear Free City were in yielding fruition. The group produced three critically acclaimed albums between 2006 and 2011 and saw their music included in TV series, films and adverts – including the very first meth cook up scene in Breaking Bad and the classic “100 years of Hovis” advert (their sound is nothing if not versatile). However, writer, keyboardist and producer of the outfit, Phil Kay, became estranged from writing partner Gary McClure’s material and in turn decided to delve deeper into electronic wells, creating his solo project King of the Mountains and a record that explores swirling soundscapes, sonic experiments and a wide swath of the electronic avant-garde.

Full Review >>