Mount Vernon Arts Lab - The Seance At Hobbs Lane

Mount Vernon Arts Lab - The Seance At Hobbs Lane

The next in an ongoing series of Ghost Box back catalogue re-issues, Séance at Hobs Lane is an overlooked classic of British electronics. Its sinister atmospherics are comprised of VCS3 synthesizer squalls, howling guitar,  skronking sax, and oddly haunting keyboard and cello melodies. The album has a similar eccentric and disturbing atmosphere to the work of great mid-century British experimentalists like Desmond Leslie, Daphne Oram or Tristram Carey. 

Hobs Lane is the fictional tube station where the action of Nigel Kneale’s 1967 film, Quatermass and the Pit takes place. This movie sets the perfect tone as Mount Vernon Arts Lab plunges the listener into a world of abandoned  underground stations, monochrome British science-fiction, eighteenth century secret societies and the footsore reveries of generations of flâneurs; from Thomas De Quincey to Iain Sinclair.

It was originally released as a limited CD in 2001 on Via Satellite, then by Ghost Box in 2007. It was cited by the label’s founders Julian House and Jim Jupp as a major influence on the creation of the label, and the identity it would go on to develop. The album became a cornerstone of the nebulous, but hugely influential cultural movement known as Hauntology (2004-2024). Mount Vernon Arts Lab is the lifelong, ever mutating, experimental art and music project of Glasgow’s Drew Mulholland. 

Séance was his fifth and possibly his most ambitious album, with a large number of talented artists co-writing and performing: John Balance (Coil) on Hobgoblins, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) on The Mandrake Club, Isobel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian) on The Black Drop, Barry 7 (Add N to X) on The Submariner’s Song and Adrian Utley (Portishead) on Warminster 4. Also taking part were saxophonist Raymond MacDonald and broadcaster and producer John Cavanagh. 

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