London's The Dengie Hundred is one of the few contemp projects that has organically drawn me into its orbit, across a slew of rather disparate releases spanning the last few years. There is the closest realisation of post punk in 2022's Brackenbank, a monolithic post-Broken Flag esoteric excursion in 2023's Lammas Land and, more recently, the subtle and eviscerated dream-pop leans of Dengie's 2024 collaboration with writer and singer, Gemma Blackshaw.
The Earth's various competing repulsions and attractions fortuitously decided to link myself and the entity behind The Hundred without a great deal of effort required on either part.
One of those connections that already feels as timeless as the rocks. A release was quickly suggested and furnished, it being the two longform pieces that make up the Concept Cassette, Viaduct.
For me, the most obvious reference point that comes to mind for The Dengie Hundred is Mark Fisher's work on myth, hauntology's forgotten futures and the cultural eddy of England's past. So, by extension, you can easily connect Dengie to everything from the foregrounded spectrality of The Caretaker to the radiant afterglow left in the wake of post punk. All of this is to say that The Dengie Hundred is very English. Also, that he/they/it operates in the shadows of various esoteric musical movements, but still evokes its own distinctly vaporous form, in spite of the murk in which it cloaks itself. At times, I also hear a shared affinity with the kind of storytelling, social commentary and sonic uneasiness present in the work of domestic sound-sorcerers, Red Wine and Sugar.
This aspect of bardic, peripheral narrative is none more evident than on Viaduct. In one sense, it's almost forty minutes is a radio-play meditation on regional English masculinity, myth and the murk of history. There are rather subtle nods to post punk adjacency in its occasional, processed guitar, but largely Viaduct is much more concerned with psychogeographical atmos. It's chemistry leaning on obfuscated field recording and a densely entwined strata of miniature elements.
The release is centred on a specific event, whether fully real or imagined is not hugely important, but is vital a catalyst as any, providing a jump-off point into investigation of place, memory and all that this may entail. For this reason, I have included The Dengie Hundred's essay on the significance of Viaduct as a poster with the release (and, somewhat begrudgingly, below). It's not to say that the album can't resonate without context, but the substance of its inspiration only adds further weight to what is already a heady affair.
Despite the seeming bluelit illumination of every pocket of existence, some aspects of the past (present, future...) don't necessarily become any clearer for the glare. This is where the role of the stoyteller, the interpreter, the creative interlocutor excels. This is as good a crossing point as any into the Dengie Hundred.
Altered States Tapes, 2025