Fans of Pic­tish Trail will no doubt be aware of the artist and his band’s adopt­ed home of Eigg, a remote Hebridean island. John­ny Lynch (aka Pic­tish Trail) invites and encour­ages artists to share in this stark and wild land­scape, away from the stress­es of city life, and equal­ly share in the abil­i­ty to be off-grid, where they can be free to dig deep into their cre­ative souls. Every time I write about any music ema­nat­ing from the Lost Map label I do so with a pang of envy, as the island of Eigg looks so invit­ing­ly remote and unspoilt.

Elec­tron­ic artist Mak­e­ness has pro­duced four tracks, as part of a res­i­den­cy on Eigg, and this work can now be found as part of V I S I T ▲ T I O N S – a mul­ti-part set of spe­cial lim­it­ed-edi­tion releas­es, writ­ten and record­ed in a “bothy” cab­in on the label’s Hebridean home. This sea­son sees releas­es for the first time wrapped in at no extra cost with Lost Map’s PostMap Club sub­scrip­tion ser­vice, which each month gives mem­bers exclu­sive access to brand new music from Lost Map artists and guests.

Mak­e­ness is AKA crit­i­cal­ly-acclaimed elec­tron­ic son­ic explor­er Kyle Molle­son. He is cur­rent­ly based in Lon­don, but raised in the Out­er Hebrides and south-west England. 

Kyle trav­elled up to Eigg with his good friend and band­mate Gus Beamish-Cook ­– a Suf­folk-born synth-addict, who pre­vi­ous­ly made mind-warp­ing dance-pop rhythms as Bewil­der­beast, and who also col­lab­o­rates on anoth­er project with Kyle as Small Car NRG. The pair trans­formed bothy St Franny’s into a Tardis-like inter­stel­lar vehi­cle, the twin­kling lights of var­i­ous ana­logue and dig­i­tal con­trap­tions scat­tered across every avail­able sur­face, reflect­ing the blan­ket of stars that spilled in through the win­dows of the long Feb­ru­ary evenings. 

I Can See For Miles opens with woozy synths which inject a sense of play­ful­ness – there’s also some­thing about it that reminds me of the The Mag­ic Round­about theme tune. If the first num­ber takes you into a pleas­ant­ly drifty space, track two, Eigg Heads, shifts the mood, gath­ers pace, as if you’re step­ping out­side the bothy to be enveloped by the night. The bleeps and bloops pul­sate like stars in a sky star­tling­ly unob­struct­ed by city lights. There’s a stac­ca­to thrum to the track, Jon Hop­kins style, echo­ing the vast lim­it­less space that is so present on his record­ings. The third track, Lean On, with its chant­i­ng vocals, invites us to enter a calmer space.

Fourth track, Bin Police is a reminder of the prove­nance of this atmos­pher­ic set of mate­r­i­al. A some­what mad take on High­land danc­ing awaits so hit the dance floor … prefer­ably after a few beers or whiskies.

As well as being released dig­i­tal­ly via post­card as part of the PostMap Club, Makeness’s  
V I S I T ▲ T I O N S ses­sion is also avail­able on lim­it­ed edi­tion cas­sette tape, avail­able to pre-order now. The open­ing track I Can See For Miles can be streamed now exclu­sive­ly via Bandcamp.