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  Of all the tracks forged by Nina Walsh and Andrew Weatherall during the pair’s hyper prolific five years working at her Facility 4 studio, ‘Borderland’ held a special place in their hearts. Even at its birth as a poignant synth melody fashioned by Nina on a tiny midi keyboard, Andrew told her, “It could be the next ‘Smokebelch’”, referring to 1993’s Sabres-era classic.
  With that in mind, Nina ignited the nascent track’s evolution from synth-nest origins through gaining exquisite strings from renowned viola virtuoso Sarah Sarhandi to Andrew’s remix. By this time, he wanted to include the piece at a Barbican event W.R.F. had been commissioned to play but sadly never happened after he passed away in February 2020. Knowing what the track meant to Andrew, Jagz Kooner, whose role as his studio conduit and sonic enabler in the Sabres years including the original ‘Smokebelch’, created an astonishing rework in March 2021.
  One of the brightest diamonds in the glittering trove of musical gems created by Nina and Andrew at Facility 4, ‘Borderland’ is the fourth release in her ongoing Apparently Solo archive series and possibly the most significant.
  “I wrote ‘Borderland’ on this tiny little midi keyboard I had in the programming room that I’d set up for Andrew,” she recalls. “When he heard it he said, ‘This could be the next ‘Smokebelch’. That was just in its raw form on synth so I suggested getting my friend Sarah to replay the synth parts and add harmonies on viola. It was a lovely, very feminine session. We had my dog Binky as our listener.”
  London based Sarah, of UK and Pakistani heritage, studied at the Royal Academy of Music and has recorded and performed all over the world, from collaborating with Mark Springer in the 90s to composing for TV and movies. Embracing experimental and electronica excursions, she clicked with Nina. “A lot of people get frightened but I love working with classically trained musicians.”
  Once again couched in Nina’s unearthly melodic sensibility, that gorgeously melancholic main motif is spectrally enhanced by Nina’s rapturously beautiful counter melody. “When Sarah replayed the synth lines I wrote some new harmonies with Pachelbel’s Canon in D Minor in my head; Andrew introduced me to the piece on a mixtape he made for the first time I went to Ibiza in 1988. I could hear it in the slow descending viola chords sitting behind the main melody.”
  “I was really nervous because I hadn’t really been playing for a while because of being ill,” says Sarah. “But it was beautiful. It’s really an epic tune; almost like a hymn.”
  Continuing the ‘Smokebelch’ mission, Nina and Andrew filed its parts as ‘Viola Belch’, ‘Overdub Belch’ etc, its intricately woven elements even reflecting where they were recorded in the studio. “Initially the track was written in the programming room, which had no windows and one lamp so was always dark,” continues Nina. “The control room had a strip of glass bricks and natural daylight coming in, which affected the way you wrote. Andrew mostly ended up in the room with no windows and working in there was always quite intense. The melody was written in the programming room and harmonies in the control room where the change of environment to natural daylight seemed to bring the light in, giving it more of an ethereal feeling.”  
  As previously recounted, Nina and Andrew’s years working at their Facility 4 dream studio situated in a perilous south London no man’s land saw Mr Weatherall learning to operate machines and digging for loops in Nina’s bottomless archive. “We then handed the track to Andrew who plundered the hard drive. It’s funny because he’d stumble across a section in there that would be loads of different drum fills. You could always hear when he discovered a new folder that he didn’t know was there! The pieces we were due to play at the Barbican had that feel.”
  Just like they’d planned for the set that would’ve been part of a Faber & Faber event launching Richard King’s The Lark Ascending: People, Music and Landscape in Twentieth-Century Britain tome, the EP begins with ‘Borderland’s evocatively beatless version washing into a Weatherall mix that hoists the central motif skywards to sun-blasted glory aboard a lysergic cable-car gliding and swooping bird-like over glistening mountains and fragrant behemoth blow-holes. The music is accompanied by a film Nina made as a backdrop for the event.
  Jagz’s remix is a no-holds-barred epic in the tradition of ‘Smokebelch’ and this writer’s ‘Sugar Daddy’, its first stroke of genius starting like a ticking time bomb with jittering synth intro reminiscent of Frankie Knuckles’ early house classic ‘Your Love’ that blows up magnificently into the main riff propelled by his inimitable drum programming (retaining Andrew’s favourite tom tom fill). The truly startling drop overdubs Sarah’s viola into a weeping string section as Andrew’s voice asks, “Can you see the rockets?”. That moment the twinkling synths and strings come together before Jagz lets Sarah’s viola sweep into a beatless finale is so devastatingly beautiful it may well bring tears as his mix tangibly becomes this most important of figures in Andrew’s life paying tribute to his fallen comrade; in suitably ‘Smokebelch’ style.
  “We’ve always kept in touch and Jagz came along at a time when I really needed some support,” says Nina. “What really strikes me about his mix is the pull between human and machine. When Sarah’s viola comes to the fore it creates a completely different emotion before Andrew’s voice appears. That was just us pissing about in the studio and I chopped it when Jagz asked if I had any of his vocal he could use. I thought where he is now he’s probably seeing rockets and shooting stars so that would be quite good in there. Whereas before it’s, ‘Yeah, the machines are flying and dancing!’, when it goes to Sarah’s viola and Andrew’s voice I feel like this wrench on my heart.” Nina named the track ‘Borderland’ from a late 19th century parapsychological quarterly publication edited by pioneering investigative journalist W.T. Stead (who also died on the Titanic).
  Sadly, her and Andrew’s carefully planned Barbican production wasn’t allowed to go ahead but happily its swirlingly emotional spirit rears again like a euphoric ectoplasm ritual on this magical EP completed by second Andrew mix (‘Yanob 14’) and spellbinding ‘Yanob 15’ featuring Sarah’s viola weaving through Nina’s shimmering electronic greenhouse.  
  Andrew would no doubt appreciate how the Victorian journal that named ‘Borderland’ is preserved in the University of Miami archive donated by late US comedy titan (and parapsychology collector!) Jackie Gleason. Best known as Ralph the romantic clod in much-loved 50s NYC sitcom The Honeymooners, his crowd-stoking catchphrase could certainly apply to this exquisite labour of love now manifesting as a sky sailing peak in Andrew’s towering legacy with Nina; “And awaaay we go!”
  The best is always yet to come.
  Kris Needs ... more
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