Sorcery is the ninth album for Jim Jupp, aka Belbury Poly. It grew from Jupp’s love of early to mid-80s electronic music and a  rediscovery of how that music had soundtracked his childhood love of all things sci-fi and fantasy. It’s moody and melodramatic electronica rendered in bright and evocative 80s sounds. The not quite 80s tunes have Belbury Poly’s trademark earworm melodies and  are ever so slightly tongue in cheek.

At the outset of the project, Jupp assembled a palette of instruments and sounds which evoke a moment in musical history when digital studio technology just started to take over from analogue. Eschewing Belbury Poly’s earlier mid 70s obsessions, to focus on that  period around 1983, when artists who could afford it started to experiment with samplers. It was a musical moment dominated by the  sounds of Prophet 5, DX7 & PPG synthesizers, Fairlight & Synclavier music computers, TR808 drum machine & Simmons Drums (those ubiquitous hexagonal drum pads) and of course the much-maligned fretless bass.

It’s also an era that’s now seen as something of a golden age for fantasy, sci-fi, comics, book, TV, movies and games (particularly in Britain where it was often fuelled by a post punk reaction to Thatcher’s regime). In Jupp’s memory these things go hand in hand; as a  child his nerdy fandom was soundtracked not as it was for most by Heavy Metal, but by the electronic pop of Bill Nelson, Yellow  Magic Orchestra, Japan, and Frank Chickens. Also, by otherworldly TV soundtracks & production music of the era: Elizabeth Parker  and Paddy Kingsland at the BBC, The Parry Music Library, Rod Argent’s new age library albums and even Clannad’s Robin of  Sherwood score.

Jupp returns to a simple, not-quite solo line up for this album. A very electronic sound with fretless bass, guitars and e-bow provided  by regular Belbury Poly collaborator, Christopher Budd.

Since 2005 Jim Jupp has released nine albums as Belbury Poly. Generally, a solo project, he calls on a floating roster of collaborators to extend his sound beyond electronica. Jupp has recorded library tracks for KPM, BMG and Lo-Editions. He’s remixed and recorded with many artists including Pye Corner Audio, John Foxx, Beautify Junkyards, Moon Wiring Club, Sharron Kraus and Bill  Ryder-Jones (The Coral). He co-wrote a song with Paul Weller for his 2020 album On Sunset. He has collaborated extensively with Jesse Chandler (Midlake, Mercury Rev, Pneumatic Tubes) and with spoken word artist and author Justin Hopper. He was also  one half of The Belbury Circle with Cate Brooks (of The Advisory Circle). Jupp manages his own record label Belbury Music and  along with renowned graphic designer Julian House, he runs Ghost Box Records. House and Jupp defined a sound world and set of visual ideas in the mid noughties that would later be called Hauntology.