Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra – ‘Places We Have Never Been’ album review: all the best strange things come from Todmorden
THE SKINNY: Kids like being little creeps. The dark humour that my niece and nephew exhibit never ceases to amaze me. Eleanor’s latest bit is a non-sequitor that invariably ends, “Because they pooed themselves to death”.
That probably wouldn’t go down a storm in the pub. It’s an atypical punchline for anyone above the age of eight to coin, but on the primary school playgrounds of Britain, that avant-gardism is pretty much the norm. The deeply experimental Places We Have Never Been carries some of that same spirit.
Hailing from the uncanny valley of Todmorden, one of the few places in the world where the leading suspect for an unsolved murder in the 1980s is an alien, the Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra is a project heralded by Mark S Williamson (for those wondering, the S stands for Spaceship). And it is a terrific embodiment of creativity for creativity’s sake.
Since 2014, Williamson has endeavoured to herd a cattle of children aged seven to 11 around an array of percussive, synth, and stringed instruments for semi-improvised jam sessions that always capture the strange and the eerie with the lightness of fun.
A lot of people will likely hate Places We Have Never Been. That can’t be denied. But when provided with the backstory, most might crack a slight smile before they yell, ‘Turn that racket off’. That revealing smile feels absolutely vital. It is a smile borne from the experimentalism of the concept and the inherent joy of the rambling record.
Ray Bradbury once wrote, “Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy.” There are more than a few holes in the bucket of that argument, but it does hold an increasing degree of water in 2025. We’re so used to overthinking and burdened by an inability to truly switch off and be idle that improvised inspiration is a beautiful boon.
Somewhere in the pitta-patta of the Places We Have Never Been‘s strange percussion lies a precious reminder of the simple joy of creativity ungoverned by rigorous thought. While it might conjure evocations of the ceaseless ambient noise and hauntology of the modern world, it would be unnecessarily pretentious to suggest that the primary triumph of the record extends beyond the pure necessary chaos of expression for the sake of expression.
This time, that vital pronouncement is presented in the form of children having a good time and inadvertently giving sound to the darkness and eeriness that they are so often natural masters of, as is the will of maddening Todmorden.
For fans of: Being a teacher and presenting The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski to your Year 3 class, just to see how they respond.
A concluding comment from my niece: “It sounds like they’re all about to poo themselves to death. 11/10.”
Ideal listening experience: In your old school gym hall at the witching hour (with permission, of course) as a netball drifts along the floor.
Release date: July 11th, 2025 | Producer: Mark S Williamson | Label: Forged River Recordings
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