There is a strong sense of place to Cubzoa’s debut album, ‘Unfold In The Sky’. Jack Wolter takes the listener to his current home (Brighton), his previous home (the Isle of Man), Barcelona and even outer space. In comparison with the more straightforwardly shoegaze based music that he releases with his sister as Penelope Isles, the palette has greater variety taking in electronics, synths and industrial noises as well as strings and horns. It makes for a richly textured record, its melodies often lending it a sepia quality.
Aptly, the hopping between locations and polarities of sound is captured on the opening track, ‘In 2 Worlds’. A spoken word introduction from Anna B Savage briefly gives way to crashing industrial noise that suggests a Swans-style barrage before settling into an attractive jangle pop melody. Locked in his space craft, Wolter looks down on Brighton’s lights, feeling like a homesick kid. There is a longing to his vocals, close to a falsetto in tone. Holly Carpenter’s violins, followed by Marcus Hamblett’s horns, add to the song’s dense tapestry before it fades out with a few seconds of contemplative echo. It is a tour de force beginning.
Musically, ‘Choke’ is more settled, a serene melody given added ballast by some distinctive synth lines and co-vocals from Lowly’s Nanna Schannong. The song is a tussle between the perfect picture in the author’s head and the darker reality of unhealthy relationships with people and substances. A pandemic inspired song, ‘Buckle Up’, uses a looped ARP 2600m synth to create a paranoid mood. Sketching a world condensed into “sleep, eat and repeat”, by the time of its chorus, Wolter’s voice is reminiscent of Thom Yorke’s as he sings, “it’s only getting worse.” Throw in Carpenter’s strings and snatches of electronic glitches for an especially immersive track.
Set in an aircraft fuselage and featuring the thoughts of someone reflecting on a past relationship before the plane crashes into the sea, ‘Mid Air Collider’ features vocal interplay with his sister, Lily, as well as Carpenter, and twangy guitar to summon some turbulence amidst the singsong quality.
By the album’s midpoint, ‘I Dreamed A Beach’, there is a state of reverie. Starting with a simple nylon guitar type riff and Wolter’s voice, its mood shifts from December on a beach and making “love on repeat” to cold which “stung like nettles”. As this dream develops, Carpenter’s violin and cellos played by Jamie Bullers and Aenne Bladt add emotional richness, though as the strings take over at the song’s end they are distorted and treated to simulate crashing waves, creating an unnerving mood. ‘Turtle’ maintains a dreamy winter feel, observing Brighton’s changing seasons and Wolter’s difficulties living inside his own head, all while vibes, drums and strings shift and shuffle, each tempo adjustment adding to its impact.
With ‘Barcelona’, he describes a weekend at the Primavera Festival. There is an extra frisson here as while all other ten songs describe experiences that are purely Wolter’s, here is an event that I shared with him and 200,000 other people. I was attending the festival for the first time and can summon up my own memories to live through the song. Our itineraries sound similar (watching Deerhunter, The OSEES, PJ Harvey and Radiohead) and I am placed back in its gorgeous location, next to the sea and its calm air. Musically, it is one of his least detailed songs, revolving around a guitar riff and a drum machine but that does not lessen its excitement.
Quickly, Wolter heads to the Isle of Man for ‘Chewin’ On My Lips’ with lyrical fragments of growing up there. The song’s gentle distortion gives it the blurry feel of memory. ‘Dance With Me’ represents an abrupt sonic departure from this bucolic mood. Written on the LYRA 8 synth and influenced by the likes of Bicep and Rival Consoles, with field recordings of conversations with friends and the sound of motorbikes, its final loop could be a descent into madness.
Reverting to a calmer but openly emotional mood, ‘Unfold In The Sky’ ends with its title track, a tribute to his sister and their work on the Penelope Isles album that was stymied by the pandemic. There is a beautiful sense of yearning to its “living in a world stood still” chorus.
The album as a whole represents numerous contrasts: traditional instruments and modern electronics; the gentle and the dissonant; memory and present; land, sea and space. Those tensions are managed to enhance its flow, to meld its sweetness with harsher and disorienting textures to create a record with its own highly distinct character.
Cubzoa: Unfold In The Sky – Out 24 October 2025 (Bella Union)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
