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ARTIST : VOLTAGE POETRY PROJECT
TITLE : FURTHER VERSES
RELEASED : NOVEMBER 2025
With Further Verses, Voltage Poetry Project delivers a quietly ambitious anthology—an album that gathers disparate moments from 2019 to 2025 and weaves them into a coherent, atmospheric narrative. It’s less a compilation than a cartography of the project’s evolving sonic world: geographical, emotional, and architectural all at once. Released on CD and vinyl for the first time via monochrome motif records, the collection feels like a long-awaited solidifying of an artist who has long played in the margins between electronica, spoken word, and conceptual audio journaling.
At the core of the album are the five pieces from 2023’s Western Verses EP, subtly remixed to open up new textures and emphasize their sense of place. These tracks, inspired by journeys westward from London by canal, road, or rail, retain their original wandering charm—ambient pulses and melodic fragments drifting like scenery through a train window. The remixes here provide gentle refinements: clearer contours, warmer low-end, and a more pronounced sense of narrative cohesion, as though the listener is revisiting familiar landscapes at a slightly different time of day.
The album then travels into newer territory with “Antwerpeners,” first appearing on the 2025 EP #walktowalkstation. It’s a standout cut—restless, architectural, and rhythmically knotty, reflecting the project’s fascination with movement through urban space. That sense of architectural homage is furthered by “Over Up,” the album’s sole exclusive track, inspired by pilgrimages to two works by engineering visionary Ove Arup. Here Voltage Poetry Project leans into structural elegance: layered motifs rise and interlock like beams in a carefully balanced design, creating a rare moment of both tension and uplift.
Closing the album are three earlier compositions (originating from 2019–2020) newly re-recorded “in session” during the summer of 2025. These revisitations mark five years since the artist’s session for the Homebrew Electronica Show podcast, and the retrospective approach pays off. There’s a welcome rawness to these versions—more air, more performance energy—which acts as a counterweight to the more refined earlier tracks. They ground the collection in a sense of lived-in history, reminding listeners how far the project’s sonic palette has stretched in half a decade.
Further Verses succeeds because it feels like more than a retrospective: it’s a journey through place, memory, craft, and the modular self. Voltage Poetry Project has assembled past and present into a single flowing narrative—an album that rewards both long-term followers and first-time listeners with its mix of introspective ambience and conceptual curiosity. It’s a quietly compelling milestone, and a fitting crystallization of the project’s evolving artistry.
“13 Billion Dark Years” is the latest full-album from synth-pop/post-punk/dark-wave outfit Scenius — a duo formed by Steve Whitfield (Leeds, UK) and Fab Nau (Angers, France).
Released on October 24, 2025, the record consists of ten tracks, thematically rooted in longing, time, memory and the tension of modern life.
Scenius claim influences from synth pioneers like Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and John Foxx; post-punk icons such as Joy Division, New Order, and The Cure; and contemporary electronic experimenters like LCD Sound System, Boards of Canada and Boy Harsher.
The result is a soundscape that blends shimmering synthlines, moody bass, crisp rhythm programming, and vocals that are both intimate and detached.
From the opening title track “13 Billion Dark Years,” you get the sense of vastness and introspection. The sonic palette evokes both the cold sweep of outer space and the internal terrain of memory and longing.
Despite the moody framework, many songs carry melodic strength. Tracks like “Swift As Light” and “Every Time” show that the band can craft concise pop-friendly forms while maintaining depth.
The album is well‐produced — clean, punchy synths, layered with subtle textures and occasional shadows of darkness. On Bandcamp they note that the album is available in high-quality download format (16-bit/44.1 kHz) which underscores the care taken.
The lyrics deal with separation, change, time (“It’s a long day, it’s a slow burn” from “Swift As Light”), reflection of relationships in flux, and also some existential undercurrents (“You will never beat the light” from “Beat The Light”).
“13 Billion Dark Years” is a mature, thoughtful work from Scenius. For listeners who appreciate synth-driven music with post-punk attitude and a dash of melancholy, this album delivers. It may not radically redefine genres, but it executes its vision with care and finesse. If you’re drawn to the worlds of The Cure, New Order and the darker side of electronic pop, this is worth your time. For Scenius, this album reinforces their voice and promise in the dark-wave/synthpop fringes.
