Barely a season passed in 2019 between the release of Badge poque Ensembles self titled debut album, and its follow up, the disco-sleeved 12 Nature, Man & Woman. Now, 3 months on from the release of the groups acclaimed sophomore album Self Help, we find them repeating the trick with a surprise fourth title on Telephone Explosion Records, the fittingly titled Future, Past & Present.

A compilation of sorts, the album collects instrumental, alternate mix versions of all BE songs which originally featured guest vocalists. In practice this results in a pseudo-greatest-hits survey of the Ensembles catalogue to-date, touching on highlights from all three releases while emphasizing the groups strength as versatile mood-conjurors. Where these songs once featured vocal heavyweights like Meg Remy, Jennifer Castle, James Baley and Dorothea Paas, they are now strung together instrumentally in a sequence which represents the purest distillation of BEs collective musical chemistry to date.

Vinyl, 12″, LP