Biography
From Lancashire in England, Gordon Chapman-Fox produces electronic music that blends optimism with a sense of impending doom under the moniker Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. This specialized endeavor draws on the utopian aspirations of the mid-1970s in northwest Britain and their eventual disillusionment. Though shaped by the initial works from Julian House and Jim Jupp via their renowned Ghost Box imprint in terms of style, substance, and method, Chapman-Fox employs his creative take on everyday matters to offer insights into societal and political issues, diverging from the folkloric and supernatural themes prevalent among predecessors. For almost three decades, he pursued music as a pastime across various styles until the positive reception of his inaugural 2021 outputs on Castles in Space from Bedfordshire, namely Interim Report, March 1979 and People & Industry, confirmed demand for his minimalist, retro-synth-driven, reverb-soaked method. Subsequently, he charted Districts, Roads, Open Space in 2022, The Nation's Most Central Location in 2023, and Your Community Hub in 2024 on the British independent listings, where the final pair entered the upper echelons.
Born in 1975, Chapman-Fox grew up in Preston and Chorley under the care of his mother, a piano-playing primary school teacher, and his father, an electrical engineer. During childhood he delved into their record collection featuring the Beatles, Wendy Carlos, and Jean-Michel Jarre, while also absorbing era-defining television science fiction such as Doctor Who and Space 1999, which offered futuristic visions crafted under budgetary constraints. As a teenager his interests shifted toward hard rock and heavy metal, leading him to perform in groups of that persuasion from age 16 onward. In the 1990s, during his twenties, he relocated to nearby Wigan and contributed synthesizers to the grindcore outfit Narcosis. Although he revisited that style intermittently in the following decade through abrasive projects including Mechagodzilla and Pentecostal Chip Shop Holocaust, an encounter with Aphex Twin in the early 2000s sparked a turn toward electronics. Throughout much of the 2010s he self-released glitch-infused, drone-oriented electronica under the name Heskin Radiophonic, drawing from nature, poetry, and temporality. During this period he joined Echosonic and Vasko the King to establish Viejos Hombres de Abejón, while also issuing irreverent, Fall-inspired psychobilly and rock & roll as Stratosonics. By 2017, based in Lancaster and operating as Dublock, he issued ethereal, minimalist ambient techno that edged toward the analog synthesizer textures later central to Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. Professionally, Chapman-Fox served as a graphic designer in the marketing division at Lancaster University and created instrumental pieces for local television commercials and promotional videos on a freelance basis, experiences that supplied visual and sonic foundations for the project.
The endeavor's debut came via an unsettling half-hour live recording from late 2020, self-released as Live for Emotion Wave and captured at an event hosted by the Liverpool platform. Artwork for this release, along with the February 2021 Castles in Space studio debut Interim Report, March 1979, emulated period town-planning promotional materials. British new towns such as Runcorn and Warrington arose in a forward-looking Brutalist idiom and were marketed to 1970s audiences as a contemporary, low-stress substitute for urban existence with convenient facilities. By 1979, fissures in that vision had begun to appear. Reproducing the era's synthesizer sounds while limiting overdubs, Interim Report, March 1979 enabled Chapman-Fox to convey both aspiration and disillusion among new town inhabitants through a BBC Radiophonic Workshop-influenced palette. September 2021 delivered a prompt successor, People & Industry, which broadened the scope with a somewhat more assertive tone. In May 2022 he released the Live at Fox Fest EP containing three distinct pieces recorded for the online streaming event, followed in September by a notable slot at Wiltshire's End of the Road.
October 2022's Districts, Roads, Open Space saw Chapman-Fox deploy sparse drones to translate his COVID-19 lockdown experiences into an evocation of the solitude likely experienced in 1970s new towns. May 2023's The Nation's Most Central Location borrowed its name from a well-known new town promotional slogan and centered on the government's unfulfilled commitments regarding financial support. In a departure, August's Building a New Town EP presented pastoral, acoustic material inspired by Pentangle and Mike Oldfield, recalling the early 1970s when the promised lifestyle still appeared attainable. Then 2024's Your Community Hub drew connections between the shortcomings of new town communal structures and contemporary personal isolation stemming from technological progress.
Born in 1975, Chapman-Fox grew up in Preston and Chorley under the care of his mother, a piano-playing primary school teacher, and his father, an electrical engineer. During childhood he delved into their record collection featuring the Beatles, Wendy Carlos, and Jean-Michel Jarre, while also absorbing era-defining television science fiction such as Doctor Who and Space 1999, which offered futuristic visions crafted under budgetary constraints. As a teenager his interests shifted toward hard rock and heavy metal, leading him to perform in groups of that persuasion from age 16 onward. In the 1990s, during his twenties, he relocated to nearby Wigan and contributed synthesizers to the grindcore outfit Narcosis. Although he revisited that style intermittently in the following decade through abrasive projects including Mechagodzilla and Pentecostal Chip Shop Holocaust, an encounter with Aphex Twin in the early 2000s sparked a turn toward electronics. Throughout much of the 2010s he self-released glitch-infused, drone-oriented electronica under the name Heskin Radiophonic, drawing from nature, poetry, and temporality. During this period he joined Echosonic and Vasko the King to establish Viejos Hombres de Abejón, while also issuing irreverent, Fall-inspired psychobilly and rock & roll as Stratosonics. By 2017, based in Lancaster and operating as Dublock, he issued ethereal, minimalist ambient techno that edged toward the analog synthesizer textures later central to Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. Professionally, Chapman-Fox served as a graphic designer in the marketing division at Lancaster University and created instrumental pieces for local television commercials and promotional videos on a freelance basis, experiences that supplied visual and sonic foundations for the project.
The endeavor's debut came via an unsettling half-hour live recording from late 2020, self-released as Live for Emotion Wave and captured at an event hosted by the Liverpool platform. Artwork for this release, along with the February 2021 Castles in Space studio debut Interim Report, March 1979, emulated period town-planning promotional materials. British new towns such as Runcorn and Warrington arose in a forward-looking Brutalist idiom and were marketed to 1970s audiences as a contemporary, low-stress substitute for urban existence with convenient facilities. By 1979, fissures in that vision had begun to appear. Reproducing the era's synthesizer sounds while limiting overdubs, Interim Report, March 1979 enabled Chapman-Fox to convey both aspiration and disillusion among new town inhabitants through a BBC Radiophonic Workshop-influenced palette. September 2021 delivered a prompt successor, People & Industry, which broadened the scope with a somewhat more assertive tone. In May 2022 he released the Live at Fox Fest EP containing three distinct pieces recorded for the online streaming event, followed in September by a notable slot at Wiltshire's End of the Road.
October 2022's Districts, Roads, Open Space saw Chapman-Fox deploy sparse drones to translate his COVID-19 lockdown experiences into an evocation of the solitude likely experienced in 1970s new towns. May 2023's The Nation's Most Central Location borrowed its name from a well-known new town promotional slogan and centered on the government's unfulfilled commitments regarding financial support. In a departure, August's Building a New Town EP presented pastoral, acoustic material inspired by Pentangle and Mike Oldfield, recalling the early 1970s when the promised lifestyle still appeared attainable. Then 2024's Your Community Hub drew connections between the shortcomings of new town communal structures and contemporary personal isolation stemming from technological progress.
Albums
