Gareth Jones to release 2 albums in 2026: ElectroGenetic 2 – Nos Da’ & ’53_StOlaves : Response’
Gareth Jones (Photo by Doug Dreger)
(By Janos Janurik) The Mortality Tables label launches what promises to be a particularly active year with the release of two closely related yet formally independent projects by Gareth Jones. One is Jones’ second solo album, “ElectroGenetic 2 – Nos Da“, due for release on 21 January 2026; the other is “53_StOlaves : Response“, issued as part of The Impermanence Project.
While the two releases are separate entities, they share a common emotional and conceptual source: the experience of losing one’s father, acts of remembrance, and impermanence – understood here not as disappearance, but as transformation.
Table of contents
Gareth Jones – ‘ElectroGenetic 2 – Nos Da’: A record of farewell and resonance
Nos Da is both a personal document and an artistic gesture. Gareth Jones reaches back to his childhood, to his father, and to his father’s record collection – a collection that was never merely a source of musical inspiration, but rather a gateway to emotion, texture and imagined spaces. Those records were worlds unto themselves.
The album’s title originates from a childhood mishearing. Each night, Jones’ father would say “Nos da” – Welsh for “good night” – which the child heard as “no star.” Even so, the phrase carried feelings of safety, care and release. The album becomes an echo of that gesture: a delayed farewell, and a word of thanks.
The pieces on Nos Da were not created in a single studio. Four compositions were developed in a countryside hotel in England using Eurorack modules (Maths, Mimeophon, Wogglebug, QPAS), where the machines acted not merely as tools but as creative partners, sources of controlled unpredictability. Six further pieces emerged on a hotel terrace in Greece overlooking the Aegean Sea, using a compact modular setup. A year later, Jones returned to the same place and created the final two tracks entirely on an iPad, without cables or patching – embracing immediacy and flow.
erSprach – opening the album
The label has now revealed the album’s first preview track, ‘erSprach’, which clearly signals the record’s direction. According to Jones, the original improvisation was written and recorded in Greece in July 2021, using a deliberately minimal setup. Daily improvisations were captured directly to an iPad through a simple stereo interface.
The final form of the piece emerged through a long process of reduction: sonic sculpting, constant removal, stripping away excess layers. Beyond the modular textures, only a few additional elements remain: string fragments from Brahms and a delicate clarinet passage in the central section – nothing more.
As the album closes with a long, deeply personal monologue spoken by Jones’ father, it felt particularly appropriate to open the record with ‘erSprach’ – a quiet prelude to everything that follows.
Parting – a posthumous dialogue
The album’s closing track, ‘Parting’, carries particular emotional weight. After his father’s death, Jones discovered a vinyl recording made years before he was born: a spoken message addressed to his mother before a long journey. In it, his father speaks of love, distance and strength in separation. Within Nos Da, this recording becomes a quiet, posthumous conversation between father and son.
Gareth Jones – ’53_StOlaves : Response’: A response to impermanence
The second Mortality Tables release, 53_StOlaves : Response, is Gareth Jones’ reply to ‘St. Olave’s : Catharsis’, a field recording released on 25 June 2025, marking one year since the death of the label founder’s father. Jones’ response appears as part of The Impermanence Project, released on what would have been the father’s 84th birthday.
53_StOlaves : Response is an almost otherworldly work: the soul separating from the body, drifting into space – or toward the afterlife, depending on belief. Meditative and slowing, it creates space for processing the loss of fathers – a process that, as the author of these lines knows firsthand, can stretch across decades.
Jones reflects on the piece as follows: “I’m in Greece on vacation. And writing, of course. I was moved to create a response to ‘St. Olave’s’ in the spirit of impermanence understood as transformation.”
The track is accompanied by a photograph taken by Jones himself, further reinforcing its personal, contemplative character.
A life shaped by sound
For many, Gareth Jones is best known for his legendary production work. He played a key role during Depeche Mode’s Berlin era, collaborated extensively with Erasure, and has shaped the sound of countless influential artists. Throughout his career, he has operated at the intersection of analogue and digital techniques; his current work carries this experience into a more inward-looking, intimate territory.
ElectroGenetic 2 – Nos Da will be released as a handmade, numbered limited CD, a standard limited CD, and in digital formats. There are no traditional pre-orders – don’t forget to pre-save the album on Spotify, so it appears automatically in your library on release day.
Tracklist:
- erSprach
- maths
- qPas
- suchIsLove
- mPhon
- kath
- wBug
- pyotr
- erofili
- ludwig
- ikaria
- parting
© Janos Janurik
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
