Carter Tutti Void, "Triumvirate"

Triumvirate by Carter Tutti Void

THE THIRD & FINAL CARTER TUTTI VOID STUDIO ALBUM - OUT ON 30th AUGUST 2019

Containing all new studio recordings, Triumvirate brings Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Nik Void's collaborative partnership as Carter Tutti Void to a conclusion. The trio first came together as a collective for a live performance, invited by Mute for the Short Circuit Festival in 2011 and released their acclaimed debut, the live album Transverse the following year.

Carter Tutti Void went on to release f(x) (Industrial Records, 2015), their first studio recording and performed a handful of selected shows, culminating in their final live performance in Hull, part of a series of events for Hull City of Culture 2017 centred around the COUM Transmissions retrospective at Humber Street Gallery.

For some time Carter, Tutti and Void have been awaiting an opportunity when all three artists were able to gather at Carter and Tutti's Studio47 in Norfolk, where the album was recorded, produced and mastered. Triumvirate was approached with the improvisational spirit of previous Carter Tutti Void albums. The rhythms, created by Chris Carter, formed the foundation and starting point from which the process began of melding the live instrumentation of Cosey Fanni Tutti and Nik Void's searing guitars, vocals, effects and the arsenal of sounds each had amassed from a variety of sources, some sounds manipulated to extremes, all fed into the mix. Tying the album together is the power of three, and a free open approach to sound shared by the trio.

More information can be found here.

3855 Hits

Zoe Reddy, "Machine"

Newcomer Zoe Reddy joins Phantom Limb for the release of her stunning debut EP Machine, a fascinating middle ground between avant-R'n'B and experimental music. A uniquely styled and fully-formed initial offering, Machine represents a new artist with clear vision and identity.

Named after and inspired by the rhythmic qualities of everyday motorized objects, Machine acts as a soundtrack to the 21st century life in which we are so surrounded by and immersed in technology as to become deaf to its sounds. Captivated by this constant generation of non-musical sounds, Reddy recorded washing machines, blenders and other motorized objects about the house to form rhythmic foundations to her songs. Using these starting points, the record took shape as a meeting point of electro-acoustic sound processing, electronic production, and Zoe's love of dance music.

More information can be found here.

4494 Hits

The Legendary Pink Dots, "Angel in the Detail"

Two years in the making, Angel in the Detail is an enthralling & captivating release where distinctive vocals & lyrical imagery float over textural ambience, hypnotic guitar, synth washes & spellbinding bass pulses.

Out August 23rd on Metropolis.  More information can be found here.

4808 Hits

Neurosis & Jarboe (remastered reissue)

Neurot Recordings are proud to reissue the landmark collaboration Neurosis & Jarboe, which was originally released in 2003, incoming on 2nd August. This latest version is fully remastered and with entirely new artwork from Aaron Turner, available on vinyl for the first time, as well as CD and digital formats.

Steve Von Till explains the idea behind the remastering; "Bob Weston (Chicago Mastering Service, and member of Shellac) worked closely with Noah on making these new versions sound as good as the possibly can. Noah has the most trained critical ear for fidelity out of all of us being an engineer himself. We recorded this ourselves with consumer level Pro Tools back then, in order to be able to experiment at home in getting different sounds and writing spontaneously. The technology has come a long way since then and we thought we could run it through better digital to analog conversion and trusted Bob Weston to be able to bring out the best in it....This new mastered version is a bit more open, with a better stereo image, and better final eq treatment."

When two independent and distinct spheres overlap, the resulting ellipse tends to emphasise the most striking and powerful characteristics of each body. Such is the case with this particular collaboration between heavy music pioneers Neurosis and the multi-faceted performer Jarboe (who performed in Swans and who has collaborated with an array of people from Blixa Bargeld, J.G. Thirlwell, Attila Csihar, Bill Laswell, Merzbow, Justin K. Broadrick, Helen Money, Father Murphy, the list goes on...) The musicians pull from one another some of the most harrowing and unusual sounds ever heard from either artist at the time - a sentiment which also rings true to some 15 years later.

The collaboration is a deeply textured mosaic that is a culmination of merged aesthetics from two major influences on free-thinking sounds. It unlocked the hidden potential of electronic music as a new force in heavy rock. At a time when groups like Oneida, Wolf Eyes and Black Dice were beginning to experiment with technology in making mind-numbing leaden electro-drone freed from any essence of "dance music," Neurosis & Jarboe redefined all notions of their past - and outlined the course of heavy music to come.

More information can be found here.

3931 Hits

Keiji Haino & SUMAC, "Even for just the briefest moment..."

Post-metal sludge avant garde powerhouse SUMAC follow their collaboration with legendary Japanese guitarist and singer/performer Keiji Haino on Thrill Jockey (American Dollar Bill – Keep Facing Sideways, You are too Hideous to Look at Face on) with another monolith.

Keiji Haino – Guitar, Voice, Flute, Taepyeongso
Aaron Turner – Guitar
Nick Yacyshyn – Drums
Brian Cook – Bass

Out June 28th on Trost.

4592 Hits

Vanishing Twin, "The Age of Immunology"

Ltd edition Cream/Black swirl PICTURE DISC LP main photo

Vanishing Twin is songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, synth/guitar player Phil MFU and visual artist/film maker Elliott Arndt on flute and percussion; and on this album they have made their first artistic statement for the ages.

Some of its great power comes from liberation. The album was produced by Lucas in a number of non-standard, non-studio settings. "KRK (At Home In Strange Places)," which summons up the spirit of Sun Ra's Lanquidity and Broadcast And The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age, was simply recorded on an iPhone during a live set which crackled with psychic connectivity on the Croatian island of Krk.

The magical Morricone-esque lounge of "You Are Not an Island," the blissed-out Jean-Claude Vannier style arrangement of "Invisible World" and burbling sci-fi funk ode to a 1972 cult French animation, "Plane te Sauvage," were all recorded in nighttime sessions in an abandoned mill in Sudbury. The only two outsiders to work on the recording were "6th member" and engineer Syd Kemp and trusted friend Malcolm Catto, band leader of the spiritual jazz/future funk outfit The Heliocentrics, who mixed seven of the tracks (with Lucas taking care of the other three).

Vanishing Twin formed in 2015 - their first LP, Choose Your Own Adventure, which came out on Soundway in 2016; followed by the darker, more abstract, mostly instrumental Dream By Numbers EP in 2017.

The band explored their more experimental tendencies on the Magic And Machines tape released by Blank Editions in 2018, an improvised session recorded in the dead of night, offering a glimpse into their practice of deep listening, near band telepathy, and ritually improvised sound making. These sessions formed the basis of The Age Of Immunology.

More information can be found here.

3877 Hits

Death and Vanilla, "Are You a Dreamer?"

There's something about the Swedish city of Malmo that doesn’t add up.

Named the "happiest" city in Sweden in 2016 (who gets the job of judging these things?), Malmo's DNA contains a "none-coding" strain that reveals the city's penchant for a world more studious, fashioned in a vintage era, telescoped by pop culture that arrives via the TV-approved bridge that connects it to Denmark. Surely, it can’t be the same place.

Marleen Nilsson, Magnus Bodin and Anders Hansson of Death and Vanilla couldn't come from anywhere else. They are dreamers, antiquarians, music-obsessed individuals, lauded by the media for their last album To Where The Wild Things Are from 2015…

"Swedish exponents of dreamily lovely psych and lush, late-60s-style baroque pop." The Guardian

"Lush and enveloping, reminiscent of Curt Boettcher and Margo Guryan." The Wire

"Fantastically eerie." Clash

The trio's love of all things "old" is well known – they've tinkled ivories, played vibraphone, recorded with a Sennheiser microphone and a nod to everything from Fun Boy Three to Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Contonou, while still roaming somewhere between an ambient Eno and Cocteau Twins at a late-night soiree.

Prior to recording their new album Are You A Dreamer?, they scored several soundtracks, that process undoubtedly influencing the new album's dreamlike euphoria built with added mellotron and affected electric guitar. Expanded with bass and drums in their quest for the grail, Death And Vanilla's songs are longer; more plush and pampered; more hypnotic and haunting.

Are You A Dreamer? is melancholy at its most refined, riddled with super-memorable motifs and melodies that nestle in reflective echo. Death And Vanilla are an alluring confection, hard to resist and wantonly moreish as Marleen Nilsson’s sepia tones are embraced by the trio’s gorgeous arrangements and intricate ambience.

More information can be found here.

3804 Hits

Umberto, "Helpless Spectator"

Umberto is an artist whose work is distinctly cinematic. Composer Matt Hill's performances and delicate compositions taken together have the cumulative ability to surprise. Hill, whose Umberto moniker is an homage to director Umberto Lenzi, is an experienced and active film composer, most recently scoring the film All That We Destroy. In addition to film and commercial work, Umberto has released a number of lauded solo recordings. Hill's compositions stand apart as beautiful as they are impenetrable, with pulsing synths that hint at 80s slasher films while pensive string passages evoke emotions without being sentimental. On Umberto's Thrill Jockey debut Helpless Spectator, his haunting music is otherworldly and affecting alike, leaving the listener with an unsettling and profound air of mystery.

Umberto's early recordings harken back to classic synth-driven sci-fi and horror soundtracks. Helpless Spectator uses synthesizers in an entirely different manner. Cold, looming monolith tones are now warm, softer pads that envelope the listener while guitar, cello, banjo and pedal steel add movement and light. Still, Hill unsettles with his arrangements and melodic phrasing. As a composer, Hill has moved to more extensive use of live instrumentation. In addition to playing guitar, bass, and piano himself, Hill worked with fellow composer and recording artist Aaron Martin who played cello and bowed banjo on the majority of the album. "Idaho Joe" Winslow’s pedal steel guitar adds depth and subtle countermelodies to "The Higher Room" and "Leafless Tree."

The name Helpless Spectator is taken from the Julian Jaynes book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Hill was taken with the concept Jaynes set out to disprove that "Consciousness can no more modify the working mechanism of the body or its behavior than can the whistle of a train modify its machinery or where it goes." The darkness and obliviousness inherent in this concept, the notion that while we perceive control, we are not in control, serves as a great metaphor for the contrasts of Umberto's music. Warm tones and nuanced arrangements with cello and pedal steel are not typically the instruments of dread, yet Hill achieves a creeping undertone of dread with his deceptively complex pieces. Musical figures both melodically and rhythmically simple intertwine, build, and collapse upon one another. The dissonant tensions that steadily grow rarely completely resolve; rather they dissipate into a new set of questions. Unexpected shifts and turns in even the most tender movements of Helpless Spectator are inflected with a contemplative melancholy and fragility.

Umberto makes masterful use of varied textures throughout the album, blending supernatural effects and grounded instruments to create distinct atmospheres. Helpless Spectator is inquisitive and moving in equal measure, an album of somber elegance and delicate arrangements whose cumulative effect of unease is entirely unexpected.

More information can be found here.

3816 Hits

Pauline Oliveros, "Tara's Room"

Pauline Oliveros - Tara's Room - LP - PRE-ORDER

Pauline Oliveros' Tara's Room has long been a favorite in the Imprec office and it's a great honor to be able to release it on LP for the very first time.  Tara's Room was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing. Originally released on cassette in 1987.

This LP features two long sides of infinite depth and sensitivity. Oliveros performs these pieces using a Just Intonation accordion and her Expanded Instrument System in order to bend both time and pitch.

More information can be found here.

4296 Hits

Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek, "Sounding/Way"

Pauline Oliveros & Guy Klucevsek - Sounding / Way - LP - PRE-ORDER

Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek's Sounding/Way was originally released on cassette in 1986 and has been out-of-print ever since. This LP was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing.

The Sounding/Way concept was simple. Each artist would write a piece for two accordions and then they would perform them together. Thus, side A contains Guy Klucevsek's "Tremolo No. 6" performed by Guy Klucevsek and Pauline Oliveros. Side B contains Pauline's composition "The Tuning Meditation," also performed by both Pauline and Guy.

This is the second release in an on-going effort between Important Records and the Pauline Oliveros Trust to maintain and promote the music, philosophy and legacy of Pauline Oliveros.

Guy Klucevsek is one of the world’s most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.

Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer and humanitarian is an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she has explored sound - forging new ground for herself and others.

Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros' commitment to interaction with the moment is unchanged. She can make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble.

"On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." ~ John Rockwell

"Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." ~ John Cage

More information can be found here.

3866 Hits

Alex Twomey, "The Entertainer"

"The Entertainer is Alex Twomey's first album since 2012.  Many have been waiting and, finally, here we are!  During the silence, Twomey’s keyboard work has germinated into a more framed compositional structure, beaming with orchestral strings, woodwinds, and brass.  Eleven cinematic settings and bouncing refrains mark this LP.  Alex describes the album as, "vignettes alluding to a vague narrative regarding one’s idea as an artist."  A somber beauty is penned.

Alex previously recorded as Mirror to Mirror and operated the record label Jugular Forest from 2004-2012.  I first met him in 2010 during a large concert in Santa Cruz, CA.  Alongside Twomey, myself, Kyle Parker (Infinite Body), Matthew Sullivan (Earn), Pedestrian Deposit, Mike Pollard, and Peter Friel performed that night.  Alex's performance was a thick ocean of chords, a penetrating grace that I can still recall.  Everyone has since bloomed from the ambient roots of that time in their own way.  Alex has held onto utilizing the keyboard, albeit as a tool to build a larger musical world.  A legend to the map.

On this album the melodies dance as twinkling bulbs along a retired parade float.  A dark comedy, a tragic smile.  Love found in the rough of it all."

-Sean McCann

More information can be found here.

3666 Hits

Extended Organ, "Vibe"

Extended Organ - Vibe - LP - PRE-ORDER

Important Records announces Vibe, the new LP from Extended Organ, the Los Angeles-based quintet associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS).

Vibe, Extended Organ’s first full-length studio LP since 2000’s XOXO was recorded in April 2016 by members Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Paul McCarthy, Tom Recchion, and Alex Stevens. The album consists of two side-long tracks, "Hate" and "Vibe," recorded live at LACM Studio in Pasadena, California by acclaimed engineer André Knecht.

On Vibe, the band employs prepared piano, junk percussion, Joe Potts' Chopped Optigan, electric guitar, voice, Rheem organ, various electronics, and homemade instruments. Each track is improvised, then assembled and edited without overdubbing in studio. The music moves with velocity and direction revealing surprises at every turn. The resulting sound is ominous, humorous, harmonious, chaotic and at times quietly erotic. This is abstractly powerful music.

The highly provocative cover image, created collaboratively by Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, and Tom Recchion, is shrouded inside a unique laser-cut outer sleeve. Like the music contained within, the cover reveal is a beguiling experience in and of itself. This intriguing package was art directed and designed by Tom Recchion.

Formed in 1994, Extended Organ produces a dynamic otherworldly ambience which can be simultaneously hilarious and frightening. Joe Potts lays down a carpet of sound using and his self-engineered drone instrument, the "Chopped Optigan," over which Paul McCarthy performs vocal and guitar improvisations channeled and processed by Alex Stevens. Alex also adds his own keyboard triggered synthesized sounds. Tom Recchion, renowned as an inventor of homemade instruments, a free improviser, and an accomplished composer of acoustic, electronic and tape music, performs an array of sounds folding lush beauty and horror sensibility into the matrix. Fredrik Nilsen plays an antique Rheem Mark 7 organ along with electronic sound and recordings created by Mike Kelley. Kelley was a member of the group from 2000 until his death in 2012 and continues to be a contributing member by virtue of sound recordings he provided before his death; "In case I can't make a gig, I can still play."

The LAFMS formed in the early 1970s around a loosely knit group of like-minded musical improvising sound experimenters in eastern Los Angeles who discovered their mutual interest and banded together to design modes of self production and distribution of recordings and publications, helping to develop and propel the DIY movement. In the ensuing 45 years the LAFMS has gone on to create dozens of records and groups (including Doo-Dooettes, AIRWAY, Le Forte Four, Smegma, John Duncan and Extended Organ), hundreds of concerts, festivals in both US and Europe, a full-scale gallery retrospective and volumes of artwork, sculptures, homemade instruments, videos, recordings, and other ephemera.

More information can be found here.

3649 Hits

Zeno van den Broek, "Breach"

With Breach, Zeno van den Broek totally disrupts the world of glitch and electronica with an energy we have never heard before.  Breach dives into chaotic systems and creates a manifestation of the recent events of protests and riots across the globe. The album and live audiovisual performance explore the build up and release of tension, anger and energy in a new form of pitch black metal electronics and dense polyrhythmic structures. Utilizing electromagnetic recordings of communication devices and found footage of uproars, Breach establishes an intense experience by putting the beholder in the center of a system on the verge of breaking into chaos.

"Breach testifies to the blackened sounds of tectonic shifts shaking the worn habits of society’s nature and nurture. NOW! blares from metal screens. As stability is a long-lost illusion and equilibrium stands at odd angles, Breach screams: Come out and play. Offers on billboards: Tables filled to the brim, a riot in excess. Over there! Look, out of the window: The movement of revolutions per minute in a rapidly changing landscape where as below so above can very well be the next trending hashtag for barricade-progressive action. If not thought.

Breach sloganeers: Your anger is a gift. Breach unleashes: What was kept pent up, creeping slow like glacier ice, but advancing surely as the scorching lava that entombed Herculaneaum. Leaving behind the spiked blast of unloading, Breach does not represent — fashions disruptive events: compositions of chaos in flux. Breach breathes the frantic fumes and pulsates with the moving noises of electromagnetic rebels in the streets:

This, the density of today. For Breach is manifest."

More information can be found here.

3612 Hits

Seabuckthorn, "Crossing"

Seabuckthorn is the solo work of Andy Cartwright since 2009.

Exploring various approaches on guitars, with fingerpicking, bowing and slides, often with layered accompaniments.

Crossing, his 8th solo album, is focusing on ambient spaces created by bowed resonator guitar. It was recorded in his home studio in the French Alps with the expectancy of becoming a father.

More information can be found here.

 

3570 Hits

Penelope Trappes, "Penelope Redeux"

Penelope Redeux by Penelope Trappes

After the release of her sublime, critically acclaimed sophomore solo album Penelope Two, Penelope Trappes and Houndstooth are pleased to announce Redeux; an album of top-drawer reworks of tracks from Penelope Two, which showcase not only the intrinsic brilliance of Penelope's composition and performances, but also her far-reaching and all-encompassing musical influences and significance.

"There were no preconceived notions of how the reworks would work together, just total freedom. I'm absolutely in love with all of these! I never really thought I'd get the chance to collaborate with such an array of creative artists who have inspired me, but at this point, I’ve learned to never say never" explains Penelope.

On Redeux, Penelope Two's themes of life and death and of hope and dismay are still prevalent, being brought to the surface in myriad ways. Scottish post-rock legends Mogwai stretch out "Burn On" into a scorching, warbling drone that flips the original sombre subtlety for grandeur and in-your-face majesty. Factory Floor member Nik Colk Void offers up a wayward, statically charged reworking of "Nite Hive" which reimagines the track's solemn beauty as a heads-down roller and Throbbing Gristle's Cosey Fanni Tutti's dystopian, avant-garde and jazz tinged electronics are deployed alongside her signature Cornet to flip the album single "Carry Me."

Other reworks are proffered by Shelter Press label founder, producer and visual artist Félicia Atkinson, off the back of an incredible 2018 for both her and the label.  Félicia’s rework of "Burn On" digs for the skeletal awe by stripping away many of Penelope's multi-layered effects and pushing the bare vocals to the front with manipulated field recordings.  Houndstooth mainstay Throwing Snow demonstrates his ineffable brilliance, delivering an elastic yet powerful subdued rework of "Farewell." Icelandic multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jófríður Ákadóttir aka JFDR injects nimble rhythms and guitar into piano ballad "Maeve."

Poppy Ackroyd, composer, violinist and pianist, Hidden Orchestra member and One Little Indian signee transposes "Kismet" onto the piano adding eerie percussive embellishments. Savages producer Jonny Hostile takes "Farewell" and utilizes the space within to add more noise and energy. Oneohtrix Point Never, Ben Frost and Tim Hecker collaborator and Sigur Ros' musical director Paul Corley, delivers a forlorn take on "Nite Hive," whilst Swedish techno duo Aasthma (Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik) - the former of the pair having just finished work on live version for tracks on Fever Ray's "Plunge" world tour - take album single "Connector" to an entirely different realm.  Adding rattling drum patterns and skidding synth leads which overthrow the sober original to a joyous dancefloor slayer.

More information can be found here.

3609 Hits

Chuck Johnson, "Ayami"

Performed live on Negativland's "Over The Edge" program on KPFA on 24 August, 2018. Recorded by Wobbly.

Chuck Johnson - pedal steel guitar, synths, organ, treatments

More information can be found here.

3762 Hits

øjeRum, "Alting Falder I Samme Rum"

Sound In Silence is happy to announce the addition of øjeRum to its roster of artists, presenting his new album Alting Falder I Samme Rum.

øjeRum is the solo project of musician and collage artist Paw Grabowski, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. For over a decade, he has been producing his sublime music, ranging from atmospheric ambient to experimental folk, having released several albums and EPs on labels such as Fluid Audio, Eilean Rec., Shimmering Moods Records, Champion Version, Unknown Tone Records and many others.

Alting Falder I Samme Rum consists of six new compositions with a total duration of about 45 minutes, captivating the listener with its atmospheric textures and melancholic soundscapes. Grabowski creates one of his best albums to date, built around loops of minimal synth melodies, layers of lush pads and swells of hypnotic drones. Alting Falder I Samme Rum is a gorgeous album with a feeling of nostalgia and meditation, carefully mastered by George Mastrokostas (aka Absent Without Leave) and highly recommended for devotees of William Basinski, Brian Eno, Harold Budd and Tim Hecker.

More information can be found here.

3250 Hits

HIN, "Warmer Weather EP"

Sound In Silence proudly announces the addition of HIN to its roster of artists, presenting their debut Warmer Weather EP.

HIN is the new ambient/electronic project of two school friends, Jerome Alexander (Message To Bears) and Justin Lee Radford (The Kids And The Cosmos), based in London and Los Angeles respectively.
Jerome Alexander is already known for his ambient/folktronica project Message To Bears, having released four highly acclaimed albums, an EP and a split album with The Soul’s Release, either self-released or on Dead Pilot Records.
HIN’s debut is Alexander’s second appearance on Sound In Silence after the, already sold out, Moments EP under his own name J.R Alexander, back in 2012.
Justin Lee Radford has cultivated extensive collaborations with film makers, environmentalists, astronauts, scientists and social activists whilst composing music for film, VR, commercials, art installations and theatre. In late 2018 he released a 2-track single of solo piano pieces under his own name and is currently working on the debut EP of his project The Kids And The Cosmos.
Alexander and Radford, along with their childhood friend Maximilian Fyfe (Paint Splat Faces), also collaborate on the project Human Suits composing original scores for the documentaries of Planetary Collective.

Warmer Weather EP is made up of five captivating tracks, with a total duration of something more than 20 minutes. HIN’s debut deals with feelings of isolation, environmentalism and friendship and is a perfect mix of dreamy electronica, elegant dream-pop and soothing ambient. Utilizing wistful guitars, warm pads, hazy synths, enchanting electric piano melodies, deep bass lines, gentle male and childlike female vocals, intricate beats and glitchy electronics, HIN create an EP full of emotive textures and sublime soundscapes.
Warmer Weather EP is a brilliant release that will appeal to anyone moved by the music of artists such as The Album Leaf, Múm, Epic45 and of course Message To Bears.

More information can be found here.

3243 Hits

Lea Bertucci, "Resonant Field"

It is with tremendous pleasure that we announce Resonant Field, the brand new full-length album from New York-based sound artist and composer Lea Bertucci. Following up her critically acclaimed 2018 NNA full-length Metal Aether, Lea continues her devotion to the exploration of physical spaces by way of sound, channeled through her alto saxophone. Where her previous work investigated a variety of locations around the globe, Resonant Field narrows her focus to one space in particular - the Marine A Grain Elevator at Silo City in Buffalo, New York. Using her horn, Lea awakens certain resonances within the space which have laid dormant and forgotten for decades. In this sense, Resonant Field is the documentation of a human's profoundly personal interaction with an inanimate space through the medium of sound.

The decommissioned structure at Silo City is a massive, cavernous space filled with large cast concrete cylinders, measuring approximately 18 feet wide and 130 feet tall. A grain silo that was once active, noisy, loud, and filled with kinetic energy now lays dormant as a silent, hulking concrete corpse, as is the case with many industrial sites across the United States. Through playing her saxophone inside this structure, Bertucci's goal was to excite and activate the space by playing certain pitches and extended techniques. By engaging with the acoustics in this manner, particularly the 12 seconds of natural decay, Bertucci is able to reimagine the saxophone as a polyphonic instrument, creating unique effects of microtonality and complex rhythmic phenomena, facilitated by the distinct delay as the sound bounces from one end of the silo to the other. Her microtonal playing moves delicately through the octaves, creating an interactive, responsive dance up and down the frequency scale. These overlapping tones form an extreme density and fills the ears and head with an eternal buzz, while also revealing an array of fluttering psychoacoustic phenomenon to the listener. By using these raw recordings of saxophone as the foundation for more intricate studio compositions, Resonant Field transcends mere documentation and evolves into a focused, comprehensive and total work at the hands of the artist.

Due to the specific architectural and sonic conditions of the Marine A Grain Elevator, Lea has captured new, never-before-heard sounds that truly cannot be duplicated by any other means. Her playing is improvisatory and reactive to the space’s unique acoustics. By allowing imperfections to exist within the recordings, the compositions evoke a distinct rawness and vulnerability. Free of premeditation or calculation, there is an emotional surrender to the bestial, monumental atmosphere and presence of Silo City. This formation of an intimate connection with her surroundings is both scientific and spiritual, putting Lea in a duality of roles as both an archaeologist of sound and as a sonic medium. The fact that these recordings took place during the partial solar eclipse of 2017 further contributes to the ceremonial, ritual quality of the work, making Resonant Field a profound, industrial meditation on beauty, emptiness, and the deep melancholy of forgotten spaces.

More information can be found here.

3960 Hits

Richard Skelton, "Border Ballads"

Richard Skelton has spent the last two years living on the rural northern edge of the Scotland-England border, a boundary demarcated by various watercourses - among them the Kershope Burn, the Liddel Water and the River Esk. This hinterland topography has informed a series of musical recordings which, in their brevity, stand in stark contrast to the longform compositions for which he is more usually known. Nevertheless, there is a sense that these twelve miniatures are fragments of a larger whole, such is their unity in tone and timbre.

In some ways, Border Ballads can be seen as a revisiting of certain compositional processes first encountered on Marking Time, over a decade ago. The sparse, overlapping bowed notes, for example, or the solitary, bell-like piano. But there is something different at work here. Whereas Marking Time felt aeolian, shifting, fleeting, this new work, with its persistent cello undertow and its low, tremulous viola, feels telluric, grounded, earthen. Perhaps Border Ballads can be seen as the embodiment of a desire for certainty after a prolonged period of upheaval, but that ever-close riverine border, at once both fixed and fluid, is a disturbing presence. A darkness that cannot be ignored.

More information can be found here.

3575 Hits