Hidden Shoal News
Joe Sampson Featured on The Revue’s Weekend Showcase
Joe Sampson‘s beautiful track ‘Songbird’ (feat. Nathaniel Rateliff) is featured on The Revue’s Weekend Showcase playlist. Check it out along with 49 other awesome tracks here.
‘Songbird’ is lifted from Sampson’s stunning new EP Songs of Delay which is available now as a free download via BandCamp. The EP is also available for streaming on Spotify and purchase on iTunes, Amazon and the other usual suspects.
Liminal Drifter Interview on Pirate 88 Radio
Check out this fantastic interview with Liminal Drifter (aka Dr Simon Order) on Pirate 88 Radio! Simon even spills the beans on a Hidden Shoal release that not even we have mentioned yet, talks about his collaboration with Chloe March and also his top ten listing in the SBS Chill Chillest Tracks for 2016. Listen and find out!
New Craig Hallsworth Single!
We’ve been itching to give you a taste of the sublime debut album from the inimitable Western Australian songwriter Craig Hallsworth and now the itching can cease! ‘We’re Too Far Away (My Other Future, My Other Youth)’ is the first single lifted from What’s The Story With This Hole? which will see release on the 24th of October 2016. Many will know the man from some of Perth’s pivotal seminal outfits such as The Bamboos, The Healers, wild palms, Zuvuya, Outstation, The Slow Beings, Tangled Star so this solo outing should rightly come with some level of excitement and expectation. We can guarantee that you’ll have your expectations and me and your appetites whet! Stream the single here and download it for free here. More on the new album below.
With over 30 years of songwriting experience under his belt, Craig Hallsworth makes What’s The Story With This Hole? feel effortless yet boundless. Recorded and produced with long-time collaborator Al Smith (DrAlienSmith, Bergerk Studios), the album represents the most musically developed and fully realised recording the pair have delivered to date. On the surface, these are perfectly composed and innately melodic pop/rock songs, with Hallsworth’s guitars alternately shimmering and snarling around his unmistakably keening vocals. The real magic, however, lies a little concealed; songs often end up somewhere very different from where they started, and Hallsworth’s often surreal lyrical excursions act in striking counterpoint to the music.
It’s this juxtaposition that makes What’s The Story With This Hole? so special – musically rich and familiar sounds taken into unrelated narrative territories. In Hallsworth’s own words, “To me, the mysterious undecidability in the words plays a crucial part in the overall experience of the songs, making them events of sense and sensation. It isn’t so much that I consider the lyrics to be poetry, but I think a sense of poetry would be useful in approaching these songs.”
“Craig Hallsworth knows his way around a tune with this set of sparkling power-pop, set with a country twang and cosmic touch” – 2ser on Tangled Star’s album Let’s Adjourn to the Garden
Joe Sampson “Songs of Delay” EP Out Now!
Those who soaked in the melancholic beauty of new single,‘My Love’, were given a preview of Joe Sampson‘s ability to muster maximum emotional resonance from the sparest of musical ingredients. With the official release of Joe Sampson‘s stunning new EP, Songs of Delay we now present a sublime five-track EP of Sampson’s consummate songcraft. If that wasn’t enough the EP has graciously been made available for free download so there’s no excuse to not become a fan.
Across its 13-minute run-time, Joe Sampson patiently unfurls a perfectly formed suite of acoustic vignettes, each song exuding a gently mesmerising beauty. Stripped back in both instrumentation and execution, with additional vocals by Nathaniel Rateliff on ‘Songbird’, the EP leaves its raw, emotional core exposed, evoking the comfortably sad acoustic tones of Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen. Ornamented with often darkly humorous lyrics, intoned in a soft yet road-worn baritone, Sampson’s intimate, emotive songs draw you in, gradually weaving their subtle magic.
Head over to Joe Sampson’s Bandcamp and grab your free download of Songs of Delay. Read more about Joe Sampson here.
“Joe Sampson creates a lot with a little. Maybe it was his family roots of a barbershop quartet that lead to the minimalism of his craft. Maybe it was his collaborations with Nathaniel Rateliff and Esme Patterson, or maybe it’s just because he doesn’t need to add any bells or whistles to his songs. The Denver songwriter, who took home Songwriter of the Year from Westword in 2008 and was hailed as the rarely seen and mythical musical unicorn by Hey Reverb, has just released his stark, EP Songs of Delay — a stunning 13-minute journey straight into the heart of superb songwriting and a simple, austere but elegant presentation of those songs.” – The Marquee
New Todd Tobias Single and Video (feat. Chloe March)
We’re excited to present the first single and accompanying music video from Gila Man, the new album by American instrumental soundscaper Todd Tobias. The breezily meditative ‘Pollen Path’ shimmers with acoustic fingerpicking and Chloë March’s celestial voice. Along with it’s accompanying music video by Hidden Shoal’s Cam Merton it provides the perfect intro to Gila Man‘s psychedelic sci-fi western landscape.
‘Pollen Path’ is available as a free download from Todd Tobias’s Bandcamp as well as streaming on SoundCloud. Head to YouTube to watch the accompanying music video. Gila Man is available for CD pre-order via Tiny Room Records (Europe/UK/Australia) and via Todd Tobias (USA). More on Todd Tobias here.
Antonymes Mix Commisioned for BBC Radio Wales
Last saturday night Ian Hazeldine’s (aka Antonymes) mix commissioned for BBC Radio Wales was broadcast on Adam Walton’s show. Adam broadcast an extended show from Festival No.6 in Portmeirion, North Wales.
Check out Adam’s wonderful intro to the mix, entitled Twelve Thoughts (Fifty Four Years),
“Now here on BBC Radio Wales for the next hour we move to a brand new mix from Antonymes AKA Ian M Hazeldine from Hawarden in North Wales. Gladstone country. Ian’s music defies any easy categorisation. It’s experimental, but accessible, contemporary classical without being opaque pretentious and minimal without being whispy and insubstantial. It’s organically textural, but still, honestly, hummable.
Antonymes extensive back catalogue is a reflection of the human psyche and it’s contemplation of all the big themes: love, death, sanity and beauty in all of their complexities, and I can’t recommend that back catalogue highly enough.
I suspect that the next hour celebrating some of the artists that shaped works like Antonymes’ truly remarkable “(For Now We See) Through A Glass Dimly” album, interweaved with some of Ian’s own music, will be one of the most beautiful, unsettling and transportive that will be broadcast anywhere in the UK in 2016, and I’m deadly serious. I’m not just talking it up for a fact.
So, now, over to you Antonymes…”
Listen, enjoy, share and buy music by these incredible artists via the MixCloud restream.
Joe Sampson, Craig Hallsworth, Todd Tobias on Sonofmarketing Compilations
Our friends at the excellent music zine Sonofmarketing have put together their annual new music compilations and we’re lucky enough to have three of our artists featured! The My Awesome Preview 3.0 compilations for 2016 feature new and forthcoming releases dropping over the next three months.
My Awesome Preview 3.0 Vol. 1 features the first taste of the new Todd Tobias album, Gila Man (18th Oct). The track ‘Pollen Path’ features the gorgeous vocals of Chloe March and drops next week along with it’s accompanying music video. My Awesome Preview 3.0 Vol. 3 features the new single from Joe Sampson, ‘My Love’, from his brilliant soon to be released EP Songs of Delay (12th Sept). My Awesome Preview 3.0 Vol. 3 also includes the soon to be released first single, ‘We’re Too Far Away (My Other Future, My Other Youth)’, from Craig Hallsworth‘s new album What’s The Story With This Hole? (24th Oct).
New Craig Hallsworth Solo Album Out Late October
We’re excited to announce that the inimitable Craig Hallsworth (Tangled Star, The Slow Beings, The Bamboos, The Healers and beyond) will release his debut solo album, What’s The Story With This Hole?, via Hidden Shoal on October 24th. With over 30 years of songwriting experience under his belt, Craig Hallsworth makes What’s The Story With This Hole? feel effortless yet boundless. Recorded and produced with long-time collaborator Al Smith (DrAlienSmith, Bergerk Studios), the album represents the most musically developed and fully realised recording the pair have delivered to date. The first single from the album, ‘We’re Too Far Away (My Other Future, My Other Youth)’, drops on the 13th of September.
Joe Sampson and Nathaniel Rateliff Perform ‘Songbird’ (Video)
It’s a little less than three weeks until Joe Sampson‘s beautiful new EP drops and we’ve shared the first single, ‘My Love‘, from Songs of Delay and now it’s time to share some more! This time it’s an extra special treat as we have a fantastic, intimate video of Joe performing the lead track, ‘Songbird’, with the imminently talented Nathaniel Rateliff (who also provides vocals on the recorded version). Nathaniel should need no introduction but in case you’ve been living in a cupboard these last few years, he fronts the chart busting outfit Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.
Check out the video for ‘Songbird’ over at YouTube ahead of the release of Joe Sampson’s Songs of Delay on the 12th of September.
Memorybell’s “Obsolete” Live Album Launch
Memorybell‘s stunning Obsolete will be officially launched next week (1st September) at Syntax Physic Opera, Denver, Colorado. Anyone in or near Denver must get down to this. Head to the event’s Facebook page for more detail.
Here’s the official word from Syntax,
Classically-trained pianist Grant Outerbridge of the late, great Denver band The Very Hush Hush performs Memorybell’s debut album “Obsolete’ in it’s entirety. Helicopter Copter’s sublime “Whisper Down the Lane” will be screened beforehand. It will be an evening of ambient instrumentalism, great food and drinks, and made all the better if you come help celebrate.
Read more about Memorybell and stream/buy Obsolete here.