Hidden Shoal News
Brother Earth “Positive Haywires” Out Now!
Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of Positive Haywires by American duo Brother Earth. To coincide with the release we also have another treat for you in the form of a new music video for the fantastic album track ‘Planet Wednesday‘. Positive Haywires is also now part of the Hidden Shoal licensing catalogue and is available for all film, tv, web and games projects.
Brother Earth brings together the formidable talents of multi-instrumentalist Todd Tobias (Circus Devils) and vocalist Steve Five (The Library is on Fire). On this their debut album for Hidden Shoal Brother Earth’s shadowy, kaleidoscopic music vacillates between brooding textural pieces and exuberant rock-and-roll at the drop of a hat, chasing the ghosts of pop music past into a hall of cracked mirrors. The album’s wonderfully elastic aesthetics shift from dark and broken to sunny and playful in a matter of songs, while maintaining their own warped and beautiful logic. The album features the previously released singles ‘Out Like a Lion‘ and ‘City of Gold‘.
“It’s surprising and experimental, and quite beautiful.” – Backseat Mafia on ‘Out Like a Lion’
The album is available now on CD, limited edition cassette and digital formats via Brother Earth’s Bandcamp page.
Kramies Interview Launches New Features Section
Two good bits of news in one. Firstly we finally get to launch our new Features section on the site. We’ll be presenting interviews with Hidden Shoal artists and other folk we call our friends, waxing lyrical about our favourite tracks, throwing artist and label curated mixtapes at you and a host of other things we haven’t even dreamed up yet. We’ll be posting new material regularly so be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed or check back regularly.
Now for some icing on this cake – our first feature slot goes to an interview with the inimitable Kramies where he talks about Neil Diamond, Ghost Hunters and Jason Lytle (amongst other things). Head to the Features section and check it out now.
Markus Mehr ‘Gymnasium/Swarms’ – New Video from Forthcoming Album
Ahead of the release of Markus Mehr‘s incredible new album Binary Rooms on 15th October, we have something very special to share with you. Experimental filmmaker and Markus Mehr collaborator Stefanie Sixt has created a stunning new video work for the album track ‘Gymnasium/Swarms’. View the full video at Vimeo, stream the track at SoundCloudand download it at Bandcamp.
Binary Rooms is Mehr’s fifth studio album and his most challenging and engaging to date. Mehr’s music has always possessed a keen sense of and negotiation with scale, and on Binary Rooms he challenges notions of personal space, juxtaposing the human against the industrial, the gentle and intimate against the jolting and harsh. Mehr acts as a fragment hunter, meshing machine-like tones with the discarded elements of humanity; narrative with anti-narrative. On Binary Rooms he manages to create a spatial remix – a striking re-design of aural reality filled with a living, digital biology.
“Off is unquestionably the most satisfying part of the trilogy… opens in a manner characteristic of the genre but subsequently distinguishes itself as something far more than a standard ambient work… a wholly immersive experience that you will likely want to re-experience many times over” – Textura
“In this blissful wanderlust Mehr succeeds in spades creating a completely engrossing, engaging and all together reliable album full of the most powerful ambient-drone tracks this year” – Tome to the Weather Machine
Check out Markus Mehr’s discography and read more about the artist here.
First Taste of Forthcoming Todd Tobias Album
In advance of the release of Todd Tobias‘s new album Impossible Cities, the eagerly awaited follow-up to Medicine Show, we’re excited to present a video for the track ‘Saz’. With its fire-scorched visuals, the new video evokes the fuzzy, tribal lurch of the track itself, carving a voodoo groove that’s deeply satisfying.
Impossible Cities drops on the 28th of October and will include the bonus EP Impossible Cities 2. The album is being released on CD in Europe by the wonderful Tiny Room Records and by Todd Tobias & Hidden Shoal everywhere else. Keep your ears out for the first official single which lands on the 22nd of September.
Chloë March Signs to Hidden Shoal
We are incredibly excited to announce the signing of Chloë March to the Hidden Shoal roster. We’ve been fans of Chloë’s engaging, intelligent songwriting and sublime voice for a long time. Her wonderful collaborations with Hidden Shoal’s Jumpel sowed the seeds for a closer relationship that has now come to fruition. Oft compared to singular artists such as Nina Simone, Beth Gibbons and Elizabeth Fraser, March follows her own independent path, writing, engineering and producing from her home studio in south-east England. Inhabiting musical territory somewhere between art song and folk, dream-pop and electronica, the ambient and the cinematic, March embraces all these influences to create poetic, emotionally charged and intensely atmospheric songs and soundworlds.
“a luminous voice, a smoky alto that unfurls like a plume of cigarette smoke, its velvety tone a sensual narcotic… it’s hard not to think of the mythological sirens who used their hypnotic voices to lure sailors ashore” – textura
Not only does her stunning discography join our publishing catalogue, but Hidden Shoal will also re-release March’s latest album Nights Bright Days, along with a companion EP of previously unreleased tracks, on 4th November. Listen to and read more about Chloe March here.
Chloë March – ‘Soft Rain’ (from the 2008 album Divining)
Hidden Shoal Signs Antonymes Back Catalogue
We are extremely excited to announce the signing of Antonymes‘ back catalogue to the Hidden Shoal Publishing catalogue. Antonymes’ full range of stunning works will now be available for licensing through Hidden Shoal.
Antonymes is designer, photographer and musician Ian M. Hazeldine, based in the wilds of North Wales. The music of Antonymes emerges from the adjustments and erasures of neo-classical, ambient and minimalism, and is by its very nature cinematic, engaging, and deeply emotive. His work has been released on such labels as Hibernate, Time Released Sound, Cathedral Transmissions, Soundcolours and, of course, Hidden Shoal, and has recently featured on the Floyd Mayweather documentary 30 Days In May (Showtime), as well as numerous BBC productions.
Stream and purchase Antonymes’ releases and read more about the artist here.
Stunning New French Review for Kramies “The Wooden Heart”
Nearly a year on from its original release the magic of Kramies The Wooden Heart EP is still resonating with fans and press alike. The stunning 6 track release which features collaborations with Jason Lytle (of Grandaddy) has received glowing reviews since it release and it seems the tide has not stopped. The latest review and track by track exposition at the lovely French blog Pop Culture & Co. is a wonderful example of just how much of an impact this music has had on its fans. The original review is in French which you can read here and we have a full English translation here. Here is a little taster to get you going,
“… “The Wooden Heart” is one of those discs that deserve a real, physical and mental presence, attention, heart, a meeting with his whole being. This is not the soundtrack of banal routine activities or the soundtrack of a single emotion: it is a return to self. These six songs are magical, they have the real power to slow time that has continued to accelerate for decades. Against the backdrop of pop / folk and dreamy airy, air and padded, songs written and arranged beautifully with which Kramies invites us to let go, to regain the carefree spirit of childhood, the imperturbable romance of our youth. He urges us not to close the door of our dreams. A disc to listen, to feel, which is assessed as a strong deep meditation and intimate and dreamlike. A gift, a gift.” – Pop Culture and Co.
Head to Kramies artist profile to check out The Wooden Heart along with his two other wonderful EP’s The Folkolore Sessions and The European.
First Taste of Kryshe’s Forthcoming EP – Free Download
Kryshe‘s stunning forthcoming EP In Between lands on 25th September and to get you warmed up we have a delicious first taste of what’s to come in the form of ‘Africa‘. The track plays out like the score to a slow-motion scene from some David Lynch road movie as it glitches and glides across the stereo landscape.
In Between is an exquisitely subtle and detailed five-track EP that resonates with chilly grandeur and heartening warmth. Across spacious vistas reminiscent of the collaborative work of Brian Eno and Harold Budd, delicate yet assured melodies unfurl before being subjected to delicate manipulation. This is enveloping, minimal music with a fragility that belies its emotional potency.
Download ‘Africa’ from Bandcamp or stream the track at SoundCloud.
Involved at Schallgrenzen & Fragile or Possibly Extinct
Involved’s amazing new single, ‘Machiavella‘, from their forthcoming debut Revolving Maze (19th September) has recently been posted at the wonderful German blog Schallgrenzen and Fragile or Possibly Extinct (the lovely folks from The Silent Ballet). Schallgrenzen gave it track of the day status and had this to say,
“Dramatic, sweeping wide-screen electronica and swirling Sci-Fi of Involved. I liked the track “Machiavella” from the first note. Exciting inner cinema music. Joseph Dorsey and Reivilo Enoignor are Involved are from Texas and beyond with this enveloping cosmic force from their debut album “Revolving Maze” on indie label Hidden Shoal .” – Schallgrenzen
‘Machiavella’ is available now as a free download via Bandcamp. Revolving Maze drops on the 19th September 2014.
New Kyle Hughes-Odgers Video Featuring Markus Mehr Soundtrack
Chad Peacock has again made fantastic documentation of yet another brilliant new work by Perth artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers, “A Thousand Lights”, which is installed at the Perth International Airport. The video once again features the sonic talents of Markus Mehr whose track ‘Up-Sturz’ from his debut Lava soundtracks the piece. In the words of the artist,
“The concept for this work is based around an abstract aerial view of flying from across the globe over Western Australia into Perth city. Abstract geometric pattern areas showcasing the environment with various colour changes from oranges,yellows of the desert to blues of the ocean and rivers. Bursts of colour highlighting life and activity within the growing metropolis of Perth and surrounding areas.” – Kyle Hughes-Odgers
Kyle Hughes Odgers – A Thousand Lights (Perth Airport) from Peacock Visuals on Vimeo.