Hidden Shoal News
Involved Sign to Hidden Shoal
We’re extremely excited to welcome electronica duo Involved to the Hidden Shoal family. Involved fuse the psychedelic sounds of ’70s kosmische with ’80s electronic and more modern ambient styles, creating evocative, cinematic music. However, rather than being revisionist, the duo curate fresh sounds from a musical palette that spans 40 years. Lush synth tones are deployed with an innate sense of melody, leading the listener through widescreen narratives of enviable scope. On forthcoming debut album Revolving Maze, the title says it all: this is complex, engrossing music that transforms with each spin.
The first single from Revolving Maze will drop on the 18th of August with the album following on the 19th of September. Their 2013 debut EP Implant is also available now from Bandcamp. We’re also very excited to have both album and EP join the Hidden Shoal licensing and publishing catalogue.
Be sure to sign up to the Hidden Shoal mailing list or subscribe to our news feed to keep updated.
Involved – ‘Impure’ (taken from the 2103 Implant EP)
Brother Earth ‘Out Like a Lion’ Loving
Brother Earth‘s first cut from their forthcoming album Positive Haywires (September 16th) has been reaching ears and gaining love. ‘Out Like a Lion‘ was a recent featured download on two of our favourite mp3 music blogs, Largehearted Boy and Faronheit and has just been reviewed on the wonderful zine, The Modern Folk Music of America.
“…another in the list of MFOA submissions that happen to be on the formidable hidden shoal imprint… i must admit that i was a little star-struck to receive an email from todd tobias, as he is known for producing several bob pollard/guided by voices records… moody and atmospheric, ‘out like a lion’, the lead single from the forthcoming brother earth LP ‘positive haywires’, simultaneously drives forward while it oozes out around the edges. the song is anchored by an insistent clicking percussion track punctuated by swelling cymbals and a plucked classical guitar, fleshed out by various ambient touches, creating a dark mysterious room for the sleep-talking, trance-like vocal. a mystical freak folk trip.” – The Modern Folk Music of America
Grab the single as a free download from Brother Earth’s Bandcamp site.
Slow Dancing Society Reviewed at Railway Journey
Slow Dancing Society‘s stunning new album The Cogent Sea has received another glowing review, this time at the wonderful Brazilian zine Railway Journey. Check the review out here and for those not fluent in Portuguese here’s a taste in English with a lot of help from our frenemy Google,
“The Cogent Sea is the album to listen to when the only desire is to completely disconnect from the universe in which it dwells for a moment and capture that moment just for us, when the unsolvable or unattainable become possible and the journey becomes endless and unscripted.” – Railway Journey
Head to Bandcamp to buy the album in digital and CD formats.
Brother Earth ‘Out Like A Lion’ Single – Free Download
We’re super excited to announce the release of ‘Out Like A Lion’, the new single by American duo Brother Earth, a collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/producer Todd Tobias (Circus Devils, Robert Pollard, GBV producer) and vocalist Steve Five (The Library is on Fire). ‘Out Like A Lion’ is taken from their forthcoming album Positive Haywires (16th Sept 2014) through Hidden Shoal.
Negotiating the smoky ambience of ‘Out Like A Lion’ feels like squinting into the dark and tiptoeing down a staircase covered in moss. The darkness is pressing in all around you, but the insistence of the percussion and nylon-string guitar tugs you onward, mesmerised by the incantatory vocal. ‘Out Like A Lion’ is the first cut from the forthcoming Brother Earth album Positive Haywires, which vacillates between brooding textural pieces and exuberant rock’n’roll at the drop of a hat, chasing the ghosts of pop music past into a hall of cracked mirrors.
Grab the free download at Bandcamp or stream the track at SoundCloud.
Slow Dancing Society Review in Textura
Slow Dancing Society’s sumptuous new album The Cogent Sea has just scooped a wonderful review in the latest edition of Textura along with being chosen one of this month’s honorable mentions. Textura continues to be one the leading purveyors of new and engaging music so it’s always a treat to read their coverage of Hidden Shoal releases. Read the review in full here and download a featured Slow Dancing Society track in Textura’s Mp3 section. Here’s a taste to get you going,
“… The Cogent Sea registers as a well-considered advance by Sullivan: it maintains a strong sense of connection to and continuity from the previous Slow Dancing Society releases yet also offers subtle modifications in the project’s enticing sound. That he’s been able to effect such a change in such an organic manner on this latest effort suggests there’s still room for other advances in the future, too.” – Textura
Markus Mehr Soundtracks Kyle Hughes-Odgers Video
The startling opening track to Markus Mehr’s On was recently placed in a short video documenting a new work by the brilliant Australian visual artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers, The Giants View. ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’ by Mehr sits beautifully against the wonderful moving image work of Chad Peacock who directed the piece for Hughes-Odgers. Check out the video below and be sure to hit full screen.
The Giant’s View from Chad Peacock on Vimeo.
Slow Dancing Society Reviews at Life is Noise and Igloo Mag
Slow Dancing Society’s stunning 6th album, The Cogent Sea, continues to receive praise at some of our favourite music sites. Both Igloo Mag and Life is Noise have delivered glowing reviews for the album in the last week. Here’s some snippets to get you in the mood,
“The music captivatingly circulates, undulates, croons, chimes and glides… SDS is back with what feels like his most emotionally exposed and atmospherically lucid album to date.” – Igloo Mag
“… ‘By Morning This Will All Seem Like A Dream’ achieves the unenviable task of marrying cheesy 80’s music touchstones of dance floor synths, big ballad guitar leads and Kenny G sax, repackaged and twisted into something genuinely touching. It’s an impressive feat of futuristic musical reimagining and a common theme that emerges throughout the album.” – Life is Noise
Check out the album and the rest of the SDS discography here.
Slow Dancing Society – ‘Pull’
New Kramies Review and Interview
Kramies gorgeous new EP The Folklore Sessions (featuring Grant Wilson of Ghost Hunters) has just received a glowing review at Luna Kafe,
“No make-up, no special effects, no overdub-garnish. Just the power and the beauty of melodies carried out ‘unplugged’. “The Wooden Heart” is lovely. “Antiquarian Days” is exquisite. “Sea Otter Cottage” is simply gorgeous. Wonderful stuff.” – Luna Kafe
The dream pop troubadour has also just been interviewed at the Hipster Approved blog where he waxes lyrical about cheese, goats, headphones, music, Hidden Shoal, Cam Merton, Jason Lytle, Grant Wilson, castles, ghosts and cookies. What’s not to like about all those things!
Kramies – ‘Antiquarian Days’ (featuring Grant Wilson)
Brother Earth Signs to Hidden Shoal
As promised in our previous post we have more fantastic news to share. We’re extremely excited to be able to announce the signing of American duo Brother Earth. The band will release the amazing full length Positive Haywires on 16th September preceded by two singles, the first of which drops next week (30th July)! Positive Haywires vacillates between brooding textural pieces and exuberant rock’n’roll at the drop of a hat, chasing the ghosts of pop music past into a hall of cracked mirrors. It’s an amazing album and we can’t wait for you all to hear it.
Brother Earth is a collaboration between multi-instrumentalist/producer Todd Tobias and vocalist Steve Five. Todd’s darkly exotic instrumental music has featured on three Hidden Shoal releases to date (Medicine Show, Night Above Ground and I Razor). Todd is also a member of Circus Devils alongside brother Tim Tobias and vocalist Robert Pollard (Guided by Voices). Steve Five is the guitarist/vocalist/songwriter for the wonderful Brooklyn-based band The Library is on Fire.
Be sure to sign up to our mailing list to get first dibs on the single next week.
New Website, New Moves!
If you’re reading this on our new website then it’s hardly news that we have a new website. But damn it we do! It’s not just a makeover though – it represents some exciting changes that we’ve been working on at Hidden Shoal over the last several months. These changes mean we’ll be working more collaboratively with our artists, and part of that is allowing you to buy all of the releases directly from them, so they receive 100% of the sale. Cool! That means that the Hidden Shoal Store has met its maker – you can read a little note on that here.
We’ll also be acting as publisher for our roster, seeking film, TV, web and game placements, and tackling other publishing avenues. We’re extremely excited about growing this aspect of Hidden Shoal’s endeavours and we can’t wait to build on the all the fantastic film and TV placements we’ve secured over the last couple of years.
We’ll also be using this spanking new website to let you get to know our artists a little better, with interviews, mixtapes, videos and more. The first of these features will be up in a few weeks, so stay tuned.
And if all that wasn’t enough, we have some ridiculously talented new artists and exciting new releases to announce over the coming months, the first of which we’ll tell you about tomorrow. Watch this space.