Hidden Shoal News
New Shows + More From Markus Mehr
Sonic wunderkind Markus Mehr has an exciting rest-of-2013 ahead of him. Earlier this month, the video for Duck Become Swan from the 2012 album On competed as part of the official selection at the 19th l’Etrange Short Film Festival in Paris.
On September 21, Mehr’s audiovisual installation with Stefanie Sixt, titled Sublimit(y) Water, will show at the Artparcours Festival in Augsburg. The artwork utilises abstracted footage and sound recordings of nearby water bodies and seeks recontextualise the Western world’s approach to water consumption and wastage.
Mehr and Sixt will also be performing their audiovisual piece B C H I J, an examination and exploration of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. Those performances will happen in Berlin on October 24 and at the Dok Festival in Kassel on November 16.
The performances for First Live, a play for which Mehr contributed music, will take place on September 20 and 22 at Festival Center in Mannheim and January 17 and 18 at the Pumpenhouse in Münster.
Finally, a reminder that Mehr’s fantastic new live album Live In Bari is available for free download from the Hidden Shoal Store and Bandcamp.
Markus Mehr Performances & Installations
September 20 – Mannheim, Festivalzentrum (w/ First Live, Theater Performance)
Septembe 22 – Mannheim, Festivalzentrum (w/ First Live)
October 24 – Berlin, Ausland (w/ B/C/H/I/J)
November 16 – Kassel, DokFestival (w/ B/C/H/I/J)
January 17-18, 2014 – Münster, Pumpenhaus (w/ First Life)
Markus Mehr – “Live In Bari”
New Video Clip from “I Razor” (Feat. Robert Pollard, Circus Devils and Todd Tobias)
We’re excited to present another wild and wonderful cut from from I Razor, the no-budget experimental feature film directed by Todd Tobias. Both tracks in this clip, ‘March of the Homunculus’ and ‘Star-Peppered Wheat Germ’, are available on the brilliant recently released I Razor soundtrack album out through Hidden Shoal. The soundtrack comprises work by Todd Tobias and Circus Devils featuring vocals from Robert Pollard (Guided by Voices) as well as instrumental versions of some of the Circus Devils’ existing songs. The album is a cinematic feast within itself, uncompromising, redemptive and always engaging.
I Razor – ‘March of the Homunculus/Star-Peppered Wheat Germ’
Apricot Rail Soundtracks Duct Tape Surfing Doco
The incredibly inspirational story of paraplegic surfer Pascale Honore by the wonderful filmmaker Mark Tipple was recently released. The short doco features the perfectly matched song ‘Halfway House’ by Hidden Shoal’s Apricot Rail. The video was chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick and has been picked up by news networks across the US and Europe, not to mention going viral online. Wonderful stuff! Check out the video below.
New Apricot Rail Video + Single
We’re excited to send you the new freely downloadable single and music video from Australian majestic pop instrumentalists Apricot Rail. Taken from their latest album Quarrels (mixed by Scott Solter), ‘Dore Strauch’ is an incandescently beautiful track, featuring cascading glockenspiels, haunting guitar arpeggios and rhythmic eddies, stirred into confluence by gorgeous updrifts of woodwind melody. The accompanying video directed by Jules Gay and shot in various locations in Germany, including Berlin depicts a young woman’s hallucinogenic journey through both forest and city, through colour and monochrome, between memory and the now. This music transcends fads and trends to appeal to anyone drawn to beautiful, supple songcraft.
You can download the track here, check out the stunning album this track is cut from here, read a full press release here and check out the video at Vimeo and Youtube.
Two Gilded Songs Nominated For WAMI Experimental Song of the Year!
Fantastic news for Perth experimental sound sculptors Gilded as they have had not one, but two of their tracks nominated for a WAMI Song of the Year Award in the experimental category. The two nominated tracks are ‘Velar’ and ‘Road Movie’, taken off their stunning debut Terrane. Check out more details over at WAM.
Four Hidden Shoal releases in the KBRP top 30!!!
The wonderful Arizona based college radio station KBRP can’t get enough Hidden Shoal at the moment. We now currently have four releases in their Top 30 chart!
16. Liam Singer – Arc Iris
18. Todd Tobias, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils – I Razor
26. Jumpel – “Bloc4”
30. Tangled Star – Let’s Adjourn To The Garden
Nice!
perth sign to Hidden Shoal, new album out in November!
Hidden Shoal Recordings is proud to announce the signing of Australian outfit perth. ‘drank and kites and tomorrow’, the first single to be taken from their forthcoming album what’s your utopia?, will be available for free download on 26 September, followed by the album release on 14 November.
Shifting effortlessly between psychedelic pop, folk-laced electronica and shoegaze, what’s your utopia? manages to meld these disparate genres into a beautifully cohesive statement. Comprising three members of Apricot Rail (Matthew Saville, Justin Manzano and Jack Quirk) plus songwriter Michael Dolan, perth have a unique magic that stems from their ability to refract the individual members’ unique sensibilities through an experimental lens. The follow-up to their acclaimed 2012 album Babes, Water, Waves, what’s your utopia? takes an eclectic approach to organic electronic music while evolving its scope and clarity. Recorded in a variety of locations, from a desolate cabin perched upon the surly south-west Australian coast to the glow of Studio 373 in Perth, the album was then mixed by band member Justin Manzano before being mastered by Simon Struthers (Mukaizake, Umpire) of Forensic Audio.
And if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, on Saturday 7 December, Perth play the Slanted and Enchanted festival in Perth (!), alongside artists as diverse and wonderful as Deerhunter, Jon Hopkins and Cave. More info on Slanted and Enchanted at Life is Noise.
Stunning New Single from Kramies’ Forthcoming EP – Free Download
Hidden Shoal Recordings is proud to announce the release of ‘The Wooden Heart’, the title track from the expansive new EP by dream-pop singer-songwriter Kramies (out 17th Oct. 2013). Grab the track for free here or stream the track below.
Produced by Todd Tobias (Guided By Voices, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils), ‘The Wooden Heart’ is a kaleidoscopic introduction to Kramies’ beautiful new release. The song’s windswept grandeur is married to an emotional directness that demands your attention and doesn’t let go. Akin to The Moody Blues’ classic ‘Nights In White Satin’, ‘The Wooden Heart’ renders an immersive, widescreen pop vista that takes your breath away.
In addition to Todd Tobias’s production (on ‘The Beginning’, ‘The Wooden Heart’, ‘Upon The Northern Isles’ and ‘The Ending’), The Wooden Heart EP also features the production and instrumental talents of Jason Lytle of Grandaddy fame (on ‘Sea Otter Cottage’ and ‘Clocks Were All Broken’). Rounded out by the beautiful artwork of French photographer Jérôme Sevrette, The Wooden Heart EP is a lovingly constructed work of art.
Read a full press release here.
Stunning Review for Jumpel's "Bloc4" in Igloo Magazine
Jumpel’s sublime new album Bloc4 has just scooped a glowing review in the excellent Igloo Magazine. Here’s a taste,
“The aesthetic conjunction linking fragility, abstraction and poetical expression is perfectly programmed and transport the listener into melodious-chantlike world of sounds. The expressive and acoustic qualities of Chole March’s very own experiments and personal poetry resonates intimately with Joe Dürbeck’s immersive and powerful electronic fragments to a create a very sensuous experience.” – Igloo Magazine
Read the whole review here and stream and purchase the album (CD + MP3 + FLAC) here.
Jumpel – ‘Blue Ceiling’
[The] Caseworker 'Dependence Day' Single (Download & Stream)
![[The] Caseworker - Dependence Day](https://www.hiddenshoal.com/wp-content/uploads/store_images/large/DependenceDay_LRG.jpg)
‘Dependence Day’ is the new, freely downloadable single from garage-dreampop trio [The] Caseworker. The track is lifted from their forthcoming album Voices Out There, out through Hidden Shoal Recordings on 24 October 2013.
‘Dependence Day’ marries [The] Caseworker’s trademark restraint with a strident, slowburning melodic sensibility. A vague memoir to vocalist Conor Devlin’s time spent living in San Francisco, raising a toast to the city while also happily turning his back on it, the track’s atmosphere is ominous yet accessible, with its three-dimensional guitar melodies and crisp drums underpinned by sinuous bass and Devlin’s reassuring purr.
“[The] Caseworker extract darkness from inside whispery, ambient pop… completely enraptured and awesomely dazed” – Rolling Stone
The track is lifted from the band’s fourth album, and their second for Hidden Shoal, Voices Out There which sees [The] Caseworker rein in the lo-fi guitar-pop impulses of acclaimed third album Letters From The Coast to explore a more expansive, minimal sound, akin to Conor and Eimer Devlin’s previous band Half Film. The band maintain their enigmatic intimacy and atmosphere, while hinting at haunting vistas just beyond the horizons of these succinct, sad songs.