Kryshe

Biography

Kryshe is the live and studio-based ambient project of German musician Christian Grothe. Grothe’s musical explorations began by writing and recordings guitar-based songs at home, and over time his approach has become more experimental in nature. His current productions often evolve from live improvisation sessions, incorporating sound-manipulation software such as max/msp to develop a richly layered yet spacious sound. Grothe is also a member of the improvisational trio Unland, featuring ambient artist Jonas Meyer and clarinetist Shabnam Pavaresh.

News

• Hidden Shoal in Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018 List!

  Hidden Shoal is incredibly honoured to have been selected as one of Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018. Textura is, in our opinion, the premiere new music magazine and favourite of the label team for unearthing and exposing new and exciting new music. This is the second time Hidden Shoal has been selected in Textura’s best labels list and as always we are nestled against some other very special labels, all of who you should check out.

  Now for a very brief and unnecessary acceptance speech – we are nothing without our incredible roster of artists, who continually amaze, inspire and surprise us. Thank you all!

   

   

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• Hidden Shoal Artists Featured on Rudy Maxa Soundtrack

  The new episode from the award winning Rudy Maxa’s World is airing tonight on PBS. Why should you care about this Emmy award winning tv show? Besides being a brilliant travel show that uses food and local producers to tell it’s stories, it also features music licensed by Hidden Shoal from Willem Gator, Apricot Rail, PERTH and Kryshe. We also have a number of tracks featured on previous and future episodes, so keep your eyes out! Read more about the show here.

  Hidden Shoal has an incredible catalogue of music available for licensing. Read more about our services here.

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• Eat Your Friends: A Hidden Shoal 10th Anniversary Compilation

  Hidden Shoal is excited to end the celebration of its 10th year of existence with the new compilation album Eat Your Friends, comprising remixes and covers of Hidden Shoal artists, by Hidden Shoal artists. This freely downloadable album not only showcases the wealth of original music released through Hidden Shoal, but also the creative ingenuity and deft musical touch of the remixers and cover artists.

  From searing solar-flared adaptations to delicately reconstructed covers, deep space jam reworkings, and shimmering ambient tapestries, Eat Your Friends reimagines the Hidden Shoal discography in new and beautiful ways, playing to all the strengths of the roster’s dizzying array of talent.

  Includes remixes and covers by: Antonymes, Arc Lab, Glanko, Wayne Harriss, Liminal Drifter, Makee, Chloe March, Markus Mehr, Erik Nilsson, REW<<, Slow Dancing Society, Tin Manzano, Willem Gator, and Zealous Chang  of music by: Arc Lab, Brother Earth, Cheekbone, City of Satellites, Medard Fischer, Gilded, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Kryshe, Memorybell, Erik Nilsson, perth, Slow Dancing Society, Tangled Star, Umpire, and Zealous Chang.

  Eat Your Friends is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and is also streamable via SoundCloud. Listen and then throw yourself into the wormhole as you explore the originals and more work by the remixers and cover artists.  For all the filmmakers, games designers and others in need of engaging music, don’t forget that all tracks in our catalogue are available for licensing (film, tv, games, compilations etc).

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• Hidden Shoal is 10!

  Hidden Shoal is extremely excited to be celebrating its 10th birthday this month. It’s hard to believe that back in May 2006, Perth-based musicians Cam Merton, Stuart Medley and Malcolm Riddoch began Hidden Shoal Recordings as a means to put out releases by local artists. Tim Clarke, based in Melbourne, joined the team in 2007. Hidden Shoal has since gone on to become a much-loved independent label and publisher, releasing over 120 albums from a diverse range of international artists and licensing music from its catalogue across film, tv, web and compilation.

  Stay tuned for special anniversary announcements in the coming months!

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• “Long Range Transmissions” MixTape Edition

  Here we present the MixTape version of Long Range Transmissions, the first in a new series of themed compilations from Hidden Shoal. The album showcases the ambient and neo-classical side of the catalogue, bringing together beautiful tracks from artists as diverse as Robert Pollard collaborator Todd Tobias, British chamber-pop songwriter Chloe March, and American ambient nostalgist Slow Dancing Society. From the delicate piano of Antonymes, Kryshe, Gilded and Medard Fischer, and the celestial experimentalism of Elisa Luu, Markus Mehr and Cheekbone, to the expansive guitarscapes of My Majestic Star, Erik Nilsson and Sleeping Me, Long Range Transmissions is an essential introduction to just one of the many facets of the Hidden Shoal label and licensing catalogue.

  Long Range Transmissions is also available as a free downloadable album via BandCamp.

  “Long Range Transmissions” – A Hidden Shoal Compilation by Hidden Shoal on Mixcloud

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• “Long Range Transmissions” – Free Hidden Shoal Compilation

  We’re excited to announce the release of Long Range Transmissions, the first in a new series of themed, freely downloadable compilations. Long Range Transmissions showcases the ambient and neo-classical side of the Hidden Shoal catalogue, bringing together beautiful tracks from artists as diverse as Robert Pollard collaborator Todd Tobias, British chamber-pop songwriter Chloe March, and American ambient nostalgist Slow Dancing Society. From the delicate piano of Antonymes, Kryshe, Gilded and Medard Fischer, and the celestial experimentalism of Elisa Luu, Markus Mehr and Cheekbone, to the expansive guitarscapes of My Majestic Star, Erik Nilsson and Sleeping Me, Long Range Transmissions is an essential introduction to just one of the many facets of the Hidden Shoal label and licensing catalogue.

  The albums is freely downloadable via BandCamp and can also be streamed at SoundCloud and MixCloud. The album also features gorgeous artwork by Gabrielle Harcourt, with the Bandcamp download coming with a bundled PDF booklet.
  

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• “Wealth” – Mixtape by Kryshe

  On the latest Hidden Shoal mixtape, German ambient artist Kryshe picked tracks from cherished albums he owns on vinyl. The mix traces a line from ’70s German kosmische through to Talk Talk’s majestic ‘Wealth’, taking in instrumental touchstones such as Klaus Schulze, Olafur Arnalds and A Winged Victory For The Sullen along the way. In moving between cosmic synthesized soundscapes and the intimate tones of strings and piano, Kryshe explores the myriad influences that have shaped his own exquisitely subtle and detailed ambient work.

  Kryshe is the live and studio-based ambient project of German musician Christian Grothe. Grothe’s music often evolves from live improvisation sessions, incorporating sound-manipulation software such as max/msp to develop a richly layered yet spacious sound. Grothe is also a member of the improvisational trio Unland, featuring ambient artist Jonas Meyer and clarinetist Shabnam Pavaresh. His releases to date are the Dreamland and In Between EPs, and the full-length release Growing. Listen to Kryshe’s music and learn more about the artist here.

  “Wealth” – A Mixtape by Kryshe by Hidden Shoal on Mixcloud

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• Slow Dancing Society & Kryshe in Igloo’s Best of 2014 List

  Kryshe’s stunning In Between EP and Slow Dancing Society’s The Cogent Sea album and The Dusk Recital EP have landed in Igloo Magazine’s Best of 2014 list. All three releases received glowing reviews at Igloo during 2014 thanks to the wonderful Nocturnal Ghost. Check out the list and review links here and listen to more Kryshe here and more Slow dancing Society here.

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• Kryshe’s Debut EP Joins the Hidden Shoal Publishing Catalogue

  Before his new mini-album In Between, and his previous album Growing, Christian Grothe, aka Kryshe, released his debut EP Dreamland in 2012. We’re excited to now have the two beautiful pieces that comprise Dreamland join our publishing and licensing catalogue. In contrast to the free-flowing and layered compositions of Growing and In Between, this debut release from Kryshe presents a much more grounded and densely woven sonic tableau. This two-piece set showcases Grothe’s ability to bring his delicate and affecting songcraft to new and varied musical environs.

  The EP, along with In Between and Growing, are available via Kryshe’s Bandcamp with all tracks available for licensing (master & sync cleared). Don’t hesitate to contact us with any licensing enquiries.

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• Kryshe’s “Growing” Album Joins the Hidden Shoal Catalogue

  Before his stunning new mini-album In Between, Christian Grothe, aka Kryshe, released the gorgeous album Growing. Hidden Shoal is excited to now have this beautiful work join its publishing catalogue. Growing is a 40 minute live improvisation in 3 sections, recorded in the Summer of 2013. As demonstrated on In Between, Grothe has a sublime understanding of space and tone. Growing is a delicate, hovering soundworld, pulsing with life yet never leaving a trace of its creator’s presence.

  The album, along with In Between, is available via Kryshe’s Bandcamp with all tracks available for licensing (master & sync cleared). Don’t hesitate to contact us with any licensing enquiries.

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Reviews

• New Liminal Drifter Remix Album – Pre-Orders & Track Stream!

  We’re excited to announce the forthcoming release of The Night Train Vacancies, the new album featuring remixes of tracks by Perth-based ambient electronica artist Liminal Drifter. The album is available now for pre-order and will see release on the 28th of August 2017. Stream Erik Nilsson’s sublime remix of ‘Troubled Mystic’ over at SoundCloud and pre-order the album in digital and CD formats (including stunning artwork by Stuart Medley) via the Liminal Drifter Bandcamp.

  On The Night Train Vacancies, Liminal Drifter’s music is reinterpreted by artists such as Matt McLean (of Lilt), Lvmark, p_Frisk, ddos, Warren Scott, Striphy, escue and Robwun. While most of debut album Troubled Mystic (Hidden Shoal, 2015) was written while travelling, The Night Train Vacancies sees the original tracks taking new journeys of their own, woven together into a remix album that flows beautifully as a whole – from restrained and expansive reworkings to spectral tension-and-release bangers.
  

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• “Eat Your Friends” Compilation Reviewed at DOA

  “Over almost a decade, Hidden Shoal records developed a reputation as a consistently innovative and experimental music label, giving to us music of remarkable qualities whether it was the instrumental excursions of Gilded, the blissed-out indie of My Majestic Star, the electronica of Marcus Mehr, the alt.folk stylings of Kramies – the HSR list of significant talents was a lengthy one. I say was, as in 2014 or thereabouts, the Hidden Shoal label underwent a reorganisation of sorts, and it began to seem that one of the more influential Australian record labels of the recent past was itself going into hiding. Perhaps so, although only to return refreshed, renewed, invigorated and with its varying artistic visions intact – the Eat Your Friends compilation proves that the Hidden Shoal label is properly with us again.

  One thing I’ve found when reviewing compilations is that not infrequently, when I put them into my music players, the tracks separate instead of remaining in their album folder, and that has happened with my copy of Eat Your Friends, encouraging me to view each of the tracks as a single release rather than view the album itself as a cohesive whole. Then there’s the fact that only some of its contributors are already known to me and so, ditching some of my preconceptions about what it’s going to sound like, I began listening to the 11 tracks in a random sequence, and prepared for the unexpected.

  Firstly, there’s singer/songwriter Erik Nilsson’s “Moksha Can Wait”, a song which electronic composer Marcus Mehr has taken and adapted to his subtly developed production sound, a track that begins almost inaudibly and builds to a staggering crescendo of soaring, roaring electronic sound and with Nilsson’s guitar and piano providing a counterpoint to Mehr’s swirling atmospherics. The ambient chill of City Of Satellites is given an added gloss by Tim Manzano, although I’m not so sure what he’s actually done with the track – it does sound a lot like the City Of Satellites I know from their Machine Is My Animal album, although as the track progresses and the rhythm and bass begin to disintegrate into a dubby conclusion it seems more apparent where Manzano has left his mark. Arc Lab’s “Through The Burning Glass” is remixed by Glanko, beginning with a club-level bassline before levelling into a noir tinged synth epic. And just when you thought the tracks on Eat Your Friends were entirely instrumentals, Rew perform a cover version of Umpire’s “Green Light District” and they do it with a vocal, alongside the strings and crashing cymbals and haltingly uncertain rhythms, a highlight of an album each of whose tracks is in one or another way remarkable.”

  – DOA

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• Kryshe “In Between” Reviewed at Leonard’s Lair

  ” ‘In Between’ is a fitting title for Christian Grothe’s latest EP. Touching on ambient, post-rock and classical music, the German composer could be perceived as a dabbler but Grothe’s versatility is one of his main strengths and his music under the moniker of Kryshe reveals great maturity and subtlety for someone who only released his first compositions less than a year ago.

  The title track is bathed in warm ambient textures; the piano parts emerging like the pitter-patter of gentle rain. It’s undoubtedly melancholic but in a comforting way and the key melody is like rediscovering an old friend. ‘Iceland’ is unerringly tuneful, reshaping a music box motif into a yearning post-rock number, where each key change seems to ache a little more than the last. After ‘Lone’ represents a stark, reverberating centrepiece, a watery, portentous ‘Africa’ threatens to work itself up into a storm but instead holds back with some delicious use of restraint and experimental touches. This just leaves the stately, tear-stained melodrama of the finale ‘Lullaby’; the nearest Grothe gets to modern classical.

  With each track offering something different, Grothe packs a great deal into twenty five minutes of instumental music. Minimalist this may be but ‘In Between’ is abundant with possibilities.”

  – Leonard’s Lair

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• “Long Range Transmissions” Reviewed at Tome To The Weather Machine

  “I am an unabashed Hidden Shoal fan. The Australian label has been pumping out releases of lush, cinematic aspirations of ambient and neo-classical artists for a better part of it’s existence that, at times, is overcome by its eclectic output ranging from conspiracy-punks to 90’s slowcore revivalists to every deriviation of weirdos (Australian and otherwise) in between. Long Distance Transmissions, however, is a surprisingly cohesive collection of sprawling ambient, electro-acoustic, post-classical and just about ever derivation (Australian and otherwise) of lushly produced, slightly melancholic, wordless music in between. Highlights include Markus Mehr’s Tim Hecker-meets-Heinz Riegler meditative distorted synth composition “Hubble, the chopped and glitched electro-acoustic number by Kryshe, the minor key minimalist techno of Cheekbone and the emotional heft of the 80’s nostalgia of Slow Dancing Society’s bubbling arpeggios and soundtrack-worthy dynamics. It makes sense that Hidden Shoal also exists as a licensing company, many of these compositions, if not already, seem to soundtrack some deeply resonant scenes in films (never made).”

  – Tome To The Weather Machine

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• “Long Range Transmissions” Hidden Shoal Compilation Album

  “Happened across this as we were turning it in for the night, a new name your price downloadable compilation by Australia’s finest purveyors of elegantly drawn dream pop Hidden Shoals. Entitled ‘long range transmissions’ it features a gathering of talents, some familiar – Antonymes, Markus Mehr, Slow Dancing Society et al along with some not so such as gilded and cheekbone. However what attracted us apart from the obvious as ever high quality seductive ambience tonalities literally peeling from the grooves was a delightful little thing from Elisa Luu entitled ‘chromatic sigh’. A breathlessly beautiful slice of porcelain noir classicism, an all too brief heavenly visitation, the slow shift into focus of the sound of a celestial calling emerging into the open to bathe all in the tingling shower of warming radiance, an out of body astral gliding odyssey which for a moment utterly transfixes its delicately balanced and perfectly poised gaze to fix and fill you with ethereal enchantment. And so to something familiar, regular visitors to these pages will be all too aware of our affection for Chloe March who here with ‘old tree, mon coeur’ doesn’t disappoint in the slightest and into the bargain offers up this sweetly mesmerising rustic ghost light, a fairy dust sprayed dream draped lost in the moment beguiling bouquet that shyly treads in the kind of amorphous star twinkled worlds of Musetta albeit as though aided and abetted by a soiree of siren sighs from a chill tripped Laetita and Mary from Stereolab.”

  – The Sunday Experience

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• “Lost In Transmissions” Compilation Reviewed at Wake The Deaf

  “You might recognise Hidden Shoal from our piece on Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Sirens Sing Swan Songs, the latest album from REW<<. The label has recently released Long Range Transmissions, the first in a series of themed compilations which showcase the ambient/neo-classical acts in their catalogue. It’s the perfect place to introduce yourself to a diverse and interesting collective of musicians.

  While the collection comes from a particular genre, there is still room for much variation across the thirteen tracks. Antonymes and Kryshe favour fragile, graceful piano, Cheekbone push a sci-fi inspired electronica and Chloe March creates a lush chamber pop. Todd Tobias evokes a mixture of shimmering bliss and nostalgia, his track ‘Nan Madol’ playing like a super-cinematic missing number from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, while Stockholm’s Erik Nilsson’s gently tropical ‘Drawing/Dreaming’ feels like watching the sun set into the sea on the last night of your holiday. Other highlights include the goosebump-inducing melodrama of Slow Dancing Society’s ‘Pull’, Elisa Luu’s ethereal ‘Chromatic Sigh’ and the aching melancholy of closing track ‘Empty Cradles’ by Sleeping Me.”

  – Wake The Deaf

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• Kryshe “In Between” Reviewed at Stationary Travels

  “In Between is the latest release from Germany based ambient composer and sound artist Kryshe via Hidden Shoal. The EP was actually available in September, but was a new discovery to me this week. It is a lovely five track journey featuring crystalline piano blended with electroacoustic touches in a spacious ambient context. I find his work very easy on the ears and suspect you will too.”

  – Stationary Travels

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• Kryshe “In Between” Reviewed at Music Won’t Save You

  [Poorly translated from the original Italian via Google. Read the original here]

  “Australian label Hidden Shoal does not cease to bear stimulating sonic fruit with its careful search for new ambient prospects conducted on a global scale , which led to discover artists such as Wes Willenbring , Drew Sullivan and Elisa Luu, just to name a few.

  The most recent candidate to add to the partial list of names above is the German Christian Grothe, making his debut under the alias Kryshe. His  EP In Between is a little more than twenty minutes, and as  the title suggests it evokes sensations both suspended and surreal. The five tracks from In Between keep the faith of the message evoked by the title, distilling the environmental vision of Grothe, tightly anchored to the classics of the genre but updated by its remarkable imaginative capacity, through which the German artist draws audio postcards on piano notes apparently resonating in a tank but because of this bring out the timbres over time.

  In Between is all very soft and relaxed, starting with a sleepy gait and by the gradual thickening of the low tones of the opening title track, which also occurs in the desolate reverberations of “Lone”. The two pieces named after geographical locations with taste will reflect the suggestions, “Iceland” in a cameo as valuable as a small sound box, “Africa” ​​with the warmth of dilated persistence and notes more and more sparse, such as grains of sand transported by a desert wind. The second part of the brief work marks the gradual prevalence of evanescent suspension (not coincidentally the same Grothe presents portrait with guitar and bow), which are lulling in the final outcome, “Lullaby”.

  Grothe does not use drone nor easy emotional tricks, yet his environmental interpretation in the essentiality of its elements is a valid reason for a release that almost amazes in it’s structural cohesion and an explicit reference to a soundscaping now rare even in its adherence to the canons of the original contemporary ambient music.”

  – Music Won’t Save You

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• Kryshe “In Between” Reviewed at Igloo Magazine

  “Kryshe‘s In Between EP has sneaked into my life very recently thanks to Hidden Shoal‘s main man, Mr. Cam Merton, who consistently provides a warm home for quality and talent from around the world in order to bring us sonic delicacies from many regions of the far-flung musical spectrum. It sneaked into my life, and very quickly into my heart. The blend of emotional bareness, effortlessness, spaciousness and warm luminosity in the fabrics of In Between is irresistible. Kryshe is the solo ambient project of German musician Christian Grothe, who is also a part of the excellent Unland trio which released its wonderful debut album earlier this year. In Between is Kryshe’s brand-new 5-track digital EP.

  The EP is built from attractively balanced combinations of live, free-flowing sessions and post-editing. Subtle electronics and manipulation judiciously spice the raw and organic, intensifying the strong emotional core. At times, among the piano streams, guitar work and delicately glitchy electronic designs, you can hear Grothe’s breathing, which intensifies the live intimate sense. The music conjures up nocturnal urban panorama, but at the same time you feel like you’re in the studio with Grothe. He shifts so effortlessly from ethereal and hopeful to melancholic and contemplative, and the other way round, interweaving all into dynamic wholes full of sweet wistfulness and tension. The autumn ghost has already started whispering, and soon we’ll be immersed in winter shades. In Between is perfect for those times of the year.

  In the depths of In Between, collaborations between Budd and Eno and Budd and Clive Wright might spring to mind, but one might also think of Hammock and even label mate Slow Dancing Society. With that being said, In Between is certainly not some sort of clone. It is an original piece of music that stands own its own. Let’s hope this EP is an appetizer for a forthcoming full-length Kryshe album—I would love to own a physical copy of that.”

  – Igloo Magazine

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• Kryshe ‘Africa’ Reviewed at The Sunday Experience

  “Is this not something else. New via the ever adored Hidden Shoal imprint – purveyors of sublime sonics – this is taken from a new EP entitled ‘in between’ by Kryshe – beyond no more information with which to impart sadly except to say that ‘Africa’ is as near to heavenly perfection you’re going to get this missive out. Pressed with the poise and steeled with the atmospheric tenderness of Antonymes and softly coaxed by the delicately yearn of Vini Reilly this gem provides one of those rare occasional moments which once veered into earshot has jaws dropped agape and clocks literally frozen still.”

  – The Sunday Experience

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Press Releases

Kryshe In Between Album Release

Artist Photos

Music Videos

Kryshe Liveset at Mimis Osnabrück. September 2013

Licensing

Kryshe’s music is  available for licensing (master & sync cleared) through Hidden Shoal. Please contact us with some basic details about your project and the track(s) you wish to use and we’ll be sure to get back to you straight away.