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ODA 004LP
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Fohn brings connection, displacement and new identities into the moment, on pastoral debut album Seanteach -- informed by island life, marine folklore and musical tradition. Connection to the land, the severing of earthly ties, explorations of environment, mythos and generational memory: under the moniker of Fohn, English violinist and producer Tom Connolly takes to the fiddle on which he learned his craft as a child. Forging new bonds with his family's island home off the coastal west of Ireland, their story is retold in Seanteach (Irish for 'old house'), released on Odda Recordings. Each track on the album is a reflection of aspects of that relationship to island life -- where physical features intersect with mythology. Such as, "Boreen," named after a colloquial term for rural byroads sometimes shared with otherworldly neighbors. "Aisling at Sea" draws on the primal, unstoppable momentum of the water, while the folklore of "Immram" reflects on generationally-kept tales of marine bravery and supernatural accomplishment. "The compositions often sit at the fraying edges of memories I've inherited from my own experiences," says Connolly, "that of family lore, or from stories that I have come across. I wanted the compositions to tread the space between documentation and fantasy that feels so reflective of my relationship with this place." Tying these worlds together is the presence and memory of Connolly's "Mamó" (Irish for 'grandmother'), Bríd. Despite passing during Connolly's childhood, this "larger-than-life character" shaped his imagination with anecdotes and stories, representing both a familiar figure, and the poignancies of potential and regret. "Between the Shoreline and the Gorse" channels her early childhood, born to a large Catholic family in the island's "Seanteach," and cast adrift from her old life -- a severance of ties that Connolly attempts to make ethereal amends for, with the album named for her family home. "It's something that feels so visibly prominent in Connemara with its landscapes charcoaled with deserted ruins. It's a feeling I also experience, despite never having lived in Ireland, which prompted me to want to explore the idea of longing for something/somewhere 'un-experienced', and to a certain extent, fictionalized."
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ODA 003LP
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Church Andrews and Matt Davies weave intricate patterns from Fibonacci sequences on new mini-album, Yucca. Producer and composer Church Andrews (aka Kirk Barley) and drummer Matt Davies return to explore the outer limits of rhythm on a six-track suite that is at once angular and fluid, natural and systematic. Drawn to the restrictions of working solely with one synth and live drums, the pair found creativity in limitation, developing a compositional dialogue between the sonic timbres of Kirk's productions and Matt's percussive practice. Evoking the primitive yet complex form of the plant from which it takes its name, Yucca features tracks that are built around rhythmic ratios of the Fibonacci sequence. Mirroring spiral patterns exhibited in nature, each track evolves like a cellular structure of its own, from the livewire syntax of "Chirp" and the deconstructed ebb and flow of "Ferns," to the mini-album's title track, where crisp grooves flit between modulated electronics like fireflies. "I've always been inspired by music that is complex without sounding complex," Matt explains. He maintains a sense of bounce amid the intricate phrasing and cites drummers Roy Haynes and his grandson Marcus Gilmore as inspirations, alongside sabar drummers from Senegal and Mridangam drumming of South India. With a shared background in hip-hop and the swung beats of J Dilla and Flying Lotus, Kirk Barley and Matt Davies were also inspired by the minimalism of Terry Riley and the sparse palette of dub techno. Written and recorded in Lewisham in the spring and summer of 2023, Yucca follows the release of Axis in 2022, with the duo having also performed at festivals such as Rewire and Waking Life, and recorded live sessions for FACT magazine and Worldwide FM. The third release on Yorkshire-based Odda Recordings, following Kirk Barley's Marionette and Flaer's Preludes, Yucca confirms the label's reputation for championing music on the unstable ground between the organic and the synthetic.
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ODA 002LP
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The organic minimalism of composer and producer Kirk Barley is collected on his new studio album Marionette, released via Odda Recordings. Whether drawing from field recordings, found sound, instrumental improvisations or synthetic processes, Barley's compositions evoke unfolding sound worlds, as simple ideas or motifs are layered and developed into complex set-pieces that reveal themselves over time. Marionette showcases the breadth and variety of the Yorkshire-born artist's sound, weaving together familiar and uncanny moods of rural England and its Victorian architecture, as suggested by the gated garden print of the album's cover. Unfurling between physical textures -- the patina of vinyl crackle or gentle rain -- and the hyper-real spaces that his music inhabits, Barley describes the compositions as "landscape or static scene paintings," with many of the album's tracks taking nature's rhythms as their compositional cue. Drawing from jazz, minimalism and techno, Barley focuses on the detailed qualities of sound, experimenting with time signatures, temporals and tuning systems. His esoteric alter-ego Bambooman (2013-2018) found a home on Matthew Herbert's Accidental imprint, releasing the album Whispers in 2017. In contrast, under the pseudonym Church Andrews (most notably in collaboration with drummer Matt Davies), he produces synthetic, often beat-focused music, using digital synthesis and algorithmic composition techniques, with the live drum performances triggering and modulating Barley's synths. The duo has recently performed at festivals such as Rewire and Waking Life, filmed sessions for Fact Magazine and Slate & Ash, and recently had their music played out by Aphex Twin. Under his own name, Barley released his debut album Landscapes (TTTT 010LP) in 2019 on 33-33 Records and received support from the likes of NTS Radio and BBC 6 Music. Barley has performed at events across the UK and Europe alongside the likes of Andy Stott, Beatrice Dillon, Jan Jelinek, MF DOOM, and Madlib. He has also completed commissioned work for the British Art Show, Camden Arts Centre, MSCTY and the Open Music Archive.
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ODA 001LP
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Artist and multi-instrumentalist Flaer looks to the landscape to explore pastoral melancholy on debut release, Preludes. Ensconced in his family home in rural Leicestershire in the early months of 2020, painter and musician Realf Heygate (b. 1994) picked up his childhood cello for the first time in several years and began to play. Setting himself parameters to only record onto 4-track tape with acoustic instruments -- cello, piano and acoustic guitar -- he assembled a suite of instrumental compositions that form the basis of Preludes, his debut album as Flaer and the inaugural release on Odda Recordings. Channeling the tension and unease between the pastoral idyll of the English countryside and the darkness which lurks beneath the surface, the mini-album draws inspiration from the analogue aesthetic of 1970s folk horror films, weaving field recordings of birdsong, church bells and the natural environment into chimerical melodies that reflect on Heygate's childhood experiences of rural England. "It was really important not to isolate the sound from its environment," he explains, describing the compositional and recording process as "site-specific". Developed over a series of intuitive musical enquiries, the mini-album's uncanny quality emerges from combining raw demo takes with overdubs of almost orchestral grandeur. Heygate points to the final track as indicative of the work as a whole: "'Follow' really is the mantra for the release and embodies the practical approach I was taking to music making..." As a painter, Heygate's practice takes artifacts through sequences of reproduction that embrace the fluctuating materiality of the copy. Since obtaining a degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2017, he has exhibited solo at Peter von Kant and Springseason galleries in London. Describing his artistic practice as one of self-erasure, music instead provides Heygate with a more personal and autobiographical outlet. Where the two worlds combine is on Preludes' striking artwork, which features paintings of 13th century stone carvings from the font of the church in the town where he grew up. Speaking to a time where people were connected to the land in a more profound way, each symbol is assigned to a track on the album, which Heygate likens to giving them a title. Odda Recordings is a new offshoot from The Leaf Label founded by Thea HD. Edition of 500; signed and numbered handmade prints; 45rpm.
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