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viewing 1 To 25 of 27 items
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7"
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VAN 347EP
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Saint Alto, Birmingham's own folk troubadour lost boys, are a four-piece alternative indie folk band. Only a few shows in, Saint Alto have gathered attention for "hauntingly beautiful" songs paired with the drive of indie folk found in artists such a Ben Howard and Bon Iver. If Vangelis had enlisted James Blake as part of the soundtrack to a new Sofia Coppola film, then it might sound like this. Guitar, vocals, harmonies, drums, and claps are offset with synths, atmospheric swells, and bass that rattles the rib cage. Lyrically addressing human flaws, love, depression, mind games, and the odd loneliness of the modern world, the music is shot through with hope; soaring synths, group harmonies, and an impassioned, fried lead vocal. Songs like "Manifesto for Suburbia" have all the drive, hope and resistance of early Arcade Fire and are offset against songs like "Tell Me Something", a broken electronic folk love song with a "heartbreakingly pretty, dark and beautiful vocal". A&R Factory went as far as to say the sound "may just prove to be the future of folk". These cropped-trousered depressives are made up of Phil Barber, Alex Dodwell, Dave Hammersley, and Tom Ridsdill and, presumably because of something terrible they did in a past life, currently reside in the Midlands, UK.
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7"
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VAN 344EP
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David O'Dowda is an Irish songwriter who has been living in Manchester since 1999. Previous musical adventures include keyboard player with Sizer Barker, front man for Table (with a previous single release on Static Caravan) and more recently pianist for former Maccabees front man Orlando Weeks' The Gritterman (2017), featuring Paul Whitehouse. Since taking the legs off Table in 2012, he has written over 70 songs for Extreme music, one of the world's leading production music companies. His songs have been featured on lots of TV shows, trailers and films world-wide including Queer Eye, Hot Girls Wanted, and Homelands and he has composed for TV advertising short films and a feature film in 2018. Music from his last EP The World Retreats was featured on season two of the hit Netflix show Dark in June 2019. This EP marks the return of David to the Static Family. Edition of 250; includes download card.
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LP
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VAN 343LP
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Two years in preparation and working closely with long term collaborator Francis Gorini to mix and master the songs and realize the album artwork, Rivers That Flow In Circles is an album that sees Boat To Row expanding their musical horizons. From the golden laurel canyon sounds of "On Your Own", through the ever-changing soundscapes of the four movements of "Fledgling", the band have taken every opportunity to develop and redefine their songwriting. Written and recorded through a tumultuous period of line-up changes, corrupted recording hard drives and studio closures, Rivers That Flow In Circles captures the band at their resilient best, refusing to quit. Drawing on the talents of band members past and present as well as colleagues from their native Birmingham scene, Boat To Row have created an album which captures their musical explorations perfectly. Edition of 250.
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7"
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VAN 339EP
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Fifteen years since The Memory Band's eponymous debut album on the Hungry Hill label (2004), this single features the voice of Nancy Wallace who made her debut on that first album. Now resident in Canada, Nancy recently reunited with The Memory Band whilst visiting Britain and recorded the title track "After Night" in London. The flipside is a cover of an Anne Briggs song entitled "Tangled Man" from her classic album The Time Has Come (1971).
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LP
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VAN 336LP
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With Dusk at Trellick Tower, the duo Art Of The Memory Palace accelerate their trajectory since 2015's incendiary debut, This Life Is But A Passing Dream. Upon its release the latter was called "Fresh and euphoric... an incredible debut" by The Quietus and "fantastically addictive" by The Sunday Herald, while Shindig! Magazine called it "a spine-chillingly satisfying journey into kraut-influenced electronica." In the years since, AOTMP have released a split 7" with esteemed Welsh psych label Fruits de Mer Records, a long sold-out spoken-word collaboration with acclaimed Scottish author James Robertson, and a limited-edition cassette-only French Noir soundtrack album on Horror Pop Records. Raz Ullah (synths, tape loops) has become an intrinsic part of Jane Weaver's touring band, while Andrew Mitchell (vocals, synths, guitar, bass, drums) has released two albums under his Andrew Wasylyk moniker. Dusk at Trellick Tower is inspired by Hungarian Brutalist architect Erno Goldfinger -- Ullah and Mitchell channel the darkness and dystopia which grew from much of Erno's work, building synth-heavy sonic edifices evoking lonely night time walks along empty echoing corridors, urban decay and towering, impassive concrete monoliths. Using analog synthesizers, drums, bass, and tape loops processed through long chains of effects pedals, Art Of The Memory Palace strive for greater depths with this release, weaving menacing hooks and icy vocals together with droning chords and ambient soundscapes and creating their own shade of dark, beautiful melodies in the process. Edition of 300.
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7"
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VAN 319EP
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EAN (best known for his work with folk band Stick In The Wheel and electronic pioneers Various Production) gives two pieces from Eliza Carthy's most recent album The Big Machine (2017) a new, and more urgent context, then The Memory Band's "Children Of The Stones" sink into a new rhythm for tomorrow. Static alumni himself, EAN (with Geoff) has been cooking up a remix project for a while. His two musical worlds collide to make new forms.
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7"
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VAN 317EP
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Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells played by an amazing brass ensemble called Tubular Brass. Edition of 300. Single only.
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CD
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VAN 320CD
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Eighteen months on from the release of their debut album Everything Forever (VAN 291LP, 2015), Birmingham's Victories At Sea follow up with A Place To Stay, inspired by a world battling with anxiety and uncertainty. Moving away from the familiarity of the live room to exchanging ideas through their respective home studio set ups saw the band naturally pick up from where the ambient electronics of the album closer for Everything Forever "Sirens", left off. With freedom to experiment with no constraints or time limits, the songs were allowed space to develop at a gradual pace. Sonically inspired as much by film and literature as the records from the band's growing love for the back catalogs of Chemikal Underground and 4AD, the result sees the band embracing more atmospheric sounds, alternative tunings, and rhythm structures to produce their most compelling and ambitious body of work to date.
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7"
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VAN 302EP
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Static Caravan's featured artists are: Art Of The Memory Palace are concerned with oscillations, Kosmische drone and creating their own IPA; Cheval Sombre is a one-man band that emerged in the early 2000s. Fruits de Mere's featured artists are: Jack Ellister, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Jack uses synths in his home studio to deliver a reverb drenched pop tune for this EP that is dreamy, funky, retro and modern - all at the same time; The Insektlife Cycle an instrumental/progressive/psychedelic rock group from the Philippines. "Sleep Crawler" is a track from their forthcoming, debut album.
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LP
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VAN 306LP
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In late 1999, a track called "The Jonah" appeared, and was immediately picked up by magician Derren Brown's TV show. In three quarter time, episodic and featuring an expansive backdrop of strings, it serves as a prelude to The Beast System EP. Still heavily influenced by Brian Eno's use of tonal clusters, Dan Grigson, aka Grantby, is joined by guitarist Richard Purvis, drummer Zane Scott and vocalist Monooka for another five track disc, exploring moods both blue and bright.
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VAN 305LP
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On their fifth album, A Fair Field, The Memory Band return once more to the ghost-lit back-roads of British traditional music where digital machinery and acoustic musicians congregate to make old music from the future. The Memory Band navigate a dream landscape of fading identity, dredging up forgotten histories from old maps, half-filled diaries, government records and lists left inside magazines detailing obsolete television schedules. The music was fed by stories of magical hares and the recollections of ballad sellers bearing placards at the great fairs of times past, the fields of which now lie buried beneath leisure centers, electricity substations, and retail parks. It traces the connection between the headstone of a man killed in Norfolk by the sails of a windmill, the first observations of solar flares, incendiarism, council estates and an old man's recollection of ploughing the land by starlight in another time. Since 2002, The Memory Band has been producing their own modern recipe of traditional music with a rolling cast of contributors led by producer Stephen Cracknell. A Fair Field includes vocal contributions from Liam Bailey, Helene Bradley, Hannah Caughlin, and Nancy Wallace and features the rhythm section of Olie Brice on double bass, Fred Thomas on piano and Tom Page on drums with strings by Lucy Railton and Rob Spriggs.
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7" PIC. DISC+CD
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VAN 304EP
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Darren Hayman follows up his alternative hit "Someone to Care About" (The Hayman Kupa Band) with a diesel powered train themed picture disc. Put to the sword by the static brothers, The Class 108 Diesel Multiple Unit proved to be the train Darren would write a song about if Static Caravan promised a picture disc release. Of course Darren wouldn't stop here and the proposed single expanded to now include an eight track CD of Train Songs all for the price of a ticket to the Midland Railway Museum. Edition of 300.
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7"
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VAN 303EP
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The Hayman Kupa Band is a super-group comprising Darren Hayman, Emma Kupa formerly of Standard Fare and currently of Mammoth Penguin, Fever Dream drummer Cat Loye and Michaelmas a.k.a. Michael Wood on bass. Back in 2014 Darren asked Emma to sing on his Fortuna Pop single "Boy, Look At What You Can't Have Now" and a fruitful and productive working relationship blossomed from that first meeting over the following months producing a set of co-written songs. Cat and Michael were recruited to bring the songs to life and form The Hayman Kupa Band.
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CD
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VAN 287CD
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Maximalist cosmic voyagers Free School have managed to create an album that explodes with color and scatters the industrial behemoth of Birmingham with rainbow sparkles. A huge-sounding album, Dancing on the Dark features a fearless band of shamanistic vocalists, effusing uplifting, stirring messages of hope in a time when hopelessness reigns supreme. Tomlin Mystic (Friendly Fire Band), a truly mysterious wise man who speaks in poetry, features on "Love Calling," the epic, cosmic second single. "French Cousins" has Free School's live vocalist Greg Bird (Mark E, Speech Fewapy Records) crossing boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. Sex-wise. Sigmund Frued, Birmingham's hottest young MC, fires state-of-the-city barbs to contrast with Greg Bird's hopeful yearning on "End Time Ministries." Disco stomper "Don't Make Your Life So Hard" takes a sample from free jazz classic "The Healer/Don't Break" by E.W. Wainwright and beautifully crescendos with soaring, caressing strings. Chilean Katy Prado plays the spurner to Tomlin Mystic's spurned lover on "Major Crimes." "Hudson's Whistle," the first single from the album, is a feel-good, hook-laden instrumental romp with melodies aplenty to tug on your heartstrings. "Good People" features the soft optimistic harmonies of Maps (Mute), while Greg Bird appears like an angel in the chorus to sing of endeavoring to change and improve. The album closes with the reprise of "Good People," rising from the ashes of the life-transcending "Ugly Kids" to burst into life. Free School have set sail for bolder territories with Dancing on the Dark. Free School signed to the renowned Tirk label in 2011, with which they released their critically acclaimed album Tender Administration in 2012. This followed two 12" EPs, featuring remixes from Richard Norris (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve/The Time & Space Machine) and Mark E (Ghostly International), and a string of remixes for the likes of Roots Manuva, Phil Oakey, and Maps. Their first two EPs on Static Caravan won the support of Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamacq, Gideon Coe, Gilles Peterson. The duo's live show features a live drummer and a string of guest vocalists and have seen them support Editors, Andrew Weatherall, Walls, Ulrich Schnauss, and Fujiya & Miyagi. In addition to playing Supersonic Festival and The Garden Festival (Croatia), Free School headlined the Rise of Birmingham show to celebrate the launch of the Library of Birmingham and held a residency in the Moog Sound Lab in June 2015.
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LP
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VAN 291LP
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Emerging from the concrete paradise of Birmingham, England, Victories at Sea fuse a vivacious combination of brutalist electronic hooks, soaring post-punk guitars, and dolorous wordplay. After being championed by the likes of the NME, The Guardian, Clash magazine, and XFM's John Kennedy, the band now present their debut album, Everything Forever. Written over 2014 and '15 at an abandoned steel mill in Digbeth and recorded in the damp basement of an old whistle factory in the depths of the city's industrial Northern quarter, the album inevitably embraces darker sounds and subjects. But with lyrics that often touch on matters of love, loss, and loneliness, this is a record born from a catharsis of hope and escapism, and a thrillingly taut and danceable journey. The band have toured their disco-noir extensively in the UK and Europe, earning the respect of their fans and contemporaries alike. Their 2013 debut EP, In Memory Of, earned the band the attention it deserved, particularly from BBC 6 Music, and in turn built the perfect foundation for this highly anticipated album. The band draws from influences that range from Mogwai through Factory Floor and Slowdive to The Chameleons, but Victories at Sea are far more than just the sum of their parts, with original, exciting songwriting that never loses its pop sensibilities. Standout tracks such as "Bloom," "Up," and "Poles Apart" showcase the band at their most danceable, with big chorus hooks and machine beats that timelessly devour and yet are impossible to forget. As the album builds ten tracks toward its crescendo, "Sirens" and "Future Gold" both see Victories at Sea explore more intricate musicianship and atmospheric soundscapes that build through layers of impressive electronics and heavily effected guitars. Sonically enthralling and physically moving in equal measures, this is a record with true multiplicity, depth, and heart. Limited edition of 300.
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CD
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VAN 281CD
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The Woodbine & Ivy Band's lineup again features a wealth of Manchester's finest musicians, capturing a magical folk oeuvre flecked with psych, prog, jazz, and country rock. Partly inspired by G. I. Gurdjieff's theories on "waking sleep," this collection of ten tracks sounds appropriately out of step and out of time, as if the product of an off-kilter dream; of instinct or the subconscious. Where their 2011 debut drew comprehensively on folk tradition, earning glittering reviews and favorable comparisons with the likes of Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, and Crazy Horse, Sleep On Sleeping On pulls in a different direction. Alongside three traditional folk songs and three covers, there are four original compositions too, all steeped in careworn tradition yet fresh and invigorated. For the first album they worked with a different singer for each song, but here all vocal duties are taken care of by two highly contrasting voices: the soft, amorphous voice of Jenny McCormick and the coarser tones of James Raynard. The album is indebted to such British folk classics as The Albion Band's Rise Up Like the Sun and Lal & Mike Waterson's Bright Phoebus, but that pedigree is augmented by gracefully textured arrangements of pedal steel, horns, drones, and glissandos, along with pastoral synth washes like a Klaus Schulze soundtrack for a film about allotments. From the woozy, ethereal title-track to the gorgeously plaintive folk rock of "Arm a Nation," "Jackdaws," and "Pretty Fly Lullaby," they conjure forgotten memories from sparse instrumentation and, on the latter, Morricone-esque harmonies. Meanwhile, the gentle guitar melody of "Old Man" recalls Bert Jansch, and Lal Waterson's "Flight of the Pelican" is similarly stripped-down and eerie. "White Hare" imagines swirling organ, rousing horns, heavy piano chords, and crunching, fuzzy guitars, and "One Summer Day" is a psych-fuelled state; a dizzying fever of a groove that sounds like Popol Vuh, Stereolab, and Steely Dan jamming in a community sewing center. The centerpiece of the album is "Minstrel and the King," written by Gerald T. Moore and originally performed by Heron on their 1971 second album. Here, it's a nine-minute, piano-led tour de force with mournful horns, saxophone solo, and an extended coda, dripping with melancholy but oddly euphoric with its insistent melody and unerring rhythm. Equally poignant is the closing track "Rebel Soldier," an American Civil War song re-wired here as a hauntingly fragile, piano-led lament underscored by horns and twanging guitar.
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7"
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VAN 284EP
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Free School, Birmingham's maximalist cosmic voyagers, released their acclaimed full-length Tender Administration' in 2012, following two 12"s featuring remixes from Richard Norris (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, The Time & Space Machine) and Mark E (Ghostly International) and a string of remixes for the likes of Roots Manuva, Phil Oakey, and Maps (Mute). Free School now present "Hudson's Whistle," a feel-good, hook-laden instrumental romp with melodies aplenty to tug on your heartstrings. The record is backed with a dark, melancholic remix by Maps of contemporary disco track "French Cousins." Ethnic prog techno vitamins all in one 7" package.
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CD
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VAN 273CD
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Birmingham, England-based Americana folk quintet Goodnight Lenin have been building toward the release of their debut album, In the Fullness of Time, since their formation in 2011. In the singles and EPs they've put out since coming together, the band have worked with Nick Drake producer John Wood, Broadcast's Tim Felton, and Modified Toy Orchestra's Brian Duffy, as well as artists Clare Rojas, Mark Edwards, and Nathalie Daoust, whose photographs accompany In the Fullness of Time. Front man John Fell said of the album: "It took us a long time to find our sound... years in fact! We scrapped the record two or three times until we were happy with the songs. We recorded the bases of the tracks live onto analog tape to give it the '70s feel we wanted, plus we were honored to have one of our greatest influences, Jonathan Wilson, mix the album. It's something we are very proud of and we feel like it's the start of something special."
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LP
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VAN 273LP
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LP version. Birmingham, England-based Americana folk quintet Goodnight Lenin have been building toward the release of their debut album, In the Fullness of Time, since their formation in 2011. In the singles and EPs they've put out since coming together, the band have worked with Nick Drake producer John Wood, Broadcast's Tim Felton, and Modified Toy Orchestra's Brian Duffy, as well as artists Clare Rojas, Mark Edwards, and Nathalie Daoust, whose photographs accompany In the Fullness of Time. Front man John Fell said of the album: "It took us a long time to find our sound... years in fact! We scrapped the record two or three times until we were happy with the songs. We recorded the bases of the tracks live onto analog tape to give it the '70s feel we wanted, plus we were honored to have one of our greatest influences, Jonathan Wilson, mix the album. It's something we are very proud of and we feel like it's the start of something special."
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12"
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VAN 276EP
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The Great Electric presents their first release. "Matter of Time" sets off at a breakneck Motorik pace, introducing layered analog melodies and a metronomic bass line before giving way to a chorus that sits somewhere in the middle ground between Focus and Fantomas. "Jump Over the House" is a triumphant, energized hybrid of '60s Detroit soul and a locked, Motorik pulse. "Music and Colour" establishes a rigid bass motif from the off and builds into the embodiment of perfect space-age pop. The EP closes with "M.O.P.E.," a dichotomy of Animals-era Pink Floyd atmospherics and Sir Lord Baltimore barbarian rock. 300 edition 12" vinyl pressing.
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7"
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VAN 278EP
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"I saw Julie Byrne play out in the sticks at SXSW this year in Austin and she totally blew me away, on a psych folk tip -- reminded me of Linda Perhacs, Karen Dalton and Vashti Bunyan, that good. We are stoked to be releasing a 7" on pink vinyl of two select tracks 'Melting Grid' and a direct-to-tape version of 'Emeralds.' --Static Caravan; "The songs of Julie Byrne are hushed and mysterious ... they unfold from bare folk simplicity to abstracted tales of home life and longing that conjure up a simultaneous feeling of warm cabin intimacy and a deep interior sadness." --MOJO Magazine
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CD
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VAN 277CD
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Following the instantly sold-out release of The Duke St Workshop's debut album, Lexicon of Paragon Pines, and the doozy of a 7" that even Clint Mansell liked, comes the first widely distributed work from the Dukes. Recorded at Polyester, the band's studio in Wigan, Greater Manchester, Cabin 28 is the soundtrack to a cold case from 1981, set in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in northern California. From the dawning of the day to midnight and beyond, the album moves from austere sanctuaries to more threatening settings, in the tradition of somber, melancholic films like Coma and Rabid. Influences from the likes of Final Program, Conrad Schnitzler, Michael Small, and the Bruton Music Library are on display. You might also reference the Birmingham scene of such lost ensembles as Broadcast, Pram, and Plone.
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10"
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VAN 272EP
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2014 RSD release. The Further Navigations EP is a continuation of the themes which informed The Memory Band album On the Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs) also released on Static Caravan. Featuring remixes from Belbury Poly and Grantby and a brand-new Memory Band track, the EP draws inspiration from the ancient "lost road" that is the Harrow Way. The choice of collaborators are two producers who have had a profound impact on The Memory Band sound in different ways, but both bring to the fore the cinematic elements of Stephen Cracknell's approach to traditional music. For "Hobby Horse" Belbury Poly takes the blueprint from the Memory Band's version of the traditional funeral march "When I Was on Horseback," transforms it by speeding it up, flicking the swing setting and producing something that sounds like David Munrow making music for schools on analog synthesizers. Grantby takes the traditional ballad "As I Walked Over Salisbury Plain" and tweaks it into "The Ballad of Imber Down." The Memory Band original "Walk Along It" borrows heavily from the anonymous and haunting version of the traditional English tune "The Lincolnshire Poacher," broadcast from a shortwave numbers station and believed to be operated by the British secret services. Limited edition of 500 copies.
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7"
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VAN 269EP
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The Grafham Water Sailing Club combines esoteric post-punk with electronic beats and minimalistic industrialism. It's in "Ankara" where you're truly reeled in by the pounding drum beat and spectral, spiraling guitar; but take a step back into its B-side "Feelin' Blue" and you'll truly begin to appreciate the atmospheric sound these four lads from the West Midlands can muster. "'Ankara' parades their eerie characteristics perfectly, the shadow-y, psychedelic-tronic contemporary beats pulsate the listener in to a greater surround sound that leaves you hungry for more; you're well and truly sucked in to the revival of dark '80s new wave." --Artrocker
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CD
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VAN 065CD
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"Tomcats In Tokyo are Fabrice Rey and Fabrice Marsaud. From the headphone squelching opener 'Fish And Butterflies' to the lush, cavernous spaces of 'Turbid Liquor'. From the crunching breaking glass breaks of orange flickering to the hydraulic punch that is 'Tubular Friends'. It's clear that this is a band broadcasting at a higher frequency than normal. With serious radio play for their last single, a record of the year on the Boomkat site, in fact picked as the record of the year by Isan. Sweet Gloomy Home announces the bands arrival as a full time force to reckon with. A fusion of icy beats with the clicks 'n' brightly colored techno building blocks. As much a Thomas Brinkmann as a Boards Of Canada release the album is verging on warp territory but armed with its own fully animated agenda it fucks with any established genre. An epic, emotive, atmospheric and iridescent beauty we have end product that is anything but formulaic. In short a truly impressive debut album bringing to mind Autechre, Four Tet and Thomas Brinkmann."
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