Hidden Shoal News
Erik Nilsson “The Imperfect Tense” Out Now!
We’re very excited to announce the release of The Imperfect Tense, the brilliant new album by Swedish instrumental experimentalist Erik Nilsson. The album is available now via Bandcamp and all good 3rd party stores such as iTunes and Spotify. Stream the epic album closer, ‘Once, I Held You In My Arms Forever,’ via SoundCloud.
From the cascading acoustic guitar loops of ‘A Tap At The Window’ through to the emotive found-sound, post-rock crescendo of closer ‘Once, I Held You In My Arms Forever’, The Imperfect Tense triangulates a musical landscape of potent melodic terrain, full of evocative details and melancholic shadows. Nilsson expertly interweaves the electronic with the acoustic, precision-crafting each track with an auteur’s ear for dynamics and space, resulting in an instrumental suite that is as accessible as it is experimental.
Erik Nilsson’s music is available for licensing for film, tv, games web and compilations. More information on Hidden Shoal’s licensing services here.
Todd Tobias “Massabu Evening Entertainments” Out Now!
We’re excited to announce the official release of Massabu Evening Entertainments, the new album from American experimental rockist and soundscaper Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices producer, Circus Devils, Robert Pollard collaborator). The album is out now via Hidden Shoal and Tiny Room Records and is available on CD, cassette and digital via Bandcamp and all good 3rd party stores.
This time Tobias breaks out a rollicking set of Middle-Eastern flavored psychedelia. Massabu‘s 13 breathless tracks evoke a night club grotto in some exotic port town filled with wild dancers and intoxicating fumes. Tobias is joined on three tracks by Italian vocalist Pat Moonchy, who lends a playful, otherworldly touch.
The quartet Combo Qasam will perform Massabu Evening Entertainments in The Netherlands as of March, 2018. Show dates: March 22, 2018 (Amsterdam/OCII), March 23 (Rotterdam / WORM) and March 25 (Utrecht / STUDIO PATRICK).
Todd Tobias’s music is part of the Hidden Shoal licensing catalogue and available for use across film, tv, games, web and beyond.
Three Questions with Erik Nilsson
Erik Nilsson creates music that, in someways, defies logic. It is intrinsically linked to the manipulation and re-ordering of the “natural”, yet through this process somehow creates a new “nature”. Releases such as Hearing Things, Recollage and his forthcoming The Imperfect Tense are testaments to Nilsson’s innate sense of melody and progressive compositional strategies. Drawing on folk, classical and electronica, Nilsson blends acoustic instruments with field recordings and computer-generated sounds, crafting music akin to early Four Tet, Tortoise at their most minimal, and fellow Scandinavian soundscapers The Gentleman Losers. Yet all his work sounds like Erik Nilsson.
To get a glimpse inside the master’s mind we asked Erik to pull three questions out of the bag…
What kind of activity is your music made for?
I imagine that the music I make likes to put its listener in a state of “inwardness”. Perhaps it is music for the activity of paying close attention, either to the music itself or to some other solitary activity: walking, sitting, reading, breathing, running. I particularly admire a piece of music that sometimes just lends a certain emotional quality to my surroundings or to whatever I am up to , the next day has me counting beats, and the day after that seems to be all about texture. That is the kind of music I aspire to make.
Why make music?
Because it presents an opportunity to apply oneself – mind, body, and soul – to the construction of something like a rudimentary, abstract, self-contained world. Such a world makes possible the experience and exploration of longing, elation, sadness, grief, or ecstasy as such, in the absence of any particular cause or object. One may for instance try being gentle (as such) or aggressive (as such), probe the relationship between the two, or push either or both as far a one possibly can. There is obviously a tremendous sense of freedom here, but also a sense of duty. Musical ideas always seem to have potentiality, to be en route somewhere – to demand something. One listens carefully and labours to bring potentiality into (imperfect) being. Somehow, it reminds me of what it is like to be alive.
What’s your most treasured item of musical gear?
A Martin HD-28 that friends and family had got me as a graduation gift. Not only do I love to play it, it reminds me of people I love, and also of the fact that I have it in me to carry something difficult to completion.
Connected View “Chun Pop” Out Now!
We’re very excited to finally be able to lay Chun Pop on you, the brilliant new album by experimental instrumental pop trio Connected View. The album follows on from single ‘Dark Dogs’, accompanied by a wonderful music video by Australian video artist and Hidden Shoal head honcho Cam Merton. Chun Pop is available now via Bandcamp and all good online stores.
The on-the-fly yet incredibly dreamy nature of Chun Pop’s magic feels like switching between hidden late-night radio stations after a handful of quaaludes. Whether it’s the filthy, sinuous bass of ‘Galacticraft II’ or the interweaving synth tones of ‘Energy Positive House’, all the musical decisions here feel inspired, without obtrusive thought. Right from brooding opening track and single ‘Dark Dogs’, the album feels like eavesdropping on a wonderfully flowing jam session, with each successive track a gleaming gem that radiates and reflects off its neighbours in fascinating ways.
Chun Pop is also part of the Hidden Shoal licensing catalogue and available for use across film, tv, games, web and beyond.
Summon the Birds Live on RRR
Many thanks to Triple R – 3RRR 102.7FM for having Summon the Birds on The Party Show on Saturday night to play a few stripped-back tunes. Listen back here and seek out the songs – ‘London Tap Water’ is at 31:45, ‘The Anatomy Lesson’ is at 58:55, and ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth pt 1’ is at 1:34:50. Beautiful stuff!
And of course don’t forget the band’s album launch for Blood Love is coming up this Saturday afternoon at The Workers Club, Fitzroy. More details here.
Test Card Signs to Hidden Shoal
Exciting times my friends as we get to to announce the signing of the wonderful Test Card to Hidden Shoal. Test Card’s stunning 2016 album Start Up Close Down is now part of our licensing catalogue and available for use across film, tv, games, web and beyond. Listen to the album and read more about Test Card here.
Start Up Close Down’s hypnotic and enveloping drift belies the level of craft and composition that makes each track so captivating. The album plays out like the soundtrack to a nocturnal drive, painting the journey’s objects as they pass by. As much slow-motion dream-pop as it is ambient-electronica, each track feels like a subtle revelation, a gradually unfolding description of a unique, enraptured environment we are only just discovering.
Beautiful New Crisopa Single – ‘Expectorant Ballad’
![Transhumante [Extended]](http://www.hiddenshoal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Transhumante-Extended-Cover-Art.jpg)
We’re very excited present ‘Expectorant Ballad’, the new single from the forthcoming album Transhumante [Extended] by Spanish electronica producer Crisopa. The track is available to stream over at SoundCloud and download via Bandcamp ahead of the album’s release on the 1st of May 2018.
Crisopa’s original 2017 release of Transhumante (via the Sound in Silence label) presented an immersive suite of deeply evocative and melodic ambient electronica. The new extended version of the album includes six beautiful new additions, bathing the listener in waves of ecstatic synth swells, textural loops and insistent rhythms. These surging, emotive tracks simultaneously summon forth aching nostalgia and a blissful state of hopefulness. Anyone who enjoys deep, vivid electronica in the vein of Boards of Canada, Manual and Hammock will find themselves right at home in Crisopa’s beatific compositions.
“Oh my – this is gorgeous… Every track has something surprising and comforting, and its own unique atmosphere and personality, yet it all comes together to be a beautifully consistent and enjoyable album blending the new with the familiar” – [sic] Magazine
Crisopa Signs to Hidden Shoal
We’re very excited to announce the signing of Spanish electronica producer Crisopa to the Hidden Shoal roster. Santiago Lizón (aka Crisopa) produced one of our favourite albums of 2017, Transhumante, which was originally released on the wonderful Sound in Silence label. We’re honoured to not only have Santiago on board but also to be releasing the deluxe version of Transhumante which includes 6 additional new tracks.
The new album will see release on the 1st of May with the first cut from the album out next Monday. Stay tuned!
Three Questions With Summon the Birds
Summon the Birds’ latest album Blood Love is an inspired interweaving of song and story. The 6-track epic pulls you in right from the opening strains of ‘Funeral for a King’ and only lets go long after brilliant closer ‘London Tap Water’ rings out its last note. The band’s ability to immerse the listener in vivid scenes that feel somehow intrinsically Australian, even if their subject matter drifts abroad, sees them as kindred spirits with Australia’s Augie March and The Drones. It’s a very special thing indeed.
To get a peek inside the Bird machine we asked Jonathan Shaw from the band to pull three questions out of the bag…
What’s the best show you’ve ever been to?
In 2011, Milky and I went to the now-defunct Harvest Festival in Werribee and saw a whole stash of incredible acts, including Mogwai, The Flaming Lips and Kevin Devine. For me, the highlight was Portishead. Oh man. My heart. To hear Beth sing ‘Roads’ live transported me beyond the stars… so beautiful.
Which song of yours is most important to you and why?
I’ll nominate ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ from our new album because of its unrelenting ambition. I also feel that if you like that song, you’ll like Summon the Birds. Just to complete that track, all 9 minutes of it, and to actually evoke – sonically and lyrically – the falling of a man into the Centre of the Earth is – in my opinion – a huge artistic achievement for the band. It also completes the ultimate synthesis of STB – the music as narrative and the lyrics as sound.
What’s one of your favourite albums that’s unlikely to be featured on anyone else’s list of favourite albums, and why do you love it?
A big album for us in the making of Blood Love – and one that Milky and I bonded over particularly – is Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, released in 1991. It is phenomenally good and as soon as I heard it, all I wanted to do was make music that good. The pace of it is what captured my heart. It unfolds at its own steady pace and weaves the listener into an unrelenting tapestry of beauty, wisdom, sorrow and light. I think it’s a colossal suite of songs and I can’t believe I only heard about it 8 or so years ago. We also based the final number of tracks on our record – 6 – on the number of tracks on Laughing Stock.
New Erik Nilsson Single, Forthcoming Album
Hidden Shoal is excited to announce the forthcoming release of The Imperfect Tense, the new album by Swedish instrumental experimentalist Erik Nilsson. The album features the stunning new single ‘A Tap at the Window’ (out now!) and will see release via Hidden Shoal on April 3 2018.
From the cascading acoustic guitar loops of ‘A Tap At The Window’ through to the emotive found-sound, post-rock crescendo of closer ‘Once, I Held You In My Arms Forever’, The Imperfect Tense triangulates a musical landscape of potent melodic terrain, full of evocative details and melancholic shadows. Nilsson expertly interweaves the electronic with the acoustic, precision-crafting each track with an auteur’s ear for dynamics and space, resulting in an instrumental suite that is as accessible as it is experimental.
Stream ‘A Tap at the Window’ via SoundCloud, download via Bandcamp and read more about Erik Nilsson here.
Hidden Shoal MixTape
