Hidden Shoal News
“Melody Makers” A MixTape by Todd Tobias
The latest installment in our mixtape series finds the wonderful Todd Tobias curating a deliciously melodic time capsule. The mix features tracks from across a 30 year period starting in the 40’s and featuring artists such as Nat Cole, Sam Cooke, Neil Young, Nick Drake, David Bowie and even some Andrew Lloyd Webber! Let’s hand it over to Todd to explain,
“Here is a collection of 13 melody-driven songs written in a wide time range (1947-1977). Melody is the one element I struggle with in my own music, so I have an appreciation for it as a listener. In many of these songs the writers and performers convey a melancholy mood without being cute, maudlin or sentimental – something I admire because I know it’s not easy to achieve.
Many of the artist names will be familiar, but in a few cases perhaps not the names of the songwriters or vice-versa. Where it applies, the name of the writer is included alongside the performer. Thanks to Cam at Hidden Shoal for asking me to share this mixtape.” – Todd Tobias
“Melody Makers” A MixTape by Todd Tobias by Hidden Shoal on Mixcloud
Featured Track – The Star Department ‘Stitches and Sleeves’
At the heart of The Star Department‘s superb debut album The Pea Green Boat lies ‘Stitches and Sleeves’. The track is bound together by a heartbreaking guitar line, a silvery waltz-time figure that sends shivers up the spine. Combined with shuffling drums, a muted yet ominous horn section, and Justin Commins vulnerable, almost defeated vocal, the song radiates melancholic pop magic.
Liminal Drifter’s Stunning Debut Released
We’re excited to announce the official release of Troubled Mystic, the debut album by Australian electronic artist Liminal Drifter, featuring collaborations with English dream-pop artist Chloe March.
Drawing on the seminal Warp releases of the ’90s, including Black Dog, Plaid and early Autechre, as well as more contemporary peers, Liminal Drifter evokes a spectrum of emotions across beautifully detailed electronic tapestries. Moving from downtempo dream-pop to shimmering, spacey electronica, this suite of songs works as if by osmosis, gently irradiating your subconscious.
Liminal Drifter roves widely and deeply across Troubled Mystic’s hour-long run-time, allowing the songs to breathe and cross-pollinate. The title track punctuates a bright, shuffling groove with golden swells of brass and an aching vocal from Chloe March. ‘Dark Sunlight’ recalls the brooding majesty of Massive Attack’s ‘Inertia Creeps’. And gorgeous closer ‘Soothed by Summer’ vibrates with crystalline melancholia, resonating long after the last note has dropped.
Troubled Mystic is available now via BandCamp, iTunes and the usual range of digital stores.
New Medard Fischer Track Stream
We’re excited to be able to present ‘Five Years Almost to the Day’, the first taste of the forthcoming Medard Fischer EP Four Songs for the City of New York. Reflective piano chords are suspended amid glowing tones, rendering these three minutes utterly transportive. Neo-classical ambient has a new and essential voice.
The song is available for streaming via SoundCloud ahead of the release of Four Songs for the City of New York on the 3rd of September 2015.
Erik Nilsson “Hearing Things” Out Now!
We know you’ve been loving Erik Nilsson‘s sumptuous new track ‘On and Onward‘ and waiting for his second album to drop (we have cameras in your house). Well quit your waiting and start your listening as the beautiful sophomore release from Nilsson, Hearing Things, has just landed. Drawing on folk, classical and electronica, Erik 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. His Hidden Shoal debut Hearing Things advances the compositional strategy Nilsson first explored on his acclaimed debut Recollage: simple rhythmic and melodic elements are manipulated and recontextualised into richly textured, emotive pieces.
Erik’s previous work includes the album Recollage, released by Luxus-Artica Records, and the score for Ahmed – Almost 13, a Norwegian documentary screened at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam. His music can be heard in Project Power, which chronicles civic resistance to privatisation in New Brunswick, Canada, and in Are You Still There?, finalist in the 2011 edition of the short film competition The 24 Hour Film Race. Erik is a regular contributor to the Disquiet Junto Project, an online collective exploring the creative potential of constraints. He is also singer and guitarist of folk-rock trio Otinget, whose debut album will be released in 2015.
Check out the opening track ‘Ex Nihilo’ below or via SoundCloud and stream and purchase the album here.
Three Questions With Liminal Drifter
Dr. Simon Order, aka Liminal Drifter, wears many hats – academic, marathon runner and of course musician. Whilst it’s the latter we’re most interested in Order’s other two areas of activity inform his music in many key ways. The often wistful, open spaces of his work as Liminal Drifter feel like the perfect accompaniment to a runners high – internalised, slightly out of body and always moving forward. His debut album Troubled Mystic, featuring a number of collaborations with Chloe March, presents dreamy, evocative slices of ambient electronica sitting alongside some brooding downtempo gems. Check out the title track here ahead of the album release on the 19th of August 2015.
But that’s enough from us for now. Let’s hand it over to the good doctor as he pulls three questions out of the bag.
What kind of activity is your music made for?
Running, cycling, body action, movement in time, just breathing, washed in sonic waves, a back and forth, an up and down, a vibration, a passage of time. Time allows music. No time, no music, no movement. Resonance is all we have. I’m drawn to the resonance.
Why make music?
The human psyche; an almost unbearable number of excitable notions trying to break into the world, visceral and cerebral, stuff to be expressed and articulated. I think that’s where music comes in, tapping into that flow, reimagining, a crafting of emotions into sonic resonances that hopefully mean something to a listener. I’m drawn to that reimagining.
What’s your most treasured item of musical gear?
My bass guitar stands proudly in the corner reminding me there’s always a groove; the low, guttural, trouser-flapping power of music.
REW<< Album Release & New Music Video
It’s a day of double joy for us, not only do we finally get to present the absolutely brilliant new album from REW<< to you in it’s its glory, we also have a beautiful new video for the album track ‘Swan’s Melody’ to excite your eyes and ears.
On Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Sirens Sing Swan Songs, the eclectic songcraft of REW<< (Ryan E. Weber) is refracted through the lens of a laptop, conveying the open-endedness, excitement and disconnection of post-modern living while maintaining the immediacy of pop. From the grand to the intimate, REW<<’s many shades blend beautifully within the one canvas thanks to Weber’s skilled hand. His compositional dexterity manages to invest the album’s dreaminess with a sense of drama. From shimmering, widescreen electronic pop to haunting, minimal ballads, REW<< traverses dizzyingly varied terrain across the album’s 30 minutes, crafting a vivid journey that demands repeat visits.
The new music video for album track ‘Swan’s Melody’ is a perfect visual analogue of the song’s bittersweet charms. As the elegant movements of trapeze artists are mirrored and warped as if viewed through a kaleidoscope, the gravity-defying beauty of the song’s piano lines and Ryan Weber’s aching vocals are deepened in pathos.
Olive Skinned, Silver Tongued Sirens Sing Swan Songs is available now via BandCamp and the usual raft of digital online stores. Don’t forget to check out the video for ‘Swan’s Melody’ at YouTube or Vimeo.
Liminal Drifter ‘Troubled Mystic (feat. Chloe March)’
Good times my friends! We finally get to lay the title track on you from Liminal Drifter‘s forthcoming debut album (19/8/15). A collaboration with English dream-pop artist Chloe March, ‘Troubled Mystic’ is the perfect introduction to the measured, spacious beauty of Liminal Drifter. Drawing on the seminal sounds of trip-hop pioneers Massive Attack and early Warp electronic acts such as Black Dog, ‘Troubled Mystic’ punctuates a bright, shuffling groove with golden swells of brass and March’s aching vocal.
Stream the song over at SoundCloud, download it via BandCamp and find our more about Liminal Drifter here.
The Star Department “The Pea Green Boat” Out Now!
We’re excited to announce that The Star Department‘s gorgeous debut album is finally out. At its core, The Pea Green Boat is irrepressibly melodic and always inventive, never relying on predictable forms to deliver its charms. Each song is crafted around a playful, deftly composed structure, with a delicate yet potent mix of lo-fi guitars, horns, organ and off-kilter rhythm section. Given the album’s wonderful mix of indie pop and art-rock it comes as no surprise to learn that production credits for the album include David Brewis of Field Music, and Tom McFall (Bloc Party, REM, Stars, Weezer).
‘Art rock with a nice, romantic/melodic edge’ – The Guardian
The first single from The Pea Green Boat, ‘This Ship Won’t Sail’, provides the perfect introduction to the album with its inventive take on expansive down-tempo indie pop. The song’s organ-driven twists and turns evoke the dark charm of Psychedelic Fur’s ‘Sister Europe’, Deerhunter’s more pop-leaning moments, and the chiming guitar work of seminal Flying Nun outfits. Never self-indulgent yet never predictable, this is hypnotic, emotive stuff. Second single ‘Stitches and Sleeves’ is bound together by a heartbreaking guitar line, a silvery waltz-time figure that sends shivers up the spine. Combined with shuffling drums, a muted yet ominous horn section, and Justin Commins’ vulnerable, almost defeated vocal, the song radiates melancholic pop magic.
Stream and buy The Pea Green Boat via Bandcamp as well as the usual digital outlets.
Medard Fischer Joins Hidden Shoal, New EP Announced
We’ve been holding this under our hat for a little while now so we’re excited to finally be able to an announce the signing of Medard Fischer to the Hidden Shoal family. Best known for his solo work as Arc Lab and Tyyson, and as half of Hidden Shoal’s electronic duo Down Review with Tim Arndt (Near The Parenthesis), Medard Fischer’s eponymous solo work distills the warm ambience and impressionistic piano work of his previous releases into cohesive new forms. These thematically driven compositions orbit the intersection of modern classical music, textured ambient soundscapes and music for film, creating undeniably moving instrumental works.
Fischer’s moving debut solo work Four Songs for Peter Fechter is available now and his forthcoming EP Four Songs for the City of New York will see release on the 3rd of September this year with a track preceding it in August. Both EPs are available now for licensing (master & sync cleared) for film, tv, web, games, compilations and more. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any licensing enquiries.
Read more about Medard Fischer here.
Hidden Shoal MixTape
