Hidden Shoal News
Slow Dancing Society Reissues – Pre-order Available Now!
Hidden Shoal Recordings is proud to announce that pre-orders are now available for the CD re-issues of Slow Dancing Society’s first three albums ahead of their official release on 19th May, 2011.
Drew Sullivan’s first three releases as Slow Dancing Society comprise a peerless ambient trilogy. Debut album The Sound of Lights When Dim is a sumptuous unfolding ride towards a fading horizon. As with Brian Eno’s finest moments and David Sylvian’s ambient explorations, the album manages to dissolve its temporal markers and speak about moments removed from time. It talks to the delicious flaws of memory and feeling, never sullying itself with literality or simple documentation.
From the outset, sophomore album The Slow and Steady Winter sets itself up to be an epic. Clocking in at over an hour, the album paints its majestic landscapes with both measure and purpose, moving from immersive ambient evocations to beatific bliss rock. A gorgeously choreographed chronicle of a Spokane winter, the album serves as a wonderful progression from Slow Dancing Society’s previous work both in sound and mood.
Following on from the ice-sculpted cinematics of The Slow and Steady Winter, third album Priest Lake Circa ’88 exudes restraint and repose, yet is richly melodic and full. Tracks such as the single ‘A Warm Glow’ typify the album and find Sullivan issuing forth waves of radiant synth drones and glistening guitars that ripple effortlessly across the sonic vista. Priest Lake Circa ’88 speaks of both departure and eventual return, and perhaps in its broadest sense the notion of “home”. Above all, this is music to bathe in: warm, steamy and all-encompassing.
“Music is all about moments like this. Moments when you are, unexpectedly, knocked over and stunned into submission by an album that has, quite literally, came from nowhere… deeply affecting, consistently excellent… demands repeated listening” – Boring Machines Disturb Sleep on The Sound of Lights When Dim
Availability
All three reissues are now available for pre-order via n5mailorder before their official release on the 19th of May. The three releases are also available as specially priced bundle. The albums are also available now digitally in compressed and lossless formats.
Umpire Single Review at DOA
Fabulous review by the wonderful Brad Tilbe of the new Hotels Review in Italy's Ondarock
Check out this lovely mini-review of Hotels sumptuous epic On The Casino Floor in Italy’s pivotal music mag Ondarock. Check here for an English translation.
Antonymes Reviews
The glowing reviews for Antonymes The Licence to Interpret Dreams just keep coming in and why wouldn’t they considering its sheer beauty. Check out what reviewers had to say at Cyclic Defrost, BlogCrtics, DOA, Normans Records, 4zzz, Fluid Radio, Headphone Commute, AmbientBlog and Future Sequence… and that’s just for starters.
More to come!
Antonymes – ‘On Approaching The Strange Museum’
Antonymes Featured in Record.Pause.Play Podcast
Antonymes stunning track ‘Endlessly’ has been featured on the 1 year anniversary episode of the very excellent Record.Pause.Play podcast. To listen, head to the Record.Pause.Play website or subscribe via iTunes and soak in episode 12 before working your way backwards through their fabulous set of shows.
And don’t forget to check out the rest of Antonymes acclaimed new album The Licence to Interpret Dreams. You can stream the whole album at the Hidden Shoal Store or via Bandcamp.
Hotels Interview on The Underground of Happiness
Check out the excellent interview with Blake Madden of Hotels on the fabulous Irish radio show Underground of Happiness with Conor O’Toole. You can stream the whole thing over at the Underground of Happiness blog.
Antonymes UnderExposed Feature at Fluid Radio
Antonymes continues Fluid Radio‘s wonderful UnderExposed series with a remixed track accompanied by a stunning photographic sequence. The remix entitled ‘Lost in Waves of Light’ was created from the reworking of four separate tracks from The Licence to Interpret Dreams. The resulting piece has an intimate familiarity for fans of the album and for those who have not yet tasted, it provides a wonderful introduction.
Check it all out here and be sure to check back with us in May as we will be releasing the ‘Lost in Waves of Light’ remix for free download.
Hotels Voter Thank You Party
Hotels is readying to thank everyone who voted for Hotels to make them 1 of 6 finalists in Billboard.com’s Battle of the Bands. Thanks to all you beautiful people the band and will be heading down to Las Vegas for the final showdown on May 18th.
As special thanks, Hotels is throwing a party this Friday at 8pm at the Sunset Tavern in Seattle. They’ve specially arranged for happy hour prices on micros and wells, Hotels will provide tasty pizza and we’ll be giving away swag!! The night will feature Yuni in Taxco, Blue Skies for Black Hearts and of course the mighty Hotels.
For more info visit the Facebook event page.
Hotels – ‘Trouble At The Consulate’
Antonymes Interview and Sound Postcard at Headphone Commute
The wonderful Headphone Commute have once again laid on the Hidden Shoal loving. This time the spotlight is firmly on Ian Hazeldine (aka Antonymes) with a lovely mini interview as well as an exclusive Sound Postcard created specifically for Headphone Commute.
This follows on from last week’s Hidden Shoal special at Headphone Commute which featured a number of glowing reviews including a very special write up of Antonymes The Licence to Interpret Dreams. Check it all out here and check out the album here.
Antonymes "The Licence To Interpret Dreams" Out Now
Hidden Shoal Recordings is proud to announce the official release of The Licence To Interpret Dreams by neo-classical/minimal ambient artist Antonymes. The Licence To Interpret Dreams, Antonymes debut for Hidden Shoal, is an album of resonant beauty, as expansive as the wilds of North Wales from which it came, yet as delicate and intimate as a loved one’s breath upon your skin. Each song deploys a modest array of instruments and textures, giving them ample space to breathe and glow. The album’s scope is immediately apparent on breathtaking opener ‘The Slow Beginnings of a ‘A Fragile Acceptance’, where faint piano notes are overwhelmed by an aching surge of cellos, and the timeless, lingering chord progression of ‘The Siren, Hopelessly Lost’.
Single ‘Endlessly’ weaves traces of nature with unearthly, oscillating tones before giving way to a strident piano theme. On ‘Doubt’, Jan Van Den Broek delivers the words of Paul Morley, cradled against a bed of melancholic piano, violin and cello, leaving an indelible emotional mark. ‘A Light From The Heavens’ almost feels like a natural conclusion to the album, with its sense of reflective yearning, but it is followed by the devastating metaphysical breakdown of ‘On Arrival at the Strange Museum’, a cavernous piece that calls out like some giant magnetic spirit.
“This album is probably the most heartbreaking set of songs I’ve heard since Bon Iver’s For Emma Forever Ago, or I Am A Bird Now by Antony And The Johnsons. It’s Brian Eno meets a dagger to the heart….a record that deserves album of the year, even four months into 2011.” – Delusions of Adequacy
“There is so much to experience and so much the music will conjure for the listener. The music on The License to Interpret Dreams can influence how one views the world, their inherent sensibilities, of knowing, and, finally, of returning.” – Fluid Radio
The Licence To Interpret Dreams is available now physically and digitally through Hidden Shoal Recordings, distributed via n5Mailorder. Read a full press release here.
Antonymes – ‘The Siren, Hopelessly Lost’
Hidden Shoal MixTape
