AWMA take the space, weight and atmosphere of their previous incarnation Half Film and inject instrumental details and a gentle shift in tempo from their slowcore origins. The band dynamic that Conor Devlin ([the] caseworker), Jason Lakis and Dan Martin (both of The Red Thread, Mist and Mast) have cultivated over the years of touring and playing together has been elegantly renewed. This melodically charged music exudes intensity and emotional resonance.
Right from the opening notes of delayed guitar and the warm thrum of bass, ‘Sterling Hayden and the Great Nobility’ establishes itself as a songscape that’s in it for the long haul. The spacious six- and four-string interplay creates a gorgeous atmosphere, through which the drums steadily surge, like car headlights through fog. It’s not until five minutes in that Conor Devlin’s voice colours the song with impressionistic invocations, before the back half builds in intensity with fuzz bass and then reaches a cymbal-washed climax. The song was recorded in one take by Monte Vallier at Ruminator Audio in San Francisco. No one in the band remembers anything about the origin of the title…
AWMA
October 2015
The band dynamic that Conor and Eimer Devlin ([the] caseworker) and Jason Lakis (The Red Thread, Mist and Mast) have cultivated over the years of touring and playing together as Half Film has been elegantly renewed on their self-titled EP. This melodically charged music, akin to the early pastoral side of Pink Floyd, exudes intensity and emotional resonance. The EP features the single ‘Broadcast History’, which prowls relentlessly around a circular guitar refrain, gradually building in intensity as Jason Lakis’s expansive guitar effects and Conor Devlin’s incantatory vocal colour the stereo field with portent. AWMA take the space, weight and atmosphere of Half Film, and inject instrumental details and a gentle shift in tempo from their slowcore origins.
Biography
AWMA (A Woman My Age) is a trio made up of ex-members of the San Francisco-based bands Half Film, The Red Thread and Mist and Mast: Conor Devlin (vocals, guitar), Jason Lakis (vocals, guitar and bass) and Dan Martin (drums). AWMA was conceived in 2014 and the first recordings took place in 2015. This new EP was recorded live to tape in late 2016 at Ruminator Audio in San Francisco. Songs are pieced together via transatlantic email, and the band meets in Berkeley twice a year to record. They even play out sometimes.
The band would like to think it’s influenced by Pink Floyd, Carlton Melton, Robert Fripp, Aluk Todolo, FSA, Watter, Neu!, GSYBE!, Popol Vuh, Opeth, Talk Talk and Wrekmeister Harmonies.
Jason and Dan live in Berkeley, while Conor lives in Switzerland.
Hidden Shoal is incredibly honoured to have been selected as one of Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018. Textura is, in our opinion, the premiere new music magazine and favourite of the label team for unearthing and exposing new and exciting new music. This is the second time Hidden Shoal has been selected in Textura’s best labels list and as always we are nestled against some other very special labels, all of who you should check out.
Now for a very brief and unnecessary acceptance speech – we are nothing without our incredible roster of artists, who continually amaze, inspire and surprise us. Thank you all!
It’s time again for Scene Point Blank‘s excellent Pass The Mic feature, where artists and music industry types give their wrap up on 2017. Hidden Shoal’s own AWMA, Slow Dancing Society and Summon The Birds feature this year among a raft of other wonderful artists. Check it out here.
Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of ‘Sterling Hayden and the Great Nobility’, the ten minute single by expansive guitar outfit AWMA (A Woman My Age), a trio made up of ex-members of the San Francisco-based slowcore outfit Half Film. The track is available as a limited edition 12” vinyl and digital download via Bandcamp.
Right from the opening notes of delayed guitar and the warm thrum of bass, ‘Sterling Hayden and the Great Nobility’ establishes itself as a songscape that’s in it for the long haul. The spacious six- and four-string interplay creates a gorgeous atmosphere, through which the drums steadily surge, like car headlights through fog. It’s not until five minutes in that Conor Devlin’s voice colours the song with impressionistic invocations, before the back half builds in intensity with fuzz bass and then reaches a cymbal-washed climax. The song was recorded in one take by Monte Vallier at Ruminator Audio in San Francisco. No one in the band remembers anything about the origin of the title…
As with all Hidden Shoal releases, AWMA’s music is available for licensing (film, tv, games, compilations). Contact Hidden Shoal for more info.
Hidden Shoal is excited to end the celebration of its 10th year of existence with the new compilation album Eat Your Friends, comprising remixes and covers of Hidden Shoal artists, by Hidden Shoal artists. This freely downloadable album not only showcases the wealth of original music released through Hidden Shoal, but also the creative ingenuity and deft musical touch of the remixers and cover artists.
From searing solar-flared adaptations to delicately reconstructed covers, deep space jam reworkings, and shimmering ambient tapestries, Eat Your Friends reimagines the Hidden Shoal discography in new and beautiful ways, playing to all the strengths of the roster’s dizzying array of talent.
Includes remixes and covers by: Antonymes, Arc Lab, Glanko, Wayne Harriss, Liminal Drifter, Makee, Chloe March, Markus Mehr, Erik Nilsson, REW<<, Slow Dancing Society, Tin Manzano, Willem Gator, and Zealous Chang of music by: Arc Lab, Brother Earth, Cheekbone, City of Satellites, Medard Fischer, Gilded, Glanko & Daniel Bailey, Kryshe, Memorybell, Erik Nilsson, perth, Slow Dancing Society, Tangled Star, Umpire, and Zealous Chang.
Eat Your Friends is available now as a free download via Bandcamp and is also streamable via SoundCloud. Listen and then throw yourself into the wormhole as you explore the originals and more work by the remixers and cover artists. For all the filmmakers, games designers and others in need of engaging music, don’t forget that all tracks in our catalogue are available for licensing (film, tv, games, compilations etc).
Hidden Shoal is extremely excited to be celebrating its 10th birthday this month. It’s hard to believe that back in May 2006, Perth-based musicians Cam Merton, Stuart Medley and Malcolm Riddoch began Hidden Shoal Recordings as a means to put out releases by local artists. Tim Clarke, based in Melbourne, joined the team in 2007. Hidden Shoal has since gone on to become a much-loved independent label and publisher, releasing over 120 albums from a diverse range of international artists and licensing music from its catalogue across film, tv, web and compilation.
Stay tuned for special anniversary announcements in the coming months!
We’re super excited to announce the official release of the debut self-titled EP from atmospheric rock trio AWMA. The band dynamic that Conor and Eimer Devlin ([the] caseworker) and Jason Lakis (The Red Thread, Mist and Mast) have cultivated over the years of touring and playing together as Half Film has been elegantly renewed on their debut EP. This melodically charged music, akin to the early pastoral side of Pink Floyd, exudes intensity and emotional resonance. What else would you expect from such heritage.
The AWMA EP features the single ‘Broadcast History’, which prowls relentlessly around a circular guitar refrain, gradually building in intensity as Jason Lakis’s expansive guitar effects and Conor Devlin’s incantatory vocal colour the stereo field with portent. AWMA take the space, weight and atmosphere of Half Film, and inject instrumental details and a gentle shift in tempo from their slowcore origins.
Get yourself a copy of the EP via AMWA’s BandCamp. The EP will also be available via iTunes, Amazon and Spotify et al later next week. Expect a vinyl release early 2016.
We’re very excited to present ‘Broadcast History’, the first taste of the debut self-titled EP from atmospheric rock trio AWMA. The track prowls relentlessly around a circular guitar refrain, gradually building in intensity as Jason Lakis’s expansive guitar effects and Conor Devlin’s incantatory vocal colour the stereo field with portent. AWMA take the space, weight and atmosphere of their previous incarnation Half Film, and inject instrumental details and a gentle shift in tempo from their slowcore origins.
The band dynamic that Conor and Eimer Devlin ([the] caseworker) and Jason Lakis (The Red Thread, Mist and Mast) have cultivated over the years of touring and playing together has been elegantly renewed on their self-titled EP. This melodically charged music, akin to the early pastoral side of Pink Floyd, exudes intensity and emotional resonance.
‘Broadcast History’ is available for streaming now via SoundCloud. AWMA’s self-titled EP sees release on the 14th of October 2015.
From the ashes of Half Film (no we didn’t burn them) and via [the] caseworker, Red Thread and Mist and Mast comes AWMA – Conor Devlin (vocals, guitars), Eimer Devlin (vocals, bass), and Jason Lakis (vocals, drums, guitars). We’re excited to announce the release of their self-titled debut EP which drops October 14 preceded by the single ‘Broadcast History’ out September 17.
Check out their artist profile for more info and be sure to check out the gorgeous ‘Broadcast History’ next week.
“Sterling Hayden was an American actor who starred in such classics as Dr. Strangelove and The Long Goodbye. No idea what that has to do with this experimental rock/post-rock jam from trio AWMA. Regardless, the song is a trippy and hypnotic adventure that eschews convention to craft a sound that sits somewhere between the unpredictability of a jam band and the careful consideration of the best post-rock groups. This one has a mantra like quality that imbues the track with a religious vibe that is equally endearing and unnerving. The outfit features ex-members of the San Francisco-based slow-core outfit Half Film. Which is nice.”
“All things being well there should be a peppering of hidden shoal loveliness across these particular missive, if not later tonight, then certainly throughout the course of the week. For now, a little something we tripped across, from AWMA who I do believe we’ve mentioned in passing in earlier dispatches. This be ‘Sterling Hayden and the Great Nobility’ – something I guess you could rightly describe as a slow burning brooding titan, a nine-and-a-half-minute head tripping colossus freefalling initially into the hallowed terrains of Godspeed, the atmospherics shifting sublimely through the gears from a Montgomery-esque starting point to delicately press on the pedal and subtly surge into kosmick currents in a very Sennen meets Seeland via Dark Captain Light Captain way.”
“From 1998 to 2001, the San Francisco-based band Half Film (Conor Devlin, Eimer Devlin, Jason Lakin) made records and toured. After the split, the Devlin brothers continued as [the] caseworker, while Jason was active as The Red Thread/Mists and Mast (2003-2013). The former Half film members reunited in 2013 as AWMA (A Woman My Age) and the self-titled EP AWMA is the first recording of the trio. A short European tour is announced for early 2016 and a full album for later in the year. The EP contains 4 tracks.
At the State Palace leads you to the land of Pink Floyd, although the repetitive notes schedule is anything but typical for the Brits. No, it is the atmosphere that reminds us of the British band, because as soon as the vocals are added, the music of AWMA sounds quite different, more relaxed, with a beautiful harmony and bell-like percussion. The atmospheric guitars return in Broadcast History, but again, the vocals make the difference. And the same pattern is used in What the Artist Told Me: wonderful and varied guitar sounds and attractive harmonies. In For Games, the striking Gilmour sound is initially omitted and AWMA concentrates on the vocals. But even if the Pink Floyd sound penetrates the melody after a while, the beautiful harmonies still attract the attention, although the guitars remain essential to the atmosphere of the work of AWMA. Nice selection.”
“New name and new adventure for Conor Devlin and Eimer ( [The] caseworker ), assisted by Jason Lakis (The Red Thread) in a project marked by fading dreamy electric, developed first as a Half Film and now under the name AWMA, to debut with four tracks of an eponymous EP.
The spatial components and nuanced ye reveal already in the works of [The] caseworker come in the context of the new formation to maturation in the sense of a thickening of sound grain, resulting in substantial abandonment of lightness and jangly pop appetite broadly related to it, in favor of vortices guitar by the slow and heavy, which are equivalent in the dark timbre of interpretations.
Decidedly marked by a grim and psychedelic desert, the seventeen minutes Ep open up horizons so a reboot to sound spaces infinite, in a colorful synthesis of atmospheric rock.”
“Something lovely from Hidden Shoal approaches this way, having already had us adoring of that recently released Chloe March salvo, we are yet to hear a prepped for loving set from Kramies. Though before we get to that there’s the small but consequential matter of a debuting self titled EP outing from AWMA to be considered. Featuring members of the caseworker, the red thread and mist and mast, lead out track ‘broadcast history’ arrives to fanfares advertised with such descriptors as ‘atmospheric’, ‘intense’ and ‘prowling’ to which you can add brooding, majestic and alluring among the many, best described as being akin to the oncoming drift wind of some hitherto slow burn of quietly grand euphoria, amid the bliss kissed hazes and the dust sparse hinterlands the slow spun riff recoils and hushed spectral hymnals whisper to the fallen echoes of Sennen and Working for a Nuclear Free City as they ghost through the grooves with silently graceful intent all summoned and fashioned in the image of an at rest and thoughtfully magisterial sounding The Church.”
AWMA’s music is available for licensing (master & sync cleared) through Hidden Shoal. Please contact us with some basic details about your project and the track(s) you wish to use and we’ll be sure to get back to you straight away.
AWMA take the space, weight and atmosphere of their previous incarnation Half Film and inject instrumental details and a gentle shift in tempo from their slowcore origins. The band dynamic that Conor Devlin ([the] caseworker), Jason Lakis and Dan Martin (both of The Red Thread, Mist and Mast) have cultivated over the years of touring and playing together has been elegantly renewed. This melodically charged music exudes intensity and emotional resonance.
Hidden Shoal is incredibly honoured to have been selected as one of Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018. Textura is, in our opinion, the premiere new music magazine and favourite of the label team for unearthing and exposing new and exciting new music. This is the second time Hidden Shoal has been selected in Textura’s best labels list and as always we are nestled against some other very special labels, all of who you should check out.
It’s time again for Scene Point Blank‘s excellent Pass The Mic feature, where artists and music industry types give their wrap up on 2017. Hidden Shoal’s own AWMA, Slow Dancing Society and Summon The Birds feature this year among a raft of other wonderful artists. Check it out here.
Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the release of ‘Sterling Hayden and the Great Nobility’, the ten minute single by expansive guitar outfit AWMA (A Woman My Age), a trio made up of ex-members of the San Francisco-based slowcore outfit Half Film. The track is available as a limited edition 12” vinyl and digital download via Bandcamp.
Hidden Shoal is excited to end the celebration of its 10th year of existence with the new compilation album Eat Your Friends, comprising remixes and covers of Hidden Shoal artists, by Hidden Shoal artists. This freely downloadable album not only showcases the wealth of original music released through Hidden Shoal, but also the creative ingenuity and deft musical touch of the remixers and cover artists.
We’re super excited to announce the official release of the debut self-titled EP from atmospheric rock trio AWMA. The band dynamic that Conor and Eimer Devlin ([the] caseworker) and Jason Lakis (The Red Thread, Mist and Mast) have cultivated over the years of touring and playing together as Half Film has been elegantly renewed on their debut EP. This melodically charged music, akin to the early pastoral side of Pink Floyd, exudes intensity and emotional resonance. What else would you expect from such heritage.
We’re very excited to present ‘Broadcast History’, the first taste of the debut self-titled EP from atmospheric rock trio AWMA. The track prowls relentlessly around a circular guitar refrain, gradually building in intensity as Jason Lakis’s expansive guitar effects and Conor Devlin’s incantatory vocal colour the stereo field with portent. AWMA take the space, weight and atmosphere of their previous incarnation Half Film, and inject instrumental details and a gentle shift in tempo from their slowcore origins.
