THE JULIE RUIN - 'HIT RESET'

Formats

• HAR096 - LP

  0098787309614

• HAR096X - LP (COLOURED)

  4024572970284

• HAR096CD - CD

  0098787309621

• HAR096MC - MC

  0098787309645

Details

Kathleen Hanna stealthily assembled the members of The Julie Ruin without any of them realizing exactly what was happening. It all began in late 2009. Kathleen had not released an album since Le Tigre’s This Island (2004), and she was ready to jump back into music again. She knew her onetime Bikini Kill bandmate Kathi Wilcox was going to be moving to New York in the near future, so she didn’t even bother with finding a bass player at first. Carmine Covelli, who had toured with Le Tigre as their video guru, was having a blast at Kathleen’s birthday party when she abruptly asked him to be the drummer. A longtime admirer of Kathleen’s work, Carmine couldn’t say no to her at her own party, so of course he joined the band. Sara Landeau and Kathleen both taught at Girls Rock Camp and Kathleen lured her into the band by trading Pro Tools lessons for guitar lessons. Sara’s surf-informed style gelled perfectly with Kathleen’s sonic vision for her new band. Kathleen approached Kenny Mellman last with the idea that they should write country songs together to sell to other artists. Within a week of their first meeting, Kathleen’s mysterious “manager” (whom Kenny maintains does not exist) told her that they would never break into the Nashville songwriting scene, so Kenny might as well join her new band on keyboards. Done. In late 2014 they began work on their second album, Hit Reset, due out July 8th on Hardly Art records. Mixed by Eli Crews (with whom the band worked on Run Fast), Hit Reset expands on the band’s established sound: dancier in spots and moodier in others, with girl group backing vocals and even a touching ballad closer. Hit Reset is the sound of a band who have found their sweet spot. Kathleen’s vocals are empowered and her lyrics are as pointed and poignant as ever. From the chilling first lines of “Hit Reset”(“Deer hooves hanging on the wall, shell casings in the closet hall”) to the touching lines of “Calverton” (“Without you I might be numb, hiding in my apartment from everyone / Without you I'd take the fifth, or be on my death bed still full of wishes”), Hanna takes a leap into the personal not seen completely on the first album or possibly even in the rest of her work.

Tracks

1. Hit Reset
2. I Decide
3. Be Nice
4. Rather Not
5. Planet You
6. Let Me Go
7. Mr. So and So
8. Record Breaker
9. Hello Trust No One
10. I?m Done
11. Roses More Than Water
12. Time Is Up
13. Calverton

Press

Huge press campaign underway. 6 page feature MOJO feature confirmed. Observer magazine feature 3.7.16

Audio & Video

ELA ORLEANS - 'CIRCLES OF UPPER AND LOWER HELL'

Formats

• LSSN040 - 2xLPs

  5060446120774

• LSSN040CD - CD

  5060446120781

Details

Circles Of Upper and Lower Hell is the grandest, deepest work to date by Polish-born, Glasgow-based sound artist and composer Ela Orleans. The seventh album under her own name, Orleans' expansive vision, loosely based on Dante's Inferno but infused with deep personal experience, incorporates sound art, orchestral textures, synth pop and electronic music to construct a world equally peppered with loss and inspiration. Circles Of Upper and Lower Hell pulls all the strands of Orleans' previous work together, an epic depiction of turmoil wide in scope but reveling in detail. From her beginnings inaugurating a lo-fi, homespun sound that has since developed fully into a language uniquely her own, from tentative live outings featuring multiple instruments to a now-masterly command of sound, Orleans has become one of the most consistently surprising musicians of the global underground. "Circles"  documents Ela's research into dark sonic interiors and a far more personal approach to conventional songwriting. Previously, Orleans' sonic textures have relied on samples cleaved out of context, buried songs beneath warped aural gauze, but Circles blows every element of Orleans' art upwards and further apart. Circles begins with a masterful, sparse composition, The Gate, that instantly showcases the expert mastering by Jon Brooks before melting into You Go Through Me (featuring Stephen and Katrina from The Pastels), one of the most direct, aching pop moments. Ghost and Whispers is a hit from another universe, a sparkling propulsion instantly recognizable as an Ela Orleans composition; light of touch and almost unbearably, ghostlily human. Circles Of Upper and Lower Hell is an honest portrayal of a descent; be it personal or metaphorical and there are times, like on the minimal, string-led Tower, when the listener feels submerged, alienated from comfort. Through-out there's a massive, cinematic scope to the album, rumbling synth textures escalating into celestial harmonies, the stereofield sparkling with sound, shimmering melodies crackling with the sort of pathos that Ela has made her recognisable trademark. It's a weighty journey, pitched aurally between Ghost Box records and a mournful classicism, drawing references from literature and autobiography. Cirlces... is really without parallel in Orleans? discography, though its most obvious sister record, 2015's Upper Hell, gave some streamlined, carved-up hints at Circles Of Upper Hell's majesty. Orleans' previous work has always suggested threads, blurred ghost-ideas from an artist always growing. In 2016 Orleans has mastered her craft completely, never heavy-handed but deftly handling themes of loss, chaos, documenting personal journeys sometimes arduous with an ever-deeper understanding.

Tracks

TRACKLIST:
1. The Gate
2. You Go Through Me
3. Charon
4. Styx
5. Hands In Dark
6. Sensation
7. Threshold
8. Circle One
9. Sunlit Hill
10. Abyss
11. Tower
12. Beatrice
13. Calaphas
14. The Great Barrier
15. Ghosts And Whispers
16. Thorn Tree
17. The Heretics
18. Centaurs
19. Minotaur
20. Ring Two
21. Geryon
22. Phlegethon Woods
23. The Burning Sand
24. The Well

Press

Scottish Album of the Year 2017 nominated

Audio & Video

WOODKID & NILS FRAHM - 'OST: ELLIS (FEAT: ROBERT DE NIRO)'

Formats

• ERATP086LP - LP

  4050486111888

• ERATP086CD - CD

  4050486111871

Details

For the first half of the twentieth century, Ellis Island stood as the gateway to America. For some twelve million people, it was their first encounter with the land they hoped to call home. Directed by acclaimed artist JR, ELLIS tells the story of one such migrant. Starring Robert De Niro, the film winds its way through the crumbling hallways of the abandoned Ellis Island hospital complex, now home to JR’s Unframed art installation. It’s a place that reverberates with the hopes and fears of those who passed through it, the echoes especially resonant today. Entwined with the narrative is a score composed by Woodkid, performed and co-written by Nils Frahm. The delicate piano motifs of Winter Morning I culminate in a crescendo of strings, while the harmonium swells on the B-side are the foundation for De Niro’s narration: an encomium for those who shaped modern America. There’s perhaps never been a more fitting time for this story, with all the proceeds going to the Sea Watch initiative, a non-profit charity dedicated to the protection and rescue of civilian refugees. Following a screening as part of Nils’s Barbican Weekender, the ELLIS score will be out July 8th, the same week as America’s great federal holiday. It will be available as a mini album on CD, vinyl and in digital format containing a 12- page picture booklet. Nils Frahm: ‘The opportunity to work on JR´s fantastic short film ELLIS came through my good friend Yoann aka Woodkid. We agreed on recording the piano parts in my studio in Berlin and so it happened that JR and Woodkid were guests at Durton studio on a wonderful late summer day in 2015. We managed to record all the crucial elements that day. The music fell in our laps and melted with the images: a wonderful experience. The film has stuck in my head ever since; it moved my heart and changed my soul. A couple of weeks later I had to cancel a trip to Brussels because of a terror warning; all events got cancelled and I stayed home, having an unexpected day off. I felt rather depressed that day, thinking that the Europe I knew was already gone. I sat down at the harmonium, listened to Robert De Niro’s voice and played for the rest of the day. The result is ‘Winter Morning II,’ the B-side of the ELLIS soundtrack release. Robert says it all in 17 minutes. We are not facing a refugee crisis. We are facing a crisis because we do not embrace, we do not sympathise and we cannot give up fear. Art can encourage so I hope this project will help fight the fear in all of us.’ Yoann Lemoine, aka Woodkid: ‘Ellis is my second collaboration with JR after the New York City Ballet piece for Les Bosquets. I initially wanted this piece to sound like it was recorded on an old piano that we found in the ruins of Ellis Island, in the restricted area that is not open to the public, where JR pasted the pictures on the walls for the film Ellis. I had worked with Nils before and I wanted him to create a sound for this piano part that I composed that was extremely gentle and organic. I wanted the listener to hear the mechanisms, the breathing of the instrument. I wanted it to be imperfect, to sound like a ruin, a trace, an echo, the way the pastings on the walls seem to be ghosts, almost imperceptible. After a few rehearsals, Nils stripped down my piano parts and we removed almost all orchestration around the piano. He then worked on the extended version that is his interpretation of my piece, with Robert de Niro’s vocals. Because this film and this recording is historically meaningful, it was important for us to create this piece as an echo to the immigration situation in Europe, and decided to release it in support of Sea Watch.’ ABOUT JR: JR is the pseudonym of a French artist, director and photographer whose identity is still unknown, and who has been described as the 'French Banksy’. His large scale black-and-white portraits are among the most iconic in contemporary street art, drawing our attention to stories that might otherwise be forgotten. Unframed, which features prominently in both the film and the album booklet, does just this, memorialising through photographic prints those who came through Ellis Island. ‘Trying to see and understand our past better,’ he says, ‘is a good way to understand what’s going on right now and maybe face our future.’ May 29th will see JR and Nils Frahm collaborate again when Nils and Erased Tapes peer Ólafur Arnalds take part in his takeover of the world famous Louvre museum in Paris.

Tracks

1. Winter Morning I
2. Winter Morning II (with Robert De Niro)

Press

Audio & Video

ORB - 'BIRTH'

Formats

• CF076 - LP

  814867021364

• CF076CD - CD

  814867021555

Details

The skies have opened and dropped a trio of kids from Geelong, Australia, packing some seriously futuristic sludge: ORB. A heaping helping of proto-metal chops meets paranoid sci-fi fantastical ravings, replete with some tasty synthesizer werk that breaks it up just so. Close-mic’d to perfection by Total Control’s own Mikey Young, these epics swing with demonic swagger and crackle with the static of a menacing future, twisting and churning through loose-limbed riffery, all punctuated by a wail that sounds as if it’s coming from every hidden camera outside the Ministry of Love. A proggy but in-the-pocket head-trip hard rock record for the table, and hopefully these Aussies will be bringing their dystopian groove your way soon.

Tracks

1. Iron Mountain
2. Reflection
3. New Moon
4. First and Last Men
5. Electric Blanket

Press

Audio & Video

SLOW SEASON - 'WESTING'

Formats

• EZRDR067 - LP

  603111700519

• EZRDR067CD - CD

  603111700526

Details

Contrary to the band's name, downtime is a rarity for Slow Season. Sandwiched between summer 2015's extensive tour with their RidingEasy labelmates Mondo Drag and Electric Citizen, plus several short west coast jaunts, the hard-working quartet also found time to hammer out its most powerful and ambitious album yet. Written, engineered, produced and mixed themselves on their own equipment, entirely on analog tape, Westing is a hard-hitting and powerful reminder of how at one time a rock 'n' roll band could be a transcendent experience. While Slow Season's sound continues to effortlessly nod to the great bands of the 60s-70s, Westing is truly the sound of a band coming into their own. The songwriting is tight, howling and hypnotic. The sound is classic, yet refreshingly new. "It's a different album," says drummer and primary recording engineer Cody Tarbell. "But we never have wanted to find a particular sound or any one thing and be attached to it permanently. A big part of our records is experimenting." The Visalia, CA band -- Daniel Rice (vocals, guitar), David Kent (guitar), Hayden Doyel (bass), and Cody Tarbell (drums) -- has recorded all of their albums on reel-to-reel at Tarbell's home studio in a cornfield. This affords them the time to experiment getting sounds, while maintaining focus on the most important notion that performance is key. As with previous albums, recording was pretty immediate, tracked between January 15th and the beginning of February 2016 to 16-track tape and mixed to 2-track tape. Equally as ambitious as the band's self-sufficient production is the sprawling lyrical theme to the album. Thematically picking up where the Slow Season's previous full length Mountains left off, Westing tackles some heady issues. "Westing follows a loose narrative about our nation's loss of innocence as it explores its frontiers," vocalist Daniel Rice explains. "Re-contextualized in a story about an unnamed protagonist faced with choosing between different ideological allegiances and his own social identity." From song to song, the album follows what Rice explains as, "the unholy trinity of greed+power+violence, the injustice wrought from this, persisting in willful ignorance, and reaping what is sown." A deep conceptual arc, for sure, and one that adds further weight to the Slow Season's intensity. Album opener "Y'Wanna" erupts from the speakers as if the band couldn't even wait for the tape to start recording. it's a full-throttle rocker reminiscent of Zep's "Immigrant Song" with sly reference to "Four Sticks", all groove and pummel. "Flag" keeps things rolling along with its bouncing, stop-n-go guitar riff. The 6/8-time blues sway of "The Jackal" echoes early Sabbath malefic boogie, while "Saurekonig" is a cavernous and volcanic mass driven by huge drums, ringing slide guitar and ominous drone. "Damascus" is a rollicking anthem driven by Tarbell's syncopated hi-hat/snare interplay and Rice's explosive wail proving just how much of a dynamic powerhouse Slow Season has become. Throughout, Westing is a smart and snarling rocker that sounds like rock 'n' roll records should: massive, infectious and inviting repeat listens.

Tracks

01. Y'Wanna
02. Flag
03. Big City Livin'
04. The Jackal
05. Saurekonig
06. Damascus (STREAM)
07. Miranda
08. Manifest
09. Rainmaker

Press

Audio & Video