LOS CAMPESINOS! - 'NO BLUES (10th ANNIVERSARY REISSUE)'

Formats

• HS003LP - LP (COLOURED)

  5060446127667

Details

UK Exclusive Transparent green vinyl  Los Campesinos! reissue their highly acclaimed fifth album NO BLUES for its 10th anniversary. The release includes newly remastered audio, updated artwork and an exclusive vinyl colourway for UK retail. Upon its original release NO BLUES was widely hailed as the band's best album, featuring some of their most infectious and life-affirming music to date. Notable support came from NPR All Songs Considered, Pitchfork, Spin, Stereogum, DIY, NME and the AV Club.

Tracks

"For Flotsam" ? 3:43
"What Death Leaves Behind" ? 3:37
"A Portrait of the Trequartista as a Young Man" ? 3:01
"Cemetery Gaits" ? 4:52
"Glue Me" ? 5:04
"As Lucerne/The Low" ? 4:22
"Avocado, Baby" ? 4:36
"Let It Spill" ? 3:20
"The Time Before the Last Time" ? 2:47
"Selling Rope (Swan Dive to Estuary)" ? 6:17

Press

Official Record Store chart #4. Remastered, updated artwork. UK Retail exclusive 'transparent green vinyl' colourway Ltd 1000 copies.

Audio & Video

SPARKY DEATHCAP - 'TEAR JERKY EP'

Formats

• HS002LP - LP (PICTURE DISC)

  5060446127612

Details

Sparky Deathcap AKA Los Campesinos! multi-instrumentalist R N Taylor is the first to admit he’s an unlikely candidate for viral stardom. And yet, almost 15 years on from his final EP, Taylor’s alt-folk solo project is now getting a much-deserved reappraisal, entrancing a whole new generation of listeners. Championed by prominent Twitch streamer/YouTuber Wilbur Soot, his beautifully bruised pocket symphony ‘September’ has racked up over 36m streams on Spotify and soundtracked more than 750,000 creations on TikTok. Now, Los Campesinos!’s own indie imprint Heart Swells are delighted to release a newly mixed edition of its parent EP, Tear Jerky. Musically, you can trace the influence of Phil Elverum’s Microphones, of Magnolia Electric Co and Sufjan Stevens, and of Ys-era Joanna Newsom. From the beautifully lo-fi baroque-pop of ‘Glasgow Is A Punk Rock Town’ to ‘Send It To Oslo’s’ maximalist mix of analogue sounds, these ambitious yet intimate compositions prove the perfect foil for deeply autobiographical tales of heartbreak and recovery.

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Press

Limited edition phenakistoscope picture disc (1000 copies worldwide)

Audio & Video

MABE FRATTI - 'SE VE DESDE AQUI'

Formats

• UOH008LP - LP (COLOURED)

  5052442022275

• UOH008CD - CD

  5052442022282

Details

**On 180g Blue Vinyl** Guatemalan cellist and composer, Mabe Fratti released Se Ve Desde Aquí (It Is Seen From Here) on October 14 2022, on Unheard of Hope. Se Ve Desde Aquí (‘It Is Seen From Here’) marks another step in a remarkable run of releases from Guatemalan cellist and composer, Mabe Fratti. It is possibly her most revealing one to date; showcasing a sinuous and tensile sound coupled with a confident and clear-eyed worldview. Mabe Fratti is always on the lookout for new ways to express herself and to reflect her surroundings; she sees this as a process of continual “sonic transformation”. Not that she sees her method as unique: “I believe this happens to a lot of musicians, that in the interim when you finish a record and you release it you learn [new] things and change your philosophy towards what you want to sound like.” Se Ve Desde Aquí is a decisive shift away from Fratti’s most recent works, which were more enigmatic in tone. The rich, multi-layered arrangements heard on 2021’s acclaimed long player, Será que ahora podremos entendernos and egoless collaborations such as the fabulous Let's Talk About The Weather with Malaria legend and Monika supremo Gudrun Gut, created a mystery around Fratti which reveal only certain aspects of this affable musician’s character. Fratti sees her new music as “drier” in texture and more on the front foot in terms of setting out emotion: she describes the results as “less protected”. According to her, the sound is “informed through the aesthetics of rawness, and a ‘dirtiness’”: sampling expressions within improvisation, or extreme hi-fi dry sound. This noisy instrumentation is set against “the tools of melodic lines and harmony”, leading to a trademark richness, but one now more judiciously applied to set up a moment: “I did layering but it's more in specific moments. Basically my whole idea was to be as raw as possible and try to avoid overdubbing the same instrument as much as I could, of course always leaving space to break my own rules in the process.” This “frontal” approach carries over into the lyrical content. Many of the lyrics on tracks such as ‘Algo grandioso’ (‘Something great’), ‘Esta vez’ (‘This time’) and ‘Siempre tocas algo’ (‘You are always touching something’) refer to walls either falling or being circumnavigated. Questions around the use, or value, of time and other lyrical content invoking the senses and the body - as seen in ‘Deja de empujar’ (‘Stop pushing’) or ‘Cada músculo’ (‘Every muscle’) - also seem to suggest Fratti making pivotal individual decisions in her life, whether due to internal or external agencies. The tactile, mercurial and sometimes sparkling arrangements also suggest Fratti knowing where to place her work in the wider world. Mabe Fratti always enjoys working with others and Se Ve Desde Aquí is a record wholly informed by the collaborative process, whether holed up in WORM Sound Studios in Rotterdam, or at her home and in the Progreso Nacional studios, both in Mexico City. One key help has been Hugo Quezada, of Exploded View and late of synth act, Robota. Other recording allies are co-producer, guitarist and synth player Héctor Tosta, drummer and personal mentor Gibrán Andrade, saxophonist Jarrett Gilgore, violinist Alina Maldonado (heard on tracks ‘Cada Músculo’ and ‘Cuestión de Tiempo’), as well as Carla Boregas from Brazilian punk band Rakta who added tape loops and synthesizers to track ‘Siempre tocas algo’. Gearheards will be interested to know how such a transcendent sound came about. One key element is a focus on microphones, specifically Earthworks microphones, which Fratti “fell in love with” and saw as an inspiration for the wider creative process. She also fulfilled a lifelong wish and “played a little saxophone on the track ‘Desde el cielo’.” Whilst at WORM Sound Studios, Fratti lost herself with the vintage synths such as “the amazing” KORG PS 3200 and a much prized CS 60. In Progreso Nacional she recorded Mellotron, CS 50, a Jupiter, Solina, Korg M500 and more. “It was too much fun.” The Solina has an interesting backstory: Hugo Quezada found it “dropped in the garbage” whilst out walking with a friend. Quezada has a history of finding instruments in strange places; having found a vintage MS20 once that was being used as a table in a food stand… Regardless: all these provenances, places and people joined to create a truly remarkable work. 

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Audio & Video

MABE FRATTI - 'SERA QUE AHORA PODREMOS ENTENDERNOS'

Formats

• UOH006CD - CD

  5052442018643

Details

Será que ahora podremos entendernos is the second album to come from Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti. Using voice, cello, synthesizers and field recordings, her newest record which translates in English to ‘Will we be able to understand each other now?” is an exploration of communication, not only with others but also ourselves. Now based in Mexico city, Mabe has been heavily involved in the Mexican improvisation scene. Immersing herself in collaborations with fellow musicians operating amongst the scene. The impact of the pandemic meant many of these musicians fled to an old juice factory in Veracruz called La Orduña to quarantine together, where the album came to be created. Mabe’s involvement with the Mexican improvisation scene and her time quarantining with fellow musicians invites many collaborators onto this record. Whilst living in Veracruz, Mabe was able to collaborate with members of drone rock band Tajak, Pedro Tirado and worked remotely with Texan experimentalist Claire Rousay. Mabe’s return to the city, meant further collaborations with the likes of Sebastián Rojas (Sei Still, The Americo Jones Experience) and Hugo Quezada (Robota, Exploded View). Será que ahora podremos entendernos is birthed from the idea that we as people are a funnel that simplify how we communicate with each other and ourselves. Through omission and clumsiness, we often make the process of understanding incredibly complicated. Mabe says “I focused on the idea of “diagramation”. The act of putting something in a room and the process of how you arrange it and applying this to how we arrange words. It’s about how do you move from one place in the room to the other there are objects in the way? There’s always on option to make a route hard and long or short and easy. Looking at it this way and applying it to communication, I couldn’t separate the idea of simplification and optimization. It’s a matter of purpose.” Throughout the record, Mabe uses the questioning to frame how to link the start and the end of a song. Creating objects for the listener to find as the album progresses from layers of cello, synthesizers, guitars, plates, clappings and field recordings such as the birds of La Orduña. Playing between moments of chaosity and experimentation on tracks such as ‘Que Me Hace Saber Esto’ to elements of serene, etherealism created by repetitiveness and simpler arrangements on tracks such as ‘Nadie Sabe’. 

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Audio & Video

MABE FRATTI - 'PIES SOBRE LA TIERRA'

Formats

• UOH003X - LP (COLOURED)

  5052442023395

Details

**On 180g White Vinyl** Mexico city based, Guatemalan cellist Mabe Fratti debut LP, Pies Sobre la Tierra (Feet On The Ground), on experimental label Unheard of Hope (Peter Zummo, Military Genius). Reconciling Mabe’s steps throughout her musical past, the debut LP features pop and experimentation that reflects her time working amongst the improvisation scene in Mexico City. Mabe Fratti’s sensibility is the triumph of experimentation over technical dominion of an instrument. The experimentation of sound with feelings, with existence itself, with an open heart, letting herself to be transformed by what she lives and hears. This is what has led Mabe Fratti from Guatemala to Mexico City. From the creation of pop songs to free improvisation, from the academy to noise, from collaborations in ensembles and duos to the profound personal journey that is reflected in her solo works. That’s why Mabe’s music converts us to sensible sounding boards: through a hypnotic and captivating performance, Mabe sews contemporary elements like shoe gaze and dream pop with ancestral influences that go from Gregorian chants to Sephardi music, transforming them in ingredients of a potent sonic ritual that causes a profound emotional impact. After collaborating with various artists, Mabe wanted to return to her solo works with the desire to create an album as a whole, not just a collection of tracks. Pies Sobre la Tierra was recorded in Fratti’s room with a Komplete Audio 6 and a MXL 4000 microphone during the first five months of 2019. She used her cello and vocals as protagonists in the instrumentation. Parallel to this, she used synthesizers, field recordings and she outsourced noise with the help of collaborators Concepcion Huerta and Mito del Desierto. Lyrically, she was inspired mostly but not entirely by Murphy by Samuel Beckett. The reason why the album is called Pies Sobre la Tierra (Feet on the ground) is because Mabe wants to refer to the conciliation of the space that we consider mental with the “physical” and “real”. However, even though there’s a sensation of separation, there’s also a unity to which we’re bound to observe through a lens and operate on it through assumptions and intentions. 

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Audio & Video

KLAUS WIESE - 'BARAKA'

Formats

• BS075 - LP

  769791985315

Details

After his participation in a masterpiece such as Popol Vuh’s Hosianna Mantra, in the early 1980s Klaus Wiese produced a series of seminal works in the field of ambient-drone and healing music. The first of these, Baraka, was released on tape by Acquamarin in 1981, and already contained all the aspects of his future research into the mysticism of sound. Wiese shares the path with other German explorers such as Hamel, Fricke, Micus or Deuter, but he focuses his attention on the most essential nature of sounds, on their acoustic purity, which is always infinite spiral, vortex of frequencies and cosmic bath. It takes only a few means (zither, tampoura, cybals, singing bowls) to reach the absolute through vibration. Like the archaic mood of a great universal harmony, the sound suggests a complete state of otherworldly meditation, an enveloping cloud of peace in the eternity of the present. The musician is only the one who distributes and directs the thickenings of ethereal matter, microtonal agglomerates, cascades of celestial harmonics and emotional floods, petals and stems of devotion.

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Audio & Video

GIOVANNI DI DOMENICO - 'SUPERLIKE'

Formats

• BS077 - LP

  769791985322

Details

Giovanni Di Domenico has now achieved a personal and unmistakable style within contemporary minimalism. His music always expresses a state of concentration, of recollection and contemplation toward a focal node. Repetition is experienced as alchemical state, as truth contained in the small nuances of change, in a crescendo that never reaches a climax. The atmosphere is intuition and is made up of a few compositional touches. To compose is to make synthesis, to unearth purity, simplicity and exactness. This new work for solo piano is almost an imaginary novel…the notes seem to tell of deserted streets, lonely walks in the night or runs down stairs. In this sense the musician is the writer of silence and the fleeting moment. And so, amid slow chords like Chopin or Satie, moods oscillate between brio and allegro, evoking the lightness of love, greater sadness and melancholy, as well as more restless and agitated ostinatos, the product of a more cathartic worldview.

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