Tapes

Medio Mutante - Another Land (Demo Version)

Tampered Notes

Neon

Diskothek

Slow Heart Music is the acoustic side project of ambient and drone musician Ben Rath. Based in Manchester, UK, Ben has released music under his own name with labels including Sound in Silence, Unknown Tone Records, Eilean Rec., Cathedral Transmissions, Moonswing Netlabel, Triple Moon Records and Whitelabrecs. As Slow Heart Music, Ben focuses more closely on solo acoustic guitar instrumentals and has released albums exclusively through Whitelabrecs.
The majority of Ben's musical output finds its home in the rich and diverse territory of experimental ambient and drone music. Ben creates compositions using original recordings of guitar, keyboard, and piano, as well as samples, field recordings, and digital synthesizers. These sounds from various sources are then moulded, transformed, and edited together to form instrumental arrangements which span a wide variety of styles, tones, and emotional registers, with inspiration drawn from pioneers in the genre such as Tim Hecker and Lawrence English, the early ambient works of artists such as Sean McCann and Colleen, and the emotional weight and resonance of Constellation Records greats such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Esmerine (among many others).

Under the Slow Heart Music moniker, Ben strips things back to explore the simple joy of the acoustic guitar. His playing, influenced by the likes of Eric Chenaux and Richard Dawson, as well as the gentle beauty of solo piano works from artists such as Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds, combines a sense of playful and spontaneous improvisation with arrangements and compositions that often express a gentle and tender emotion.

For his new album ‘Hope’, Ben returns to the artful acoustic arrangements and soulful guitar playing that marked his debut as Slow Heart Music, ‘This Body Is Not Me’ (2017). Armed with the same £5 half-size classical guitar which was used to record the first time around, Ben adds a second classical acoustic borrowed from his girlfriend in the spirit of using whatever was to hand to create with. He had a vision for the sound he wanted to achieve, which builds on influences from artists that embrace the mournful and melancholic, but also find beauty and uplift amidst the sadness. As Ben explains, “I’ve struggled with my mental health ever since adolescence, and music was the thing that often provided me with the most solace and comfort. The artists that inspired me were those who were expressing something that felt real to my experience, that taught me that I was not as alone in my feelings of deep sadness and anxiety as I often felt, and that meaning and beauty could still be found and expressed in the midst of it all.’’

Those who know him would describe Ben as a quiet, calm, and reserved person, but his music is the space where he is able to express himself more fully. ‘Hope’ is a collection of soft and minimal pieces, steeped in emotion and feeling, at times mournful, at others uplifting, but never seeking to prematurely soothe or distract from the suffering of the world, instead sitting in the mud of it all, and seeing what can be created from there. It is Ben’s sincere hope that his music may help some other lonely soul feel that little bit more connected and understood.

Hope

wlr161 Slow Heart Music - Hope

Forest is calling

// demo
// based on the instrumental Good Riddance

Echoes feat. Hèrbé (demo)

Free download, if you fancy it.

This one had been sitting on my HD for a while so I decided to finish the mix and let it see the light of day.

Written and produced by Chris Sharp.

(c) 2024 Chris Sharp
(p) 2024 Chris Sharp

Q London

Under my skin
there is no blood
there is no hope
there's only void

(...)

I once hoped
that everything would be perfect
but I just found out
So many nights I'm alone


Take me back to those times where everything
was so new and emotional
now I'm alone most of the time

Fear is so great, I can't escape.
Fear is so great, I can't escape.

...................
It won't go away
I'm talking bout fear
It won't go away
I'm talking bout fear
...................

Paranoid mind
Infernal heart
there is no way out
I'm trapped in myself

Paranoid mind
Infernal heart
there is no way out
I'm trapped in myself

I'm trapped
lonely
I'm trapped
nights never end

Nightsorrow - instrumental 01 "Void" - 50 bpm

Fire walks, fire walks,
fire walks, fire walks 

I see the loneliest star 
i see an extraterrestrial
is better forget 
is better forget 
i could lose my brain 

Better dont talk 
better dont think 
im so high inside of me 

Only random can save me 

Is better forget 
is better forget 
nobody wants 
a broken brain 

Only random can save me

Fire Walks (ft. Ferdinand Cärclash)

DOCUMENTA – LADY WITH THE RING

Order: https://touchsensitiverecords.bandcamp.com/album/lady-with-the-ring
Promo Video: https://youtu.be/i2lYAkzo2Yc

Touch Sensitive Records | TSR14 
Limited Vinyl EP / Digital
Friday 12th October 2018

Following on from their sold-out LP for Touch Sensitive and a digital reissue of it’s predecessor, Documenta take a break from their Drone Pop trilogy to introduce the Lady With The Ring - Margorie McCall - “lived once, buried twice”.

McCall lived in rural Ireland in the early 18th century. She succumbed to a fever and was hastily buried in Lurgan’s Shankill cemetery. Her grave was visited by “a tramp of disreputable character with a reckless and thieving disposition” who drew blood as he tried to prise the ring from her finger, awakening the dead woman who subsequently lived for many years after.

The Lady With The Ring EP sees Documenta’s regular seven-piece lineup temporarily swell with narration from author and musician Will Carruthers (Playing The Bass With Three Left-Hands, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized) providing counterpoint to Roisin Stewart’s hazed vocals as she tells the story from the dead woman’s lips.

Self-recorded in one weekend a stone's throw from McCall’s grave and subsequently re- worked and shaped by the group, Lady With The Ring introduces sparkling synthesized passages and an organic ‘cosmic-blues’ to Documenta’s already lush sonic expanse.

Tracklist:
1. Lady With The Ring (Narration) 
2. The Blue Sleep
3. It's Quiet Now
4. Jack Morbus
5. The Fullness Of Years

Lady With The Ring

Documenta - The Blue Sleep

Todo Avaricia

reka - todo avaricia

ambivalent indiewave projections of an optimistic nihilist | inspired by New Wave, 80s, Coldwave, Darkwave, Postpunk and slightly misanthropic thoughts...
no label, no rules, just music, pure as it comes 
// Michael [K] Smith

Forest is calling

A TRANSITION