"...sometimes it remains a mystery and a secret that I keep with me until it fades away, again."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5CyIEhr5nM
Video by Louis Faury

For more information and prints:
https://nebellang.bandcamp.com/album/sudden-ly-there

#pianoday2021

Nebel lang - Sudden ly there

Pre-order available (Limited Edition LP+CD / Vinyl / CD) :
https://theodorewildride.bandcamp.com/releases
https://icarusrecords.bandcamp.com/album/theodore-wild-ride
https://consouling.be

Theodore Wild Ride started from the collaboration between French keyboardists Christine Ott and Mathieu Gabry (Snowdrops) and Oud player Ophir Levy. The first album of the trio is coming the 1st October of 2021 via Icarus Records & Consouling Sounds.

Paoha

Lorenzo Masotto is a composer and pianist from Verona, Italy, with releases on labels such as Sonder House, Lady Blunt Records, Preserved Sound and Dronarivm. He has performed in many venues, most notably London’s Union Chapel whilst tours have taken him to California Sofar and concerts at the Iberian Theater in Lisbon and the concert at De Helling in Utrecht.

i=r is an album which Lorenzo started to write when the pandemic broke out across northern Italy and much of the world, in March 2020. He set out initially to explore the complete tonal possibilities of a Seiler upright piano, restricted to two microphones. He became fascinated as he discovered the beauty and sonic elegance of a hammer touching the string, muffled by felt, as the motion and vibrations created all kinds of creaks and noises within the wood.

i=r, known as Snell’s Law, is the law of refraction. Each piece of this album represents a different refraction, as different points of view reflected in an artificial or natural mirror. The accompanying photography by Michele Dolci is as much a part of the album as the music, as individual scenes of symmetry, asymmetry and reflection each depict a given track from the album.

It is perhaps fitting exactly one year on since the ideas behind this album emerged, that this bright and fluid collection of compositions beam their rays of hope back from those dark reflections. Light and darkness, warmth and cold, strong and frail, hopeful and despairing. Our hope now is to emerge into the light, under the warmth of spring, with a renewed strength born of our collective despair.

Written, produced and mastered by Lorenzo Masotto
Photography by Michele Dolci
Graphic design and layout by Andrew Heath

wlr091 Lorenzo Masotto - i=r

Dr Samantha To Reception Please!

Paper Relics is a collaboration between Whitelabrecs owner Harry Towell and his brother Stuart. They began recording together back in 2010 at their family home, with an EP on the Audio Gourmet netlabel which was followed by debut album ‘Over Exposure’ on Time Released Sound. In 2018 they created ‘The Road Home’ for Whitelabrecs, a record in which Sven Laux also had a hand.

The Paper Relics sound takes Stuart’s guitar and bass performances as the focal point of the compositions, with Harry’s background in creating Ambient and electro acoustic music adding further detail and texture. Each of their infrequent records has an evolving character, as equipment and techniques get updated and their lives change. Over Exposure was a record about photography, reflecting upon faded old family polaroids of life on the farm that their father grew up on. The Road Home moved into a richer more detailed sound palette, themed around the brothers’ new homes.

‘Emersion’ is a four track EP which is the first item in their discography, in which they did not physically sit down to record together. It was created through file-exchanges during lockdown, as glimpses of a life beyond the grip of the pandemic became in sight. As cautious plans were being made and a strange sense of freedom emerging, they reflected on the time-warping effects of their endless days spent indoors throughout the pandemic. They opted for a lo-fi retro sound, which sets out a dusty, degraded aesthetic across the recordings. Reel-to-reel tape decay, radio distortion, vinyl crackle and VHS hiss give a vintage charm to these reflective songs. There is a palpable melancholy which disguises the key message of optimism, with this EP being released on the 19th of July, a day being dubbed ‘freedom day’ in the UK. ‘Emersion’ is a brief space for reflection, in which the dust can settle.

After the album had been finalised, Stuart took a short break in the Scottish Highlands and he captured a series of photographs whilst hiking in the landscape. The EP cover artwork is one of these images, overlooking Loch Ness from a misty vantage point. We’ve created a short run of cassette tapes to tie in with the retro, lo-fi theme and the tape itself is neon yellow; a flash of colour as a stamp optimism.

Written and produced by Harry & Stuart Towell
Mastered by James Edward Armstrong
Photography by Stuart Towell

Stuart Towell: Guitar, Bass
Harry Towell: Baritone Ukulele, Harmonica, Violin, Voice, field recordings, electronics, MIDI keyboard and programming

Emersion

wlrep005 Paper Relics - Emersion

The two latest reissues to spin off from our acclaimed Imaginational Anthem Volume 8: The Private Press feature the solo guitar compositions of Russell Potter, recorded in the last waning days of the initial American Primitive explosion.

A then obsessed teenaged devotee of John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and Leo Kottke at a time when Punk and New Wave were ascendant, Potter harnessed a similar DIY ethos to his own ends by starting his own label & self-publishing his first record, 'A Stone's Throw', while a freshman enrolled at Goddard College in Vermont in 1979. Assembled at the legendary Boddie Records in Potter's hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, and sprinkled liberally with references to his heroes, from the initial record label name of Fonytone (which more than a little recalls Fahey's earliest record label, Fonotone), to the arcane song titles and references to obscure rags.

Even as he looks to his elders, Potter's debut release nimbly evinces a complete mastery of his form and is all the more remarkable for one of such tender years, as only the chutzpah of youth can account for such moves as successfully grafting one of your own composition to one of John Fahey's, as he does here. There's a very immediate, lovely, and real homespun quality to Potter's chiming twelve-string compositions that puts it in the realm of those classic records that seem to simply exist outside of time.

Shortly after 'A Stones Throw', Potter produced & released a 45rpm single by an Ohio bluegrass band featuring the cult singer songwriter Bob Frank performing a cover of Devo's 'Mongoloid', before moving on to his second (and sadly final) album the following year, 'Neither Here Nor There'. Following an independent study with a Goddard College ethnomusicologist, Potter's compositions and performance only deepened on his second release - the recording quality steps up a little but loses none of the immediacy, the playing gets more exuberantly virtuosic -but then more reflective too, particularly on the tunes that are influenced by the gorgeous traditional Irish slow airs. He's still tipping his hat to Fahey occasionally as well, this time with an audacious electric guitar setting of the classic "Dance of the Inhabitant of the Palace of King Philip XIV of Spain."

Though these albums landed at a time when American Primitive guitar music's 1960s & 1970s heyday was in the rear view mirror, they absolutely look ahead to the genre's eventual 21st Century resurrection, anticipating both in form & content many of the same concerns you find in the great contemporary work of the last two decades by Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Daniel Bachman, et al., and as such provide about as fine a stepping stone between these two eras as you're likely to find.

Neither Here Nor There

Eirigh Suas A Stoirin

this album was originally recorded between 2009 and 2010 
domestic tapes vol.II is the first solo album 
of Leastupperbound (Saverio Rosi) 
It was released on Laverna netlabel and 
on cd format on Discreetrecords. 

this is remastered version with new bonus track. 

thediscreetplace.altervista.org/blog/

released November 5, 2019 

produced by Saverio Rosi 
photography/mastering by Blear Moon

cassette \ download

Leastupperbound - Tape # V

Tapes and Topographies is US based artist Todd Gautreau, who has had music releases on labels such as Past Inside the Present, Dronarivm, Shimmering Moods and his own imprint, Simulacra. His project has been active since 2014 following his previous alias Tear Ceremony and he also produces a downtempo as Sonogram.

With each new album, Todd follows a different workflow to achieve new details and results in his sound. Increasingly, his work has been aided by the use of hardware and outboard effects.
In his latest album Amplitudes, he has taken a set of sounds and fed these through a looper, experimenting with altered loop speeds. He used FM synthesis for the first time in this body of work, alongside some of his tried and tested methods, joined by field recordings.

These nine compositions clock in at almost 50 minutes; a compelling listen through dreamy, organic textures. Todd has created a lot of music in the last 18 months and Amplitudes is the latest in his continuous process of distilling his sounds and ideas down to their essence.
The album’s artwork is a macro-photograph of a stone, as the fine details are ‘amplified’ by the magnification effect of the camera’s lens. There is not a clear concept but inspiration is drawn from film and literature, as well as self-reflection, memory, loss and dreams. As these compositions play out, you’ll find yourself concentrating on fine details, whilst at other times, in a blissful state, zooming out to absorb the bigger picture.

Amplitudes

wlr104 Tapes and Topographies - Amplitudes

The melody is light and gentle, as if you were playing in the snow all day long.

Snow day vibes

Deep Sleep Eleven 432Hz

Listen to the flow of the healing sounds as they surround you and fill you up with joy of wholeness


Healing within

You will find here just excerpts of my releases, for their full length visit my Bandcamp page.

Nebel lang - Sudden ly there

a certain space