Bearstep2

Bonus Track taken from Outfit "Performance" Deluxe Edition.

Deluxe Edition available now from iTunes: http://bit.ly/1c3gWy9

and as a limited bonus disc from Rough Trade while stocks last: http://bit.ly/17Titox

facebook.com/outfitoutfitoutfit
@outfitofficial

I Told Them Where You Are

Samaris single Viltu Vitrast released on 7th October 2013.


‘Elegant and unusual, this is a gem’ NME 8/10 
‘Imagine The xx and Little Dragon eloping to that magical forest in Lord of The Rings and you might be getting close to this record’s wonderfully paranormal aesthetic’ The Line of Best Fit 8/10 
‘Samaris specialise in gorgeous, haunting nocturnes’ Drowned In Sound
‘Samaris is superb. It’s fantastic. It’s amazing.’ The 405
‘This is an effortlessly atmospheric album that has all the arty sophistication of any great Icelandic act’ The Fly 4/5
‘An excellent forward thinking record from three talented musicians, not yet out of their teens’ Loud&Quiet  8/10
‘Mesmerisingly breathy groove from the young Icelandic combo, which should lure you to the delicious confections of their self-titled album’ Metro 

Icelandic teenage wunderkind Samaris’ first UK release comes in the shape of an eponymously-titled album on 29th July. Samaris compiles their two Icelandic-released EPs, Hljóma Þú (2011) and Stofnar falla (recorded at Sigur Rós’ Sundlaugin studio with Gunnar Tynes of múm, 2012.

Combining disparate elements of electronics (Þórður Kári Steinþórsson), clarinet (Áslaug Rún Magnúsdóttir) and Jófríður Ákadóttir’s haunting voice, Samaris mix glacial electronica and bold, percussive beats with haunting chant-like vocals - the lyrics culled from nineteenth century Icelandic poems. Viltu Vitrast for example retells an Icelandic folk tale about villages who ask for help from a supernal being, but worry it will choose not to manifest its power on Earth. The effect is simultaneously ancient and modern – an ethereal sound filled with dark spaces and alien atmosphere. 

Formed in 2011 in Reykjavik, within months Samaris had won both the Icelandic Músíktilraunir (past winners include the likes of Of Monsters and Men) and Kraumur Award. The band’s show at Iceland Airwaves in 2012, attracted the attention of Line Of Best Fit, Drowned In Sound and NPR amongst many others. Singer Jófríður also performs with her sister Ásthildur in the more folk-inclined Pascal Pinion.
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Order new album ‘Silkidrangar’ now!
iTunes: smarturl.it/Samaris-Silkidrangar
CD/Vinyl: bit.ly/skdr-oli

Buy Samaris on iTunes

Samaris - Viltu Vitrast

POLIÇA's new album "Shulamith" is out now on Mom+Pop (US), Memphis Industries (UK), and Inertia (Aus).
Buy on iTunes: smarturl.it/shulamithitunes

Chain My Name

Chain My Name (Seams Remix)

Taken from the album "Stars Are Our Home."
Out now on Slumberland Records (US) and Sonic Cathedral (UK)

Order the digital download from iTunes: http://smarturl.it/bhb-itunes
Order the LP/CD: http://smarturl.it/bhb-album

more info: www.blackheartedbrother.com
Black Hearted Brother Official Facebook: www.facebook.com/blackheartedbrother

It was Alfred Bester, if I recall correctly, who called 'the stars my destination', in his brilliant novel of the same name from 1956. Long considered a libertarian science fiction classic, it's also notable for featuring one of the very first accounts of synaesthesia in English-language fiction. This might be drawing a particularly long bow, but the title of Black Hearted Brother's debut, "Stars Are Our Home", immediately brought Bester's book to mind – and there's definitely something of the synaesthesic experience about this album, overflowing with enraptured, glowing textures, flaring white light like magnesium, in consort with brilliant red-blue waves of psychedelia.

Of course, the first thing that might crane your head towards "Stars Are Our Home" is the group's membership: Neil Halstead, the éminence grise behind Slowdive and Mojave 3; Mark Van Hoen, an original member of Seefeel, subsequently working solo and as Locust; and Nick Holton, the main mover behind Holton's Opulent Oog, and member of Coley Park, who have released albums on Halstead's Shady Lane label. They had previously converged on Halstead's 2001 solo album, "Sleeping On Roads," though Van Hoen also co-produced Mojave 3's "Out Of Tune" (1998), "Excuses For Travelers" (2000) and "Spoon & Rafter" (2003), while Holton took up production duties for Halstead's "Palindrome Hunches" (2012). Van Hoen and Halstead go back much further still, to 1992, when they were in Seefeel and Slowdive respectively: 'Mark taught Neil much that was electronic and ambient music.'

You could hear that education bearing fruit with Slowdive's late-period masterpiece, 1995's "Pygmalion." In some ways, "Stars Are Our Home" echoes that album's experimental process, if not the outcome, as Black Hearted Brother are a very different, distinctive beast, often indulging in what Halstead, self-deprecatingly, describes as 'a lot of very long and indulgent space rawk.' And indeed, that space-rock drive is writ loud and clear on the album's opening title track, an instrumental bliss-out that navigates through ocean-tides of FX-drenched guitar. But there's a lot more to it: 'The idea was to just make a record that was in some ways "unedited",' Halstead continues. 'To not worry about a particular sound or style, but to just go with the flow. We all make quite focused records individually so, as Mark says, it's our "guilty pleasures" album.' That seems about right, except with "Stars Are Our Home," the outcome is no guilt, all pleasure.

'Neil and Nick had, I think, started a few months before they asked me to join the party,' Van Hoen recalls. 'I think they had a few songs on the go, and needed an extra hand to add a few funny noises and generally add to the chaos – or maybe bring some order to the chaos.' Van Hoen has picked up on the dialectical nature of "Stars Are Our Home" here, its "order" and its "chaos": it's a rich, compelling album full of unexpected twists and turns, at times overloading the sensorium with so much material you're drenched in noise, but it'll just as quickly flip back on itself and drift through a glazed-eye, agrarian moment of acoustic melancholy (see the start of "Time In The Machine", which, as if to prove my point, takes less than a minute to build into a clangorous, droning monster).

So, there's a whole lot going on in these grooves, and plenty of it's unexpected, or from unexpected sources. The trio plays fast and loose with what listeners might consider their pre-ordained 'roles'. 'Primarily the songs themselves were started either by Nick or Neil individually,' Van Hoen explains, 'but then edited, developed and generally messed around with and rendered almost unlistenable by either myself or the others. The roles were not always clear cut. Sometimes Nick would be playing keyboards and synths, and myself guitars.' Lyrics on the record feel like another texture, another layer: sometimes they're invocatory chants, sometimes Halstead's and Holton's voices are ghosted by electronic manipulation, as on "Oh Crust". Often there's more going on than at first glance, and an index of the album's lyrical concerns runs to 'romance, sci-fi, places to go on holiday, real UFO abduction, the duality in the meaning of words, lament for the loss of psychedelic freedoms by the masses…'

"Stars Are Our Home" is brave and beautiful, mysterious and resonant. Its experimental edges never forget the importance of the pop moment; the best way to bring people around to your way of hearing is to seduce their ears, and there's seduction plenty here, pure pop like "Take Heart", the Other Green World of "I'm Back", the closing driftwork that is "Look Out Here They Come". A real head-wrecker of an album. And what does the future hold? The trio speaks as one: 'Black Hearted Brother will grow and mature into something very sophisticated in the coming years. A kind of comedic-space-rock-dancehall outfit to define a zeitgeist for the 22nd century, if you like.' Ha, yeah – amen, brothers!

Black Hearted Brother - My Baby Just Sailed Away

Buy Okkervil River

Okkervil River - "Stay Young" (Lovestreams Remix)

Written and performed by I'm in You (Dmitry Ishenko, Chris McHenry, Sebastian Ischer)
with Katie Eastburn (backing vocals)
Recorded by I'm in You at the Kaoss Pad, Charles Burst at Seaside Lounge, 
and Ken Rich at Grand Street Recording
Mixed by Ken Rich at Grand Street Recording

Years

Stay-'The change is coming Remix' by DjGato.
(Digital Single, Subterfuge Records , 2013)

Bearstep2

Cavendish Fixed Sterre