Armellodie Records is proud to present Dunfermline’s Dan Lyth and the Euphrates with their new album, Benthic Lines, released as a Deluxe book (that’s right, we said book!) with CD and/or download on Monday 12th May 2014.

Dan Lyth was born in the Middle East but has lived most of his life in Dunfermline, Fife. A sound designer by day, Lyth began work on Benthic Lines some five years ago, his intention to record an album entirely outdoors. On rooftops and rowing boats, in forests and high streets, mountains and quarries, ruined churches and beaches, car parks and peat bogs. Anywhere really, as long as it was outside!

Having first had the idea while on a trip to Sierra Leone, Lyth quickly realised that it's one thing to daydream of such a plan whilst in the tropics and quite another to actually attempt it back at home in Scotland. 

“I think some part of me took perverse pleasure in the thought of having to undergo some real physical exertion to make this record. I have also always been drawn to creative work that has taken a considerable amount of effort, and recording an album outdoors whilst living in Scotland with its devious climate seemed to fit the bill.”

In an age when it seems anyone can produce an album in their bedroom, Benthic Lines attempts to re-explore the relationship between music and the environment in which it is created. What happens to a recording when you have no control over the surroundings? What anomalies and accidents may occur? And would it be possible to weave together the unpredictable sounds of these environments with more traditional performances to create a cohesive whole?

As Lyth’s fondness of field recording has grown more ambitious, so too has his talent as a songwriter. Album opener ‘All My Love’ is testament to this, merging the mythological with the reality of the uncertainties that are brought when becoming a father for the first time. The vivid imagery of ‘Four Creatures’, written from the perspective of someone living in Syria, draws upon Islamic and Christian eschatological imagery to startling effect.

The influence of Steve Reich is worth noting, from the repetitive female vocal sounds on ‘Standing Start’ to the cyclic piano and accordion patterns of ‘Super Nature’ and ‘Earth Broke Its Vow’, Lyth is the first to admit of his affection for Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. 

“A big chunk of inspiration came from Steve Reich’s work and one of the main aims of the album in terms of the arrangements was to try and make music that sounds electronic or programmed but is actually all live acoustic instruments.” says Lyth. 

Benthic Lines are the deep sea communication cables through which the world is now connected, and communication is a recurring theme throughout the record ("the cables installed along ocean floors is where we had lived too long for sure" sings Lyth on ‘How It Happened’). How our constant use of communication technology can affect our thought processes and relationships (“We shot some video, scenes that would not be shown, think what you will but the devil’s in the pixels on my phone”, sings Lyth on ‘Four Creatures’).   With recording having taken place in locations as far afield as Morocco, Australia, Turkey and Uganda, Dan is also exploring the lines of human connection and lines of ancestry.

Designed with love by graphic artist Sarah Lyth, the album arrives in a beautifully bound 60-page book and includes photos from the array of recording locations. Cover art from celebrated New York artist Matthew Cusick and an accompanying short story, Already Here, by talented Fifer Craig Rennie complete the desirable artefact that is Benthic Lines. So what has Lyth got to say for himself now that his affair with the great outdoors is almost over.

“After travelling, listening, recording and being constantly surprised over the course of the five years and four continents that I’ve made Benthic Lines, what will really stay with me is not only all the wonderful sounds we heard but also the many inquisitive, open-minded and generous people we met along the way. But it wasn’t all romantic. It’s quite hard work transporting a drum kit to a remote derelict church or dragging a piano out of a small flat. There were broken mic stands, bleeding fingers and failing batteries. And there was rain, a lot of rain.”


DAN LYTH & THE EUPHRATES - All My Love

Walked in with a hole in my chest
Whiskey prayers and a thousand regrets
Sat down where the shadows won’t talk
And let the silence pour with every shot

I swore I was done with the fight
Wounds too deep for another night
But then she lit up the corner of the room
Like a hymn rising under a blood-red moon

What kind of war is love again?
Where hearts break just to learn to bend
She looked like peace but felt like flames
Now I’m drawing lines in my own name
Is this the battle or the plan?
Am I the soldier or the man?
I don’t know how it all began
But I’m signing up for your love plan

Her eyes held more than the wine
Stories folded in the space of time
She smiled and I forgot her name
’Cause all I saw was my soul rearranged

Maybe I’m foolish, maybe I’m blind
But maybe the war ends this time
If love’s a fight I’ve lost before
Maybe she’s what I was fighting for

What kind of war is love again?
Where hearts break just to learn to bend
She looked like peace but felt like flames
Now I’m drawing lines in my own name
Is this the battle or the plan?
Am I the soldier or the man?
I don’t know how it all began
But I’m signing up for your love plan

So pour another round for the dead and the damned
I’ll raise my glass to the ones who understand
If love is war, then take my hand
Let’s lose together in this love plan

Love plan

J'ai rendez-vous avec la Mort
Sur une barricade disputée,
Quand le printemps reviendra avec son ombre bruissante
Et que les fleurs de pommier empliront l'air,
J'ai rendez-vous avec la Mort
Quand le printemps ramènera des jours bleus et beaux.

Il se peut qu'il prenne ma main
Et me conduise dans son pays obscur
Et ferme mes yeux et arrête de respirer,
Il se peut que je le croise encore.
J'ai rendez-vous avec la Mort
Sur le versant balafré d'une colline défoncée,

Quand le printemps reviendra cette année
Et que les premières fleurs des prés apparaîtront. Dieu sait qu'il vaudrait mieux être profondément
cousu de soie et parfumé,
où l'amour palpite dans un sommeil bienheureux,
pulsation à pulsation, souffle à souffle,
où les réveils feutrés sont précieux…

Mais j'ai rendez-vous avec la mort
à minuit dans une ville en flammes,
quand le printemps reviendra vers le nord cette année,
et je suis fidèle à ma parole,
je ne manquerai pas ce rendez-vous.

Mais j'ai un rendez-vous (Alan Seeger) - Jef Bourgeau

What Coulda, Shoulda Been (Alternate)

Joshua Hyslop - In Deepest Blue
Available now at http://flyt.it/jhidb

http://joshuahyslop.com

Joshua Hyslop - Gone

Take Everything (with Ingrid Michaelson)

Roo Panes - All These Walking Thoughts

Free download at http://www.MikePeralta.com/Subscribe

Learn to play, record, and produce music: http://www.mikeperalta.com/blog/entry/view/H2G46K14PMX1/BCGDTGQPAOLS/all/Page-1/Private-Lessons.html

What's the sound that you will make forever
Less or more if all would cry for you
Underneath the twilight moon in leather
or in a song with loving eyes on you

If you told them everything tonight
If you found the words for sadness too
Would it make you anything the better
Is there anything that it would do

And we're going to tell your story forever
And we're going to sing this song for you
No one really wants to live forever
The flowers on the counter are for you

So you picked the moment to remember
a thousand eyes and twenty colored lights
You disappeared into the circle too
then you stopped and smiled but no one knew

And we're going to tell your story forever
And we're going to sing your song for you
No one really wants to live forever
The flowers all along the wall are for you

Never stop, never die
Never sleep and never sigh
You should know those you love
never want to see you cry

The flowers on the rooftop are for you

What's the sound that you will make forever
Less or more if I would cry for you
Underneath the twilight moon in leather
or in a song with loving eyes on you

And we're going to tell your story forever
And we're going to name a star for you
No one really wants to live forever
The flowers on the rooftop are for you

The flowers on the rooftop are for you

DOWNLOAD

A Story Forever

Written by Nick Vallee and Rob MacPhee
Produced by Jason Haberman, Rob MacPhee and Colin Buchanan
Engineer - Adam Gallant 
The Casablanca Sessions - Red Brick on Lake Couchiching

Photo by Elizabeth Hunt

Nick Vallee (Folly & The Hunter) - Set This House On Fire

Roo Panes - Pacific

An independent record label & publishing company.

For all A&R enquiries: label@crcmusic.co.uk

Roo Panes - All These Walking Thoughts

CRC Records

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