He’s one of the creators of trip hop. He collaborated with Soul II Soul on their epochal Club Classics Vol 1. He’s written songs with Björk. He’s produced U2. He’s played bonkers sets of boshing techno. He’s remixed everyone from Placebo to Annie Lennox. Howie B is all these things: a musical polymath in a sea of pop inebriates...

"an album of spare, striking beauty" Mojo ★★★★
“...a kind of Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake” UNCUT 8/10

Produced by Greg Freeman (Portico Quartet, Peter Gabriel, Amy Winehouse) and recorded at StudiOwz, a converted chapel in the Welsh countryside, A Dark Murmuration of Words takes Barker’s clear, expressive vocals and warm acoustic aesthetic and subtly shifts her sound in the direction of contemporaries such as Laura Marling and Phoebe Bridgers. Lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation, delivering a timely exploration of the grand themes of our age through the lens of what it means to return “home.”

Alluding to the album’s title, Barker references American writer Emily Dickinson: “ ‘If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves’ – like the starlings in a murmuration, where the movement of each individual bird is related to just seven of its closest neighbours, none of them aware of the mesmerising, fluctuating patterns being created by the flock.” 

Throughout the ten songs that make up the album, Barker draws connections between the familial, the local, and the global: a mother sings to her unborn child, asking for its forgiveness on ‘Strange Weather’; ‘When Stars Cannot Be Found’ explores the humbleness and comfort of the night sky when far away from home. Other highlights include the nostalgic ‘Return Me’, the gloriously defiant ‘Machine’ and the effortless album closer ‘Sonogram’.

Hooverphonic is a Belgian band founded by Alex Callier and Raymond Geerts.
They became triphop icons when they released their first album 'A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular' in 1996 and their second album 'Blue Wonder Power Milk' in 1998.  With the single 'Mad About You' of the third album 'The Magnificent Tree' they conquered the world.
In 2016 Hooverphonic releases 'In Wonderland', their first multi-vocalist album with a variety of eclectic sounds blending the typical Hooverphonic strings with new electronics.


Spinning sonic journeys since the '90s across the UK's underground and festival scenes - from Glastonbury and WOMAD to Bearded Theory and Solfest. A veteran of Megadog's legendary dancefloors, now resident with Leeds-based Paisley Dark, bringing trippy soundscapes to venues including Outlaws Yacht Club, The Imaginarium, and Headrow House, plus Mycology events in Chatham. Three decades deep in the dance, still channeling magical sounds from Yorkshire to Kent and beyond.

More Antiqcool tracks on the Antiqcool Soundcloud page here... http://soundcloud.com/antiqcool

I Peter Crossland (i.e. Sicknote Publishing) control master and publishing rights to all original Antiqcool tracks on this site.

The Ark Angels CD was recorded by Antiqcool in 2010/2011 to raise money for “Ark Angels” an animal welfare charity based in Northern California. 100% of the money raised will go to where it is needed most, helping animals in distress. If you would like to support their cause follow the link to the Ark Angels website and purchase a CD. http://www.arkangels.co.uk/index.html

Many Antiqcool/Sicknote Publishing tracks are free to download under a creative commons license for non commercial use. We are also interested in licensing our catalog for commercial film/TV and advertising projects. 

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