The deepest ideas of our culture brilliantly rendered. Exact. Perfection.

most incredible voice... this track is everything <3

Pretty much one of the greatest songs ever made.

from 'Gone' [10''|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den174
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/floex]

On Veronika Vlková's painting for Floex' new EP “Gone”, the mountain ghosts are watching the flood from the mountain tops which stick out of water. In his latest work Floex is trying to express the melancholic mood of the last days of stability and harmony. While “Gone” thematizes instability expressed by the Apocalypse in a “macroscopic sense”, and musically for Tomáš in the quite traditional way of vocal pieces, the other two short ambient tracks accompanying the title song reflect the theme in different ways.

“Saturnin Fire And The Restless Ocean” creates a kind of “microscopic world” counterpart to “Gone”. It was inspired by the thoughts on inner harmony by Tomáš' Chinese medicine doctor friend: when mind and heart are in balance, the heart is like shining fire and the mind is like a calm and still ocean. If things are getting unstable, the heart's fire is becoming volatile and the mind's ocean's waves start to swell. While “Saturnin …” is a very intimate song on this self-reflection of the personal psychic landscape, it easily becomes a strong epic hymn in the hands of Joe Acheson of Hidden Orchestra. With this, Joe is returning the remix favour on Hidden Orchestra's earlier Denovali Records release “Flight”, which included Floex' “Dust Remix”. It is great to listen to another offspring of the continuing dialogue between these musical mates.

There are more things that all songs of this release have in common - the typical sound of Floex' Petrof piano. It endorses the melancholic and ethereal mood of the EP songs, and the final four-hand piano piece “Time To Go” makes no exception. It includes field recordings grasping the theatrical “farewell” scene from a sound installation at the Brixen Fortress during the Manifesta festival. This song was originally created from the four-hand composition of Tomáš and his pianist friend Jirí Libánský, who met during their improvisation project “Orlak”.

The title song “Gone” was especially composed for the Floex live vocalist Sára Vondrášková of Never Sol and meant to be performed on concerts, and it indeed soon become the pivotal song of Floex' playlist. The lyrics were written by Tomáš' long term collaborator Anya Stuart who besides being a singer, writer and musician works also as a movie director. When she heard the song she immediately offered Tomáš to make a video clip for it. Currently living in Paris, it no surprise that the main inspiration source for the video was the medieval French 'Apocalypse Tapestry' in Angers nearby Paris. Working with her photographer friend Michal Ureš behind the camera, they created free contemporary reinterpretations of selected scenes of the tapestry based on super slow motion shootings. This perfectly exemplifies the idea behind the song, a very odd moment in our life we don't recognise since it is happening very slowly from our personal point of view but very fast from the point of view of mankind. People are still behaving as if nothing would happen or change, but the fire is already behind their doors, the old times have already gone.

“Gone” is closing a certain period of Floex' production which started with his 2nd full length album “Zorya” in 2011. After getting such a great feedback on this release, Tomáš decided to get back to it, pick up his favorite track “Veronika's Dream” and give it a little bit more attention. The result of this effort you can find as a downloadable bonus track accompanying this EP: a remix of “Veronika's Dream” by Dikolson, Tomáš favourite producer, and general iconic figure of the electronic music scene in Prague. Moreover, after about a year of preparation, a video clip for the original song was made. About 20 people, headed by director Tomáš Hájek, visual artist Anna Krticová and Veronika Vlková herself created rather a short movie inspired by Tomáš Dvorák's crazy surrealistic imaginary: the one-eyed Veronika is eaten by a wolf and inside of his stomach a floorball match is happening. She fights against her psychological antipode for her missing eye and wins just to uncover deeper sides of her existence.

The 10'' comes in a special thick gatefold sleeve, on two different vinyl colors and with a free download code.

For fans of HIDDEN ORCHESTRA, ERIK SATIE, JON HOPKINS or BAT FOR LASHES.

Gone

Floex - Gone Feat. Never Sol

Order: http://atomnation.bandcamp.com/album/moon-observations

David Douglas - Chenab River

Illusion DEMO

La letra refleja una profunda desilusión y dolor tras una traición amorosa. La protagonista se siente herida y abandonada por alguien que prometió amor eterno, pero que se fue sin mirar atrás, dejando solo lágrimas y recuerdos de lo que pudo ser. A medida que los días pasan, la tristeza se convierte en fortaleza, y aunque el arrepentido regresa buscando el perdón, ella ha aprendido a valorarse y a reconocer su propio valor. La historia toca la esencia del amor verdadero, ese que trasciende promesas vacías y se convierte en un lazo eterno. En sus sueños, el amor persiste, un recordatorio de que, aunque el pasado duele, siempre hay una esperanza de que lo que se perdió pueda renacer en otro momento o en otra vida. La canción encapsula la lucha entre el dolor y la esperanza, mostrando que el verdadero amor siempre deja una huella indeleble.

Vale La Pena

An ode to the late Nick Talbot (Gravenhurst)

12.4.15

I first discovered Gravenhurst back in 2004 while exhausting the last of my pizza-serving paycheck at my local record store, Stinkweeds in Tempe, AZ. As I was thumbing through new releases, eerie, atmospheric-folk began to play over the store’s sound system. When Nick’s voice emerged from the fog, I was hooked. I purchased Flashlight Seasons that day and immediately felt as if I was let in on a secret. I listened to that album incessantly. To make extra money during this time I began to DJ weddings, mitzvahs and private parties.  The nights were long and the playlists were pre-chosen by the clients. When I climbed into my ’86 Honda Civic (nicknamed “the roller skate”) at the end of the night all I wanted to do was to cleanse my ears with Nick’s beautiful, intimate songs. His music was my companion; something I could count on when I was lonely. Although I never got a chance to see Nick perform or meet him in person, I felt like through his songs I knew him intimately.

Nick passed away a year ago today. At the time I coped with the tragic news by recording one of my favorite songs of his, “The Diver”. And while my version could never hold a light to the original, I recorded it with great sincerity and sorrow. I learned later that Nick had suffered from the seizure-causing disorder epilepsy, a disorder my mother also suffers from. That’s why I’m releasing the cover as a pay-what-you-want digital download via Bandcamp with 100% of the proceeds going to the http://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/, the leading provider of epilepsy services in the UK though research, awareness campaigns, info. resources and expert care. Please consider donating a minimum of $1 for the song and help give people with this often debilitating disorder your support. 

With gratitude and fond remembrance, 

- Kael Smith

You can download the cover and donate here: https://muteforest.bandcamp.com/track/the-diver-gravenhurst-cover

Recorded and arranged by Kael Smith
Lyrics by Nick Talbot
Mastered by Taylor Deupree (12k)
Cover art by Lynn Vanlandingham
Original of "The Diver" appears on Gravenhurst's 2004 album Flashlight Seasons (Warp Records)


The Diver (Gravenhurst cover)

In the Lens, Solo Andata’s fourth full-length album, was born from recordings found in the interstices of decades-old hard drives, lost email threads from disused accounts, and forgotten samples recorded on cassette dictaphones. These fragments were combined and re-worked with newer elements to create an album very much in the spirit of the band’s debut Fyris Swan (Hefty Records, 2006), an album touched by both folk and jazz and swathed in a dusty, narcotic haze.
Solo Andata’s Kane Ikin and Paul Fiocco have always pushed aside the digital studio in favor of a more haphazard and hands-on workshop vibe to their productions. They prefer near-broken acoustic instruments, cheap microphones and, as can be witnessed by their live performances, tend to turn anything they can get their hands on into a beautiful sound-making object.

While there is a raw and guileless nature to the duo’s sound it is precisely this that makes their music so powerful amidst the over-produced cliches of much modern music. The beauty of their work is how simple instruments and objects can be physically manipulated into creating such rich, layered sound. Dark, swaying, almost-looped melodies from piano, woodwinds and horns wrap themselves in smoky obscurity around remnants of percussion and warm beds of noise and the world around us.

In The Lens is very much a late-night record, reflected in the rain-soaked cover imagery, dripping with half-forgotten memories. Jittery yet calming, rhythmic, yet unhurried, it leads you down its dark corridors to a soft resting space. Ikin and Fiocco have created a new story around the chemistry of their creations that were taking place during the early days of their musical explorations.

In The Lens

Separate Lovers

Pre-order the album 'Aforger' out October 14th on LP/CD/DL here: http://phonofile.link/aforger

In a digital age where memories are mimicked by pixels and identity is as malleable as static, Douglas Dare’s new album Aforger questions the boundaries between reality and fiction. 

Inspired by recent events and revelations encountered in his life these songs depict Dare at his most vulnerable, whilst simultaneously reflecting our own obsession with reality and technology back at us.  

Aforger was mixed at the iconic Abbey Road Studios and produced by long-time collaborator Fabian Prynn. In the following conversation Douglas strips back the personal journeys and realisations which preceded its recording.

In a conversation with Douglas Dare on July 11th 2016:

The album title plays with the idea of a forger – someone creating imitations or copies, and reimagines them as the creator of something that’s no longer real. Prior to writing the record, I came out to my father and came out of a long relationship, both were hugely challenging for me and questioned my idea of identity and reality. These thoughts leaked out into the record and formed the core of Aforger. I was determined not to write a break-up album or repeat what I’d done before..

I grew up on quite an isolated farm in Dorset, surrounded by fields and not much besides. My mother taught piano from home and we didn’t have a computer, or the internet or mobile phones. In fact, my family still chooses not to use these things. It’s worlds apart from my life now in London where technology seems to dominate everything I do.

After finding out my boyfriend had been leading this double-life, I became obsessed with the question of what is real and George Orwell’s 1984 felt appropriate for me to re-read. Orwell explains this idea of reality control and Doublethink, and it struck a chord with me. The idea that truth can be steered or changed, and we might be able to believe two contradictory things at once. In my case, ignorance was my protection from the truth and ignorance really is bliss, until you’re no longer ignorant.

Binary talks about the idea that technology is allowing us to live on after we’re gone. A relative of mine whose parent passed away kept a picture of them on their phone as a background image. A friend saw this and asked ‘how can you have that there to constantly remind you of your loss?’ They replied, ‘no I have to, it shows me that they’re still here’. This resonated with me and I thought ‘okay, this is just an image to me but to them it’s more than a reminder or a reassurance, it’s a reality’. At the same time, I was finding myself haunted by the digital reminder of my ex-partner and wishing they would disappear. I had to realise that it’s all just pixels on a screen. 

I think New York can be thought of as this fabricated, magical place. I was there with my boyfriend after touring the U.S., but when I came back to London I discovered all these lies and began questioning everything. I even questioned whether New York actually happened or not. New York is a song that’s literally describing that very real feeling of not knowing who or what to believe any more – scary and magical at the same time. 

Lyrically I wanted to be as honest as possible. The album deals with so much dishonesty, so I felt the lyrics had to be the counterbalance. I was inspired by Björk’s album Vulnicura and how everything is almost awkward in its honesty. Like my first album, Aforger started as poetry, but I consciously tried to be less poetic. For instance, Oh Father is an example of complete unambiguity. It’s certainly the most personal song I’ve put out there, and the realisation that people may hear it makes me feel very vulnerable. That’s the most real feeling of all for me right now. 

Aforger

Doublethink

Buy LP/CD/DL

Douglas Dare - Doublethink

thème joué lors du festival Le vent se lève (Sarrians, Vaucluse, FR), où se sont mêlées poésies, danses et musiques électroniques.

Thème Le Vent Se Lève - Live Session

Sitting In A Chair, Blinking (Extended Version)

Tricky - Passion Of The Christ

White Cranes Return

Founded by sonic architect and explorer Robert Raths aka ghostworker in 2007, Erased Tapes is a truly independent record label that has disrupted the industry and rejuvenated the musical landscape. The London-based label has consistently nurtured genre-defying artists from all around the world without losing its avant-garde ethos.

2015 saw BBC 6 Music radio presenter Mary Anne Hobbs stage an Erased Tapes evening featuring Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the prestigious BBC Prom. It was the fastest selling ticket of the entire season. Shortly after Erased Tapes was awarded Best Small Label 2015 at the AIM Awards.

On February 5th 2017 Erased Tapes opened the doors to its new East London home, marking the 10th anniversary by introducing fans and the public to the new Erased Tapes Sound Gallery.

“Ten years of one of the most important record labels of the last few years“ — Gilles Peterson

"Over the last decade, Robert Raths’ label Erased Tapes has developed a sonic profile perfectly in step with the growing taste for quiet, meditative works on the cusp of ambient and chamber music" — The Independent

“The heart-string-tugging London label that floats gently between 20th century composition and ambient music” — Rolling Stone

Douglas Dare - Doublethink

Erased Tapes

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