fire records

Television Personalities - The Painted Word (From The Painted Word)

Taken from the album 'Passover' due 19/01/2018 via AGWNN/Forged Artifacts.

A Grave With No Name

Wreath

Bardo Pond
New Release 'Volume 8' 
Out February 2nd 2018
Purple LP / black LP / CD

Brand new album from Philadelphia’s much loved neo-space rock stoner drone outfit.

A euphoric transcendental journey to a mountain top nirvana, a psychedelic tapestry that slowly unwinds as they travel onwards into the inner mind.

A 40-minute opus delivered from a hail of reverb soulfully caressed by a ceremonial flute, that makes way for a shroud of ‘Weld’—era Neil Young fog. 
Bardo Pond is your rather ruffled tour guide to this far off place, this distant sense of wonderment at the crossroads with bewilderment. 

Loved and lauded by the late Lou Reed and his wife Laurie Anderson, Jesus & Mary Chain, Mogwai and many more and acclaimed in the music press as such:

“Dinosaur Jr guitar power with the glacial grandiosity of Black Mountain, as if Isobel Sollenberger is conjuring a thunderstorm with the sound of her voice and riding it across the heavens.” Stereogum 

“One of underground rock’s most extraordinary enigmas” The Quietus

“They alter brain chemistry by the alchemical effect of distressed sound alone, aspiring to become engineers of the soul’s passage to alternate states of consciousness.” Tony Dale (RIP), Ptolemaic Terrascope, 2001
“Playing fuzzed out stuff of stoner dreams since the mid ‘90s.” Pitchfork

“Fugazi on acid.” Noisey

Bardo Pond - Kailash

Lost Library EP
Order link: http://www.firerecords.com/product/various-artists-lost-library/ 

'Lost Library' features new music from Jane Weaver, Virginia Wing, Noveller and Death And Vanilla.

If you simultaneously pull the correct two albums from the wall-to-wall collection, the wall spins in true Hammer Horror style to reveal a secret passage that leads to the Lost Library, an eclectic shadowy domain where the audio is unique and ubiquitous. This isn’t music found on the high street – it’s a secret passion purveyed by those lost in sound in need of a soundtrack beyond Spotify.

In the Lost Library you will find music like nothing else. Take three examples:

The first from this exotic space features an eerie homage to a private press album that’s unobtainable, Danish and created by the hands of a man responsible for fermenting new age music, the mysterious Klaus Schønning. He produced Suzanne Menzel’s long lost ‘Goodbyes And Beginnings’ album in 1981. It’s a pre-genre dreampop variation delivered by Virginia Wing joined by the wonderful Jane Weaver. A marriage of meandering majesty.

That is followed by the menacing ambience of John Carpenter’s self-penned opening mélange to his claustrophobic epic The Thing delivered by the evocative sepulchral string-bending drone of Noveller. It’s a sound that represents the brooding human-inhabiting menace that The Thing’s cast unlock when an alien catapulted to earth finally thaws out. No-one is safe.

And, to conclude, why not re-imagine tradition; think what would happen if you took a song of Aaron-sweatered folk legend and turned it into a piece of echoey soft-to-the-touch analogue minimalism. You might add esoteric instrumentation, take nothing for granted and deliver the iconic guitar virtuoso Bert Jansch’s ‘Moonshine’ as an all-new glinting piece of melancholy. Too late, Swedish duo, Death And Vanilla has already done it. And it’s a haunting three minutes that never evaporates.

Jane Weaver And Virginia Wing - I Feel It Starts Again

Half Japanese - Why Not

The Jazz Butcher 
Out 9th March 2018
4CD - book back

Pre-order:
www.thejazzbutcher.bandcamp.com/album/the-violent-years

Expansive book-styled package of the first four albums from The Jazz Butcher’s early Creation Records’ years – 1988-1991.

Featuring the much praised ‘Fishcotheque’, ‘Big Planet, Scarey Planet’, ‘Cult Of The Basement’ and ‘Condition Blue”.

A sonic journey that takes The Jazz Butcher from a Weather Prophets-propelled rock ‘n’ roll visionary through to a lean jazz-tinged pop exponent.

Underlining the clever lyrics, witticisms, one-liners, melancholy, irony and conceptualisation of main man Pat Fish that came to maturity across his previous four albums for Glass (collected on Fire and much praised later last year as ‘The Wasted Years’).

Hailed by the press of the day:

“Punning, clever displays of hurt and revulsion.” Select

“That rare beast, an LP of cool, laid back pop.” Record Mirror

“A vicious mismatch of outrage, black humour and sentiment.” Sounds

“If it emanated from a more in-vogue source, would currently be having its maverick genius analysed to death.” Melody Maker

Praise for The Jazz Butcher’s ‘Wasted Years’.

“They are a band well worth re-visiting or discovering for the first time. A release very much recommended.” 8/10 Louder Than War

“An incomparable genre-bending act that requires a substantive re-evaluation. Between the pages and the artwork of this reissue lies a time capsule of a time that is just as pertinent today as the time when it was created.” 9/10 Under The Radar

The Jazz Butcher - Racheland

Half Japanese
Release new album ‘Why Not’
Out on Fire Records January 19th 2018
Pre-order: https://halfjapanesefire.bandcamp.com/album/why-not

We’re locked in the basement where tongue twisters and alliterations are the order of the day for Half Japanese. At first the band sound like The Velvet Underground fronted by David Thomas, then a long-lost college marching band with glockenspiel and brass straight from the Sunday School interjects. Let those chimes ring. 

Half Japanese have returned to peel further layers from their onion. They have a new album that's a square further on in their unpredictable musical snakes and ladders board. ‘Why Not?’ is a magical thing – it’s Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ recorded in a cupboard, it’s an ode to love, it’s a Wire song with two duelling guitarists being Zappa on helium, it’s Parquet Courts in a tantrum, it’s The Crickets contorted into ? and The Mysterians, it’s everywhere and nowhere, baby, it’s where it’s at.

On ‘Why Not?’ nuances are mused, situations explained, questions asked. Outside, zombies and demons roam and everyday aliens emerge from spaceships: it’s a technicolor film transcribed by Jad Fair and friends John Sluggett, Gilles-Vincent Rieder, Mick Hobbs and Jason Willett, their faces at the cracked window of their subterranean habitat looking out at the real world. 

They’re on a high from their last release:

“After all these years, his wiry voice still hits every song with a shock that’s equal parts joy buzzer and defibrillator, each barely in-key bleat alternating between laughable and life-affirming,” said Pitchfork of their last opus ‘Hear The Lion Roar’.

To which All Music added that “after nearly 40 years of music-making, they're still creating some of the most engaging recordings of their lives, and that's truly something to believe in.”

‘Why Not?’ goes further. It’s an even more intense concoction, it’s further out there. It contains pieces of fluffy thought-provoking music, a bag of sentiments delivered with a real sense of wonderment at how the normal world revolves; all powered with heart and soul, some crunchy guitars, a cello and reverb set-to-kill infiltrating their storytelling.

‘Why’d They Do It?’ quizzes track 11. Because they can.

Half Japanese - Zombie Island Massacre

Jane Weaver releases new 7” ‘The Lightning Back’
Out 6th April 2018

“She’s by some distance the best songwriter of the latter-day psych revivalists” Guardian

“A supernova talent” KEXP

Following an incredible year, Jane Weaver returns with indie store exclusive 7” ‘The Lightning Back’ on April 6th 2018. 

Widely considered the standout protonic pop song from Jane Weaver's unanimously revered Modern Kosmology, The Lightning Back sees the meteoric collision of micro-chip modulations and homespun harmonies courtesy of a self-sufficient artist who has in recent years become regarded as one of the countries finest in the field.  

This 3.5 minute pocket-pop implosion fuses subtle patch-bay arpeggios evoking the stylings of Wendy Carlos and (previous collaborator) Suzanne Ciani providing a deftly constructed framework for Weavers songwriting talents. Celebrating the intimacy and inhibition-free methodology found in her solo-power approach, The Lightning Back hears Jane's yearning lyricism rise through unique agile melodics seldom found in synthesised pop music.

This limited vinyl single also comprises a B-side in the form of a remix from London based art-noise-jazz-rock supergruppen Sex Swing.
Jane Weaver will be heading out on the road with her band across Europe from February 16th opening for Belle and Sebastian on a select number of tour dates. In the UK, she’ll also be touring with Public Service Broadcasting throughout April along with festival appearances at Greenman, Camp Bestival, Focus Wales and Halfway (Poland).

Live Dates
16 Feb: Muffathalle, Munich, Germany*
17 Feb: Admiralspalast, Berlin, Germany*
18 Feb: Batschkapp, Frankfurt, Germany* 
19 Feb: Carre, Amsterdam, Netherlands* 
21 Feb: DK Studio 1, Copenhagen, Denmark* 
22 Feb: Munchen Brewery, Stockholm, Sweden* 
23 Feb: Sentrum Scene, Oslo, Norway* 
24 Feb: Studios, Gothenburg, Sweden*
05 Apr: New Theatre, Oxford, UK **
06 Apr: O2 Academy, Bournemouth, UK **
07 Apr: The Dome, Brighton, UK **
08 Apr: Margate Winter Gardens, Margate, UK **
10 Apr: Corn Exchange, Cambridge, UK **
11 Apr: Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, Wales **
12 Apr: Olympia, Liverpool, UK **
13 Apr: De Montfort Hall, Leicester, UK **
14 Apr: Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland **
16 Apr: The Empire, Middlesbrough, UK **
17 Apr: O2 Academy, Sheffield, UK **

10 May: Focus Wales Festival, St Giles Church, Wrexham, Wales  
29 Jun – 01 Jul: Halfway Festival, Białystok, Poland 
8 Jul:  TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow Green, Glasgow, Scotland
21 Jul: Deershed Festival, Baldersby Park, North Yorkshire, UK  
26-29 July: Camp Bestival, Dorset, UK  
16-19 Aug: Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, Wales 

w/ Belle & Sebastian *
w / Public Service Broadcasting **

Jane Weaver - The Lightning Back

LAX, from Kristin Hersh's upcoming album, Possible Dust Clouds.

Chameleon Paint / Mansion Family

Chameleon Paint

Paul Haslinger new track 'Intrinsic'
From new album 'Exit Ghost' out 7th Feb 2020

Pre-order: https://ArtificialInstinct.lnk.to/PHexitghost 

It’s a strange betweenworld, bookended by sleep and the jolt of being wide awake in a place where you wonder how you got there. You know the feeling… It seems familiar but the colours are, well, unreal. In a high-ceilinged room, a grand piano plays lush melodies as, meanwhile, somewhere, an Alice In Wonderland clock ticks, cellos are bowed, a swarm of something vibrates and the hallucinatory crowd around Rosemary’s Baby babble. An echoey electronic hum builds and falls like a 50s refrigerator passed through and effects board, things run backwards, staccato strings are plucked… and that’s not the half of it.

“I’ve never been happy staying in one particular school of musical thought. The fun has been turning things on their heads, to try something you were not supposed to do.”

We’re on an immersive and adventurous travelogue with the former member of the legendary Tangerine Dream, Paul Haslinger - this is a man who knows how to build tension, hold moods, illustrate contempt, lies, passion and pleasure; He can create fear, loathing and love -  he’s been unlocking the nuances of such emotions in a hugely successful career as a TV and film soundtrack composer (Halt And Catch Fire, Underworld and the Golden Globe-nominated Sleeper Cell).

‘Exit Ghost’ is his long thought out opus, a moment caught in time, flicking through reference points, taking an ethereal excursion that permeates musical genres as it becomes awash with intricate sounds and cross-pollinating rhythms. 

Built originally from the warmth of his grand piano ‘Exit Ghost’ resonates with purity and power, from an eerie and evocative betweenworld, that’s at once expansive and rolling, then intoxicating and suffocating in equal measures; modern composition at its most uplifting; cerebral, celebratory, intense and beautiful.

“The soul searching in connection with this record was extensive. Finding places of resonance, giving a colour to your memories. It was more challenging because it’s not somebody else’s narrative. Finding the core of your own story can be the most difficult task of all.”

Created over the span of eight years and filled with literal and personal references, the album itself is a testament to the search - a quest filled with hints, particles and suggestions. Paul Haslinger’s ‘Exit Ghost’ is the first release from new label Artificial Instinct, set for release on 7th February 2019 on die cut vinyl and CD.

Exit Ghost

Paul Haslinger - Intrinsic

"Daringly different and dazzlingly diverse" Rough Trade

VANISHING TWIN / JANE WEAVER / DECISIVE PINK / MARINA ALLEN / RVG / MONDE UFO / THALA / BAS JAN / MARTA DEL GRANDI / ISLET / ELLA RAPHAEL / FATEN KANAAN / LUCY GOOCH / HATER / RATS ON RAFTS / JOSEPHINE FOSTER / DEATH AND VANILLA / ROYAL TRUX / KRISTIN HERSH / THROWING MUSES / THE LEMONHEADS / PICTISH TRAIL / THE CHILLS / HALF JAPANESE / SEBADOH / BLACK LIPS / THE DREAM SYNDICATE / GRAHAM REYNOLDS / AMBER ARCADES and more

Bardo Pond - Kailash

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