Time for me to get out my credit card again. :)

Steven Wilson

SW and band “explore the space” on this lengthy encore version of Radioactive Toy taken from their sold out show at the Royal Albert Hall, London on the 20th October last year.  SW - vocals / guitar, Guthrie Govan - guitar, Adam Holzman - keyboards, Theo Travis - flute, Nick Beggs - fretless bass, Chad Wackerman - drums.

Radioactive Toy (Live at the Royal Albert Hall)

The Last Dawn is the first of these two companion albums, and is the "lighter" of the two, thematically and melodically. It contains undoubtedly some of MONO's strongest songs ever, drawing on an array of influences from minimalist film score to vintage shoegaze. It is MONO at their absolute purest, executing an uncanny, unspoken dialogue with each other without the dozens of stringed instruments that have been so prominent throughout their catalog. The songs are also noticeably more efficient – there hasn't been a MONO full-length record to fit on a single slab of vinyl since 2003's One Step More And You Die – and the album benefits immeasurably from this streamlined approach. MONO have always been masters of telling compelling stories without words. But now they've proven they can do it without frills, too.

RELEASE:
October 24 (EU)
October 27 (UK)
October 28 (North America)
November 5 (Japan)

Temporary Residence Limited (North America) 
Pelagic Records (Europe) 
Magniph (Japan)

Cyclone

"Dead Format" Taken from the album Dumb Flesh, out now.

LP/CD: http://bit.ly/1XU5eM2
iTunes: http://smarturl.it/SBR136iTunes

Website: http://blanckmass.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlanckMass
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlanckMass
Instagram: http://instagram.com/blanckmass

Tour dates: http://bit.ly/1U9EtDb

Blanck Mass - Dead Format

‘Loon’ will be released on Erased Tapes as a 12” vinyl as well as digitally on October 2nd. 
Pre-order it here: www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP072
or via iTunes: http://snip.ftpromo.net/loon

Containing five synthesiser-led pieces, ‘Loon’ was recorded in autumn 2014 across five days at Nils’s Durton Studio in Berlin, and continues on from the ambient sounds of ‘Stare’ but with the addition of more percussive elements and dub influences. For this new EP the duo wired an Oberheim 4 Voice and a Korg PS3100 to the mixing desk and performed live takes on both instruments. With all four hands on its pots, all mixes were recorded straight onto 2-track ½-inch tape.

Like on ‘Stare’, their first collaborative affair in 2012, they simply followed what was laying in front of them, and this time they were driven by some new synths, a kick drum and tape effects. Indulging in dub, the tracks where all performed rather than engineered, with Ólafur riding a few elements on faders and Nils bringing effects in and out. After running several mixes, they went for the five strongest moments from this session. The release was announced on a joint website www.arnaldsfrahm.com together with the launch of an intimate 45-minute studio film titled ‘Trance Frendz’, featuring another seven improvisations.

“Nils got some new synths and we thought we’d try them out. We loved them so much that we didn’t actually end up using anything else to make these songs.” – Ólafur Arnalds

“When I was young I was smuggled to Goa parties by my brother. The music played there in the late nineties had a somewhat deep effect on me. ‘Loon’ is almost a blurry memory of these times. In other words, it is what I’d like to remember that music sounded like back then. In fact it sounded probably really cheesy.” – Nils Frahm

Loon

Wide Open

Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Wide Open

Written by Catherine Anne Davies
Produced by Paul Draper & Catherine Anne Davies

THE ANCHORESS: CONFESSIONS OF A ROMANCE NOVELIST
Debut album released January 8th 2016 (Digital)January 15th 2016(Physical)
Label: Kscope

Preorder on iTunes:
http://smarturl.it/COARN_DIGITAL

Deluxe gatefold CD with 20 page booklet:
https://www.burningshed.com/store/kscope/

"D​avies is making music like nobody else at the moment." - NME

"W​ales's (much more explicitly feminist) answer to Lana Del Rey.​"  - Ann Powers, NPR

Revenge-pop? The prog Karen Carpenter? Barbra Streisand on acid? Bat For Lashes on a book-binge? Whatever way you choose to describe ‘Confessions of A Romance Novelist’, the debut album by The Anchoress, one thing’s for sure: it packs a punch. Did I say “punch”? On tracks like ‘P.S. Fuck You’ it’s more of a kick. In the balls. Of an ex. who most definitely sounds like they deserved it…
 
The album is due for release on January 8th 2016 via Kscope, home to Grammy nominated Steven Wilson, Mercury Prize nominees Sweet Billy Pilgrim, and British rock gods Anathema.  A brand new track ‘Popular’ is available now with pre-orders of the album.
 
Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, PhD and producer Catherine Anne Davies (aka The Anchoress) sums up the album’s overall concept as "deconstructing normative ideas of love and romance", with each song sung by a different character – “what you might call a musical ghost writing of sorts”. You can hear this distilled in the Prince-inspired feminist manifesto ‘One For Sorrow’ that questions the concept of marriage. There’s a different take on obsessional love in the album’s title track, where the album’s narrator ironically references her “bedroom shrine to Margaret Thatcher”. Meanwhile, 'You And Only You' - an anthemic ode to being better off alone - features the distinctive operatic indie-wail of Mansun's Paul Draper, who co-produced the album with Catherine.
 
Draper helped to capture the collection of songs on which Catherine played a variety of instruments, including piano, guitar, flute, omnichord, mellotron, wurlitzer, glockenspiel, and celeste, as well as multi-tracking up to 25 vocal harmonies on some of the songs. Yet, recording was interrupted by a series of events that threatened to derail the project completely, including Catherine injuring her hand so badly during a 48-hour recording session that she was told she might not play again and had to wear a metal cast for 6 months. She says: “This has been made on a wing and a prayer, lots of favours, one car crash, one death, one broken hand, and a lot of patience on so many parts. Stir in 3 jobs, 4 studios, 2 arrests, 3 pianos, 40 songs and 1 very patient engineer… and you get some way to understanding what a long road it has been.”
 
The album follows two sold-out singles, which were playlisted on both BBC 6Music and Xfm, and received plaudits across the globe, from America’s NPR, to Les Inrockuptibles in France, the NME, and influential websites like The Quietus and Line of Best Fit.
 
The Anchoress is currently on tour with Simple Minds, co-writing Paul Draper's debut solo album, and has begun working on her second album with Bernard Butler.
 
“Deft, engrossing lyrical work with some beautifully dark arrangements… an enthralling return” - CLASH
 
 "A strutting howl of a vocal and grit-edged guitar… a sprawl of dark southern gothic"  - THE QUIETUS

www.iamtheanchoress.com/
 
For more information:
National Press: Gillian@hallornothing.com
Online PR: louisa.worskett@caroline.com
Radio: fuzz.chaudhrey@caroline.com
Regional Press: Tom@hallornothing.com



Confessions Of A Romance Novelis

Confessions of a Romance Novelist

Interview and live piano performance of 'Postcard', from WMYC's website, Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

The last time Steven Wilson of the progressive rock band Porcupine Tree visited Soundcheck, he didn’t play live in the studio. Instead, he let our listeners download a song he’d recorded just for them in his home studio. It became one of the most popular things we’ve ever offered on the Soundcheck page. Today, this guitar wiz tries his hand at solo piano. And, he debuts a track from his upcoming solo album 'Grace for Drowning.'

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2011/aug/16/studio-steven-wilson/

Steven Wilson - live on WNYC's Soundcheck with John Schaefer

SECTARIAN (live in London)

View video for Nosound track In Celebration Of Life (feat. Vincent Cavanagh), taken from upcoming album Scintilla:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxBNKVaJHgU

It’s taken from fifth album Scintilla, featuring a guest appearance by Vincent Cavanagh of Anathema and acclaimed Italian singer Andrea Chimenti.

The follow-up to 2013’s Afterthoughts is described as “a wholly new musical and visual approach,” inspired by “personal upheaval and a desire for change.”

Mainman Giancarlo Erra tells Prog: “Short Story is one of the shortest and less-structured Nosound songs, both musically and lyrically – and yet one that perfectly sets the mood to ‘different’ and prepares for the album.

“The video introduces the places where the album was partly written and recorded, and illustrates the emotional extremes present, being at the same time delicate and thunderous without very much for the in-between.”

He adds: “During a decade of activity, my listening taste shifted gradually towards simpler and more direct music with a more intimate character, still retaining a certain richness and detail in sound.

“Northern folk and alt singer-songwriter music are possibly the stronger influences, but generally speaking everything that is simple, direct and minimal but with rich sound is what I like, and what I hope this album is.

“I think Scintilla marks the start of a second phase for Nosound.”

Scintilla

In Celebration of Life (fourth single from Scintilla)

Written in 2001 for a planned metal style collaboration with Mikael Åkerfeldt, this song has been revisited several times since, but I could never really make it fit the style of whatever I was doing at the time.  In the meantime the album with Mike finally happened, but in a completely different style to the album we planned 10 years ago (it's coming out in April).  So finally here is the orphan song Cut Ribbon - this is the latest version from the 2010/2011 Grace For Drowning sessions.  Gavin Harrison on drums (recorded in 2008), all other instruments SW.  

Cut Ribbon

about NYX:
Mezzo soprano Els Mondelaers (B) and composer Dyane Donck (NL) combine their various skills in a performance concept in which modern classical composition meets pop and electronic music.
For this concept the audience wears wireless headphones - a Silent Disco system - to experience the most intimate and subtle yet immersive and overwhelming 'soundscapes & songs'.
The added value of hearing the concert via headphones is the use of binaural audio, pre-recorded as well as live: a special technique that causes a 3D-audio experience - a massage for the ears.

Compilation of (live) recordings - listen on headphone

Pre-order 'Two Trains' on LP/CD/DL: http://phonofile.link/two-trains

Introducing Icelandic composer and singer Högni, better known as the front man of indie rock band Hjaltalín and previous member of electronic group GusGus, as the newest addition to Erased Tapes with his solo debut album Two Trains – available worldwide on October 20th 2017.

Amidst destruction on the mainland, the two locomotives Minør and Pionér transported wagons full of rock and gravel to the Icelandic seaside during the construction of the Reykjavík harbour in 1913-1917. The two metallic giants ushered in a new age in Iceland. However, soon after construction ceased the two trains were parked and have never driven since. Now they only serve to remind us of the grandeur of a bygone future. They are the only trains ever to have graced the Icelandic landscape. 

The music in Two Trains embraces the spirit of the original European avant-garde and invokes these concepts in its chugging rhythms, metallic clangs and brooding choral arrangements (men's choruses are a distinctly Icelandic phenomena related to the national/romantic politics of the 19th and 20th century) while the lyrics speak of ominous clouds on the war-ridden eastern horizon and freight cars filled with gravel and dreams.

Words from Högni, July 2017:

“The music on Two Trains is a blue-print of a period in my life where I collided with my own self, and at that point I felt the indifference between the personal and the universal, the absolute consciousness of life’s unconsciousness. Perhaps it’s a feeling that cannot be conveyed, like watercolours that just seem to wash off into the sea. But also a flashing mirage that you can enjoy before you arrive at your last destination."

As time went on, the two trains also began to bear a psychological implication to Högni and came to represent the different incarnations of his persona during a difficult period in his life. As a society we are also quite often faced with a fork in the road and a decision to make, and most importantly the acceptance of one’s self.

Today, the real Minør and Pionér are unemployed, mere relics. Minør is on display near the Reykjavík waterfront and Pionér is parked in an outdoor museum on a hill. But for Högni, with this release, the two trains have ushered in a new chapter in his own life.

The cover art incorporates a distorted portrait photograph taken by Anna Maggy with the help of Sigurður Oddsson’s art direction, using projected features to reflect the idea of duality.

TRACK LISTING

1. Andaðu		
2. Shed Your Skin
3. Komdu með 		
4. Crash
5. Dragðu mig		
6. Óveðursský
7. Break Up		
8. Moon Pitcher
9. Parallel		
10. Enn næða orð

WEBSITE: www.hogni.net

Two Trains

Högni - Komdu með

I found this on an old computer - it's a demo for either the In Absentia or Deadwing albums, something that never got used - I can't be totally sure because while it shares lyrical themes with the songs on In Absentia, one of the melodies seems to relate to another piece from Deadwing era.  I don't remember too much about it, other than I guess it wasn't good enough to get any further than this.  Rescued from the abyss, so I only have a compressed audio file of this one, sorry about that.

Godfearing (demo 2001-03?)

Andy c - live @ fabric

Futsal Shuffle 2020

Here we all are
Born into a struggle
To come so far
But end up returning to dust

Oxfam panache tips his hat
(laces undone)
He has no truck with idle chat
(work to be done)
The songs he learned from scratched LP's
Stops in mid-flow to sip his tea

He strums the chords with less than grace
(songs we all know)
Each passing year etched on his face
(sun, rain or snow)
The words he sings are not his own
They speak of things he'll never know

http://www.stevenwilsonhq.com
http://www.facebook.com/stevenwilsonhq
http://www.twitter.com/stevenwilsonhq

Steven Wilson - Vocals, Mellotron, Keyboards, Guitars
Nick Beggs - Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
Guthrie Govan - Lead Guitar
Adam Holzman - Fender Rhodes, Hammond Organ, Piano, Minimoog
Marco Minnemann - Drums, Percussion
Theo Travis - Flutes, Saxophones, Clarinet
Jakko Jakszyk - Additional Vocals

Kscope - Volume 4

Luminol

The record label Kscope was created in May 2008 to provide a home for the growing post-progressive genre and an evolving, flexible and adventurous style of music without boundaries.

In recent years, a growing movement of bands has started to reclaim and reinvent aspects of the progressive, post-punk and post-rock genres, re-establishing a desire to experiment with eclectic musical sources and state of the art widescreen sonic possibilities. Kscope was created to provide a home for this evolving and adventurous style of music without boundaries, and was launched in 2008 with new albums from its first signings The Pineapple Thief and No-Man. New albums have since followed from the legendary likes of Anathema, Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree/Japan keyboard player Richard Barbieri, highly rated newcomers North Atlantic Oscillation and Lunatic Soul (the solo project from Riverside's Mariusz Duda). In addition to these releases the Kscope catalogue also now contains a series of deluxe reissues of classic albums from Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, Blackfield and No-Man. 

For further info go to www.kscopemusic.com

Steven Wilson - live on WNYC's Soundcheck with John Schaefer

Kscope

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