Cleaned the Windows is the second album by London based folk singer Geri van Essen. It’s the follow-up to her pre-war American moody folk blues and gospel album A New Hiding Place, which she self-released in 2018. The ten new songs are more soulful and have matured into an even deeper melancholy. Sonically, she broadened her horizons by working together with Tiny Room Records chief (and musician/producer) Stefan Breuer, who helped arrange the album by adding instruments and polish up the homerecorded sessions by Van Essen. 

Broken microphones, unavailable laptops with GarageBand and someone who spilt talcum powder on the piano (making it unfit for further use) didn’t stop Van Essen to record her guitar, vocals and piano parts by herself in her apartment. Breuer added drums, bass, guitar and a wide range of keys, while her London friends contributed with violin, clarinet, euphonium, electric guitar and trumpet. The traditional folk songs are injected with soul, jangle pop and slowcore, creating a palette with associations as diverse as Portishead, Camera Obscura and Swamp Dogg, alongside the more obvious line of tradition that we have come to know through artists like Aldous Harding and Sibylle Baier.

More info: https://www.tinyroom.nl/artists/geri-van-essen/

I Waved, You Waved

'Goodbye' is the first single from True Sound, the new album from The World of Dust, the musical project of Stefan Breuer, featuring Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils). 

In some ways a concept album, True Sound charts a very personal exploration of the life and death of Stefan Breuer’s grandparents. The unique overarching narrative that plays out with each song, and the warmth of the delivery, unites the album into a moving and consistent whole. As with The World of Dust’s acclaimed previous album, Samsara, the instrumental elements on True Sound were created by Todd Tobias, who sent them to Breuer to write and sing the lyrics. Tobias’s wonderfully melodic compositions call to mind his work with Robert Pollard, creating a haunting marriage when combined with Breuer's pure vocal tones, reminiscent of The White Birch’s Ola Flottum. 

The mesmerising, drumless opening track ‘Sailing’ introduces Breuer’s grandfather, Jan (whose personal effects are on display in the Museum of Vlaardingen), over insistent, metallic guitar and burbling modulation. First single ‘Goodbye’ has a charming, wistful sway and gorgeous vocal harmonies, which belie its sobering story of Jan’s battle with cancer. Jan’s first wife, who passed away during childbirth, is commemorated on ‘Petronella’s Death’, with its elegant, descending guitar figures. And Breuer’s grandmother is touchingly memorialised on the elegant tempo shift and eerie arpeggios of ‘Nel’s Passing’. Ultimately, True Sound is testament to the liberation that comes from letting go.

“Its power lies in the intimacy… without drowning in desolate melancholy” – hifi.nl

The World of Dust is Dutch artist, musician and manager of Tiny Room Records, Stefan Breuer, based in Bilthoven, near Utrecht in The Netherlands. Breuer released his debut album, Bhava, in 2013, followed by X in 2014. On 2015’s Womb Realm, Breuer first collaborated with Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils), with Tobias contributing keyboard arrangements. Then, in 2017, Breuer released the experimental compilation Golden Moon. Samsara (2019) is Breuer’s second collaboration with Tobias, and his first release on Hidden Shoal. True Sound (2021) is his latest release, continuing his collaboration with Tobias.

Artist Info: https://www.hiddenshoal.com/project/the-world-of-dust
Licensing info (film, tv, web etc): https://www.hiddenshoal.com/licensing/

True Sound

Goodbye

More Info

The World of Dust - 'Goodbye'

Rotterdam-based folk outfit Ilsha’s debut is a record to comfort those who are sad and weeping.

For the debut of her band Ilsha, songwriter Ilse Hamelink wrote five songs that manage to be both personal and exuberant. Each song is a snapshot of a particular moment in time, capturing the feelings and thoughts of that precise moment in sound. This is also how Ilse lives her life: open to all emotions, while remaining an open book about her doubts and fears. Dive is by no means an ‘easy album’, but the raw, naked core of the songs has been made more bearable by the colorful arrangements added by the band. These layers make listening to the record an enlightening experience instead of a painful one. 

Dive has become an experimental folk album in which you can wonder around. The repetitive vocal lines are soothing and enthralling at the same time. As you wallow in melancholy, you may find yourself floating above the ground. There is a constant light in the darkness of this record, and Ilse’s heavenly voice guides you towards it. The beautiful simplicity of the songs is rooted in nature, where you can be at peace with who you are: barefoot in the grass, immortalizing these special moments in songs; the sorcery of good art. The record’s tension, dynamics, sad emptiness and lush arrangements will muster feelings, and these feelings will simply be welcome. Dive is a record to comfort those who are sad and weeping. 

Dive is the debut by Rotterdam-based band Ilsha. Ilsha is the main musical project of singer and guitarist Ilse Hamelink, who is a music/art/nature therapist in real life. On the record she gets help from a few veterans from the independent music industry, such as Gerrit van der Scheer (Bonne Aparte, Herrek), Aino Vehmasto (The Secret Love Parade), Anna Berkhof and Floyd Atema (Herrek). The record will come out on 12” vinyl with a lovely layered sleeve, released on Tiny Room Records on October 29, 2021.

Order record: https://tinyroomrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dive

Ilsha - Dear Tree

The first Caspar Milquetoast release is a brilliant, eclectic grab bag of stories, perspectives and styles. 

The title of Caspar Milquetoast's first release, We'll Have Tea, is taken from a lyric in the final track: we'll have tea when the rapture comes. Each track on the EP is an attempt to inhabit one particular story (four novels, one novella, a play and a TV show) and speak from the perspective of one of its characters - to sit 
down for tea with them, if you like. 

We'll Have Tea was recorded between November 2021 and January 2022 (although most of the tracks were written much earlier) and mastered by Tiny Room Records’ label manager Stefan Breuer. The sound of the EP is eclectic, mirroring the different character voices: an exolinguist on an alien planet tells her story to the backdrop of far-out synth arpeggios and acoustic guitar. A jilted Shakespearean mistress curses the man who tossed her aside with a frantic clarinet solo. An understated piano keeps a young man company as he waits for the execution of his lover. Track 5 begins with a remix of Mendelssohn’s wedding march. 

Amani began making music around 2017, creating shaky arrangements in GarageBand and recording the vocals in her closet on a hissing USB microphone. Her methods now are much the same, although the microphone is a little better and the closet has become a one-room apartment. Caspar Milquetoast, on the other hand, came into existence in 2022: We'll Have Tea will be Amani's first release under that name. Two things define her approach to music: 1) her love of language and 2) her short attention span. This results in a gloriously chaotic songwriting process full of literary references and in-jokes, and generally brief songs with a clear story arc.

Pink House

Taken from "Wild Eye" which sees release on December 9th, 2022 via Tiny Room Records and Hidden Shoal.

More on Moonchy & Tobias here: https://www.hiddenshoal.com/project/moonchy-tobias

The music of Moonchy & Tobias is available for licensing via Hidden Shoal. Contact us for more details: https://www.hiddenshoal.com/contact-us

Wild Eye

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Moonchy & Tobias - Shangri La

The third single lifted from Samsara, the fifth album by Dutch slowcore dream-pop artist The World of Dust. The single precedes the band's Tour of Japan in October (2019). Tour Dates below. The album is out now via Hidden Shoal and Tiny Room Records.

By the album here: tinyroomrecords.bandcamp.com/album/samsara

Video by Stefan Breuer here: https://youtu.be/vsg_i_GmVuA

THE WORLD OF DUST JAPAN TOUR 2019
05-oct-2019: Give Me Little More, 松本 Matsumoto
06-oct-2019: Space Eauuu, 神戸 Kobe
07-oct-2019: K.D.Japon, 名古屋 Nagoya
09-oct-2019: Hard Rain, 大阪 Osaka
10-oct-2019: Toonice, 高松 Takamatsu
11-oct-2019: Space O92, 広島 Hiroshima
12-oct-2019: Home, 渋谷 Shibuya, Tokyo
All tour dates in Japan are with I am Oak.

Samsara is effectively a full-length collaboration between The World of Dust’s Stefan Breuer and Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils). Previously contributing keyboard arrangements for 2015’s World of Dust album Womb Realm, Tobias created all the instrumental backdrops for Samsara’s evocative songs. A shadowy universe of forlorn beauty, this lo-fi bedroom pop experiment is shrouded in elemental imagery and laden with ennui. Intimate and wistful, Samsara mines a similarly rich emotive seam to Norwegian slowcore legends The White Birch.

The process for Samsara saw Tobias send Breuer 26 instrumental ideas, from which Breuer chose those which resonated with him most. Over the course of nearly two years, Breuer wrote and refined an especially personal suite of lyrics, reflecting his struggles with his mental health and his experience of becoming a father. The result is World of Dust's most fully realised and vivid album to date.

This music is available for licensing. Email Cam at Hidden Shoal for more details: cam[@]hiddenshoal.com | www.hiddenshoal.com/licensing

Samsara

Yellow Fangs

The World of Dust - Yellow Fangs

Karl Blau (USA) and Stefan Breuer from The World of Dust (NL) cross paths when they perform together in an old mill in The Netherlands, September 2017. Being a longtime admirer of Blau’s work (both solo and with The Microphones, Laura Veirs and LAKE), Breuer was touched by the unfiltered niceness and sincerity of the person behind this music. They stayed in contact and decided to make a record together. The 7” record ‘Blue Herons’ (limited edition of 200) will come out on April 7, 2020 on Breuer’s label Tiny Room Records. 

Karl Blau recorded his side of the vinyl ‘Slightly Salted’ in Germantown, Philadelphia, where he currently resides with his family. The song was originally written by Bryan Elliott and recorded by his band Pounding Serfs in 1989. Since then, it more or less became the theme song to Anacortes, Washington (also the home of Mount Eerie and Beat Happening). The lovely, seaside village of Anacortes was Blau’s home for 25 years, until his recent move to Philadelphia. Spiritually he may still be found in Anacortes of Skagit Valley, northwest Washington State.

Four years ago, Stefan Breuer and his family moved out of Hoograven, Utrecht to a nearby village called Bilthoven. Hoograven is a grey neighbourhood with a lot of flats, sandwiched between two busy highways. Apart from the uninspiring surroundings, the vibe was unfriendly and hostile. Eventually, Breuer and his wife decided not to raise their kids in Hoograven. In Bilthoven they found peace, serenity, and woods. The first half of ‘The Life of Gods’ is about Hoograven, the second half is about Bilthoven. 

Blau grew up on Samish Island, a former island in Washington. In the late 1800s, the Dutch settlers diked off the tide flats to make farm land there. Because of this, you can now drive to Samish Island, making it a peninsula shaped like the head of a blue heron. Hence the title of this combined effort, where both songs are tributes to the place you live(d).

The World of Dust - The Life Of Gods

Taken from "Blue Herons", the new split 7" from Karl Blau & The World of Dust. These two gorgeous tracks will be released through the wonderful Tiny Room Records with licensing of The World of Dust track 'The Life of Gods' through Hidden Shoal. The vinyl is limited to a run of 200. 

Karl Blau (USA) and Stefan Breuer from The World of Dust (NL) cross paths when they perform together in an old mill in The Netherlands, September 2017. Being a longtime admirer of Blau’s work (both solo and with The Microphones, Laura Veirs and LAKE), Breuer was touched by the unfiltered niceness and sincerity of the person behind this music. They stayed in contact and decided to make a record together.

Karl Blau recorded his side of the vinyl ‘Slightly Salted’ in Germantown, Philadelphia, where he currently resides with his family. The song was originally written by Bryan Elliott and recorded by his band Pounding Serfs in 1989. Since then, it more or less became the theme song to Anacortes, Washington (also the home of Mount Eerie and Beat Happening). The lovely, seaside village of Anacortes was Blau’s home for 25 years, until his recent move to Philadelphia. Spiritually he may still be found in Anacortes of Skagit Valley, northwest Washington State.

Four years ago, Stefan Breuer and his family moved out of Hoograven, Utrecht to a nearby village called Bilthoven. Hoograven is a grey neighbourhood with a lot of flats, sandwiched between two busy highways. Apart from the uninspiring surroundings, the vibe was unfriendly and hostile. Eventually, Breuer and his wife decided not to raise their kids in Hoograven. In Bilthoven they found peace, serenity, and woods. The first half of ‘The Life of Gods’ is about Hoograven, the second half is about Bilthoven.

The music of The World of Dust is available for licensing (film, tv, web and more) via Hidden Shoal.
https://www.hiddenshoal.com/licensing

Blue Herons

A band formed out of nostalgia in the remembrance of good times. Inspired by the likes of Daniel Johnston and others in the hopes to feel what you used to feel. 

Archer EP will be released by Tiny Room Records (NL) and Salty Speakers (USA) on December 22, 2020.

Tiny Wine - Leaves

A band formed out of nostalgia in the remembrance of good times. Inspired by the likes of Daniel Johnston and others in the hopes to feel what you used to feel. We are Tiny Wine.

purchase: https://tinywine.bandcamp.com/

TINY ROOM RECORDS / SALTY SPEAKERS

Archer

Follow us on Bandcamp: https://tinyroomrecords.bandcamp.com/follow_me

Tiny Room Records is a Dutch record label for underground artists. We help upcoming bands with their recordings, tours, releases, and with reaching their (niche) audience. We focus on experimental indie rock, lo-fi, noise, grunge, shoegaze, etc.