Taken from the album "Stars Are Our Home."
Out now on Slumberland Records (US) and Sonic Cathedral (UK)

Order the digital download from iTunes: http://smarturl.it/bhb-itunes
Order the LP/CD: http://smarturl.it/bhb-album

more info: www.blackheartedbrother.com
Black Hearted Brother Official Facebook: www.facebook.com/blackheartedbrother

It was Alfred Bester, if I recall correctly, who called 'the stars my destination', in his brilliant novel of the same name from 1956. Long considered a libertarian science fiction classic, it's also notable for featuring one of the very first accounts of synaesthesia in English-language fiction. This might be drawing a particularly long bow, but the title of Black Hearted Brother's debut, "Stars Are Our Home", immediately brought Bester's book to mind – and there's definitely something of the synaesthesic experience about this album, overflowing with enraptured, glowing textures, flaring white light like magnesium, in consort with brilliant red-blue waves of psychedelia.

Of course, the first thing that might crane your head towards "Stars Are Our Home" is the group's membership: Neil Halstead, the éminence grise behind Slowdive and Mojave 3; Mark Van Hoen, an original member of Seefeel, subsequently working solo and as Locust; and Nick Holton, the main mover behind Holton's Opulent Oog, and member of Coley Park, who have released albums on Halstead's Shady Lane label. They had previously converged on Halstead's 2001 solo album, "Sleeping On Roads," though Van Hoen also co-produced Mojave 3's "Out Of Tune" (1998), "Excuses For Travelers" (2000) and "Spoon & Rafter" (2003), while Holton took up production duties for Halstead's "Palindrome Hunches" (2012). Van Hoen and Halstead go back much further still, to 1992, when they were in Seefeel and Slowdive respectively: 'Mark taught Neil much that was electronic and ambient music.'

You could hear that education bearing fruit with Slowdive's late-period masterpiece, 1995's "Pygmalion." In some ways, "Stars Are Our Home" echoes that album's experimental process, if not the outcome, as Black Hearted Brother are a very different, distinctive beast, often indulging in what Halstead, self-deprecatingly, describes as 'a lot of very long and indulgent space rawk.' And indeed, that space-rock drive is writ loud and clear on the album's opening title track, an instrumental bliss-out that navigates through ocean-tides of FX-drenched guitar. But there's a lot more to it: 'The idea was to just make a record that was in some ways "unedited",' Halstead continues. 'To not worry about a particular sound or style, but to just go with the flow. We all make quite focused records individually so, as Mark says, it's our "guilty pleasures" album.' That seems about right, except with "Stars Are Our Home," the outcome is no guilt, all pleasure.

'Neil and Nick had, I think, started a few months before they asked me to join the party,' Van Hoen recalls. 'I think they had a few songs on the go, and needed an extra hand to add a few funny noises and generally add to the chaos – or maybe bring some order to the chaos.' Van Hoen has picked up on the dialectical nature of "Stars Are Our Home" here, its "order" and its "chaos": it's a rich, compelling album full of unexpected twists and turns, at times overloading the sensorium with so much material you're drenched in noise, but it'll just as quickly flip back on itself and drift through a glazed-eye, agrarian moment of acoustic melancholy (see the start of "Time In The Machine", which, as if to prove my point, takes less than a minute to build into a clangorous, droning monster).

So, there's a whole lot going on in these grooves, and plenty of it's unexpected, or from unexpected sources. The trio plays fast and loose with what listeners might consider their pre-ordained 'roles'. 'Primarily the songs themselves were started either by Nick or Neil individually,' Van Hoen explains, 'but then edited, developed and generally messed around with and rendered almost unlistenable by either myself or the others. The roles were not always clear cut. Sometimes Nick would be playing keyboards and synths, and myself guitars.' Lyrics on the record feel like another texture, another layer: sometimes they're invocatory chants, sometimes Halstead's and Holton's voices are ghosted by electronic manipulation, as on "Oh Crust". Often there's more going on than at first glance, and an index of the album's lyrical concerns runs to 'romance, sci-fi, places to go on holiday, real UFO abduction, the duality in the meaning of words, lament for the loss of psychedelic freedoms by the masses…'

"Stars Are Our Home" is brave and beautiful, mysterious and resonant. Its experimental edges never forget the importance of the pop moment; the best way to bring people around to your way of hearing is to seduce their ears, and there's seduction plenty here, pure pop like "Take Heart", the Other Green World of "I'm Back", the closing driftwork that is "Look Out Here They Come". A real head-wrecker of an album. And what does the future hold? The trio speaks as one: 'Black Hearted Brother will grow and mature into something very sophisticated in the coming years. A kind of comedic-space-rock-dancehall outfit to define a zeitgeist for the 22nd century, if you like.' Ha, yeah – amen, brothers!

Black Hearted Brother - My Baby Just Sailed Away

Silver Haze

Il Deserto Rosso

I fell asleep down by the stream
And there I had the strangest dream
And down by Brennan's Glenn there grows
A briar and a rose

There's a tree in the forest
But I don't know where
I built a nest out of your hair
And climbing up into the air
A briar and a rose

I don't know how long it has been
But I was born in Brennan's Glenn
And near the end of spring there grows
A briar and a rose

P icked the rose one early morn
I pricked my finger on a thorn
It had grown so high
It's winding wove the briar around the rose

I tried to tear them both apart
I felt a bullet in my heart
And all dressed up in springs and clothes
The briar and the rose

And when I'm buried in my grave
Tell me so I will know
Your tears will fall
To make love grow
The briar and the rose 

The Briar and the Rose - Tom Waits

Music & Lyrics by Dear Criminals 

Produced by Philippe Brault 
Mixed by Sébastien Blais-Montpetit 
Mastered by Emily Lazar at The Lodge, assisted by Chris Allgood.

https://dearcriminals.bandcamp.com/album/another-picture

Another Picture

Playground

From 'Occult Architecture Vol. 2' out now on Sacred Bones Records.

Order and download instantly:
iTunes: http://hyperurl.co/OAVol2
Bandcamp: http://bit.ly/2mBMBi3
Vinyl & CD: http://bit.ly/2qGNir6

BAND INFO:
http://moonduo.org
http://www.facebook.com/moonduoofficial/
http://www.twitter.com/moonduo
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https://open.spotify.com/artist/4ipKeGoyPCcpEblETS4qLu

LABEL INFO:
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http://www.facebook.com/SacredBones/
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Moon Duo - Lost in Light

Thinking that Giant Sand could never get any more giant, Howe Gelb has done just that by regrouping, expanding and magnifying his vision with the newest version of Giant Sand, calling it (appropriately enough) GIANT GIANT SAND. As a sort of homage, he's named the album "Tucson" after the town he's called home for forty years. This self-described country rock opera, by one of music's leading risk-takers, is set to be released on June 11th, 2012 on Fire Records. Here's a first peak with the fantastic "Forever and A Day".

Giant Giant Sand - Forever And A Day

Marc Ribot - Fat Man Blues

Taken from the PJ Harvey Original Score to the West End theatrical production of 'All About Eve.' 

'Descending' 
Composed by PJ Harvey
Performed by PJ Harvey, James Johnston, and Kenrick Rowe
Released April 12 2019 via Invada Records and Lakeshore Records.

'All About Eve,' directed by Ivo Van Hove, stars Gillian Anderson and Lily James, and is produced by Sonia Freedman Productions.
Photo Credit: Perou

Descending

Taken from the All About Eve - digital bonus EP

The Sandman (Demo)

Echoes from the Borderline

Isabella (Live)

From Zohn Zorn's soundtrack for the 1987 film 'She Must Be Seeing Things'  by Sheila McLaughlin. The vocals are sung by Shelly Hirsch.

John Zorn - End Titles [She Must Be Seeing Things]

xx dream my kiss / kiss my dream  xx

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Marc Ribot - Fat Man Blues

troubles i've seen

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