An Impossible Thing...

The film Song Of Salt is a road movie of sorts…a static take on a desert town lost in time, abandoned, and yet still occupied…burnt by the sun, forever etched by dust…

“Set in an isolated mining town on the outskirts of Death Valley, Song of Salt is an immersive glimpse into the struggles and celebrations within a tight-knit community as its residents, suspended between the past and the future, face the present realities of an eroding economy. 

A microcosm of contemporary American rurality, Trona, California demonstrates the complexities, hardships, and small beauties that are revealed when we look beyond prevailing stereotypes. Oscillating between dramatic stillness and wild freedom, patient observation and intimate immersion, the film goes on an engaging and dignified exploration of what it means to be both forgotten and free.”

The soundtrack by Nicolas Snyder perfectly suits the lonely and isolated reality of the desert town of Trona, California. This melancholic mix of plaintive guitar work, cello, hand instruments and chimes, field recordings, and appropriate industrial electronic treatments, all lead to an overall feeling of a pastoral, American spiritualism, with a primal edge shining through. With brief interspersions of dialog and liturgical referencing, the album moves from moments of a lovely desolate reverie, to those of an almost shamanic intensity as the pounding drums carry for miles in the desert air, and the lonely guitar carries even further…

11. Nicolas Snyder - The Circus Comes To Town

9. Nicolas Snyder - Smoke Stack

1. Nicolas Snyder - Song Of Salt Theme

Treadwater Fury comes in a lathe cut record edition of just 40 copies. This album is a  hauntologically tinged and soundtrack-centric paean to family and small town England from British musician, Poppy H.

Leaning heavily into folk, ambient and modern classical, and retaining the same long production model, he used a smartphone to capture improv, compositions, and field recordings, and then mixed and mastered the album on the same device.

B6 Just Can't Take Another L

As explained by the artist himself...

"The album is, to a large degree, about family and the east end of London where I'm from. I feel guilt about having distanced myself from the people and places of my childhood. My mum was one of three sisters, their dad died when she was 17 (everyone called him Poppy - hence my pseudonym) - and I was very close to their mum/my nan who herself died relatively young. So, the record is about losing the first of my uncles on my mums side, and how it compelled me to evoke an imagined image of post-war London (when they were born) - and with it a darkness, melancholy but also a bittersweet nostalgia."

A1 Eel & Pie

'Poppy H is a musician and producer from east London, now residing in the far east of England where he uses any spare moment to experiment with a variety of acoustic and electronic instruments, and field recordings. He makes and releases music like each day is his last.’

A4 RJHRIP

John Taylor’s Month Away

Is There A Heaven?

Bardo Pond - Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe

Holy Hell

For those celebrated guys who hit on the standards – Monk, Cohen, Bacharach, even Merle Haggard, Howe Gelb is creating new tunes with cathartic one-liners and malleable melodies that suggest any singer could interpret these dozen American piano ballads and take his offbeat worldview and make it their own. 

'Future Standards' album is released on Fire Records in UK & EU on November 25th and in North America on January 27th.

Howe Gelb - Impossible Thing

Also available 
CD/LP Hildegard Knef "The Reform Sessions" (Remixe)
Hans Nieswandt, Andreas Dorau, DJ Kotze and many more

Indiablue (with Steve Jansen)

user6406396

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