Ambience VOL 2 [An Ambient Library]

Exclusive track taken from the stunning new album 'Maps'... 

Order your copy here:

www.messagetobears.com/album/maps

'Maps is the third LP from multi-instrumentalist Jerome Alexander, the man behind Message to Bears.

Following on from the success of Folding Leaves, Jerome has created something that encapsulates the folksy ambience of previous releases whilst adding an electronic dimension. Building layer upon layer, songs evolve with a fragile intensity. Vocal melodies are draped over string and guitar arrangements and end up soaring over them, at the same time lending a hook instantly recognisable as Message To Bears and blending harmoniously with the arrangement.

The overall result of Maps is something that is both startling and familiar. You are drawn in, given a map if you will, and invited on a musical journey that nods to Message to Bears' past but also leads to the future.'

Release Date: 12th November 2013

Composed, produced and mixed by Jerome Alexander. Viola and violin performed by Tim Gill. Mastered by Carl Saff.

www.messagetobears.com

Message To Bears - Rather Stay

<b>Taken from new album 'Maps' https://messagetobears.bandcamp.com/album/maps</b>

<i>'Maps is the third LP from multi-instrumentalist Jerome Alexander, the man behind Message to Bears. 

Following on from the success of Folding Leaves, Jerome has created something that encapsulates the folksy ambience of previous releases whilst adding an electronic dimension. Building layer upon layer, songs evolve with a fragile intensity. Vocal melodies are draped over string and guitar arrangements and end up soaring over them, at the same time lending a hook instantly recognisable as Message To Bears and blending harmoniously with the arrangement. 

The overall result of Maps is something that is both startling and familiar. You are drawn in, given a map if you will, and invited on a musical journey that nods to Message to Bears' past but also leads to the future.'</i>

Order from www.messagetobears.com

I Know You Love To Fall

Message To Bears - Maps - 03 The Tourist

Message To Bears - Maps - 01 Sun Breaking Through

DEBUT ALBUM OUT NOW – AVAILABLE ON CD/LP/DOWNLOAD.

ORDER DIRECTLY FROM ERASED TAPES and receive a FREE POSTER with each CD/Vinyl order*:
http://www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP032
BOOMKAT:
http://boomkat.com/cds/437680-a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen
AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winged-Victory-Sullen/dp/B005BV5DOQ/
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http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/a-winged-victory-for-sullen/id448922166?uo=4

'GEM' ★★★★ MOJO | 'TRIUMPH' ★★★★ UNCUT | 'VICTORIOUS' – GUARDIAN | 'A VICTORY' – BBC MUSIC
'CELESTIAL' 9/10 – DROWNED IN SOUND | 'OTHERWORLDLY' 7.3 – PITCHFORK | 'SUBLIME' – EXCLAIM
★★★★ SPIEGEL | 'EIN TRIUMPH' – DE:BUG | ★★★★ DE MORGEN | 'EEN PAREL' – FOCUS KNACK | 'PRACHTPLAAT' – GONZO 


EXCLUSIVE FULL ALBUM STREAM VIA OUR FRIENDS AT DROWNED IN SOUND:
http://drownedinsound.com/news/4143522**

*as long as stock lasts.
** for a limited time only.

---

CONTENT: ‘A Winged Victory For The Sullen’ is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars Of The Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O’Halloran. The duo agreed to leave the comfort zone of their home studios and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, hunting down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end. Other traditional instrumentation was used including string quartet, French horn, and bassoon, but always juxtaposed is the sound of drifting guitar washed melodies. The recordings began with one late night session in the famed Grunewald Church in Berlin on a 1950s imperial Bösendorfer piano and strings were added in the historic East Berlin DDR radio studios along the River Spree. One last session on a handmade Fazioli piano in a private studio on the Northern cusp of Italy, before the final mixes took place in a 17th century villa near Ferrara with the assistance of Francesco Donadello. All songs were then processed completely analogue straight to magnetic tape. Their secret to harvesting new melodic structures from the thin air of existence was for the duo to push themselves to dangerous territory, realising that clear thinking at the wrong moment could stifle the compositions. The final result is seven landscapes of harmonic ingemination. In ‘Requiem For The Static King Part One’ – created in memory of the untimely passing of Mark Linkous – they have taken the age-old idea of a string quartet and then shot it out of a cannon to reveal exquisite new levels of sonic bliss. Of the 13 minute track ‘Symphony Pathétique’, Wiltzie says ‘after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music, I feel like I have finally figured out what I am doing’. Notable guest musicians include Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, as well as Erased Tapes label comrade Peter Broderick on violin. A Winged Victory For The Sullen is not a side project – it is the future of the late night record you have always dreamed of.

CONTEXT: On May 24th 2007, in Bologna, Italy, Adam was on tour and playing with the late Mark Linkous & his beloved Sparklehorse, on what would be their final European tour. That night Adam invited friend and colleague Francesco Donadello to see the concert, and Francesco's guest this evening was composer Dustin O'Halloran (Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ O.S.T.). Through a strange twist of backstage conversations surrounding passport cache conundrums, and love of Italian gastronomy, a curious friendship began that now has brought forth an offspring of truly curative compositions for the world to savour.

As announced by Pitchfork and Drowned In Sound the self-titled debut album of A Winged Victory For The Sullen will be released worldwide on September 9, 2011 via Erased Tapes Records (except for North America where it will be out on Kranky).

A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears


i'll hide what's hid
but tell me why,
tell me why again
tell me

signs on my skin
plying lines
where your hands have been,
scribing me

so tell me what it's for,
why the wilds want you, riverborn
all our bodies shorn
but the dust adorns you, ever more

i scried within
a bottled wine,
my mottled, witherin'
body--

pines on the brim,
and in time,
the storms will snow us in,
but believe--

i know what it's for,
why the waters mourn you, riverborn
both our bodies formed
from the dust that haunts you, ever more

just tell me what it's for
what the wines afford you, riverborn
all my solace torn
that i may never know your winter morn


Riverborn

mama
i'm a fool for all ive done
left her body 
at the dawning
of the cairn and carried on

and papa
know that we can't tarry long
show no folly 
in the stalling
of the ferryman, charon

and oh--

I know not what I'm for 
but my face by the fireside warms
alone in what I've known
but my faith in the firelight grows
and a face by the fireside shows


mama
ill find my arbiter alone
in waters seething, 
timber teeming,
not the leaves of ancient tomes 


and papa
ill write my likeness in the stones
but never cheating 
something fleeting
as every one of them erodes

and oh--

I know not what I'm for 
but my face by the fireside warms
alone in what I've known
but my faith in the firelight grows
as i gaze on the mother of crows

Bugbear

Cyberphobic Spies

Composed & Produced by StanLeonard.com
Instagam: https://www.instagram.com/stanleonardmusic/#
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2G3gYHbQ46UPckIS7nrjk4?si=7G3Y27AaQbaAPpl1vu9P7w&nd=1&dlsi=aa9f6885ec5046a9

I dedicate this composition to everyone who’s lost their course in life for a moment.
A riptide is a narrow channel in a sandbank where the water rushes strongly out to sea.
And to get out of it you have to do something that feels very unnatural: first let yourself be carried along, and only then swim left or right, back to calmer water and the shore. I think that’s a beautiful image for how we can sometimes deal with life.




Riptide

Riptide (Follow me on Instagram/Spotify🙏🏼)

BRAND NEW VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kkeLYKR5wY&feature=youtu.be

Taken from forthcoming album 'Carved From Tides' 
Preorder available - www.messagetobears.com

Press contact - jeff.schofield@typepr.com

'On Message To Bears’ fourth LP Carved From Tides Jerome Alexander throws all caution to the wind and delivers an experience emotive enough to tug at every fibre in a heartstring. Released on 1st July, Carved From Tides sees Jerome eschew the arbitrary boundaries that have been erected between synthetic music and music made on more traditional instruments. Lead single ‘I’ll Lead You There’ is exemplary. Starting with a gloomy acoustic arpeggio that wouldn’t be out of place in the hands of Elliott Smith or Nick Drake, its folky textures are soon penetrated by a thudding beat over which collaborator https://soundcloud.com/will_samson lends his tender reverberating vocals. The heart-wrenching mood of the arrangement lends it a depth of feeling that characterises the whole LP.'

Available to preorder from - https://messagetobears.bandcamp.com/

Carved From Tides

I'll Lead You There (feat. Will Samson)

Taken from forthcoming album 'Carved From Tides' 
Preorder available - www.messagetobears.com

Press contact - jeff.schofield@typepr.com

'On Message To Bears’ fourth LP Carved From Tides Jerome Alexander throws all caution to the wind and delivers an experience emotive enough to tug at every fibre in a heartstring. Released on 1 July, Carved From Tides sees Jerome eschew the arbitrary boundaries that have been erected between synthetic music and music made on more traditional instruments. Lead single ‘I’ll Lead You There’ is exemplary. Starting with a gloomy acoustic arpeggio that wouldn’t be out of place in the hands of Elliott Smith or Nick Drake, its folky textures are soon penetrated by a thudding beat over which collaborator Will Samson lends his tender reverberating vocals. The heart-wrenching mood of the arrangement lends it a depth of feeling that characterises the whole LP.'

'Jerome’s love of ambient music is highlighted in the opener ‘Never Be’. It’s a cinematic start to the album, replete with sweeping synths and strings. The muffled piano lends some rhythmic shape to its openness. It ends tempestuously, with thunderous bass raging against the dying synths as it refuses to go gently into the night.'

Of his mentality when creating Carved From Tides Jerome says:
"The album is supposed to reflect a transitional period in one's life, referencing change in circumstances, decisions, relationships with others and evolution as an individual, whether subtle or not, which thereby influences where you are now, and realising wherever you are now is ok, and that you are in a constant state of flux. When writing it, I was going through what felt like a very transitional period myself, and I guess this was my way of processing it."

'Composed, recorded and produced between both his home and studio in North-East London over the past year, Carved From Tides is Jerome’s most sophisticated work yet. The title refers to the capacity of something fluid and transitional to be able to affect and mould what appears to be solid and stable over time. It is through the fluidness of Jerome’s approach - in not pigeonholing instruments with expectations of what sort of music they should make - that Jerome achieves just this. The fluidity of music itself is the tide that he carves his masterwork from. And the success he achieves here is solid indeed.'

Spin/Float (feat. Gemma Alexander)

Message To Bears - Moonlight

Epic45 - The Stars In Spring

Pretend To Forget - Message To Bears

Farewell, Stars, by Message To Bears
Recorded at home in Oxford, UK, September 2009.
http://messagetobears.com

From fugues unreleased tracks 2009.
Originally released by debruit&desilence as a 100 copies limited edition, october 2009. 

Pretend To Forget - Message To Bears

xisela

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