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Shadow Universe

Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds

    From the shadows of Slovenia, Shadow Universe is an instrumental music project, creating breathtaking cinematic soundscapes from post-rock, neoclassical/ambient and post-metal elements. Their third album, Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds is released on 11 March 2022 worldwide on Monotreme Records. Formed in 2017 by Peter Dimnik and Žan Šebrek, Shadow Universe merge contrasting textures of shimmering ambient soundscapes and heavy anxious darkness to portray the diversity of nature and life on earth and beyond. Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds: Every person experiences the world differently, which puts us into our own unique bubbles, subtle worlds. Subtle Realms, Subtle Worlds finds the band turning their songs into living, breathing ecosystems, carefully dissecting every moment of peace and chaos alike. The album sees the building particles of the universe as separate worlds, with their own story, perception, rules and individual inner realm. Opening track Organism, which portrays the coherence of forming organisms; from a vast universe itself down to the tiniest building particles of it, sets the tone with its slow, tense build to crushing, exhilarating peaks. Don’t Look at It and You’ll See It evokes free-flowing spontaneity through beautiful cascading piano and emotive violin, towering guitars, and soaring synths. Masterfully harnessing both the quiet and the loud, Hymn for the Giants glorifies our almighty and precious trees, with moments of calm cut apart by vast swathes of brutal, yet considered, cacophony. Losing Home’s portentous, droning synths and trumpet ratchet up the suspense, while on Antares Goes Supernova the band carve out layer upon layer of affirming and effecting riffs, each one more powerful than the last. Season of Eternal Maze wraps up the album with a meditative piano and harmonium, wide guitar driven melodies and guides you to your inner maze. 

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Organism
    2. Don’t Look At It And You’ll See It
    3. Hymn For The Giants
    4. Losing Home
    5. Antares Goes Supernova
    6. Season Of Eternal Maze

    Stumbleine

    Sink Into The Ether

      As the title suggests, UK producer Stumbleine’s seventh album ‘Sink Into The Ether’ offers a deep submergence within a celestial upper region somewhere beyond the clouds. Thriving on the space in between things, ‘Sink Into The Ether’ is chilled, heavenly and thought provoking. It’s another multi-faceted creation of glowing sonic vistas that are set to enrapture in 2020. The album envelops the listener from the outset with the soft, pitched sway of “Sonder”. The track ebbs through calming shadows, showcasing Stumbleine’s warm, electronic glow and gamut of influences, with hushed hypnotic delayed sounds, vocal samples and snappy beats. Stumbleine’s skill at blending an array of electronic timbres washes over the largely instrumental record, exemplified in “Supermodels”, with its lo-fi chorus-drenched haze building to an emotional, percussion-driven climax.

      Here, and scattered about the album, RnB vocals are chopped-up, but glistening a dark, dreamy hue. A cover of the Hole song, “Malibu” features Elizabeth Heaton of Midas Fall. Her delicate, dream-like vocals waft over the hazy instrumental waves like tendrils of smoke, as they both grow ever more desperate, and slowly crash. Elsewhere on the album tracks like ‘Lost To The World’ come together more immediately with flourishing synths and soaring backdrops overlaid by a heady bass and intricate beats, while ‘White Noise Therapy’ invokes a cinematic Tokyo-set film score peppered with playful soft pianos. “Lost To the World” swings in addictive pitched-vocal punches, circling itself into a spiral. “Your Angel Was Fake” has a hopeful darkness about it, recalling electronic shoegaze and witch house artists of the early 2010s. It scales and then pulls away, at once breathing and stopping, full of blanket synth pads and subtle snaps of percussion.

      Also known for his work in post-dubstep trio Swarms, Stumbleine has steadily built a cult of admirers around himself following collaborations across his varied albums and EPs with the likes of ASA, Shura, Violet Skies, Birds of Passage, Steffaloo and more. His sound, if it can be compared to anything at all, straddles post-rock shoegaze soundscapes with ambient electronica and experimental movements into something that can be both an ASMR hug to the ears yet also similarly arresting, fractured and off-kilter depending on which way things flow. As different sounds shift in and out, narratives become clear slowly and disappear quickly throughout Stumbleine’s kaleidoscopic visions. 

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Sonder
      2. Aloof
      3. Malibu (ft Elizabeth Heaton)
      4. My Head Hurts
      5. Lost To The World
      6. Tidepool
      7. Words Fail Me
      8. Supermodels
      9. White Noise Therapy
      10. Your Angel Was A Fake
      11. Disintegrate Together

      Oliver Spalding

      Novemberism

        “Novemberism” is the debut album of 23-year-old UK artist Oliver Spalding. As with his debut EP “Unfurl” (2017), the album was written and recorded with producer Ed Tullett (Novo Amor). Built around Spalding’s staggeringly beautiful voice, the record is full of melodic, immediate songwriting and arresting electronic production. Asked about his choice of title, Spalding explains, “To be melancholy all year round is to suffer from Novemberism.” And indeed, these 11 tracks are woven together with a common thread of heavyheartedness. Even the more upbeat songs, like title track “Novemberism” and “Bow Creek”, which drive and glisten with intoxicating pop hooks and 80s era synths, recall the darker undercurrents of classic New Order.

        Says Spalding, “The album focuses on a certain period of time in my life and the things that happened around me. My honesty in songwriting is key. The aim of this album was to be raw and emotional. Emotions are scary and no one wants to face them, and that’s what I wanted the album to feel like - something that is uncomfortable but also beautifully revealing. Synthesizers feature heavily across the record, including single “Bow Creek”, where iridescent synth stabs and lush strings wash over a hazy, late-night London. “I’m a huge Roxy Music fan”, says Spalding, “I love Brian Ferry’s work and take inspiration from the Prophet synth sounds on the 80s Bruce Springsteen records. Opener “Athamé” explodes the record into life with a barrage of saxophone and cymbals, before settling down to “Xanax”’s addictive delayed guitar lines and Spalding’s world-weary vocals. The slow, dark R&B simmer of “Her Crescent” reflects in the dark, ethereal pool of Björk-influenced soundscape “Emissive”, and the quietude of the delicate, piano-led heartbreaker “Golden” gives room to breathe after the gloomy electronic cacophony of “AIBM”. Elsewhere in the album, “Unreal” sees Spalding’s gossamer, spine-tingling falsetto soar to the heavens, and epic power ballad “Everglades” lifts Spalding’s voice to its towering, affecting peak, bringing the album to a close with a shudder of thundering drums. 

        TRACK LISTING

        1. Athamé
        2. Xanax
        3. Her Crescent
        4. Novemberism
        5. Unreal
        6. A Stop
        7. Emissive
        8. AIBM
        9. Golden
        10. Bow Creek
        11. Everglades

        Barzin

        To Live Alone In That Long Summer

          Canadian songwriter Barzin will release his fourth full-length album, To Live Alone In That Long Summer, on February 24th, 2014 on Monotreme Records. His past work has won acclaim from NPR Music “Song of The Day”,Salon.com, Stereogum, Uncut, Exclaim!, and La Blogotheque among others. To Live Alone... follows his well-received 2009 album Notes To An Absent Lover, praised by Mojo Magazine as “Americana Album of The Month”.

          To Live Alone In That Long Summer explores such themes as loneliness, intimacy, and connection between strangers. Modern life in the fast paced environment of the city provides the backdrop to the narrative of these songs. Whilst still embracing a relatively minimalist aesthetic, the songs alternate between up and down-tempo, with arrangements that envelope the listener like the warm glow of fading daylight. “All the While”, one of the highlights of the album, is at once both elegiac and hopeful, with its bright guitar and brisk tempo underpinned by mournful strings and Barzin’s soft, melancholy vocals. The dark, percussive “In The Dark You Can Love This Place” lends an exotic nocturnal feel with its winding woodwinds. Another standout track, “Fake It ‘til You Make It, is a lush, sweeping cinematic pop number. Barzin has recently pursued projects outside his own songwriting, including assisting in producing his compatriots Memoryhouse’s recent album, The Slideshow Effect (Subpop Records). He has also written a book of poems entitled, "Something I Have Not Done Is Following Me."

          ‘Dreamstone’ is the debut long-player from the highly talented UK producer Sorrow. Sorrow’s electronic, beats-driven music floats above the furthest reaches of Ambient Dubstep, propelled aloft by a dubbed out, sonorous Garage hybrid of his own invention. A series of self-released tracks and remixes and three EPs over the last two years, as well as collaborations with other artists (including Stumbleine, Asa and Submerse) have rapidly earned him a profile as one of the UK’s rising producers. True to his moniker, Sorrow’s music has an underlying current of melancholy, with mournful strings and piano and ghostly vocals, but he balances the mood artfully with head-bobbing beats and a wonky sense of humour that emerges unexpectedly here and there. In ‘Dreamstone’, the lush strings and languid zig-zag beats of ‘Embrace’ flow into the Bossa Nova lounge of ‘Maelys’, which in turn yields to the darker, more experimental tones of ‘Supernova’. From the chilled out ambience of ‘Dalliance’, featuring the sultry guest vocals of CoMa, to the restless, more aggressive beats of ‘Intruder’, ‘Dreamstone’ works equally well for late night sonic explorations or laid-back Sunday mornings.

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Elixir
          2. Moodswing
          3. Dreamstone Ft CoMa
          4. Dalliance Ft CoMa
          5. Embrace
          6. Maelys
          7. Supernova
          8. Flowerchild
          9. Shadowed Doubt
          10. Gallows Hill
          11. Intruder

          "OTTO" is:
          1 The Italian word for the number 8, which rotated 90 degrees becomes the ancient symbol of infinity.
          2 The first Niagara L.P.
          3 The magic number in nuclear physics.
          4 The number of the "Law of Ocataves" from Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff.
          5 The number of the lotus petals, and therefore, in Buddhist terminology, the paths of the Way.
          6 The number of cosmic balance: the octagonal shape is that of Buddhist temples centered on the one who spins the wheel in the center of the universe.
          7 The maximum number of electrons that can occupy a valence shell.
          8 August.

          Niagara is the collaborative project of Turin-based singers/producers David Tomat (TOMAT / N.A.M.B./ GEMINI EXCERPT) and Gabriele Ottino (N.A.M.B. / Milena Lovesick / GEMINI EXCERPT), who like to take a less conventional approach to composition. Much of their music is developed by continuous experimentation with sounds during improvised sessions, in which vocals are often used as just another instrumental layer. However, they also have a great ear for a killer pop tune and the vocal chops to deliver it.

          On ‘Otto’, their debut album, Niagara blend together a heady mixture of experimental pop, electronica and psychedelia to create their own brand of ‘avant-psych-tronica’. The first single, ‘Seal’, is a joyously off-kilter mandolin-fueled pop paean to summer, with an uplifting chorus filled with handclaps, sweet west-coast harmonies and humourously surreal lyrics. ‘Watershipdown’ recalls the trippier, spacier synth-fuelled explorations of The Flaming Lips, with a driving beat, drones and chopped vocal samples. Etacarinea tears a page from the ‘Sgt. Pepper’ era Beatles book with its bouncy brass band and synths, gradually morphing into a psychedelic wig-out. It all ends with the whimsical ‘Love Me Love Me’ skipping lightly through a garden of syncopated percussion. The album was recorded by Niagara and mixed by G.U.P. Alcaro at Superbudda Studio in Turin and mastered by Francesco Donandello at Calyx Mastering Studio in Berlin.


          TRACK LISTING

          1. Eight
          2. Superbe
          3. Seal
          4. Watershipdown
          5. Etacarinae
          6. E.V.A.
          7. Galaxy Glacier
          8. Love Me Love Me.

          Since the release of their debut album "Red Your Blues" in 2001, Toronto-based Picastro have continued to mine a rich seam of beautifully melancholic (and sometimes menacing) avant-folk / rock. Their fourth album, “Become Secret”, finds them on top form once again, with the familiar accompaniment of cello, acoustic guitar, drums and piano employed to great effect on songs that incorporate Eastern-European folk themes, bleak cinematic soundscapes and dark, unsettling pop.

          Front woman and songwriter Liz Hysen shares vocal duties on several songs with guest vocalists including Tony Dekker (Great Lake Swimmers), Brendan Massei (Viking Moses), Colleen Kinsella (Fire On Fire, Cerberus Shoal) and John McIntyre Lyrically, Hysen drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including Cormac McCarthy, Westerns and the Bible, as well as Antonioni’s film 'The Passenger'. (Hysen, an avid film buff who also makes Super 8 films as a hobby, says that the final album track, “The Stiff”, synchs up perfectly with the final scene of 'The Passenger'.) The sleeve art, which was drawn by Josef Bolf, is based on The Temptation of St. Anthony.

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Twilight Parting
          2. A Dune A Doom
          3. Pig & Sucker
          4. Spilt Head
          5. I Know My Time Now
          6. Neva
          7. Suttee
          8. A Neck In The Desert
          9. The Stiff

          Okie Rosette

          Leap Second

            Long-awaited return of ex-Granfaloon Bus frontman Felix Costanza. After releasing eight critically acclaimed albums over more than a decade, San Francisco's Granfaloon Bus 'parked' forever in 2003. The band had built up a good following in Europe, and many press writers wondered openly how much longer the band could possibly remain 'under the radar' before the wider world finally woke up to their considerable talents. Following the split of the band, front man and songwriter Felix Costanza turned his attentions to a new solo project, which he called Okie Rosette. The album "Leap Second" was brought to life with the help of various accomplices. Thee More Shallows' Dee Kesler lent his recording expertise and sonic wizardry to some of the tracks, Carrie Bradley (The Breeders, 100 Watt Smile) contributed violin parts, and ex-Granfaloon Bus members Jeff Stevenson (bass) and Ajax Green (guitar) joined in too, along with various other contributors. The addition of Rachel Stevenson's dulcet, husky voice provided the perfect foil to Costanza's world-weary vocals. A description once used by a journalist to describe the music of Granfaloon Bus – 'slanted folk-pop' – still applies as an apt description of this mixture of folk / melodic pop / Americana stylings, further tweaked with distorted samples, electronic beats, loops and skewed lyrics. It all adds up to a stunning album – the best work yet by Felix Costanza, and hopefully only the beginning of his long-overdue ascent 'above the radar'.


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