Erland Cooper’s new album Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence is set for release in June 2024 – 3 years from the day the only master tape was planted deep into the Orkney soil.

The album is a recording of Cooper’s brand new three-movement composition for solo violin and string ensemble. The work marks the centenary of celebrated Orkney poet George Mackay Brown, as 2021 marks 100 years since his birth.

Inspired by natural landscapes and ruminating on time, hope, community and patience, the sole recording of the work – on ¼ inch magnetic tape, with the digital files permanently deleted – has been planted to grow and be nurtured or “recomposed” by the earth, before being exhumed and released in three years’ time. Whilst Cooper will not be unearthing the tape until 2024, he has left a trail for anyone to search and find it if they wish. A map with clues to the location of the planting site will be released via his digital platforms. If the planted tape is found, Erland will invite the discoverer to his studio to embark on a journey together for the treasured first listen. It will then be released exactly as it sounds from the earth.

Erland Cooper says, “Music can so often feel undervalued and for some, being unable to perform live has at times felt like being buried. When an idea forms there is often an urge to share it as quickly as it develops but like spotting a bird, I want to let this fly and land in its own place and time. The work is one part remembrance and one part celebration of a landmark time.” He adds: “The material on the tape may erode naturally, disintegrate and create drops of silence or the peaty soil may preserve it perfectly well. It may or may not get better with age. I may or may not fall out of favour with my composition. Any alterations to the sound and music [when it comes out of the earth] will be reincorporated into the pages of a new score and live performance, as orchestral articulations.”

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists that have not previously collaborated to create new music together. Kalma was quick to suggest working together with two musicians whom he has never met – the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. Kalma sent an invitation to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm.

Chiu had been a fan of Kalma’s work for a long time, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. After meeting their goal of 20 minutes worth of music for the program (which was four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present, and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction; but simultaneously they felt like there was much more to be said, more work to be done. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those that had. The three musicians collectively agreed that they would continue work together and try to push the music further. The Closest Thing to Silence is the result of their efforts to take the collaboration further. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Ten Hour Wave
2. Breathing In Three Orbits (Intro)
3. Breathing In Three Orbits
4. The Closest Thing To Silence
5. Dizzy Ditty
6. Une Ombre Légère
7. New Air
8. Écoute Au Loin
9. A Treasure Chest
10. Stay Centered
11. Stack Attack 

‘In The Silence Electric’, the latest record in Julie’s Haircut’s long history of sonic otherworldliness is notable for its deft balance between hypnotic radiance and extrasensory intensity, between beatific calm and palpable anger. Yet it’s also a record which has arrived through a strange process of osmosis from a band confident enough to let subconscious and metaphysical aspects steer them in the appropriate directions. “We embraced the incidents, letting the songs guide us to their final form rather than trying to force them in a precise direction” confirms the band’s Luca Giovanardi.

For all its divings, this is a collection of supremely confident and cohesive ditties that sees the deep-end diabolism and mantric intensity of the Italian-based band’s Rocket debut, 2017’s ‘Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin’ expanded into a righteous fury and incandescent splendour. Whether it’s the heavy-lidded rapture of ‘Lord Help Me Find The Way’ (like Spiritualized transposed to 1970s Berlin), the menacing dream-state of ‘In Return’ or the Suicide-damaged psychic assault that is ‘Sorcerer’, all is subsumed by a bold singularity of intent, amidst a colourful firestorm of electronic monomania, jazz-tinged atonality and indelibly memorable vocal hooks.

“There’s a theme springing from the title of the record and the (cover) photos of Annegret Soltau that deliver some sense of helplessness, suffocation, difficulty in communication” notes the band’s Luca Giovanardi. Yet for all this - and paradoxically enough - ‘In The Silence Electric’ is both this mysterious and rebellious band’s most adventurous and most direct record to date - not to mention an ever more compelling transmission from renowned experts in altered states

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: This arresting new LP from Julie's Haircut swims with the hazy psychedelic undercurrent label Rocket Recordings has become known for, having been home to titans Gnod, Josefin Ohrn, Goat etc. While there are definitely similarities in terms of influences, JH have maintained a singular sound and hypnotic otherworldliness, a precise and uncompromising vision, and a refined outcome only they could have produced.

TRACK LISTING

01 Anticipation Of The Night (5:24)
02 Emerald Kiss (6:56)
03 Until The Lights Go Out (4:18)
04 Lord Help Me Find The Way (4:40)
05 Sorcerer (4:17)
06 Darlings Of The Sun (4:02)
07 In Return (3:50)
08 Pharaoh’s Dream (3:40)
09 For The Seven Lakes (4:51)

The Silence are a storm that has been brewing across Japan for over a year and now that system is breaking into the skies of the rest of the world. Their debut, self-titled release proved to be simply a preamble to the fluid and formidable electro-acoustic display of ‘Hark The Silence’.

The first record was of a song-based nature, rendered with careful beauty familiar to long-time listeners of Maski Batoh and Ghost; a sounds that turned on occasion into greater journeys. Several months after finishing that album more songs were was taped during an epic recording session in an enormous studio with an audience of listeners whose presence inspired The Silence and added to the performance. However, these recordings were only a beginning and the band returned to the studio later to refine the songs in new versions, creating a powerfully jamming album that contains all the elements of music that define The Silence in flowing and transcendent performance, all of it recorded on 24-track analogue tape, a process which brings their musical and spatial elements into dynamic balance.

Everything in the universe accessible to The Silence may be found in the ‘Ancient Wind’ trilogy that fills side one of ‘Hark The Silence’. From the depths of space rolls washes of gong, through which a terse, minimal bassline comes marching. Rattles of prepared piano spark and pass through the frame, blown over with the celestial omnipotence of a flute. The now-sensuous groove is underscored with luxuriant stereophonic drums rolling across the speakers.

Representing the state of nature from which all music as well as The Silence has to come, ‘Ancient Wind Part 1’ ceases to exist and explodes into a furious Bo-Diddley beat for ‘Part 2’, a chant replete with acid-rock guitar solos, an encompassing saxophone testament and an echounit driven drum breakdown.

Part 3 of ‘Ancient Wind’ resumes the chant in the mode of ‘Gangamanag’ (from Ghost’s ‘Hypnotic Underworld’ opus) and extends the fury of the progression in 7/8 to include a dazzling organ solo over unending volcanic eruption. As the swirling mass subsides, a few rusty blue notes from an acoustic guitar are sounded over the encroaching Silence.

Recorded completely live, ‘Ornament’ continues with resonant guitar acoustics from the fading embers of the first side, starting with a gentle mode and sung by Batoh in their native tongue, before the song ascends to explorations in space with music.

‘DEX 1’ continues the ride, a heavy jam in 4/4 dedicated to Dexter Gordon with loads of texture from keyboards and saxophone that make for very compelling physical listening.

The second half of the album contains an exquisite and intense rock arrangement from Damon and Naomi with Batoh’s tremendous singing atop the pile-driving power of The Silence in full swing, plus several other awe-inspiring encounters in live performance, minimal jamming, poetry, baritone-sax breath and group-think at its best.

As the album closes with the clarion call of ‘Fireball’ the graveyard of all history traversed by The Silence is illuminated by the dead’s spirit burning in the air - a great and profoundly jarring moment. ‘Hark The Silence’ is a composite of such moments, an album that travels enormous distances and captures live energies in astonishing studio sounds.

TRACK LISTING

Ancient Wind Part 1 & 2
Ancient Wind Part 3
Ornament
DEX #1
Galasdama
Breath Figure
Little Red Record
Company
Fireball

After spending two years living on opposite coasts and pursuing their own creative projects, Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp returned last spring to set to work on the sixth full-length album from the Rosebuds. Joining up with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon (a friend and former bandmate who, in a 2011 interview, noted that the Rosebuds make “some of the most important music in the world”), the North Carolina-bred duo spent a week in Vernon’s studio teasing out a batch of songs that effortlessly weave the hooky songcraft of classic jangle-pop, the cagey romanticism of new wave, and a refined yet full-hearted sensibility all their own. Featuring Vernon on guitar and synths - as well as Bon Iver drummer Matt McCaughan and Sylvan Esso's Nick Sanborn on bass, both longtime pals and cohorts of the Rosebuds - the resulting Sand + Silence radiates both a graceful intensity and the loose, joyful energy that comes from making music with friends.

TRACK LISTING

01 In My Teeth 4:27
02 Sand + Silence 5:13
03 Give Me A Reason 4:03
04 Blue Eyes 2:48
05 Mine Mine 3:27
06 Wait A Minute 3:48
07 Esse Quam Videri 3;44
08 Death Of An Old Bike 3:31
09 Looking For 3:08
10 Walking 1:56
11 Tiny Bones 4:12

Until Silence is the widescreen-epic third album from Stockholm based duo Roll The Dice. A monumental shift in both sonics and psychogeography. The characteristic framework of piano and synthesiser is reinforced with a newly conscripted 26-piece string section to startling effect.

Roll The Dice are Peder Mannerfelt (who worked with Fever Ray and records as The Subliminal Kid) and Malcolm Pardon (who writes and records music for film and TV). The new chapter in an ongoing storyline which Pardon and Mannerfelt began crafting on their acclaimed 2010 self-titled debut: their protagonists now displaced from the factories of their last album In Dust, and cast into a Great War.

Bringing light and shade to electronic architecture, the album features a 26-piece string ensemble with arrangements by Erik Arvinder whose credit include Lykke Li, Robyn and Primal Scream. The cinematic sound of mechanised warfare: life, death, hope and devastation

Mastered and cut by Stefan Betke at Scape Mastering in Berlin who reworked tracks from In Dust under his Pole moniker for their 2012 EP In Dubs.

Roll The Dice will premiere tracks from Until Silence at this year’s Sónar festival in Barcelona, and the duo will appear at events around the world over the coming months. A formidable live proposition: waves of analogue sound coaxed from walls of vintage synthesisers, without a computer in sight.