Videos

BIRD to release debut album My Fear and Me in May 2014

BIRD is the creation of Adele Emmas, Sian Williams, Alexis Samata and Christian Sandford.  Hailing from Liverpool, they create dark, haunting yet enrapturing music which will entice you into their otherworldly universe.

With a dynamic mixture of power and fragility, BIRD combine hypnotic, tribal drum beats, atmospheric guitars and dreamlike synthscapes to create the foundation for Adele’s beautiful, siren-esque vocals and lyrical poetry.

After releasing two EPs (one of which was produced by composer and ex-The Coral guitarist, Bill Ryder-Jones) and continually touring the UK, BIRD have gained a large following and garnered praise from the likes of BBC Radio 1, 2,3, 6music, and have been invited to play sessions for Simon Raymonde (The Cocteau Twins/Bella Union).  The Guardian, Metro, NYLON, NME and Channel 4 have also featured the band.

Support slots with Wild Beasts, Soley, King Charles, PINS, Poltergeist (Echo and The Bunnymen) and Stealing Sheep have cemented BIRD as a formidable live presence.  They were invited in 2013 to play at Festival Number 6, The Great Escape and Liverpool Sound City.

Now with new Liverpool label, Baltic Records, launched in 2013 under ADA and working closely with Seymour Stein (Warner), BIRD have been working with producer Darren Jones to create their debut album entitled, My Fear and Me which will be released in May 2014.

Retaining the atmosphere and dark heart of their early EPs, and combining this with melodic hooks, stark lyrical imagery and intensely-layered soundscapes –  the band utilise instruments such as harp and theremin to add to their unique sound.   With vocals recorded in darkness and instruments recorded in a church, BIRD have carefully honed this collection of songs to tell stories of the soul through the sounds within.

Stone Jack Jones to release new album

“apocalyptic mountain music…curiously unsettling…Jones lets a little light in, if only to show how dark the world can be.”  Pitchfork

 

Self-described “ambient folk musician” Stone Jack Jones’ third album Ancestor is coming out 31st March on Western Vinyl.
Based in Nashville, but raised in a coal miner’s company house on the banks of Buffalo Creek, WV, Stone Jack Jones is the descendant of four generations of coal miners.  After being rejected from military service in Vietnam due to epilepsy, and discouraged from pursuing the coal mining business, Jack decided to start wandering.  By the time he landed in Nashville, where he met Roger Moutenot, Patty Griffin, and Kurt Wagner, Jack had worked as a carny, an escape artist, a ballet dancer, a professional lute player, and even owned a late night performance art club in Atlanta.
Ancestor was produced with Roger Moutenot (known for his work with Yo La Tengo, Sleater Kinney, They Might Be Giants) and features collaborations with Patty Griffin and notable Nashvillians including Lambchop’s Ryan Norris, Scott Martin and Kurt Wagner as well as Lylas’ Kyle Hamlett.  The tales on Ancestor distill Jack’s lifetime of experience into songs that use the esoteric narratives of an American rambler to elucidate the celestial worlds within each of us.  Intensely meditative, the album patiently explores the hardness of the coal mines, the mystery of suicide, the comfort of a dog’s acceptance, the idea that forgetting all you know can be the first step towards hearing and reconnecting with your muse, and one man’s gratitude for the love he’s been given and the life he’s had the chance to live.
As Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner describes it, Ancestor is “long and languid, moving none too fast, there’s alcohol and rope in the air.  There ought to be a place, a bar, or barn, where this music plays from p.a. suspended in the middle of the room like those ones they used in the civil defense strapped to polls in the neighborhoods of the 60s, 50s..  Fan shaped horns arranged in a center cluster…there’s nostalgic allusion and ghostly nods to a world only Jack knows, and perhaps his god knows.”

Adrian Utley's Guitar Orchestra 'In C'

Following Portishead’s spectacular set at Glastonbury last weekend, Adrian Utley has announced his new album to be released on 30th September on Invada Records. 

Utley brings together an orchestra of electric guitar players to interpret Terry Riley’s ‘In C’.  Written in 1964,‘In C’ is one of the most influential pieces of music from the  20th Century, it established minimalism as a music genre.  In C‘s simple musical rules – 53 musical phrases in C and no duration – allow for infinite variations.

Utley’s impressive Guitar Orchestra is augmented by organs and a clarinet making for a mesmeric sound experience.  The Guitar Orchestra consists of 24 musicians from Bristol: 19 guitarists including John Parish (PJ Harvey), Thought Forms, and Jim Barr (Portishead live band); 4 organs and a bass clarinet.

“I’ve been exploring the sonic possibilities of massed guitars for a while now in various contexts from pure noise to the sacred choral music of Arvo Part.  So it was interesting to see what would happen if we had 20 electric guitars plus organs playing ‘In C’.  It is an amazing piece of writing and original thought.  A new free idea of organised group playing.  The beginnings of what we know as minimalism.”  Adrian Utley

The performance was recorded live at St Georges Hall, Bristol, one of Britain’s leading concert halls which is known for its astounding acoustic and unique atmosphere.