A Number Of Small Things/Labels/Sonic Pieces products

Greg Haines - Until The Point Of Hushed Support 13,99 €

Until the Point of Hushed Support is the second full-length offering from Greg Haines, born in England and now based in Berlin. Though it has been over three years since the release of his debut, Slumber Tides (Miasmah, 2006), the last few years have seen Haines traveling around the world and refining his craft, performing as a solo artist, improvising with other musicians, creating music for contemporary dance, and finally arriving at this new album, a beautifully contemplative forty-eight minute piece for string quintet, church organ, piano, percussion, and electronics.
For the most part, this album was recorded in the Grunewald Church in Berlin with the assistance of friend and fellow musician, Nils Frahm. Together, Haines and Frahm assembled a team of musicians to bring the score alive. More processed sounds (mostly assembled at Haines' Berlin studio, The Electricity Works) were even played back into the church and re-recorded, to truly add to the acoustic nature of the album.
Whereas Slumber Tides played out as a gorgeous exploration of sound and composition by a curious musician with fresh ears, Until the Point of Hushed Support comes across as a bold statement from a unique modern composer. Throughout the four sections of the piece, we are taken seamlessly through an incredibly powerful dynamic range. With an assortment of sounds collected and processed over the last two years combined with the live instrumentation, Haines creates his own orchestra; a unique sonic world where the sound of a dying radio is just as important as a mournful violin.

Simon Scott - Depart, Repeat 10,99 €

After several health scares that provided the wake up call that occurs when you face the possibility of serious illness, Simon Scott wrote two songs that dealth with the issues off loss and hope. Thankfully the scares were false alarms but inspired Simon to visit Nils Frahm in Berlin at Durton Studio and record "Never Alone" on 6th September and the second "Left Behind The World" on 5th December 2009.
Simon plays acoustic guitar, xylophone, sings and added some electronic treatments back in Cambridge at studio o3o3o. Nils Frahm engineered, played piano and synthesizer, added his watch alarm, glockenspiel and made a damn fine cup of coffee.
Simon Scott is the ex Slowdive drummer ("Just for a day" lp, "Souvlaki" lp and the "5ep": Creation Records) who released his debut album "Navigare" on the Norwegian label Miasmah run by Deaf Center's Erik K Skodvin in October 2009 to widespread critical acclaim. Simon runs his KESH recording label from Cambridge, is a sound designer for film, advertising, music production and sonic installations.
Seven Pieces is a new 7inch series by Sonic Pieces, consisting of exactly seven records, which will be released during the next few years, limited to 300 handmade copies each.

Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek - Grower 17,99 €

This is the first edition, limited to 336 copies in textiled Artwork!

It can be breathtaking when musical chemistry pays off, and this sophomore full-length from British experimental clarinettist Gareth Davis and Dutch drone veteran Rutger Zuydervelt is an apt testament to this. The two musicians initially collaborated on just a handful of tracks, but an epic four-hour improvisation bore so much musical fruit that the two musicians were saddled with not one but two full-length records.
As the second of the two records (after the recently released ‘Drape’), ‘Grower’ has a lot of ground to cover, as both a companion piece and an extension to the debut album. Luckily it exhibits a welcome evolution of the sound, as the musicians seem to gel more and more competently throughout. The tone and character of Davis’s clarinet is clear from the outset, but apart from this easy signifier it can be difficult to hear exactly what each artist is doing. Zuydervelt’s subtle processes and tonal work is perfectly matched with Davis’s breathy tones and the sound is frozen in a cloud of dense ambience. The easiest comparison would be to Supersilent horn-smith Arve Henriksen, who’s intoxicating solo work has entranced so many – Davis’s animated clarinet playing, while in no way imitating Henriksen’s, shares similarities in both soul and the memorably eerie resulting sound.
‘Grower’ is an album which manages to straddle various disciplines; elements of jazz and post-classical music are bundled up in-between fragments of the disparate drone and avant garde scenes. That Rutger Zuydervelt and Gareth Davis managed to emerge with a coherent and deeply moving album is a reflection of their restraint and subtlety as musicians. ‘Grower’ might just be that, an album that develops and changes with every subsequent listen, so give it the time it deserves to mature.

Erik K Skodvin - Flare 13,99 €

This is the 2nd edition of "Flare", cardboard sleeve version.

'Flare' might be the debut album under his own name, but it is far from Erik K Skodvin's first musical endeavour. As a member of Deaf Center (along with Otto Totland) he built up a swift following of fans devoted to his precise attention to detail and knack for creating the most unassumingly beautiful tracks of gloomy soundscapes. This clearly wasn't enough though, as Skodvin dragged his sound into darker pastures, tying to it the Svarte Greiner moniker and allowing his collection of haunted sounds to cough, splutter and groan mercilessly. 'Flare' marks a new beginning for Skodvin, and the electronic processes that have come to define his sound are now all but gone. Untreated acoustic sounds and the blankly terrifying sounds of bare rooms form the backbone of this new approach, and while 'Flare' still bears all the fingerprints of Skodvin's patented technique, it also sounds fresh and different. At times, as the album slowly reveals itself, one could be forgiven for thinking they had discovered a chewed up cassette of Finnish forest folk- dark and grainy but also live, as if a dark ritual had been captured somewhere remote in the morning fog. Through his selection of instruments, which includes piano, cello, violin and occasionally voice, Skodvin runs through the recordings with a ghost-like touch. There is the sense that these vignettes already existed, Skodvin merely dusted them off and lit the blue touchpaper.
'Flare' might not have the noise, grit and dense distortion of its predecessors, but what it lacks in bone shaking volume, it makes up for in subtlety and sheer mood. Through careful use of instruments and Skodvin's unmistakable ear for silence, he has created a record as tense and unforgiving as anything in his catalogue. It just sounds a little different, and that is never a bad thing. Listen with caution…

Ryan Teague - Causeway 17,99 €

‘Causeway’ is the long-awaited follow up to Ryan Teague’s acclaimed and hugely ambitious Type Records debut album ‘Coins & Crosses’. In the five years that have passed since then, the Cambridge-based composer has been busy in the studio writing, producing and refining his craft, and while many of these productions ended up attached to films and television work, this process is exactly what lit the touch paper for ‘Causeway’. You see while Teague’s studio expertise is still present on this sophomore full-length; the electronic flourishes that dominated his previous work are all but gone. The over reliance on technology he felt as he worked on countless all-electronic productions led Teague to pick up his guitar once more and work on a record that is possibly just as complex, but purer and far more raw than its predecessor.
It would be a mistake to think of ‘Causeway’ as simply a solo guitar record, and while Teague’s graceful finger picking is the central focus, his phrases are looped and layered to create veritable symphonies of harmonic sound. Comparisons could no doubt be drawn to Steve Reich, especially in Teague’s careful phrasing, but ‘Causeway’ manages to stand on its own with a surprising ease. It is not that there is a lack of all-acoustic guitar records about at the moment, but the way Teague ducks and dives in-between folk, classical and experimental modes is mystifying and incredibly enjoyable. At times Peter Broderick’s delicate homespun songwriting springs to mind, or Keith Kenniff’s singular piano work, but ‘Causeway’ manages to be all of this and much more. Teague’s songs are familiar and warming, yet shrouded with enough magic to keep you coming back again and again. The sparkle of strings, the distant voices, and that gorgeous humming low end will draw you in like little else this year. Who knew that a guitar could sound so orchestral?

Hauschka & Hildur Gu∂nadóttir - Pan Tone 13,99 €

CD in Handmade Cardboard Cover Artwork.
Volker Bertelmann and Hildur Gu∂nadóttir hardly need an introduction - their distinct styles have graced the speakers of pretty much anyone enamored with experimental music in the last decade, and between them the two have chalked up an enviable canon of successes. Bertelmann, under the Hauschka moniker has explored the extremities of prepared piano improvisation, and Gu∂nadóttir has taken cinematic, explorative cello music into a new era of depth and passion, so to hear them both together is a rare and unexpected treat. Rare is putting it lightly even - „Pan Tone“ is a recording of a single concert which the duo performed on the 26th of February 2010 as part of Arctic Circle - Bubbly Blue and Green festival at Kings Place in London, and documents an event that would truly never be repeated. Sure, they could attempt to re-create the event, but the spontaneity and glorious serendipity in this particular recording is a pleasure to behold.
Bertelmann and Gu∂nadóttir decided to create a set of compositions which based on the idea of the ocean, and took a book of Pantones to extract exact references to the specific colors of the sea. These watery tones form the backbone of the performance and inform the direction of the collaboration, guiding us through rich blues, glassy greens and frothy whites. In listening to the music it seems incredibly appropriate that the artists should choose blue as the middle ground in their work; the ineffable lightness that Bertelmann brings to the table is a stark contrast to Gu∂nadóttir´s sinking darkness, and as the two styles collide we witness a plethora of tones, shades and hues. It sounds as if the two artists have been playing together for decades, and their sound is so perfectly matched you might wonder why it´s taken them this long to collaborate. All that´s left for us to do is to soak in the tidal beauty of this very exclusive body of music, to listen to it sing, bubble and crash through its duration before settling in total silence. When the record reaches its conclusion there is an unsettling calm, a sense that you have witnessed something very special indeed, and that is a feeling to prize amongst all else.
Limited CD & LP in Textiled Artworks are Sold Out!

Steven Broderick - Blue 10,99 €

Limited to 300 handmade copies!
We only knew Pop's (Steven) singing voice as a whistle. He whistled while he worked, and he worked all the time. But not even a whistle accompanied him on the guitar. A woodworker by day, he brought his craftsmanship home, softly picking his patient melodies. Those few tunes were played over and over again, becoming smooth and refined as a carefully finished armoire.
It wasn't until Christmas 2008 that we really heard him sing. Our mother pulled out an old cassette tape labeled Steve at Marco's, a brief recording session from 1979. The first thing we heard was the song. The only song. Blue. A thick delay over the entire mix told us he was shy even back then. But then came that voice, which, underneath the wash, wasn't shy at all.
Blue, and the stream of short instrumentals following, seemed a rare capture at the heart of our origin with music. And as we shared these recordings with friends, we soon realized it wasn't just us who found them so warm and beautiful.
A proper closet musician, Pop would never share this music on his own accord, so we've taken the liberty of doing it for him. - Heather & Peter Broderick, August 2011