Electronic duo High Frequency Bandwidth are set to release their debut full-length, Hell Fire and Brimstone, on the British label Malicious Damage.

HFB is the most recent project of Dr Alex Paterson, the brain behind the The Orb and all around electronic music guru. The duo’s other half is Dom Beken, a jack of all trades whose credentials include studio work for David Bowie and music production for everything from TV commercials to Bollywood Films. HFB have so far released several tracks digitally, and produced the score for the Playstation 3 game PixelJunk Shooter, which recently earned them a BAFTA nomination. On Hell Fire and Brimstone, Beken and Paterson continue to blend electronic beats and elements of hip-hop, with guest appearances by Funky DL and Dynamax of Zulu Nation. In keeping with their weird titular motif, all tracks on the new record begin with the letters H, F and B, along with almost everything else in the duo’s catalog so far.

In addition to Hell Fire and Brimstone, Malicious Damage is also releasing HFB’s first three EPs, all of which are untitled. EP 1 hits stores today, and the other two are slated for release later this month and in May.

Tracklist
01. Hundred Forty Billion feat. Dynamax
02. HeptaFleuroButryl feat. Funky DL
03. How Far Back?
04. Harmless Feather Bed feat. Dynamax
05. Hallo From Berlin
06. Hot From Behind
07. Happiness Feels Brilliant
08. Hill Film Blues feat. Dynamax
09. Hey, Fizzy Bubbles!
10. Hell Fire and Brimstone
11. Hidden Foto Banks
12. Holes for Black
13. Harmonic Five (Beatless)
14. Hitchcock’s First Bugle
15. Hitchcock’s First Blunder
16. High Five Brother
17. Huge Fiery Ball

Malicious Damage will release High Frequency Bandwidth’s Hell Fire and Brimstone on July 12th, 2010.
Label: Malicious Damage

The Black Dog: Music for Real Airports

Soma Quality Recordings, 2010

Jana Winderen – Energy Field

1. Aquaculture 18:00

Never content to rest on his laurels, we have here a new stellar release from Boston based composer/sound artist Brendan Murray, the followup to the acclaimed 23five release “Commonwealth.” Murray’s compositions tend to hinge upon drones and this eponymous record is no exception. That being said, this is a work which differs considerably from “Commonwealth” or “Wonders Never Cease”(Murray’s Intransitive release from 2007).

In Brendan’s own words: “This record was recorded after a 6 month break from making solo music. Commonwealth was a pretty big undertaking over a few years, and I wanted to see if I could take some of the long range deliberation out of my process and trust decisions that I normally rethink over and over. I also worked under a deadline for the first time.

The six tracks represent the first real overhaul of my approach since I started. I found myself breaking a lot of self-imposed rules and working very quickly. I decided to incorporate recognizable instrumentation, mainly piano and guitar.
I made some shorter pieces and use lots of differentrecording techniques to give each track it’s own character while making it sound like a record. It definitely sounds like my music, but it’s a more delicate in some places than anything I’ve ever released. I regard the ideas as refined and realized, but each track inhabits its own space, almost like chapters in a book.

It’s self-titled or untitled, depending on how you care to think of it. The images in the artwork could also work as symbolic titles. I have left that very open, because the titles of the pieces are purposely evocative. They are also rather personal and refer to specific moments in my life, whether real or imagined. I plan on making a couple of more records like this, as well as continuing to make large, complex pieces. I don’t regard this as a detour. Some people have told me that this music sounds dark, others have told me it sounds really paranoid. I think it’s a weirdly optimistic record.”

Building up to the release of Tycho’s forthcoming album, ‘Coastal Brake’ gets the single treatment, delivered with remixes from Danish shoegaze-tronica hero Manual, Ghostly regular Lusine and cosmic disco enthusiast Hatchback.

The original sees producer Scott Hansen looking beyond the Boards Of Canada influences that tended to characterize early works. Those warm, vintage-styled synths are still very much present, but the upbeat tone of the production and its deep, warm rhythm section lend a broader appeal.

The Manual remix sounds very much as you’d expect, full of reverberant splashes and Cocteau Twins-inspired additional instrumentation, while Lusine supplies a streamlined, very precise electronic makeover. In a more Balearic mode, Hatchback throws in some shimmering disco, resulting in arguably the most successful of all the remixes.

Tracklist:

1. Coastal Brake
2. Coastal Brake (Manual Remix)
3. Coastal Brake (Hatchback’s Cosmic Caviar Dub)
4. Coastal Brake (Lusine Remix)

sigur rós front man jón “jónsi” thor birgisson will be releasing his debut solo album, entitled go, on parlophone records on march 22nd 2010 (xl recordings on march 23rd 2010 in north america). co-produced by jónsi, alex somers and peter katis (the national, interpol), mixed by tom elmhirst in london, and recorded in iceland and connecticut, go is exhilarating, joyful and fearless. the record also features arrangements and piano playing by acclaimed composer nico muhly.

jónsi has spent more than a decade writing epic compositions with sigur rós, creating some of the finest, most acclaimed albums of the last ten years. the choice to make an album of solo recordings came together as a solution to a backlog of songs jónsi had written that didn’t seem to fit within the sigur rós context. the first collection of this material saw its release earlier this year in the form of a record called riceboy sleeps, an instrumental album made with his partner, alex somers. go, however, is a different beast entirely. ecstatic, dramatic and alive, it features jónsi’s signature vocals throughout, with the majority of the songs sung in english.

when he began working on go, jónsi initially though he would be making a low-key, acoustic album until, as he says, “somewhere along the line, it just sort of exploded.” that explosion resulted in sheer aural fireworks. not a straight ahead pop record, nor rock, folk, ambient or electronic, it encompasses all of these to create an expansive musical palette that’s been brought to life by jónsi alongside a number of free-spirited collaborators.

chief among these is nico muhly, the philip glass protégé who is renowned for his work with björk, antony & the johnsons, bonnie “prince” billy and grizzly bear. muhly has arranged all the songs on go, bringing strings, brass and woodwind to dance playfully alongside his offbeat piano playing. add into the mix the percussive genius of samuli kosminen, whose original drumming powers many of the songs along, and you have a sonic landscape that bears little relation to anything else around today, yet explodes from the speakers with sheer happiness and wonder, wide-eyed and eager to be heard.

go completes a personal journey for jónsi away from the wordless and near-brutal sonic monoliths of sigur rós’ untitled ( ) album, and is a bold stride beyond the career-redefining pop of “hoppipolla”, and even the explosive percussive assault of the last album’s “gobbledigook.” above it all sits jónsi’s voice, which has never been more impressive or breathtakingly arranged; here spectral and wraithlike, there fulsome and gorgeously warm, or other times, his backing vocals swoop and dart everywhere in a giddying array of crazed inventiveness. indeed, go is also one of the most joyous collections of songs you’re ever likely to hear. it’s an album that sounds like an artist entirely out on his own, doing exactly as he pleases, and from the creator of some of this decade’s most inventive, evocative music, we would expect nothing less.

jónsi will be bringing these songs to life with an extensive world tour throughout 2010. for more details on this, along with exclusive jónsi news, music and information, please check out www.jonsi.com

“go” tracklist

1. Go Do
2. Animal Arithmetic
3. Tornado
4. Boy Lilikoi
5. Sinking Friendships
6. Kolnidur
7. Grow Till Tall
8. Around Us
9. Hengilas

The 60-inch (“Mikrophonie”) tam-tam is a large piece of metal, a proto-sculpture. Brancusi might have altered it: rounding and tapering the edges, making an oval instead of a circle, polishing the surface into smooth gold.

The tam-tam is also a vast sound landscape-an instrument that makes noise at the slightest provocation. A resonance is created just in the act of walking past the instrument or breathing on it … that is, if your ear (or a microphone) is close enough to hear it. Wherever it is touched with a bow or a hand, it responds with chaotic, unpredictable complexity, never producing the same sound twice.

I have attempted to work within the givens of this landscape, to allow some of its implicit contours to reveal themselves-by collecting sounds, giving them a duration, putting them into a clear structure, and cutting a path through them with pure tones.

Sleeping Muse is something like a four-part chorale of bowed sounds, with a melody made up of long sine tones buried in the sounds.The Endless Column is a collection of sixty extremely light, close recorded strikes, randomly ordered, but with a rising scale of sine tones mixed in, more or less within the central frequency range of the tam-tam (from 50 to 671 hz).

Sculpture for the Blind arranges eight layers of bowed sounds (which are then released) along a pattern of lengthening durations and combined with a sine tone trio, again woven into the sounds of the tam-tam.

Hearing Metal 1 is the product of close collaboration between composer and performer. The piece evolved as Greg made test recordings based on my suggestions and then sent them to me. As it happened we feel we fell into its world, in order to move it slightly towards our own.

Michael Pisaro

Heavy Everywhere® proudly announces the release of a new Fine Art photography book by Phil Wolstenholme.

This luxury hardback item features 92 color plates and a lengthy introduction on Phil’s digital manipulation techniques, particularly with regard to High Dynamic Range imaging, image-fusion, and image-stitching.

Phil Wolstenholme is a digital artist based in Sheffield, Great Britain, and has been producing photographs within the local area and the Peak District for over 25 years. The Networks project, a self-imposed discipline of image-capture and presentation, has been the central focus of his personal work for most of that time.

The book presents a selection of his latest digital photographs, featuring both single-image and large-scale composite works, created during 2008 – 2009.

The book presents a selection of phil’s latest digital photographs of landscapes captured in and around Sheffield and The Peak District, Great Britain, during 2008-2009. Published by Heavy Everywhere®, this luxury item is hardback only, 13 X 11 inches (33 X 28 cm), with 116 pages printed on premium art paper, featuring 92 color plates and is available from the Blurb Bookstore for UK£61.95 (EUR€92.75, US$111.46).

Phil just told me that he is really, really pleased with the book, and he wasn’t expecting to be!

With the release of Choral, Brooklyn’s ambient duo Mountains had snooty critics cross-referencing soundalikes as if playing a game of “Can You Find a More Obscure Reference Than…?” The record was softly-composed ambient music, purely pieced together by Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, and it existed in a space all its own.

Happily, the brand of soft, delicate, organic atmosphere fans have come to know from Mountains is in full bloom on Choral’s “follow-up”, Etching, as well.

Now, this is an interesting piece of music for a number of reasons.

For starters, Etching is comprised of one 38-minute track. The supple, billowing sound was recorded in one take at Anderegg’s studio. In that respect, it’s kind of a live performance. The recording was done in real-time without the use of overdubs, creating a sense of risk that lies gently underneath the hazy arrangement.

Second, as Etching was recorded prior to Mountains heading out on tour in support of Choral, the record was packaged up as a CD-R and sold to concertgoers with special hand-stamped sleeves. In other words, getting your hands on an actual CD-R of this is going to be tough stuff unless you’ve been to the show and picked one up already or if you know how to rock the eBay.

Of course, if you have one of those old-fashioned record players, you may be in luck. Etching is set for a vinyl release on October 20, 2009. For the vinyl release, Mountains re-sequenced the original CD-R recordings and, naturally, packaged the records with a hand-stamped LP jacket and a coupon for the MP3 download of the piece.

Audiophiles and fans of deep listening music will marvel at what’s going on here. Etching is, on its surface, a long piece of fulfilling tone that probably shouldn’t be the soundtrack for a road-trip with buddies to Vegas. It is, however, a quietly affecting piece that floats with weightlessness, brilliance and strange beauty.

Anderegg and Holtkamp push the stream of glowing, fond ambience as far as it will go. “Notes” hold for ages, but the wave of pleasing resonance is so warm and delightful that it’s hard to notice the passage of time.

For those with an interesting in music of the deep listening variety, Mountains will more than fit the bill. Between this single piece and Choral, theirs is an ultimately rewarding trail that should be taken and enjoyed by the patient, discriminating listener.

In the Euro dance underground, Landquist is a leading producer/remixer, having worked with The Cardigans and a-ha, among others. His self-titled debut was his attempt to return to his family’s musical and ancestral roots; even the name under which he records, a kind of ancient tribal drum, is a nod to ancient ways of life. Setting the tone for artistry to follow, the CD was filled with bone flutes and various primitive percussion instruments intertwined with modern-day production techniques and sounds to create dance beats. The Denmark-born artist’s U.S. debut, “Waking Up” hit the Billboard Dance Chart.

Nåid regresses to the late ’70s/early ’80s for melodics, often dreamy techno dance music. Similar to Depeche Mode, Landqvist and his guests add relatively soulful vocals to his synths, resulting in an inviting and undoubtedly retro sound almost entirely out of step with the band’s 2003 contemporaries.

Although the title track was a moderate dancefloor hit, the bulk of the disc is less dance and more trance, with the majority of the second half devoted to ballads. Some, like “This Could Be Our First Day,” have a yearning Howard Jones feel, but Nåid’s sound is more haunting, with ghostly female backing vocals adding an ethereal element.

Think Tears for Fears, Pet Shop Boys, or Human League and you’re in the ballpark. Paul Weller during his Style Council phase is also influenced, and Landqvist’s vocals on “So Free” is eerily reminiscent of the singer/songwriter. Although the techno beats resonate through most o the songs, this is less an album to dance along with than to listen to, preferably with headphones.

It excused a crushy, warm sound the belies its all-electronic composition. Songs don’t stand out individually yet meld into each other, creating a disc that is greater that the sum of its parts. Those enamored by old-school European techno will be drawn to Nåid’s charms. Others may find the approach pleasant yet dated and derivative.

Nåid’s 2008 album mixes classic Indian vocals combined with Nordic electronic beats.

Named after one of the oldest cities in the world situated on the banks of the Ganges river, “Varanasi” features the clear Sanskrit vocals of G Ghayathri Devi, S Saindhavi and R Shruti, the female trio heard on the CD “Holy Chants on Shiva & Shakti.” Additional featured artists include cellist Beata Soderberg, known both for her work as a classical musician as well as a tango artist; top Swedish drummer Rickard “Huxflux” Nettermalm, plus Caroline Valdemarsson, Johan Karlsson, Hanna Ekstrom, Anders Ahered and Indian Pagannini.

Kosmica is the electronica division of Kosmic Music U.S., Inc. Originally rooted in India before its launch in Los Angeles, Kosmic’s catalog includes world music, health & healing, meditation and relaxation and soundtracks. Prior to NAID, Kosmica has released albums by Siddhi States, Secret Stealth and Gardel Martini. Both labels are distributed nationally by Allegro and digitally on iTunes.

Interviews available, contact Costa Communications

NAID’S “VARANASI”

Featured Artists Martin Landquist: Keyboards and beats

Saindhavi; Shruthi; Ghayathri: Vocals Beata Soderberg: Cello Hanna Ekstrom, Anders Ahered & Indian Pagannini: Violin Caroline Valdemarsson: Viola Rickard Nettermalm: Hahats Johan Karlsson: additional keyboards

Track Listing:

· Varanasi · Aigiri Nam · Sarvesham · Mantra · Dakshina · Gothenburg · Diosas · Mangalam · Calling Aslak Ganesha

Check Out his albums at iTunes, and support this talented artist!