Erased Tapes Records – home to Ólafur Arnalds, A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Rival Consoles, Nils Frahm and Peter Broderick, amongst others – celebrates its fifth birthday!

The label are offering a free compilation of eleven tracks available for everyone who registers to the brand new website. Fans simply need to log in/sign up for this little treat.

Erased Tapes Records has become a meeting point and melting pot for innovative and imaginative musicians who knew there had to be somewhere they could call home. As artist Nils Frahm says, the label is ‘a wonderful place for creating music and I couldn’t be happier in this family. And it is a family. There’s a great sense of freedom on this label.’ Positioned deliberately outside the fleeting trends that typify contemporary indie music, Erased Tapes Records has fostered collaboration between its artists, often fusing disparate musical forms and styles, rendering so-called genres like modern classical, post rock and electronica redundant.

Robert Raths, founder of Erased Tapes, explains: ‘I’ve always been most interested in a dialogue between two opposite poles, between traditional and contemporary, between digital and analogue. That cliff between electronic and acoustic, the pop and the classical world. In bringing these worlds together or at least start a conversation in how to utilise the best of both sides and make it into something exciting, something current and something that is of our time. In the beginning people might have found it hard to connect these dots between each of our artists, but throughout the years I think it has become more and more evident where the label is heading. Lots of good things have happened that I never dared to dream of. That’s what keeps it so exciting for me. And with what lies ahead, I daren’t even think where it might lead…’

Planned for 2012 are a number of label nights at clubs and festivals across the globe, beginning with a label night at this year’s Great Escape Festival. The year will also climax with the release of an exclusive box set of previously unreleased material by each of the artists signed to the label.

www.erasedtapes.com

La Station Radar and Shelter Press present An Age Of Wonder, the new long-player from Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier:

From the time when the sun and the moon didn’t have a name, hidden in a garden with statues talking in silence, telling a secret path that leads to the bravest love…

Inspired by the Amish Community, the northern wisconsin sunsets and the indian summer in Belgium, Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier recorded An Age Of Wonder between Belgium and Ohio between July and August 2011, filled with golden summer hazes, voluptuous thoughts, and August storms.

Out in March 5th 2012 on Shelter Press & La Station Radar
Edition of 400.

shelter-press.com
lastationradar.com

The first in a series of videos to be produced in 2012 featuring the members of the BASE proximity flying team – Need 4 Speed – this video focuses on Robert Pecnik, wingsuit designer and owner of Phoenix Fly.

Skimming close to the ground at speeds of over 100MPH, this video shows some new lines, as well as exploring the team dynamic.

Phoenix-Fly.com
AdrenalinBase.com

Slow modulating tones open “Ozark Dream” by The New Honey Shade; it all begins here with the track also named Ozark Dream, a post future retro feel that reminds me of British information films… the mining of a similar past as explored by Ghost Box, Future boards of Canada or Broadcast. This is way off though, completely way off in terms of influence, if not sound and mood.

The album was made to a series of 16mm home recorded films made in Oklahoma between 1950 and 1970, and dedicated to Mark Kuykendall’s mother, so what we have here is a beautifully personal and incredibly special album. ‘Ozark Dream’ is of it’s place of origin but it’s not until “Young Poet” that there is anything I would immediately identify as sonically and geographically reminiscent of this place, at least to whatever pre-conceptions I hold.

Mark records and produces in his hometown of Tulsa Oklahoma, and his music is clearly of great importance, central to his life in many ways, using the Oklahoma landscape of today and also of his memory to create this music. The techniques involved using modern studio equipment, customized instrumentation and old films, creates a sound world all of it’s own and one that is definitely worthy of your attention.

The album continues in fine form – dreamy, hazy, sidereal pieces of sound; this is comforting, perfectly formed music. By the end of the album I was left wanting to hear more and believe they’ll leave you feeling that way too.

- Mathew Shaw for Fluid Radio

www.thenewhoneyshade.com

Loving this new video by Carter Gunn created for Sitting in a Roofless Room from archival footage courtesy of The Prelinger Archive in San Francisco, California. Carter is most recently known for his award winning documentary film Colony. In-depth interview with Jasper TX / Aaron Martin can be found here

www.label.experimedia.net

The Tratturi are the old shepherd’s paths for transhumance that crossed several Italian regions. The most famous ones are between Abruzzo and Puglia where livestock was moved from the altitudes of the Appennini mountains to the coastal plains of the Tavoliere delle Puglie between Summer and Winter. Measuring 111 metres (or 60 Neapolitan passi), the Tratturi have recently been restored, mainly in the Molise region, where plans have been put forward to safeguard them as a Unesco site.

These photographs and field recordings were taken last September on the Celano-Foggia path. Special thanks are due to Celestino Picanza and family.

- Gianmarco Del Re

Ghedalia Tazartes is a nomad. He wanders through music from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. He paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker (…) Ghedalia is the orchestra and the pop group all in one person; the solitary opera explodes himself into an infinity of characters. The self is multitude and others. The author and his doubles work without a net, freely connecting the sounds, the rhythms, his voice, his voices. The permanent metamorphosis is a principle of composition, it escapes control, refuses classification. Off limits music descends, cries and screams when it touches the ground. – Andre Glucksmann

2011 has been a busy year for Ghedalia Tazartes. A personal highlight was the live soundtrack to the 1922 silent film classic Haxan by Benjamin Christenson first presented at the Fondation Cartier in Paris in April and subsequently at the CCA in Glasgow and Cafe OTO in London back in December.

Not exactly a precursor of Ken Russell’s 1971 The Devils, Haxan suffered a similar fate at the hands of censors for its depiction of torture and nudity within a religious context. Based on Malleus Maleficarum, the film was intended as a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness at the beginning of the XX century could lead to the same hysteria of the witch-hunts.

Aside from live performances there have also been two new releases in 2011 from Tazartes: a new version of his 2009 album Repas Froid released on vinyl by PAN and the collaborative project Superdisque by Tazartes, cult trumpet player Jac Berrocal, and Parisian based David Fenech on electric guitar, out on Sub Rosa.

On the 11th of February, Tazartèe, Fenech and Berrocal will be performing live at the Atelier Claus. Support comes from The Catamites: Stephen O’Malley – Sunn O))) – and Chris Brokaw – Come, Codeine.

“The album is like a music travel in sounds, somewhere beyond the borders of rock, jazz, punk, and sound poetry. The vocals seem to come from another planet, with lyrics in an improvised language. The winds are blown from Tibetan human bones and conch seashells.”

Saturday 11 February 2012 | 8 PM | Atelier Claus | Bruxelles

- Gianmarco Del Re for Fluid Radio

www.subrosa.net
www.lesateliersclaus.com
www.davidfenech.fr

The Leaf Label recently released five rather wonderful videos of pianist Matthew Bourne performing pieces from his upcoming Montauk Variations album (out February 6). The clips were filmed just before Christmas at Leeds College of Music, and give a sense of Bourne’s remarkable technique.

The pieces include Bourne’s version of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ and a brand new composition, ‘Unloved’, unavailable elsewhere.

Bourne will also be performing a live show at London’s Cafe OTO on February 15th. Leaf alumni Icarus have been confirmed as support for the gig.

www.theleaflabel.com
www.matthewbourne.com

Here’s a hauntingly beautiful video for MayMay’s upcoming self titled EP released through flau records. You may or may not (no pun intended) remember we reviewed MayMay way back in July, 2010 after they had come to our attention via the Portland Stories compilation, released through Sonic Pieces. The new EP looks like being another wonderful release for flau and comes highly recommended!

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MayMay’s self-titled E.P. is a collection of 5 songs, written on a tattered lawn chair in the backyard…

Recorded during the fall and winter of 2008 in Portland, Oregon, MayMay shares a history through the sounds of fingerpicked nylon guitars, haunting vocal melodies and beautifully crafted string arrangements. With quietude and warmth, Laurel’s compositions flow full of emotivity and a natural sense of restraint. The music of MayMay transports us to a world in which we can dive to the bottom of the sea, ignoring the pressure of the water above us. – flau

www.flau.jp

We have been waiting some time now for part two of ‘Crack The Surface’ from the SilentUK guys and was pleasantly surprised to see an email this morning announcing the new film…

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Episode II takes a look at a small collection of explorers from across the pond in America and Canada, focusing on their participation and experiences within their local and global exploring community.

Filmed over six weeks resulting in over 1.5TB of raw footage from locations such as New York, Indianapolis, Chicago, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and Montreal.

Thank you to all those who have supported us throughout this project. It is for you we create these films and it isn’t over yet!

If you have any questions or wish to contact us about anything at all, please feel free to email us at – contact@crackthesurface.com

Produced In Association With :

silentuk.com
sub-urban.com
placehacking.co.uk
allcitynewyork.com
shaneperez.com