Blog: Hidden Shoal Recordings

Hidden Shoal Recordings is proud to announce the re-release and of the glacial ambient masterpiece One River by acclaimed US producer Scott Solter . First released on Tell-All Records in 2005, One River sees Solter exploring the space between Brian Eno's seminal Music For Airports and William Basinski's contemporary classic The Disintegration Loops . The music sighs and aches beautifully, gradually transforming with subtlety and grace, lulling the listener into blissful reverie. Solter has produced, recorded, mixed and remixed numerous [...]

Hidden Shoal is excited to officially announce the upcoming release of We Don't Look Back For Very Long , the new EP by neo-classical/minimal ambient artist Antonymes . We Don't Look Back For Very Long sees Antonymes reworking a track from each of fellow Hidden Shoal artist Slow Dancing Society's four albums, casting radiant new light on the stunning originals. Across almost 30 minutes, Antonymes marries SDS's glistening atmospheres to his own trademark ambient neo-classical minimalism, creating a completely mesmerising hybrid. We Don't Look [...]

• Hidden Shoal - Antonymes meets Slow Dancing Society - "The Grey Sea And The Long Black Land"

Head over to Scene Point Blank to read a fantastic interview with Blake Madden of Hotels . While you're there be sure to enter the Hotels competition to be in line to win lots of Hotels goodies!

Hidden Shoal Recordings is excited to announce the availability of Letters From The Coast by garage-dreampop trio The Caseworker. On their third album Letters From The Coast The Caseworker exude the feel of a shoegazing Velvet Underground reared by the Flying Nun label - the perfect balance of drone and chime. The band creates an enigmatic intimacy and atmosphere, which they wrap around immaculately crafted pop songs like smoke. Perfectly intoxicating. With opening track and lead single 'National Runner', The Caseworker have an instant pop classic on their [...]

The wonderful crew at Scene Point Blank in conjunction with Hidden Shoal have another super cool competition running. This time there's some awesome Umpire goodies up for for grabs including a bunch of Umpire CD's, Umpire t-shirts and Mukaizake CD's (featuring 3 members of Umpire). That's a win-win-win! So head to Scene Point Blank , enter and wait by the mailbox. Also don't forget to enter the Hotels comp also running over at Scene Point Blank. Check it out here .

Excerpt - "They've produced a beguiling album of sunburst guitar melodies, sitting on a foundation of drone, with a thin gauze of hazy suspense draped over it. We've already spoken about the chiming single National runner - written about the Ethiopian long-distance athlete Miruts Yifter and it shares something of his relentless drive. The widescreen feel of Boats is created with banks of ringing, Byrdsian guitars, which combine for a thrilling crescendo. The beautiful Sea years has Eimer's hushed, low-in the-mix vocal set against a driving bassline (reminiscient of Yo La Tengo a little bit). There's more than a shade [...]

The Caseworker's gorgeous forthcoming full length Letters From The Coast is now available for CD pre-order through n5Mailorder . The CD comes in a 4 panel wallet with stunning illustration by that graphic wonder Stuart Medley. All pre-orders include an immediate mp3 download of the album so head to n5 and be one of the first to soak in what The Underground of Happiness referred to as, "a beguiling album of sunburst guitar melodies, sitting on a foundation of drone, with a thin gauze of hazy suspense draped over it." [...]

"In sorting through the glut of instrumental music releases we receive at The Silent Ballet, it's rare to come across a single song all by its lonesome and be excited. "Surry Hills" is the first work released by the Perth, Australia-based Apricot Rail since their eponymous debut back in 2009. While previously having erred on the the shimmery and sunny side of post rock, the band shows a new level of maturity in balancing chimes, woodwinds, guitars and other spritely sounds. With flute and clarinet leading the sun to a fog-less morning, all manner of life delicately rises from the [...]

Apricot Rail's stunning new single 'Surry Hills' has just scooped a glowing review over at The Silent Ballet . Check out the review here and download the track for free here .

Apologies as this is slightly old news but good news nonetheless! Hotel's awesome track 'Hydra', taken off 2009's Where Hearts Go Broke , recently featured in the MTV Network comedy Awkward . The track aired on Episode 2 to be exact which can be viewed in full here by US residents. The track is also a featured stream and download at MTV so if don't already own this slice of pop genius then head there to grab it .

Hidden Shoal Recordings is excited to anounce the release of album A Frame of Reference by Danish spectral noise-rock quartet Salli Lunn, which comprises remixes of songs from their stunning debut album Heresy and Rite , plus all-new songs. The album kicks off in fine style with Scott Solter's remix of 'Mirror Girl', on which the in-demand producer, musician and remixer pares back the original's spidery postpunk guitars to bring a lurching industrial rhythm section to the fore. Markus Mehr's dizzying take on single 'Parachutes Forever' brings sizzling amp [...]

• Salli Lunn - 'The Invention of Steel (Manual Remix)'

Hot on the heels of the release of their awesome new single ' National Runner ', The Caseworker now have a wonderful music video to accompany the track thanks to film maker Joe Macken. True to the theme of the track, the video features footage of the amazing Ethiopian long distance runner Miruts Yifter doing his magic. And if you think long distance running is a yawn fest then you have not seen Yifter's final lap turbo blast - it gives me goosebumps, it honestly does! Check out the video below or in HD at Youtube [...]

Head over to the excellent Scene Point Blank for a chance to win a bunch of very cool prizes including a signed copy of Hotel's sublime On The Casino Floor . The competition will be drawn on the 1st of November and co-incides with a wonderful upcoming interview with Hotel's Blake Madden. Check out all the info here .

• Hotels - 'Sleep In Fame'

' The Great Cold ', by US producer Scott Solter , is taken from the re-release of his glacial ambient masterpiece One River . Chilly, gaseous tones swell and recede, all the while shadowed by a ghostly high note. Solter creates an unforgettable atmosphere, which becomes all the more moving when experienced as part of the complete album. The track is accompanied by Mark Solter and Laura Solter's immersive, impressionistic video, in which burnished forms simultaneously suggest the vast expanses of space and the intricate textures of cellular surfaces. "a mixture of heavily processed [...]

• Scott Solter - 'The Great Cold'

Hidden Shoal Recordings is proud to announce the release of the new single 'National Runner' by garage-dreampop trio The Caseworker . With 'National Runner', The Caseworker have an instant pop classic on their hands. The song's consummate balance of drone and chime features a heady mix of hypnotic guitars and driving rhythm section, all perfectly offset by Conor Devlin's starry-eyed vocal. Learning that the track is an ode to famed Ethiopian Olympic long-distance runner Miruts Yifter makes all the more sense after being doused in its heady atmosphere. "The Caseworker extract darkness from [...]

• [The] Caseworker - 'National Runner'

The re-issue of Slow Dancing Society's stunning Priest Lake Circa '88 has staked its place on the KZSU Top 30 , sitting at the number 4 spot on the chart. All three Slow Dancing Society re-issues have charted heavily at KZSU, so much so that Slow Dancing Society has had a presence in the charts nearly every week over the last few months or so. This comes as we prepare for the release of the upcoming EP We Don't Look Back For Very Long which sees [...]

Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the signing of garage-dreampop trio [The] Caseworker and Dutch-American singer-songwriter Kramies to its roster of artists. With each successive release, garage-dreampop trio [The] Caseworker deliver their own timeless sonic magic. Their upcoming 2011 album Letters From The Coast has the feel of a shoegazing Velvet Underground reared by the Flying Nun label – the perfect balance of drone and chime. The band creates an enigmatic intimacy and atmosphere, which they wrap around immaculately crafted pop songs like smoke. Perfectly intoxicating. Dutch-American singer-songwriter Kramies [...]

Love for Umpire continues to grow as more sets of ears manage to wrap themselves around the band's glorious debut album Now We're Active. Along with their recent chart sucess in the US the band have also been scooping a bunch of glowing new reviews. Check out the latest batch in PopMatters , Stereo Subversion , Muso's Guide and Leonard's Lair . Also lovely to hear 'Milking a Thistle' beaming out of the breakfast show on Triple J the other day. Nice one Tom Ballard! [...]

Excerpt: "Welsh composer Ian M. Hazeldine, billed as Antonymes, pulled off a balletic balancing act between delicate and distinct, movement and rest with his short debut album "Beauty Becomes the Enemy of the Future", released 2009 on Cathedral Transmissions. With his third effort, he maintains that equilibrium admirably, with one huge slip-up. Inspired by Morton Feldman´s idiosyncratic description of music as a surface, Antonymes opens with "A Fragile Acceptance", nearly non-existent piano becoming engulfed in whispy clouds of strings which soon mass into a brace of rather muscular and insistent violins. As the album progresses, a genuinely exquisite dream state is [...]

Excerpt: "... Although Now We're Active is the band's debut album, the general brain usage and song writing behind the project initially began in 2006. Umpire's album has essentially been five years in the making, with a taster given via the 2009 released self titled EP, but news of a ten track record was naturally going to be intriguing. Now We're Active defines Umpire's style brilliantly in their ability on one album to present fast, complex guitar rhythms, typical of the math rock genre combined with slower, pleasing, melancholic sounds. These polarities can be seen from the tingling fade [...]