VARIOUS ARTISTS
Physic Or Surgery
HPLL058
Highpoint Lowlife 2011
28 Tracks. 138mins42secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

The statement is brutal: HPLL058 Physic Or Surgery – The Final Release. In these days where music has become a commodity with often very little value, the demise of a record label, especially one with such an excellent track record as that of Highpoint Lowlife, is a severe blow. Over a period of ten years, the label spearheaded by Thorsten Sideb0ard has consistently found itself at the forefront of contemporary underground electronic music in its many forms, and occasionally beyond, and provided a steady home or temporary shelter for artists as diverse as Fisk Industries, Erstlaub, Si-Cut.db, Bovaflux, , Marshall Watson, 10-20, Dalglish, Like A Stuntman and the Marcia Blaine School For Girls umbrella of projects, including The Village Orchestra and Production Unit. Continue Reading »

TVO/THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA
Amid The Blaze Of Noon
HPLL056
Highpoint Lowlife 2011
01 Track. 64mins04secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD

Ruaridh Law has, from his debut album, released on Highpoint Lowlife six years ago, created a truly unique and individual body of work. In recent months, Law has been busy establishing his new imprint, Broken20, just as one of the labels who have been so supportive of his work, Highpoint Lowlife, is in the process of folding out. It is therefore quite fitting that one of the label’s last releases should be the latest Village Orchestra opus.

Like some of Law’s more recent releases, Amid The Blaze Of Noon is essentially an hour-long piece, but this is more than just one lengthy experiment. Continue Reading »

TVO/The Village Orchestra
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
B2001
Broken20 2010
05 Tracks. 94mins01secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

Earlier this year, purveyor of fine electronic and experimental music Highpoint Lowlife announced that they were to cease operating at the end of the year. Around the same time, The Village Orchestra’s Ruaridh Law launched Broken20, a label set up with Production Unit’s Dave Donnelly and Erstlaub’s Dave Fyans. While he has released music on a number of labels, Law had become one of the most highly regarded members of the Highpoint Lowlife stable, first as part of the excellent Marcia Blaine School For Girls entity, then with his own project, The Village Orchestra, under which banner he released what remains to this day one of the finest electronic records of the last ten years, Et In Arcadia Ego, in 2004.

Broken20’s inaugural release comes in the shape of a two-fold release from Law bringing together two of his slightly different projects in one compelling record. Continue Reading »

The noughties have seen probably the most radical changes in the music industries since the advent of the record. Consumption habits have dramatically moved from traditional to digital formats, music has been increasingly seen as something to steal rather than to buy, and listening habits means that nowadays, the album is becoming increasingly redundant. Or is it? Whereas it had, at least in some circles, become totally acceptable to fill records with substandard music, it is now essential for artists to create consistent pieces of work if they want to retain the attention of their audience. The last ten years have delivered their fair share of hits and misses, and this list doesn’t pretend to be in any way shape or form exhaustive. This is just, in no particular order, the definitive list of the 20 albums that have defined the noughties at themilkfactory.

Continue Reading »

Twelve months compiled into just twenty albums. From the thousands of records released each year, it is difficult to get even a handful on the site, and even more difficult to decide which ones were the best of the lot. This is however the twenty albums that have marked 2009 for themilkfactory.

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THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA
I Can Hear The Sirens Singing Again
HPLL037
Highpoint Lowlife 2009
01 Track. 58mins36secs

Buy: MP3

Scotland has long been a fertile ground for electronic music, and one of the country’s best exports is undoubtedly the Marcia Blaine School For Girls collective, whose three members, Bryan Kerr, David Donnolly and Ruaridh Law, have released music on labels such as Benbecula, Unlabel, Static Caravan or Metal-On-Metal, either collectively or individually, for over ten years. It is however on London-based Highpoint Lowlife that the trio have found their natural home, first producing the excellent Some Paths Lead Back Again project four years ago, then their album Halfway Into The Woods two years ago. It is also on Highpoint Lowlife that Ruaridh Law’s seminal solo effort Et In Arcadia Ego, as The Village Orchestra, was published, again in 2005. Continue Reading »

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Magnetism, That Electricity
HPLL026
Highpoint Lowlife 2008
12 Tracks. 74mins46secs

For some time now, the excellent Highpoint Lowlife have refocused their outputs by publishing extremely limited hand crafted CDR editions, but the quality of the music released has in no way waned, as recent releases by Tigrics and Erstlaub have shown. Magnetism, That Electricity is the latest project initiated by label head Thorsten Sideb0ard, and follows the Analog For Architecture DVDR compilation released a year and a half ago. The project was devised primarily to be pressed on vinyl and released as a double EP, with four very different acts from the HPLL stable given the full run of a side each. Answering the call are atmospheric drone rockers Mandelbrot Set and electronic outfits Fisk Industries, The Village Orchestra and The Marcia Blaine School For Girls. Continue Reading »