WIL BOLTON
A Name That Hides Her
HB41
Hibernate Recordings 2012
06 Tracks. 37mins23secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

Wil Bolton is one half of the team behind the excellent Boltfish Recordings, but he is perhaps best known as Cheju, his solo project, which has seen him release music on Percussion Lab, U-Cover, Smallfish, Static Caravan or Boltfish. He has also an ongoing music project with Murray Fisher, the other half of Boltfish, as Biotron Shelf, and has published an album with Mark Streatfield (Zainetica) under the name Anzio Green back in 2008 on now defunct Japanese imprint Symbolic Interaction. Moving away from the crisp electronics and beats of Cheju and venturing into more atmospheric and ethereal territories, Bolton has, in the last two years, published a number of records under his own name on Hibernate, Time Released Sound and Cathedral Transmission. Continue Reading »

TALVIHORROS
Descent Into Delta
Hb32
Hibernate Recordings 2011
05 Tracks. 38mins20secs

London-based experimental guitarist Ben Chatwin first appeared two years ago when his debut album as Talvihorros, Some Ambulance, was one of the very last releases from Scottish imprint Benbecula. But, as the label folded, Chatwin soon found a new home with Hibernate Recordings, who published the excellent Music In Four Movements last year. Just over a year on, Chatwin is back with his latest offering, Descent Into Delta. Unlike previous records, which were essentially the fruit of studio-based experimentations, the five tracks from this new record began life as live improvisations. The original recordings have since been submitted to intense editing, processing and recomposing to eventually form the core of this opus. Continue Reading »

WIL BOLTON
Time Lapse
HB22
Hibernate Recordings 2010
09 Tracks. 47mins17secs

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Liverpool-based Wil Bolton may be best known for his electronic outputs as Cheju, a project that has kept him busy for over six years now, with releases on Rednetic, Percussion Lab or U-Cover, or as one half of the team heading Boltfish Records, but he is also an sound artist who has, in recent years, worked on a number of sound or audio-visual installations with exhibitions not only in the UK, but also across Europe, in the US and, recently, in South Korea.

Published on the rather consistently excellent Hibernate, once again as a limited release, Time Lapse is Bolton’s first release under his own name. While it finds some roots in the melodic electronica that has been intrinsic of his work as Cheju, this album is in essence much more atmospheric and introspective. Continue Reading »

DANNY SAUL
Kinison – Goldthwait
HB21
Hibernate Recordings 2010
06 Tracks. 43mins43secs

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On his debut album, released over a year ago on his own imprint, White Box Recordings, Danny Saul wove a strangely ethereal blend of experimental folk songs and heavily processed textured instrumentals, and the latter also informs his second solo album, released on the consistently excellent Hibernate imprint.

‘This album is not intended to be puzzled over – although on playback I find myself doing so’. This reflection from Saul, printed on the inside cover, shows just how complex this record is, and not solely on its musical aspect. The project, from its overall title to individual track names, is based around a feud between American stand-up comedians Sam Kinison and Bobcat Goldthwait (best known, at least outside of the US, as Zed in the Police Academy franchise) about who had stollen whose material. The dispute culminated in a heated exchange live on air during a radio show in 1988. Yet, this has actually nothing to do with the music itself. Continue Reading »

ANDREA FERRARIS & MATTEO UGGERI WITH MUJIKA EASEL & ANDREA SERRAPIGLIO
Autumn Is Coming, We’re All In Slow Motion
HB20
Hibernate Recordings 2010
08 Tracks. 54mins44secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

This album is the fruit of the meeting of two artists with substantial pedigrees in experimental music. Andrea Ferraris learnt his trade in various hardcore outfits during the nineties before moving towards more experimental forms of electronic and electro-acoustic music, while Matteo Uggeri has been active with various collaborative projects ranging from noise and post industrial to field recordings-infused melodic electronica since the mid nineties. The pair met after working on a series of collaborative projects led by Maurizio Bianchi and Andrea Marutti, and decided to work on a collaborative project of their own. The pair are here joined by Japanese musician Mujika Easel, who provides occasional piano and vocals, and Italian sound artist Andrea Serrapiglio, who plays cello, and with whom Ferraris has previously collaborated as part of experimental quartet Airchamber 3. Continue Reading »

CLEM LEEK
Holly Lane
HB19
Hibernate Recordings 2010
08 Tracks. 42mins52secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

It’s been a rather busy year for young British musician and composer Clem Leek. In the space of just a few months, he’s had a number of releases coming out on Experimedia, Dead Pilot or his own imprint, Schedios. The latest in this flurry of releases, Holly Lane, is published on the excellent Hibernate Recordings in a limited run of just two hundred CDs, with an additional run of fifty also including an exclusive bonus three-inch CD.

A pianist with a recent MA in Music Composition, Leek expands on his instrument of predilection to incorporate a wealth of filed recordings, processed guitars and electronics. Holly Lane is a particularly haunting piece of work where all sounds and melodies are wrapped in layers of effects, their edges smoothed and blurred to the point where it is virtually impossible to identify for sure where any of them starts or ends, or what the sound sources are exactly. Continue Reading »

HARUKI
The Land That Lies Behind Us
HB12
Hibernate Recordings 2010
05 Tracks. 22mins01secs

HARUKI
Snowed In Food Shelter
KG008
Klanggold 2010
05 Tracks. 29mins10secs

The Land That Lies Behind Us
Boomkat: CD Norma Records: CD
Snowed In Food Shelter
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

Haruki is the solo experimental project of Belgian musician and sound artist Boris Snauwaert. Already responsible for a handful of very limited releases on a variety of labels, Snauwaert released the rather superb To Humble A Nest on The Land Of last year, followed this year by two mini-albums, once again published in a very small run, one for UK imprint Hibernate, the other for Germany-based Klanggold, each taking a slightly different approach to Snauwaert’s granular organic electronic music.

Released earlier this year, The Land That Lies Behind Us comes as a 3” CD presented in a three-fold cover wrapped in a white envelop. Built from a wide array of sound sources, ranging from acoustic instruments to field recordings, some processed, others left in their natural state, the textured landscapes with which Snauwaert experiments are particularly evocative. Continue Reading »

TALVIHORROS
Music In Four Movements
HB13
Hibernate Recordings 2010
04 Tracks. 42mins28secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Behind the rather enigmatic Talvihorros moniker is Ben Chatwin, a London-based experimental guitarist and musician whose debut album, Some Ambulance, was released on Benbecula last year. Chatwin uses a vast array of acoustic and electric guitars, vintage electronic equipment and percussions to develop extremely effective atmospheric soundscapes. Chatwin’s debut album presented relatively short pieces which acted as impressionist textural snapshots. With his latest opus, Chatwin takes a very different approach as he focuses on much longer and more complex pieces, expanding on the work he did for the extremely limited cassette-only mini-album Let Us Be Thankful We Have Commerce, which he published on My Dance The Skull earlier in the year. Continue Reading »