“Willenbring employs a piano and a guitar, but for the most part you’d never know it, as most of the tracks here are huge slow moving sheets of pure sound, blurred and abstract. Even the ones that do start with bits of piano, or offer up bits of strum and twang, gradually become more and more washed out, gorgeous wet windshield smears, sparkling with muted colors, glistening and glimmering, it’s the music of light reflecting off wet pavement, the sound of trees heavy with snow and ice, of home movies of long car trips, of out of focus landscapes from the past. Melodies that creep and drift, gradually growing heavier and heavier, the clouds gathering, until it’s a slow drive through thick fog, shapes and sounds barely visible. But it’s those glimpses of piano, or fragments of guitar that ground the music on Somewhere Someone Else, keep it from being “drone music”, imbue it with warmth, emotion, hidden melody, dark secrets, the songs may end up adrift on a glimmering black sea, but they began on the shore, within site of home and family, gradually moving farther and farther away, the familiar fading away, slipping slowly into the unknown. Absolutely gorgeous. Dreamy dark meandering melancholia for fans of Stars Of The Lid, Eluvium, Dead Texan, Tim Hecker, Godspeed and other purveyors of darkly dramatic, abstract moody minimalism…”

Aquarius Records

In the space of only four days, the initial shipment of Sankt Otten’s Wir koennen ja Freunde bleiben and Wes Willenbring’s Somewhere Someone Else at Aquarius Records in San Francisco have sold out! For those who may have missed out there’s no need to panic as another shipment of CD’s is on it’s way to the store and will be there within days.

Through an ongoing and exclusive partnership with Aquarius Records in San Francisco and Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, Hidden Shoal Recordings today announced the re-release of several of its most popular digital releases on CD for the first time. The announcement follows the success of these releases through digital distribution, as well as enthusiastic worldwide support from radio, press, and of course fans.

The following Hidden Shoal albums and EPs have now been re-released on CD in the US:

Wes Willenbring – Somewhere Someone Else
Available now from Aquarius Records, San Francisco & Amoeba Music, Los Angeles

Sankt Otten – Wir koennen ja Freunde bleiben
Available now from Aquarius Records, San Francisco & Amoeba Music, Los Angeles

The Hero Cycle – Lakes and Ponds
Available now from Amoeba Music, Los Angeles

All HSR releases at Aquarius Records, San Francisco will also be available via the store’s mail order service.

Hidden Shoal Recordings will announce further re-releases over the coming months, including Bury the Sound’s Autumn Magnets EP and Glassacre’s Slow Attack EP.

Be sure to catch the Ambience radio show on WWUH today (Sunday 9am, Eastern USA time) and hear the new Beautiful Lunar Landscape EP being played in full amongst a selection of other sonic treats.