It’s a total win-win so head to the Hidden Shoal Store and check the specials on the front page. The sale ends on the 1st of Jan 2012 and some CD stock is very limited so do be quick.

“If you can imagine the pure abstraction of middle C, without the intermediation of breath or fingers touching strings or any effort at all, that’s essentially the sound of One River.” – Dusted

“a mixture of heavily processed guitars, field recordings, and manipulated voices (provided by Wendy Allen) comparable to Brian Eno. Seven songs run seamlessly together, each inhaling and exhaling tone after tone… landscape imagery comes to mind in every song, making listening to this record not so like hearing a story as taking a journey.” – Pitchfork

The album is available now on CD and digital formats worldwide, distributed through Hidden Shoal in Australia and n5mailorder in the US and internationally. Head to the Hidden Shoal Store to stream and purchase the album and grab the free download of the first track taken from the album, ‘The Great Cold’. All CD purchases come with an immediate digital download of the album. One River is accompanied by a stunning album length film by Mark Solter and Laura Solter entitled Twins and Wives. The film will be available for streaming on YouTube and Vimeo on the 30th of September and will see a limited edition DVD release in the coming months.

Scott Solter – ‘The Great Cold’

‘Mirror Girl (Scott Solter Remix)’ is taken from the forthcoming album A Frame of Reference, which includes remixes of Heresy and Rite tracks by artists such as Markus Mehr, City Of Satellites and Manual, plus all new, previously unreleased material recorded with Jonas Munk (Manual) during the Heresy and Rite sessions.

‘Mirror Girl (Scott Solter Remix)’ is available for download now from the Hidden Shoal Store and its accompanying video is available for streaming on Youtube and Vimeo. A Frame of Reference is released on 8 September 2011. Album Heresy and Rite is available worldwide in CD and digital formats through Hidden Shoal Recordings. Read a full press release here.

And of course our US and international fans should continue to head to our wonderful distributor n5mailorder for Hidden Shoal CD titles.

Featuring Antonymes, Boxharp, City of Satellites, Elisa Luu, Hotels, Iretsu, Jumpel, Liam Singer, Markus Mehr, Mukaizake, My Majestic Star, Rich Bennett, Salli Lunn, Slow Dancing Society, Stray Ghost, Toby Richardson, Umpire and Wes Willenbring, Hydrozoa touches all the bases that make the Hidden Shoal roster unique, and massages them into a broad-ranging and utterly engaging whole. The release accompanied by a pdf booklet containing stunning artwork by Hidden Shoal’s Stuart Medley.

Download the sampler here.

Since starting up in Perth, Western Australia in 2006, Hidden Shoal has developed an enviable roster of genre-defying global and local recording artists. With 40+ acts from 10+ different countries ranging from the gorgeous neo-classical/minimal ambient of Antonymes through to the genius space-pop of Hotels and beyond the visionary team at Hidden Shoal continues to play an integral role in promoting exciting new independent music.

Check out The Green and other Boxharp releases (including free downloads and videos) at the Hidden Shoal Store.

Boxharp – The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie Boxharp – The Moon’s the North Wind’s Cookie

Boxharp – The Green Boxharp – The Green

The hallucinogenic pop of  ‘FanFin’ ricochets with disorientating beats and refracted vocal melodies as if some sort of life-sized zoetrope. The track showcases Wendy Allen’s stunningly transcendent vocals and Scott Solter’s continually inventive and visceral production. Mark and Laura Solter have perfectly matched the skittering cuts and turns of the sonics, with the visuals echoing ‘Fanfin’s’ hyper schizo honeyed pop.

For the uninitiated, Boxharp recently featured in a January 2010 article in British newspaper The Guardian as one of David Bowie’s current favourite artists, and promptly received a full-page feature on Bowie’s official website. Vocalist Wendy Allen has played and toured with several bands since the start of the decade, including The Court and Spark, Tarantel, Paula Frazer (of Tarnation), William Lazarus, and Howard Hello, as well as writing film scores for small indie film projects. She is a member of The Balustrade Ensemble. As a producer, recordist and mixer, Solter has worked with numerous indie artists, recently producing the much lauded Majesty Shredding by Superchunk, Liam Singer’s latest opus Dislocatia and even slipping in a Neon Indian remix amongst other things.

Check out the video on Youtube and Vimeo. ‘FanFin’ is taken from the Loam Arcane EP available now through Hidden Shoal along with Boxharp’s latest full length, The Green. Availability details at the Hidden Shoal Store. Read more about Boxharp at the Hidden Shoal label site.

Boxharp – FanFin Boxharp – FanFin

In 2009 American folk-pop deconstructionists The Caribbean teamed up with engineer, producer, mixologist (Superchunk, Spoon, Okkervil River, The Mountain Goats) and one half of Boxharp Scott Solter to bring you Scott Solter Re-Populates The Caribbean, released through Hidden Shoal. The EP comprises five tracks from The Caribbean’s 2007 Hometapes record Populations, which were sent to Solter to deconstruct, warp, and otherwise obliterate. The result is a set of dizzying curve balls that split the difference between glistening songcraft and complete re-construction. Scott Solter’s ‘Populations’ remix rounds out this unique EP in suitably woozy shimmer, like sunlight cutting through a hangover, dissolving the song’s remnants in a pool on the sidewalk. Mark Solter’s visual accompaniment is a richly smeared, unresolvable abstract  landscape. It is at once inviting and at the same time completely unknowable – a perfect marriage to its sonic partner.

“…and as Solter overhauls their music, he makes us go back and re-hear what was already there in the original versions. Where did these sounds come from? Not from nowhere, they were there…just hidden, or living different lives. Scott Solter Re-Populates The Caribbean may be surprising for fans of the band, but it also should be exciting for everyone.” – Erasing Clouds

The Caribbean are set to release their sublime new album Discontinued Perfume on the ever excellent Hometapes label next year along with an exciting new project for Hidden Shoal (more info in 2011!).

View the video at Vimeo and YouTube. The Scott Solter Re-Populates The Caribbean EP and the single ‘Do You Believe in Dinosaurs? (Scott Solter Remix)’ are both available now through Hidden Shoal. The EP can be streamed in full at the Hidden Shoal Store. Also be sure to check out Scott Solter’s work with Boxharp while you’re there.

Check out Boxharp’s Loam Arcane EP and The Green at the Hidden Shoal Store (full albums streams).

Boxharp – The Postcard Boxharp – The Postcard

Speaking of Loam Arcane the beautiful new music video (produced by Mark Solter) for the track ‘Rainbirds’ is up at Youtube and Vimeo – soak it in!

Boxharp – Cloy Boxharp – Cloy

‘Rainbirds’ is a cascading, enrapturing, bejewelled feast of a song that displays the full bloom of Boxharp’s talents. Chiming melodies interweave beautifully with ambient textures and Wendy Allen’s pure vocals, giving way to a transcendent harmonised middle eight. The melodies return, crested by sparkling, wavering tones – and then, as if the door to the most intricate Cornell shadow box closes in front of you, it’s all over.

View and embed the video via YouTube or Vimeo. ‘Rainbirds’ is taken from the Loam Arcane EP available now through Hidden Shoal along with Boxharp’s latest full length, The Green. The track is also available for free download from the Hidden Shoal Store.

Boxharp – Cloy Boxharp – Cloy

Boxharp – Rainbirds Boxharp – Rainbirds

Boxharp – Leatherwing Bat Boxharp – Leatherwing Bat

Boxharp – The Green Boxharp – The Green

In other Boxharp news, Scott and Wendy were interviewed last week on Sydneys 2ser and the wonderful folk there have allowed us to post the audio so expect that up later in the week.

Boxharp – Cloy Boxharp – Cloy

Listen to the album in full here and hear why its getting so much deserved love.

Preview and buy the album  here.

Boxharp – Leatherwing Bat Boxharp – Leatherwing Bat

Why are you still here? Head over to n5Mailorder now!

The Green is a startlingly beautiful space that sees the intermingling of the ancient and modern, the handcrafted and the technologically enhanced. Lunar half-light, crackling fires and legends weave amid aching synths, dizzying digital edits and startling atmospheres – all clothed in the inimitable tones of vocalist Wendy Allen. Akin to classic dreampop, stripped of the guitars and rebuilt with the parts of old gramophones, twine and birdsong.

The title track exudes a kind of earthbound celestialism that makes it at once intimate and expansive. ‘Hick’s Farewell’ and ‘Leatherwing Bat’ have the feel of eerie Celtic folksongs re-imagined as affecting synthpop. Lovable pop nugget ‘Konnarock VA’ nestles alongside airy tapestries like ‘The Moon’s The North Wind’s Cookie’ and ‘Rootfires’. The intangible is rendered tactile; the prosaic mystical.

“shows that experimental pop needn’t sacrifice the pop element to be interesting and original” – Music Musings and Miscellany on the Loam Arcane EP

“sparkling pure, like dancing snowflakes on a beautiful cold and sun-touched winter’s day. Harmonically waving between Allen’s pretty angelic voice, and the delightfully silvery ambient tones” – Luna Kafe on single ‘Rainbirds’

Boxharp recently featured in a January 2010 article in British newspaper The Guardian as one of David Bowie’s current favourite artists, and promptly received a full-page feature on Bowie’s official website.

The Green is now available digitally through  Hidden Shoal and all good digital stores. The album will see its official CD release on the 2nd of June, 2010. Download the album here and read a full press release here.

Boxharp – Leatherwing Bat Boxharp – Leatherwing Bat

This is truly a stunning album and for those of you waiting to purchase on cd we can assure you that the extra wait is worth it. In the meanwhile make sure you grab the free download of the title track here.

Boxharp – The Green Boxharp – The Green

Boxharp – FinFan Boxharp – FinFan

The title track from their stunning forthcoming album, ‘The Green’ sees Boxharp in spacious astral pop mode. The track exudes a kind of earthbound celestialism that makes it at once intimate and expansive. With its chiming pop nous infused with the achingly lovely multi-tracked vocals of Wendy Allen, ‘The Green’ distills Boxharp’s brilliance into four minutes of magic that more than whets the appetite for their full-length.

“shows that experimental pop needn’t sacrifice the pop element to be interesting and original” – Music Musings and Miscellany on the Loam Arcane EP

“sparkling pure, like dancing snowflakes on a beautiful cold and sun-touched winter’s day. Harmonically waving between Allen’s pretty angelic voice, and the delightfully silvery ambient tones” – Luna Kafe on single ‘Rainbirds’

Boxharp recently featured in a January 2010 article in British newspaper The Guardian as one of David Bowie’s current favourite artists, and promptly received a full-page feature on Bowie’s official website.

‘The Green’ is available for free download from the Hidden Shoal Store until the release of the album The Green on 4th May 2010. Boxharp’s  stunning recently released Loam Arcane EP is also available now.

Read a full press release here.

Boxharp – ‘The Green’ Boxharp – ‘The Green’ (Preview Only)

The film will see its inaugural screenings at the FotoFreo 2010 festival on the 27th and 28th and will then air on Australia’s ABCTV on May 18th.

Boxharp – Rainbirds Boxharp Rainbirds

Boxharp – Rainbirds Boxharp – Rainbirds 

Loam Arcane is an EP of two mesmerising halves. The hallucinogenic pop of the first half springs to vivid life with opener ‘FanFin’, which ricochets with disorientating beats and refracted vocal melodies as if some sort of life-sized zoetrope. Sparkling single ‘Rainbirds’ follows, interweaving ambient textures with Wendy Allen’s pure vocals, giving way to a transcendent harmonised middle eight. The melodies return, crested by sparkling, wavering tones – and then it’s over.

In the second, more abstract and haunting, half of the EP, the stunning ‘The Postcard’ slowly dissolves  the floor from under your feet. The track plays out like a consoling friend who turns into gas just as you need them most. And finale ‘Who Are Your People (South Shoal)’ is a glorious marriage of rhythmic  bark, distant ghosted fauna and warm, flowing synths – slow motion tribal music for electric ghosts.

The band was recently  featured on David Bowie’s official website after previously being chosen by Bowie in an article in British newspaper The Guardian as one of his current favourite artists – high and just praise indeed!

The Loam Arcane EP is an exclusive digital-only release through Hidden Shoal Recordings. The EP will be available in all digital formats (including lossless) via the Hidden Shoal Store and all good online stores such as iTunes, eMusic, LaLa, Bandcamp and Amazon. Boxharp’s forthcoming album The Green is released on 4th May 2010, preceded by a single on 25th March 2010.

Boxharp – Rainbirds  Boxharp – Rainbirds

Boxharp – Rainbirds Boxharp – Rainbirds

All this comes ahead of the release of Boxharp’s stunning new EP Loam Arcane which is available on the 25th of February. Fans can freely download the first single taken from the EP, ‘Rainbirds’, at the Hidden Shoal Store. Fans can also stream a sneak peak of the new EP before it’s release at Boxharp’s Facebook Page.

In a typically alchemical transformation Loam Arcane and the upcoming full length The Green see Boxharp moving away from the americana elements found in The Tailored Soldier whilst carrying over its ambiances, found sounds and Scott Solter’s inimitable production. Boxharp’s new material finds the group rooted in a kind of earth-bound celestialism, dealing in sonic hallucinations and giddying melodic twists and turns.

The first single from Loam Arcane, ‘Rainbirds‘, is available now for free download from the Hidden  Shoal Store.

Boxharp – Rainbirds  Boxharp – Rainbirds

In the meantime  you can freely enjoy the wonderland of sound and song that is the the first single taken from the EP ‘Rainbirds‘. Grab it for free from the Hidden Shoal Store now.

Click here to download Rainbirds.

‘Rainbirds’ is a cascading, enrapturing, bejewelled feast of a song that displays the full bloom of Boxharp’s talents. Chiming melodies interweave beautifully with ambient textures and Wendy Allen’s pure vocals, giving way to a transcendent harmonised middle eight. The melodies return, crested by sparkling, wavering tones – and then, as if the door to the most intricate Cornell shadow box closes in front of you, it’s all over. ‘Rainbirds’ is taken from the the Loam Arcane EP, a four track cabinet of curiosities out in the new year.

For Boxharp, inspiration comes from 78s of Burl Ives and John Jacob Niles’ children’s songs played on a Fisher Price record player, and Zoviet France albums encased in burlap and tinfoil. Field recordings, layered harmonies, found objects, obsolete hand-me-down machines – all these things brought producer Scott Solter and singer Wendy Allen together. In their music, the disparate parts lead down diverse paths, rich in atmosphere and emotional resonance.

Allen and Solter moved to the quiet, lonely, rural atmosphere of the American South in 2006. Allen says, “We moved there for the space and the solitude and we were unprepared for how much of that we got. Themes of nameless grief that run through my family roots in the Virginia mountains make up a large part of the lyrical content.”

Allen has played and toured with several bands since the start of the decade, including The Court and Spark, Tarantel, Paula Frasier (of Tarnation), William Lazarus, and Howard Hello, as well as writing film scores for small indie film projects. She is a member of The Balustrade Ensemble. As a producer, recordist and mixer, Solter has worked with numerous indie artists, including Erik Friedlander, Spoon, The Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice, Lazarus, The Forms, Pattern is Movement, Superchunk, Okkervil River, Liam Singer, and St Vincent as well as releasing  two wonderful solo albums, The Brief Light on Manifold Records (2003) and One River on Tell-All Records (2005). He has also executed a number of remixes, including the full-lengths Scott Solter Re-Populates The Caribbean (Hidden Shoal, 2009), Scott Solter Remixes Pixel Revolt in Analog (digital download, 2007), Canonic: Scott Solter Plays Pattern is Movement (Home-Tapes 2006), and MGM Endings/Cellar Door Remixes (Artichoke, 2004), as well as remixes for Division Day, Voices Voices, and Neon Indian, among others. He is a member of The Balustrade Ensemble and produced 2007’s Capsules for Dynamophone Records.

‘Rainbirds’ is taken from the forthcoming Loam Arcane EP and is available for free download from the Hidden Shoal Store until the EP’s release on 12th January 2010. Their forthcoming album The Green is released on 20th April 2010, preceded by a single on 2nd March 2010.

Read a full press release here.

Boxharp – Rainbirds Boxharp – Rainbirds

For American duo Boxharp, inspiration comes from 78s of Burl Ives and John Jacob Niles’ children’’s songs played on a Fisher Price record player, and Zoviet France albums encased in burlap and tinfoil. Field recordings, layered harmonies, found objects, obsolete hand-me-down machines – all these things brought producer Scott Solter and singer Wendy Allen together. In their music, the disparate parts lead down diverse paths, rich in atmosphere and emotional resonance.

Boxharp is singer Wendy Allen and engineer/producer Scott Solter. Allen and Solter moved to the quiet, lonely, rural atmosphere of the American South in 2006. Allen says, “We moved there for the space and the solitude and we were unprepared for how much of that we got. This album reflects the experience. Themes of nameless grief that run through my family roots in the Virginia mountains make up a large part of the lyrical content.”

Allen has played and toured with several bands since the start of the decade, including The Court and Spark, Tarantel, Paula Frasier (of Tarnation), William Lazarus, and Howard Hello, as well as writing film scores for small indie film projects. She is a member of The Balustrade Ensemble.

As a producer, recordist and mixer, Solter has worked with numerous indie artists, including Erik Friedlander, Spoon, The Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice, Lazarus, The Forms, Pattern is Movement, Superchunk, Okkervil River, Liam Singer, and St Vincent. Solter has released two solo albums, The Brief Light on Manifold Records (2003) and One River on Tell-All Records (2005). He has also executed a number of remixes, including the full-lengths Scott Solter Re-Populates The Caribbean (Hidden Shoal, 2009), Scott Solter Remixes Pixel Revolt in Analog (digital download, 2007), Canonic: Scott Solter Plays Pattern is Movement (Home-Tapes 2006), and MGM Endings/Cellar Door Remixes (Artichoke, 2004), as well as remixes for Division Day, Voices Voices, and Neon Indian, among others. He is a member of The Balustrade Ensemble and produced 2007’s Capsules for Dynamophone Records.

Boxharp’s debut EP Loam Arcane is released digitally through Hidden Shoal Recordings on 12th January 2010, preceded by the single ‘Rainbirds’ on 1st December 2009. Their forthcoming album The Green is due for release on 20th April 2010, preceded by a single on 2nd March 2010.

Download a full press release here.