Official video for the album-closing track ‘Dominions’ taken from Merrin Karras’s 2020 album ‘Northwest Passage’ out on A Strangely Isolated Place.
Video by Jan Goldfuß. https://cargocollective.com/goldfuss
Video originally premiered on Inverted Audio.
I'm lucky enough to be having plenty of fanboy moments lately, and this next release is up there. I'm very excited to introduce a new project by three seasoned electronic music producers, Dennis White, Charlie May and Dave Gardner, as Quiet Places.
Between the three, their production roots go deep into some of electronic music's most important outputs of the last few decades. Be it performing live as part of Sasha's recent Refracted shows, their own individual projects such as Spooky, Sentre and Cosmonauts or remixing the likes of M83, The XX, Thom Yorke, Little Dragon or Elizabeth Fraser, they are no strangers to electronica.
Volume 1, born out of a whisky-inspired late-night laptop jam session in Somerset England, takes us on an uninterrupted 60 minute beat-less and immersive trip down the rabbit hole. Along the way we stop off in some familiar, and some not so familiar surroundings. Various characters talk of otherworldly experiences and journeys into deep space, both micro and macro, against a backdrop of hypnotic melodies and haunting electronic soundscapes. Dynamically the record moves between the polar opposites of pin-drop quiet and vast all-engulfing sonic black holes. Becoming, in essence, the soundtrack to a sci-fi movie that has yet to be made.
Volume 1 is available on Gatefold 2LP Transparent Vinyl (featuring vinyl-specific edits) and Digital download, which will include individual track edits and the intended continuous edit.
View the release page for full details and latest links to buy.
Back in March this year, we were set to present our very first London label showcase at Hidden Sounds Record Store. As part of the event, I was preparing a very special release that would’ve been available only at the event as thank you to everyone who made the trip and to celebrate our first ASIP show in London. Those plans were cancelled due to Covid-19.
Since then, many business and independent record stores like Hidden Sounds have struggled to survive, having to pivot to online sales only, with foot-traffic coming to a complete standstill. Luckily, Hidden Sounds have so far survived, despite no government support or subsidization and despite getting kicked out of their original space just recently too, they’ve found a new home just around the corner above Dalston Market, London.
So, what to do with the records that’ve been sat at the shop waiting for that ASIP event? We don’t anticipate the event to happen again anytime soon given we are still in the middle of it all and I can’t even fly back to the UK, so we had an idea to put the records to good use and help Hidden Sounds a little.
A select amount of copies of ASIPVA01 will now be available at the Hidden Sounds store with all proceeds kept by HS to help with their recovery and new location.
We’re doing this to encourage business for the store and as a thank you to the venue that, despite the event not happening, were an amazing partner for our first London event. So, Londoners (or people willing to make the trip) - head to the new location First Floor, 89 Ridley Rd, Dalston, London E8 2NH, grab a copy and pick up a bunch of other gems whilst you’re there. First come first served.
The small remainder of copies I have of this record will, as originally intended, only be sold via physical events and stores going forward (and a couple of regular ASIP shops already have them if you look hard enough) There are no plans yet to sell this record online. I know this might be frustrating news for many, but we see it as a chance to repay people who go out of their way to attend our shows and a small step in keeping the physical record store a key staple in our culture.
As an avid record collector, witnessing stores revert to online only, and many (and potentially many more to come) shutter their doors, it’s a stark reminder that we need to continue to support our local record store.
Check out the Hidden Sounds Instagram for more info.
To that point, if you’re a physical shop wanting to stock copies of this record - please get in touch.
A new platform and community called Currents.fm launched recently, (see our related blog post here, after bvdub dropped some lovely mixes on it). Currents.fm allows you to subscribe to a page and receive exclusive content, playlists, tracks etc. In a similar way to a a Patreon which I’m sure many are familiar with, but this one seems more geared towards music and the community aspect. Ghostly, in fact, used to have a similar platform called Drip.fm which I dreamed of being a part of one day with ASIP until it died (unfortunately) but the premise seems to still be alive in Currents.fm…
I’ve been using the platform as a listener for a while now and despite it being in its infancy / Alpha phase, I wanted to give it a go and create a new outlet for ASIP, specifically for people who might like to connect with the label and our artists even deeper.
We will use this space to present:-
Previews of upcoming releases / archival music from the label
Curated playlists from the worlds of ASIP & 9128
Potentially audio/podcast format information
Exclusive content made for / debuted on Currents.fm
To achieve this, we are using the subscription model for the page which asks for a small donation of your choosing. This money won’t just disappear into our pockets. We have some interesting ideas in mind should enough people subscribe that may include the ability to actually pay for specific content from our artists. For example, if we get $500 worth of subscribers a month, I’d love to be able to pay an artist to create or provide a piece of music, demo, work in progress, interview etc. That’s just one example… I’ll also post updates which don’t require a subscription and are public, like curated Bandcamp lists to encourage music support.
There’s also the option for our artists to have their own pages, and for the subscription fee to be shared amongst them in the future, so lots of possibilities.
This won’t replace anything we currently have or do, but will instead act as another avenue for us to present deeper avenues of our music and artists. With social media becoming more of a crap-shoot each day; closed and more valued communities like this are worth experimenting with in my opinion, so lets see how it goes.
Once you subscribe, you get access to whats on the page and updates are sent via email.
Jump over to our Currents page and check it out - we’ve already got some goodies lined up should you wish to subscribe.
Following his 2020 LP Northwest Passage, Brendan returns with another set of majestic synthesizer-based music.
Conceived and composed in two days, Silent Planet is Brendan's first attempt at a fully continuous piece of music. Normally, albums under his Merrin Karras guise take many months, if not years, to put together:
"I wanted to challenge myself to create a mini-album in a short amount of time, not to think too much about it, but just to let it flow and see what happened. Everything was created in one project, but it's comprised of six distinct sections. Several motifs and elements are re-used at various points throughout the work. It's also the first time that I've used percussion elements in a Merrin Karras work.”
The mood spans from brooding to almost Balearic at points, with strong elements of Berlin School and Space Music, classic Trance, and Ambient all intertwined.
Silent Planet is available as ‘name your price’ on Bandcamp, with all sales going directly to Brendan.
Artwork by Noah M / Keep Adding.
