Twenty Systems Again

My 2008 album Twenty Systems has been reissued at last! So if you have been looking for it out there in the shops or online since it sold out a few years ago - well you can get it here (if you are in USA you can pre-order it here). The release is exactly the same as the original with the exception of a few minor tweaks that niggled me about the original (but the content and audio are identical). Thanks to Steve Malins, Darren at Cargo, and Paul Agar for helping to make it happen this time round!

Evolving

Paul has been busy over on the expanding records Facebook page uploading artwork and info about some of the earlier expanding releases. I particularly like this CD art from 1999 - Volume 'Evolver':

ER on the FB

Make friends with us here

The Condition of Muzak

Have a listen to Tench's latest T:COM which is an exemplary piece of contemporary post-modernist auratory design. Its hosted by the marvellous GaiaLive

LINK TO THE MUSIC HERE

PLAYLIST:

spoken word, unknownfrom film, 'in the shadow of the moon'
insects, swod, sekunden
questionable things, julien neto, le fumeur de ciel
goodbye dragon inn, arbol + fibla, live in seville
york city three - thendof rmx, the declining winter, moteer remixes
ballerina, biosphere, man with a movie camera
M1, black dog, music for real airports
to denmark, johan sderqvist, In a better world (soundtrack)
interlock, frank bretschneider + taylor dupree, balance
02, four colour, letter of sounds
silencing cities, colour cassette, small town smoker
Wume, maps and diagrams, trotoga
watashi no nemi tabi, moskitoo, drape
kunderas dream, marsden jules, nostalgia
i saw countless galaxies, terry artovsky, first time in space
IBM 1403 printer, jhann jhannsson, IBM 1401 a user's manual

pq

We've finally released the wonderful debut album by Belgian duo pq. Head over to expanding records for more, and check out the myspace page too. Below is what Barcodezine says about it [BTW they are right about the recent infrequency of releases, but thats all about to change]

Releases from the excellent Expanding Records label are becoming increasingly infrequent, which is a shame, especially as this album from pq – a Belgian duo – is another quality outing.

You’ll Never Find Us Here outputs 13 tracks of fertile ambient-acoustics, incorporating mostly classical and electric guitars, piano, and subtle electronic textures.

Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of pq is their willingness to embrace melodic chord progressions that invite the listener in, whilst at the same time generating disquieting atmospheres that drift into unorthodox territories.

This is successfully explored on the opening A Taste of Diminished Expectations, which combines gently plucked guitar chords with hollow, reverb-fuelled sound effects to titillate the senses. Meanwhile, tracks such as La Chapelle and Your Perception of Red are more than happy to play it straight, the former utilising soothing lonesome acoustic guitars and the latter dual-layered piano, songwriting at its most simple – yet effective.

Louis on Earth stands out for Louise Rates vocal contribution, which adds a haunting quality to the track’s melancholy, yet somewhat foreboding guitar riffs – eminently calming all the same.

The remainder of You’ll Never Find Us Here is mostly comprised of aspects of the aforementioned tracks; short, often sweet, statements that explore a rand of diversifying moods, assisted by an undulating cosmos of clicks and cuts. It’s amazing how much diversity can come from such a simple blending of instruments, yet this is the key to pq’s accomplishment – combining traditional yet inventive auras with the erudite perception that quite often less is more, crucially allowing the listener’s imagination to fill in the blanks