★Hallow Ground
Observation of Breath
Do you remember the last time you were breathing consciously? Either way, you are likely doing it now. On his new album »Observation of Breath« for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label, Lawrence English worked exclusively with an organ for four compositions that are exercises in »maximal minimalism,« as their creator himself notes in a nod to Charlemagne Palestine, who coined this term. While it seems somewhat fitting that those four pieces based on a steady flow of air were conceived and recorde…
DarkSonicTales
DarkSonicTales is a project by Rolf Gisler and his eponymous album his first for Hallow Ground. Having been granted an artist residency by the label in a 300 year-old farm house in the Swiss countryside in autumn 2019, the Lucerne-based musician and sound artist explored the peculiar sonic environment of the building and its surroundings through the use of field recordings, modular synthesizers, guitar, bass, kalimbas, a singing saw as well as self-built instruments. The seven tracks, which were…
Dog Mountain
Tip! * 180 gram Vinyl * Dog Mountain is the second release by the Zurich-based producer and composer Laurin Huber on Hallow Ground. After last year’s »Juncture« saw the Edipo Re co-founder work mostly with synthesizers and programmed rhythms, the four tracks are much more restrained, drawing on tape loops and feedback, recordings of acoustic guitar and synthesizers such as the Korg MS-10 as well as field recordings that relate to the overarching topic that informed the making of the record. Whil…
Empty Room
On "Empty Room" David Granström works with slow transformations, cyclical and isometric patterns as well as just intonation as a way to create harmonic stability, allowing his long-form pieces to develop their own unique temporal and spatial qualities. A prolific figure in stockholm's experimental drone scene and a collaborator of Hallow Ground Label Mates Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson, the swedish composer navigates through moments of quietude and crushing volume on these five tracks. Sonica…
First Man In The Moon
An unlikely meeting of two like-minded spirits, "First Man in the Moon" sees the former Swans guitarist and Hallow Ground regular Norman Westberg and the prolific double bass player Jacek Mazurkiewicz collaborate for five evocative tracks. The pair finds common ground beyond the boundaries of atmospheric drone, abstract jazz and experimental music and blurs the lines between the acoustic and the electronic.
The two first met when the composer Mazurkiewicz supported Swans with his solo project 3F…
Minnesmärke
Mats Erlandsson makes his debut on the Swiss label Hallow Ground with »Minnesmärke,« at once a nuanced sonic exploration of the industrial and political history of his native Sweden and a deeply personal album. One of the key figures of the Stockholm drone scene, the prolific composer worked with The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s Hillary Jeffery, violinist and long-time friend Gaianeh Pilossian as well as sound artist and frequent collaborator Yair Elazar Glotman for a two-part composition bui…
A Mimesis Of Nothingness
Siavash Amini returns to Hallow Ground with "A Mimesis of Nothingness", his fourth album for the Swiss label. Following up on "Harmistice" together with fellow Iranian artists 9T Antiope, the six tracks were conceived in close collaboration with another artist and see the prolific composer intensify his interdisciplinary approach. The six tracks enter a dialogue with the photographs of Nooshin Shafiee, an acclaimed artist whose work capturing their hometown Tehran becomes the starting point for …
Aperio!
* 180 gram Vinyl * The title of Miki Yui’s seventh solo album “Aperio!” is derived from the latin origin of April, "aperire" meaning “to open” or “to reveal”. Hinting at the way her music unveils another reality which is hidden beneath the surface. The title also reflects the aperiodic character of the music, its irregularity. Like a magic word to reveal the mysterious cosmos, each song opens up another intimate world of wonders."All my work emerges from my physical experience, the inspiration o…
Arba, Dak Arba
Frédéric D. Oberland and Irena Z. Tomažin’s »ARBA, DÂK ARBA« was conceived as the soundtrack for the eponymous installation piece by the French artist Fanny Béguély. First presented as part of the group exhibition »Panorama 21 - ›Les Revenants‹« at Tourcoing’s Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains in December 2019, Béguély’s chemically painted photographs focused on humankind’s propensity for self-examination and its attempts to probe the mysteries of the past, present and future. Ob…
The Current Inside
*Edition of 300.* The Current Inside, Marja Ahti's sophomore album for Hallow Ground, plays with the theme of currents - connecting and animating movements in the form of air, water and electricity. It approaches sound as a poetic medium, focusing both on the experience of sound as form and energy and on a loosely narrative arc, suggesting a riddle on the relations between the sounds. It implements alternative as well as intuitive tunings, analog and digital synthesis, recordings of sonorous spa…
Iki
**white vinyl** "FUJI||||||||||TA, real name Fujita Yosuke, is a Japanese sound artist. After countless performances in different contexts either solo or along artists such as Yamantaka Eye of Boredoms and the legendary avant-gardist Suzuki Akio as well as a slew of solo releases, his LP Iki (Breath) for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label is his first in nine years. On these four pieces, Fujita explores the idiosyncratic sound qualities of the pipe organ he has built all by himself in 2009. Thi…
Juncture
In the etheric inertness of "Contemplating Nothingness", studio whiz and erstwhile Coil member Danny Hyde revives the Electric Sewer Age alias he began with the late, great John Balance.
Svay Pak + Contemplating Nothingness
Aural Rage "Svay Pak" is LP limited to 100 copies and only available as a bundle with Electric Sewer Age "Contemplating Nothingness".
Abandoned
Still und Dunkel is the project of musician and visual artist Christoph Brünggel, film maker Benny Jaberg and media artist Pascal Arnold. Their debut album Abandoned comprises ten compositions created for their audio-visual art live performances which draw on an ever-growing archive of moving images and sound recordings. The three artists started working together in 2011 and visited abandoned and hidden places at night or underground throughout the world to collect images and sounds. The trio do…
Mother Goose's Melody or Sonnets For the Cradle
**160 copies** Andrew Liles is a prolific solo artist, producer and remixer. He has been recording since the mid 1980’s and has appeared on well over 200 releases. His work has been used in Theatre, Film, Radio and T.V. He has also worked in some capacity with the following groups and individuals: Danielle Dax, John Murphy (S.P.K.), Nurse With Wound, Current 93, The Hafler Trio, Steven Severin (Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Cosey Fanni Tutti of Throbbing Gristle.“This project from the fabulous …
Contemplating Nothingness
In the etheric inertness of "Contemplating Nothingness", studio whiz and erstwhile Coil member Danny Hyde revives the Electric Sewer Age alias he began with the late, great John Balance.
Hollow Body
Quietly brooding and enchanting debut from multi-disciplinary artist/researcher/field recordist Remo Seeland, accompanied by Reinier van Houdt (Current 93) and Norm Westberg (Swans) for a nocturnal record channeling experiences from New York City, Reykjavik and Zurich.
Viaje
Viaje is the debut album by Swiss musician Roland Bucher and was produced with an instrument developed and built by the artist himself, the noise table. Viaje presents the culmination of almost a decade of exploring the possibilities that the curious device offers. Combining the physicality of the improvisational praxis with a classical approach to composition, these five songs highlight the emotional, narrative and atmospheric potentials of granular noise. Viaje was not only produced with an un…
Lines
Distant Animals is the artistic output of Daniel Alexander Hignell, a researcher and sound, video and performance artist from South East England. Hignell has developed a practice indebted to political and participatory resonance of creative acts, interrogating notions of autonomy, collaboration, and the tension between sense (what is perceived by the senses) and sense (what is made sensible by the community). He has recorded, written, performed and researched numerous socially-oriented sound wor…
Igitur Carbon Copies
**180 grams clear vinyl** “A man wakes up in the middle of the night. Is there something there? Or has something disappeared? Outside are clouded constellations of stars, inside the radio plays idle sounds from beyond and the phone is dead. It seems as if something had been accompanying him already all the time, hiding in the corner of his eye, stealing his identity by being a double. Trying to escape this mirror phantom he leaves the room. Outside on the stairs he happens upon more reflections,…