★Hands In The Dark
Les siphonophores des eaux froides et profondes de l'Arctique
Named after a metro station located in East Paris, Pointe du Lac originated in 2014 as the brainchild of analogue gear enthusiast Julien Lheuillier, joined shortly after by multi-instrumentalist Richard Francés, followed by Quentin Rollet on Saxophone a few years down the line. Les siphonophores des eaux froides et profondes de l'Arctique (“Siphonophores of the cold, deep Arctic waters”) is the project’s third studio album, the first one written as a three-piece as well as their first release on…
A Crimson Shore
A Crimson Shore is Saåad’s first studio album since Présence/Absente in 2018. In the interim, Toulouse-based composer and producer Romain Barbot has enriched his experience as an artist through multiple collaborations, the composition of soundtracks and commissioned pieces, as well his involvement with the bands Foudre! and Sables Noirs.
This new chapter in the artist’s discography reflects this artistic maturity, evoking the project’s finest ambient recordings while revealing a new, unfiltered …
Hier, l'An 4000
Long after the year 4000, it's highly likely the sun will shine a different light. Equatorial rain belts may have turned into white-ash flotsam. Animal forms will have undergone a major metamorphosis, with only the memories of danger still archaically intact.
Razen tackle the theme of reincarnation hypnosis on Hier L'an 4000, their new album for Hands In The Dark, set for release September '23. Inspired by the writings of Donoso and Slauerhoff, by 1940s SF drawings, sky burials and a fantasy of …
Mesmerizer
Going past musical genres and instead straight towards something more elemental - Selvhenter’s music creates a strikingly direct, physical experience of sound composed of polyrhythms, acoustic and electric melodies, heavy music and improvised beauty. Since forming in Copenhagen in 2010, drummers Jaleh Negari and Anja Jacobsen, saxophonist Sonja LaBianca and trombonist Maria Bertel have forged a unique approach to making music that starts with their instrumental setup: two drummers that interlock…
Staran Wake
*300 copies limited edition* Staran Wake is a collaborative project by Andrew Bunsell and Tom Relleen. After several years creating music in various groups together, followed by countless hazy late night recording sessions at each other’s studios and crisper afternoons producing the results, the British duo’s musical vision materialised with this self-titled instrumental album, taking nearly 4 years to complete.
This collection of pieces is composed with a wide range of instruments and combines …
Distortion Hue
** Edition of 300 ** For more than a decade, the Los Angeles based musical and composer, Byron Westbrook, has woven a progressively intricate tapestry in sound, bridging the worlds of sound art, avant-garde electronic music, and synthesis. He is an artist of rigorous detail, for whom the creation of hyper specific environmental contexts is a means to deconstruct what is presumed or imposed upon a given spectrum of sound. Extending from and beyond the ground covered by his 2017 LP, Body Consonanc…
A Single Point of Light
**Limited Edition of 150 copies on pink vinyl** "A Single Point of Light is Ben Shemie’s second solo LP and the follow up to A Skeleton, which was released with Hands in the Dark in early 2019. While the frontman of Canadian band Suuns gave us a cold, experimental sort of pop with his first album, centered around the idea of a genderless, raceless character, this record focuses on the perception of light, both figuratively and literally. The way it is created, moves and breaks apart, how we can …
Robot Brujo
In the wild and tangled web of sound that makes up contemporary experimental music, it can be hard to see up from down. Beyond all their obvious tasks, record labels double as a crucial lens. Ears to the ground, they build context and understanding for the disparate elements of this sonic world. Among the most notable of these, looking beyond the well trodden path, is Hands In The Dark.Over the last decade, they’ve become an unmissable force, bringing visionary and unexpected projects into focus…
Weird Times
**2020 stock, highly recommended** Matt Jencik is a musician based in Chicago. His most recent band, Implodes, released two albums with the label Kranky earlier on this decade and Jencik has been performing and recording since the early nineties in bands such as Hurl, Don Caballero, and more recently Slint, Papa M and Circuit Des Yeux.Weird Times is Matt Jencik’s debut solo album, in which he presents ten pure ambient, abstract drone tracks. Each song has been written using samples of his old, u…
Ghost Tropic
Ghost Tropic is first and foremost the name of the third feature from acclaimed Belgian writer-director Bas Devos. The film tells the story of Khadija, a middle-aged cleaner who has no other option but to walk home through Brussels on a cold night after falling asleep on the last train. The journey is a reflection on motherhood and expectations, pride and unknown struggles, stories of the ghostly magic of a lonely night in a big city, of the kindness of strangers and the hurt felt seeing the vul…
How Deep Is Our Love?
** 525 copies ** Paul Régimbeau, aka Mondkopf, joins the Hands in the Dark ranks with a new album, "How Deep Is Our Love?". For more than a decade now the prolific Parisian producer hasn’t ceased to surprise us with his compositions, constantly treading new ground with artistic bravery and curiosity. At times extreme, at other times méditative and always complex, his music is never easy-access. In recent years his work has taken a clear turn towards a more ambient, intimate, less abrasive style.…
A Skeleton
Hailing from Suuns, Canadian Ben Shemie offers up his first solo work, ‘A Skeleton’ - an experimental pop album of cold synthetic sounds with touches of psychedelia. Based on his live, itinerant experiments, the whole album was recorded in a single take with no overdub. Shemie has left traces of the atmosphere of each recording space, adding an element of chaos and unpredictability alongside his masterful/dexterous manipulation of the equipment.The voices and instruments sound as if they were dr…
Only The Sun Is Full Of Gold
Cankun is back on Hands In The Dark (LP) and Not Not Fun (cassette) with Only The Sun Is Full Of Gold, his 3rd full length album follow-up to the brilliant and unanimously acclaimed 2013's Culture of Pink. This time, Frenchman Vincent Caylet is inviting us to a two part journey: Side A sets Cankun's new tempo, taking the listener to darker spheres compared to his previous works, moving from a tropical beach to the middle of a dense, uncanny and unpredictable jungle, where the sun never reaches. …
Plays Paradise Artificial
Another year on the HITD calendar, another stunning new solo release with Brian Case Plays Paradise Artificial. This third album somehow manages to compile and condense the best bits of its predecessors, and the magnificent viridian, glacial universe developed by Case since the beginning of his solo ventures is brought to the forefront.The Chicago artist centres his elusive, dehumanised compositions around two simple, minimal elements. Using just vocals and synths, he has created a simultaneousl…
New Age Sewage
The Brown brothers emerge from the depths of California with a new collection of oozing drone centred on ‘heavy visions of negative west coast mythology.’Darkness is never far away from a Robedoor session, and their first album in four years finds Alex and Britt Brown dealing with ‘multiple seismic life events.’ Naturally this results in quite a powerful listen, Robedoor’s sludge even denser and mired in more pain and crepuscular mysticism. The brothers craftily let the gloom seep in slowly over…