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Releases

Under The Spire 2013 T-Shirts [tshirt003]

*Run of 50 tees with an amazing design from Thee Ruiner aka Michael Donaldson aka Wreaths!* Available on blackberry & tweed colour tees in small, medium, large and extra large for £10+postage. Initial orders will come with a free copy of the Wreaths ‘Like Sparks From Throats Falling’ [spire021] CD.

Mark Templeton - Jealous Heart [spire051]

Mark Templeton presents Jealous Heart, an album which reimagines the story of his sound in an approach that is both staid and deeply emotional, re-orienting what is offered and what is held back through a myriad of smeared stringed instruments, fragmented horn phrases, tape loops, and found-sound-driven explorations.

Mike Shiflet - The Choir, The Army [spire045]

As one of the world's foremost sound-artists, Mike Shiflet has released music on labels as diverse as Type, Homophoni, Digitalis Limited and 905 Tapes. It gives Under The Spire great pleasure to welcome him into our fold for his outstanding new LP The Choir, The Army.

Panabrite - Illumination [spire050]

Norm Chambers' music travels like a deep mental odyssey in a labyrinth of serene echoes. Beyond the sounds, there is the sentiment of peacefulness, a cinematic mosaic of colors, flashing in your mind. Searching for constant illumination, you slowly float in open space...

Black Eagle Child - Go Around, Again [spire048]

Boasting a resume of twenty five releases as Black Eagle Child, Michael Jantz has established himself as a versatile artist capable of evolving with medium and melody. Go Around, Again further establishes Jantz as a formidable talent enabled by his creativity and the ability to transform intricate idea into blissful sound.

Quicksails - Sliver Balloons In Clusters [spire046]

Quicksails of the solo project of Tiger Hatchery percussionist, Ben Billington. Unlike his fierce work in Hatchery (or his staggering 90 minute solo percussion session for 905 Tapes) Billington indulges in synth and electronics as Quicksails. This is a vinyl issue of the tape for the Deception Island label and follows up a very cool tape on Cylindrical Habitat Modules.

Concessionaires - Artificial Interface [spire047]

Concessionaires is the duo of Brad Rose and Pete Fosco. Brad is of course the mastermind of the esteemed Digitalis label and Foxy Digitalis webzine and is known also for his many musical projects, such as The North Sea, Charlatan, Altar Eagle, just to name a few. Pete is a guitarist born in Cincinnati Ohio and now resides on the other side of the Ohio river in Kentucky...he also plays in Early Tunnels with Jon Lorenz and as a sometimes guest member of Wasteland Jazz Ensemble.

Refractor - Locus Suspectus [spire044]

All sound passed through a single synthesizer. Mixing, panning, decay, and reverb manipulated within the instrument. This was to embrace the limitations of one-take recordings with no additional editing. Edition of 200 Vinyl LP's.

Steven Hess + Christopher McFall - The Inescapable Fox [spire043]

Quietly engaging, evolving tape music compositions conceived around Greek mythology and notions of light/dark. 200 LP's only in full colour sleeve.

Strategy - Super Awareness Is Fruit [spire042]

Limited edition of 200 copies on clear vinyl. One 20-minute, deeply layered and psyched-out dub track from Paul Dickow's Strategy project split over two sides* Super Awareness Is Fruit comes as a welcome expansion of the multilayered ambiences that made up Dickow's Music For Lamping long-player, tackling the contemporary drone-scape with an agenda that eschews minimalist convention in favour of a sparkling, densely populated narrative full of dissolved acoustic timbres, wah-wah filtering treat

Black Eagle Child - Pages On A Plane [spire034]

Mere months after his Black Eagle Child full-length, Lobelia, appeared on Preservation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Michael Jantz returns with Pages On A Plane, an equally satisfying twelve-inch vinyl outing for Under The Spire. It's modestly ambitious in scope, with thirty-six minutes of music split across the disc's sides and available in an edition of 250 copies on marbled vinyl.

Myrmyr – Fire Star [spire041]

This sophomore release from Agnes Szelag (Evon, Dokuro) and Marielle Jakobsons (Darwinsbitch, Date Palms) is an album of astonishing fragile beauty and darker, more foreboding atmospheres. Following their critically acclaimed debut album, The Amber Sea (Digitalis, 2009) Fire Star was recorded during a snowstorm on Shasta Mountain April 6-9 2010. The duo performs on violin, cello, voices, harps, bells, and electronics. It is recorded by The Norman Conquest and mastered by Miles Boison. Spire041

Matt Christensen – A Cradle In The Bowery [spire040]

Matt Christensen of Chicago’s premier pastoral bliss inducers Zelienople ventures out on his own with this triumphant set of dedications to his young daughter. Siphoning strains of melancholic Americana through the trancelike prisms of groups such as Spaceman 3 and Galaxie 500, he creates swirling vistas on tracks such as mesmeric opener Someday I Won’t Matter that’ll be familiar to his group’s many admirers.

Boduf Songs – This Alone Above All Else In Spite Of Everything [spire039]

The fourth Boduf Songs extended play was created using Mathew Sweet’s standard recording set up of a single microphone and a small array of instruments, but it comes with a few surprises – most notably the prominence of electric guitar, bass and stomping drums on a few tracks.

Sound People – Teatime [spire038]

Jesse Johnson and Paul Dickow, collectively as Sound People, present Teatime, a document of their multiple sessions of sonic exploration during 2008 and 2009. Fueled by countless cups of high-powered exotic teas, these vivid and lush recordings reveal the two friends united in their search of new dubbed out sound worlds on the fringes between ambient coasting and rhythmic syncopations.

Peter Jorgensen - Palimpsest (For Strings) [spire037X]

Business Card CD-R. Composed by P Jørgensen and performed by none other than Peter Broderick, who plays strings. The first piece is a lovely but incredibly fleeting sub minute-long edit, while the second offers a more substantial five-minute take that morphs the strings into something wholly more ethereal and drone-like.

P Jorgensen - Soundtrack_Remix [spire037]

2 x CD. String contributions come courtesy of fellow soundtracker, Peter Broderick, who also lines up on the bonus remix disc with other big names like Greg Davis, Jasper TX, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Seasons (Pre-Din), Rameses III and Machinefabriek. **LAST FEW COPIES**

Upward Arrows [spire036]

Part Timer's John McCaffrey unveils a new guise for the Under The Spire, delivering an album specifically with that label's agenda in mind. Even the project's name references Under The Spire: "the name Upward Arrows is an allusion to the thousands of church spires that pepper the world, all pointing upwards like arrows aimed at the sky" says McCaffrey.

Zelienople – Hollywood [spire035]

Reissue of Zelienople's double 3"CD-R, Hollywood, this time pressed up as a considerably more convenient single-disc five-incher.

Padang Food Tigers – Born Music [spire033]

An introspective and enigmatic mesh of field recordings and sparse instrumentation marks out this excellent new album from Padang Food Tigers. The work of Spencer Grady and Steven Lewis from drone-folk heroes Ramses III, Padang is a project that finds the pair reducing the elements of their music right down to sparse guitar and banjo arrangements with piano, found sounds and drones etched into the mix.

ibreathefur – Everyday You Look Different [spire032]

Ibreathefur is the project name of Chris Spearman, here delivering a work full of tension and dynamics, one minute pummelling you with harsh electronic noise the next soothing you with calm and fuzzy drones.

Segue - We Learn To Forget [spire031]

Segue is the solo project of Jordan Sauber from Vancouver. He blends guitar with found sounds and field recordings for a series of minimal drones.

Rameses III – For José María [spire030]

Following up their previous album on Type, last year's I Could Not Love You More, London trio Rameses III deliver a exceedingly lovely seventeen-and-a-half minute composition.

Ian Hawgood - Live Performances, Japan 2009 [spire029]

CD-R Album

Coldstream - South Island [spire028]

CD-R Album

Padang Food Tigers - Go Down Moses [spire027]

CD EP

Gareth Hardwick - London 220109 [spire026]

CD-R EP

Jasper TX - A Voice From Dead Radio [spire025]

2 x CD

Spheruleus - Frozen Quarters [spire024]

In addition to being the founder of the netlabel Audio Gourmet, Lincolnshire based sound designer Harry Towell also records ambient/drone music under the guise of Spheruleus…

Jannick Schou - Night [spire023]

Shades of Tim Hecker spring to mind throughout these fine four tracks, casting a grainy, washed-out feel over Shou's beautifully harmonious soundscapes. William Basinski too is stirred up by the swirling, mysterious, miniature melodies Schou sets in motion, but there's a certain something that this Danish artist brings to the table that sets his material apart from so many ambient bandwagoneers.

Ithaca Trio - Tesla Versus The Night [spire022]

CD-R EP

Wreaths - Like Sparks From Throats Falling [spire021]

CD Album

Ryonkt - Window To The Room [spire020]

New six-track album from Ryo Nakata, housed in an oversized 'Carlos Pak'. Nakata's music as Ryonkt strives for gentle, flowing drone fare, relying on elegant simplicity and harmonic warmth over elaborate construction and layering.

Shaula - Haze [spire019]

CD-R Album

Grass Rewound: Aaron Martin Reinterpreted by Part Timer [spire018]

Part Timer remixes original tracks composed by Aaron Martin, resulting in six folksy rewirings of the cellist/producer's material. Something that strikes you very early on is just how seamless a collaboration this appears to be - it sounds like it could have been a new set of works by Martin, produced by Part Timer's John McCaffrey with his customary workshop clatter, and potting shed electroacoustics colouring the compositions.

Archers by the Sea - The Surf [spire017]

French ambient entity Archers By The Sea is the latest contributor to the Under The Spire label's continued upwards trajectory, supplying an album's worth of dense, smudgy sound-sculpting and lo-fi atmospherics.

Damian Valles - Count(r)ies [spire016]

The pieces that make up 'Count(r)ies' were recorded and assembled in various places and stages during Valles' exodus from the big city to a small farming community in Eastern Ontario. They highlight the slower-pace, quietness, and peacefulness found in the vast countryside; while simultaneously amplify the tension, darkness, and loneliness found in unfamiliar places

Martin Herterich - Estonia [spire015]

You may recall Martin Herterich's rather excellent Silent Fields album on the Kesh imprint, released earlier on this year, and this mini-album makes for a winning extension of the artist's mournfully meditative style.

Ous Mal - Viime Talvi [spire014]

Even if it wasn't for the song titles you'd still be able to tell this record was Finnish. Like all that country's finest musical exports, be they Hannu or Paavoharju, Ous Mal's recordings carry a certain grainy lo-fi charm, sounding like some gnarled old 78 you might find in an enchanted attic.

Pillowdiver - Tony Rides A Bike [spire012]

Following a recent entry onto 12k's hallowed catalogue, Pillowdiver serves up a highly limited three-incher. Like so many contemporary microsound dronesters, Pillowdiver relies on the electric guitar as a starting point for his miniaturised tonal landscapes, and also like a good many of his contemporaries, the results tend to be more ornamental and ambiguous than they are musically compelling in any traditional sense.

Coldstream - Alarums [spire011]

Coldstream is a relatively new name on the ambient electronics scene, but if this release is any indicator, there should be plenty of good stuff around the corner. Divided into two pieces and clocking up just under twenty minutes, the disc is tantalisingly brief, but of the utmost quality.

Aaron Martin - Grass Wounds [spire010]

As a multi-instrumentalist Martin is formidable, and on these compositions he sounds more like an ensemble than a lone musician: while 'Terrace' showcases an onslaught of strings - from gloriously wild and unkempt harmonised cello to meandering plucked melodies. By 'Shot Tower' he's already moved on to an expanded palette, working with what sounds like ukulele, harmonica and organ swells, and 'Breath Of Embers' shows an even greater departure, embracing vocals, high-pitched bells and shrill string drones.

Ekca Liena - Drones Between Homes [spire009]

Ekca Liena is the recording alias of Daniel WJ Mackenzie, who recorded this album "in a lifeboat bedroom in Brighton, April 2009". I have no idea what a "lifeboat bedroom" is, but i'd like to think it involved a novelty, nautical bed with 'RNLI' emblazoned across it, much in the same spirit as one of those Formula One-themed bedrooms where small boys get their snooze on in a bed that looks like a car.

Strategy - Awareness Is Fruit [spire008]

3" CD

Christopher Hipgrave - Subtleties [spire007]

Christopher Hipgrave's music recently came to our attention via his release on Home Normal entitled Day. While that album evoked the sounds of artists like Oval and next generation glitch merchants like Taylor Deupree, Christopher Willits, Sogar et al, this one is more centred on a smoother, drone-based aesthetic. Although Subtleties is no less digital in its conception, and no doubt equally reliant on complex granular synthesis techniques and other such chicanery, there's at least an illusion of more organic sounds at work here.

Tom White - A Well Known Phrase [spire006]

Its a definite progression from his first EP, 'Sight See' (which is avaialble now from Smallfish) with longer, more focused pieces. Please head over to the UTS myspace page for a preview of the track Top Floor. This will be released in a run of 100 inkstamped/embossed/numbered Arigato Pak with artwork insert by Tom (see below). Cheers to Tom for giving me the chance to release this fantastic piece of work. Good stuff indeed!

Rain - Cloud-Kerala [spire005]

Hot on the heels of spire004 will be Kerala by Rain-Cloud. Lush, hazy, guitar based soundscapes from Dom Dixon (talkingmakesnosense) and Alec Cheer (umm, Cheer). You can check out a track on the UTS myspace page for a taster, the whole album is absolutely gorgeous from beginning to end. Released in Stumptown 4 panel with the usual inkstamp/embossing/numbering (I'm nothing if predictable). Insert on photographic paper of Alec's artwork (see below). 100 copies for the whole wide world.

Jasper TX - Lungs [spire004]

Double 3" CD by Mr Dag Rosenqvist AKA Jasper TX. There will be 100 copies only in inkstamped, embossed & numbered 4 panel wallets from Stumptown Printers.

Chihei Hatakeyama - August [spire003]

Released in an edition of 200 copies in hand stamped, numbered & embossed Arigato Pak sleeves. It also contains an insert printed on matt photographic paper.

Boduf Songs - There Is Something Hanging Above You [spire002]

Boduf Songs is the work of Mat Sweet. Since 2005 he's released three albums and a slew of EPs and CD-Rs, all exploring the primitive, blacker side of folk and drone music.

Zelienople - Hollywood 2xCD [spire001]

Zelienople- Hollywood double 3in. CD. Disc 1: Misty (21.31) Disc 2: Drug Legs (21.26) Photography by Doug Schaeffer. 100 copies in hand stamped, embossed & numbered Arigato Pak. Photograph inserts to compliment Doug Schaeffers beautiful artwork.


Latest

Mark Templeton – Carved And Cared For (video)

CARVED AND CARED FOR from karmstrong on Vimeo.

Audio by Mark Templeton
Visuals by Kyle Armstrong

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