Arrow Fat Left Icon Arrow Fat Right Icon Arrow Right Icon Cart Icon Close Circle Icon Expand Arrows Icon Facebook Icon Instagram Icon Twitter Icon Hamburger Icon Information Icon Down Arrow Icon Mail Icon Mini Cart Icon Person Icon Ruler Icon Search Icon Shirt Icon Triangle Icon Bag Icon Play Video

Western Vinyl

  • Balmorhea 'Chime / Shone' Vinyl 7

    Western Vinyl

    Balmorhea 'Chime / Shone' Vinyl 7"

    £8.49

    v

    Western Vinyl

    Balmorhea 'Chime / Shone' Vinyl 7"

    £8.49

    In September of 2017 the Austin-based instrumental band Balmorhea released Clear Language, an album which prompted NPR's Bob Boilen to say 'I'm madly in love with this album - ¦it's one these ambient records and beautiful records that I've just listened to over and over again.'

    To create Clear Language, the duo returned to their roots, working simply and with restraint, letting intuition guide them as they molded the 10 elegant, spacious gestures that comprise the album.

    Now, just a few months later the duo returns with the CHIME / SHONE 7' vinyl for Record Store Day 2018.

    Recorded during the Clear Language sessions, the two tracks 'Chime' and 'Shone' flow gracefully with a clear-eyed sense of reflection, as these two old friends transmit unfettered meaning through simple sonic gestures that resonate with the cosmos as much as they echo the pulse of a human heart.

    In a culture dominated by the loudest, ostentatious voices, Lowe and Muller continue to prove the power and importance of restraint and minimalism.

    " - ¦gorgeous, dynamic, and emotive." PITCHFORK

    " - ¦exhilarating." Wall Street Journal

    'I'm madly in love with this album...it's one these ambient records and beautiful records that I've just listened to over and over again. NPR

    Tracklisting:
    Side A:
    1. Chime

    Side B:
    2. Shone
    Visit product page
  • Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'Ears' - Cargo Records UK

    Western Vinyl

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'Ears'

    £10.99

    v

    Western Vinyl

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'Ears'

    £10.99

    Listeners familiar with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's previous album Euclid (an album that prompted Dazed to call her "...one of the most pioneering musicians in the world.") will no doubt notice her heavier use of vocals on her new album EARS.

    On all but one song, her gently ecstatic swells of vocals emerge to soar over a dense jungle of synths and woodwinds. After initially composing on a Buchla analog synth, she wrote arrangements for a woodwind quintet, added vocals, and further refined the pieces with granular synthesis techniques she developed in her sound design work (she contributed sound design to Panda Bear's "Boys Latin" video, and handled sound design and original compositions for Brasilia co-written by and starring Reggie Watts).

    Kinetic arpeggios of synths pulse, often buoying her graceful vocal mantras, while woodwinds breathe and flutter, emulating the wildlife Smith observed while growing up on the West Coast (she even studied recordings of slowed down bird calls prior to composing these pieces).

    Though some of her gestures echo the musical tropes used by early minimalist composers, the world she creates on EARS is uniquely hypnotic and full of life, not unlike Miyzaki's film Nausicaä, which she cites as an inspiration.

    " - ¦one of the most pioneering musicians in the world." DAZED

    " - ¦an entrancing - ¦ playful, engaging, and often incredibly soothing synth odyssey - ¦" GORILLA VS. BEAR

    " - ¦gorgeous, droning ambience - ¦" BROOKLYN VEGAN

    "...adventurous, mesmerizing sonic compositions - ¦" REGGIE WATTS

    "Smith triggers sounds that bounce around like hyperactive jellybeans, making it feel like her electronic bleeps and bloops are lost in joyous conversation with one another." PITCHFORK

    EARS is a masterful articulation of Smith's vision, which she achieved in part by spending time preparing her mind prior to composing the album.

    Also Available From Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Euclid (Western Vinyl) LP/ CD.

    Tracklisting:
    1. First Flight
    2. Wetlands
    3. Envelop
    4. When I Try, I'm Full
    5. Rare Things Grow
    6. Arthropoda
    7. Stratus
    8. Existence in the Unfurling
    Visit product page
  • Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'Euclid' - Cargo Records UK

    Western Vinyl

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'Euclid'

    £9.99

    v

    Western Vinyl

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'Euclid'

    £9.99

    Kaitlyn's solo debut Euclid (primarily written on a Buchla Music Easel synthesizer) was inspired by her love of mbira music, early electronic music pioneers like Laurie Spiegel, Oskar Sala, and Terry Riley, and euclidian geometry. Each of the first six songs on Euclid were initially structured using euclidian geometry, an idea which Smith explored while attending a class at the San Francisco Conservatory.

    As Smith explains, "We each chose a 3D shape and assigned our own guidelines to the different components that make up the shape. For example each point of the shape represents a different time signature, each line between the points represents a pitch, each shape within the closed lines represents a scale, etc. And then you play the shape." Despite their heady geometric origins, the songs have a playfulness and warmth that makes them inviting and memorable.

    In addition to the buoyant grooves of Smith's synthesizers, some of the songs feature wordless vocals, which energize the otherworldly songs, while grounding them with Smith's earthly presence. She slows things down for the second half of the record, which features a collection of twelve short pieces, Labyrinths I-XII. Originally composed as new soundtracks to old silent films she found online, Smith says the tranquil Labyrinth pieces are "intended to feel like one is walking through a holographic labyrinth and encountering different experiences such as hang gliding, viewing microbes under a microscope, ice fishing in Alaska, and watching glaciers collapse."

    Despite their brevity, most of these songs feel like mini odysseys, effortlessly casting a cinematic hue on the the listener's world. Throughout Euclid Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith consistently delivers sonic puzzles draped in a warm Pacific mist. At times these songs feel so alive ' like the musical analog to roots growing deeper and stronger, leaves on branches bending towards the light, or the sun peeking over the horizon, briefly igniting the air with a primordial swirl of warm and cool colors.

    "...adventurous, me smerizing s onic c ompositions which c ause me t o r emember m y lo ve o f music in the early days of electronic sound making machines." REGGIE WATTS

    '...sheer poe try: charming, pla yful, evocative, and showing mastery o f her medium.' SUZANNE CIANI

    Tracklisting:
    1. Careen
    2. Wide Awake
    3. Stunts
    4. Sundry
    5. Glide
    6. Escapade
    7. Labyrinth I
    8. Labyrinth II
    9. Labyrinth III
    10. Labyrinth IV
    11. Labyrinth V
    12. Labyrinth VI
    13. Labyrinth VII
    14. Labyrinth VIII
    15. Labyrinth IX
    16. Labyrinth X
    17. Labyrinth XI
    18. Labyrinth XII
    Visit product page
  • Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'The Kid' - Cargo Records UK

    Western Vinyl

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'The Kid'

    £11.99

    v

    Western Vinyl

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith 'The Kid'

    £11.99

    " - ¦rich and rewarding - ¦a gleaming sonic world - ¦" Pitchfork

    " - ¦one of the most pioneering musicians in the world." Dazed

    " - ¦an entrancing - ¦playful, engaging, and often incredibly soothing synth odyssey - ¦" Gorilla Vs. Bear

    In 2017, the musical term 'electronic' is nearly obsolete given the ubiquity of computerized processes in producing music. Even so, the prevailing assumption is that musicians working under this broad umbrella must be inspired by concepts equally as electrified as their equipment.

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has demonstrated in her still-blooming discography that this notion couldn't be further from the truth, and that more often than not, rich worlds of synthesized sound are born from deep reverence of the natural world. Smith has embodied such an appreciation on The Kid in as direct and sincere a way as possible by sonically charting the phases of life itself.

    The album, which punctually follows up her 2016 breakthrough EARS, chronicles four defining cognitive and emotional stages of the human lifespan across 4 sides of a double LP. The first side takes us through the confused astonishment of a newborn, unaware of itself, existing in an unwitting nirvana. Smith's music has always woven a youthful thread befitting of the aforementioned subject.

    Here she articulates it in signature fashion on the track 'An Intention,' which serves not only as a soaring spire on The Kid, but on her entire output. There is playfulness here, but it's elevated by an undertone of gravity into something compelling and majestic that is fast becoming Smith's watermark. The emotional focus of side two is the vital but underreported moment in early youth when we cross the threshold into self awareness.

    The subject is profound enough to fill an entire album, but rarely makes its way into a single track, indicating Smith's ambition to broach subtler and deeper subjects than the average composer. This side offers up another highlight in the form of 'In The World But Not Of The World' which serves its subject well with epiphanic, climbing strings and decidedly noisy textures over a near-Bollywood low end pulse.

    Side 3 emphasizes a feeling of being confirmed enough in one's own identity to begin giving back to the formative forces of one's upbringing, which is arguably the duty that all great artists aim to fulfill. This side ends with the exploratory album cut 'Who I Am & Why I Am Where I Am' recorded in a single take without overdubs on the rare EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer.

    This humble piece of sound design serves as a contrast to side 4's verdant orchestral moments, all written and arranged for the EU-based Stargaze quartet by Smith herself.

    This final side represents a return to pure being, the kind of wisdom and peace that eludes most of us until the autumn of life. On 'To Feel Your Best' this concept is voiced in the bittersweet refrain 'one day I'll wake up and you won't be there' which Smith intended to be a grateful acknowledgement of life rather than a melancholy resentment of loss.

    Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith belongs to an ilk of modern musicians who are defined by their commitment to creating experiential albums despite the singles-oriented habits of modern listeners, and here she represents her kind proudly. The subjects on The Kid are not simple to convey, and yet through both emotional tone and lyrical content, Smith does just that.

    Tracklisting:
    1. I Am A Thought
    2. An Intention
    3. A Kid
    4. In The World
    5. I Am Consumed
    6. In The World But Not Of The World
    7. I Am Learning
    8. To Follow And Lead
    9. Until I Remember
    10. Who I Am Why I Am Where I Am
    11. I Am Curious I Care
    12. I Will Make Room For You
    13. To Feel Your Best

    Release Date: 06/10/2017
    Visit product page