Other sounds

Limited first pressing on purple vinyl and numbered. 500 copies.

Svart Records turn ears towards a new wave of sound from Sweden, PÅGÅ and their wildly original new album The Evil Year.

PÅGÅ describe The Evil Year in their own words:

Outlandish pop and psychedelic noir rock from Sweden’s Åhman brothers, Pelle and Gottfrid (ex vocalist and bassist from In Solitude). Hand-picked by Mat Kvohst McNerney (Hexvessel, Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures) for his Secret Trees imprint via Svart.

Kvohst describes PÅGÅ as “Post-Punk freakery, like Birthday Party era Cave, avant-garde Bowie and the darkness of Coil with unique artistic flair that’s in a world of its own.”

The Evil Year features beautifully outlandish artwork by Pelle Åhman with layout by Erik Danielsson (Watain). Deluxe ltd edition, numbered, purple coloured gatefold vinyl (first pressing limited 500 copies only!) with lyric & artwork booklet, digipak CD and digital release via all digital platforms.

Limited A5 digipak, 500 copies.

Svart Records turn ears towards a new wave of sound from Sweden, PÅGÅ and their wildly original new album The Evil Year.

PÅGÅ describe The Evil Year in their own words:

Outlandish pop and psychedelic noir rock from Sweden’s Åhman brothers, Pelle and Gottfrid (ex vocalist and bassist from In Solitude). Hand-picked by Mat Kvohst McNerney (Hexvessel, Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures) for his Secret Trees imprint via Svart.

Kvohst describes PÅGÅ as “Post-Punk freakery, like Birthday Party era Cave, avant-garde Bowie and the darkness of Coil with unique artistic flair that’s in a world of its own.”

The Evil Year features beautifully outlandish artwork by Pelle Åhman with layout by Erik Danielsson (Watain). Deluxe ltd edition, numbered, purple coloured gatefold vinyl (first pressing limited 500 copies only!) with lyric & artwork booklet, digipak CD and digital release via all digital platforms.

Scott Morgan’s second Loscil full-length, Submers, took inspiration from salvaged Time Life classical music albums and “the indelible mystery of submarines and the deep sea.” Composed using a custom-built Max / MSP sequencer—with no external samplers, synthesizers, or acoustic instruments involved—the limitations of the process shaped these masterful, minimal compositions. Each piece was produced as a live mix, direct to disk, with no separated tracks. Originally issued in November of 2002 on compact disc, Kranky is now making these timeless recordings available on vinyl for the first time. All of these tracks are named after submarines, the final cut being a requiem for the crew of the ill fated Russian nuclear vessel Kursk. Recorded at home using only samples as sound sources, the album is rife with sourceless echoes, steely surfaces and ominous melodic and rhythmic undertows. The sifted melodies are layered over muffled, clicking and pulsing rhythm tracks with an appropriately aquatic feel to the tracks.  “This is seriously gorgeous stuff that just happens to be the right sort of thing for drifting into another consciousness. A tuned-out heaven perfect for dreaming.” —Pitchfork

Monument Builders was composed during a period in which the life-and-death battles of close friends and family forced Morgan to examine his own feelings on mortality. In the course of that introspection, Morgan found himself buoyed by a feeling of celebration and a stubborn sense of survival—an acknowledgement of what it means to be able to breathe and create amidst the clash of love and chaos. Ultimately, Morgan hopes the music here can offer listeners solace while leaving room for exploration and surprise.

Canadian composer Scott Morgan’s 12th long-player as loscil takes its title from an influential series of early 20th century photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, abstracting clouds into miasmic, painterly canvases of smoke and shadowplay. It’s a deeply fitting analog for Morgan’s own musical process across the past two decades, fraying forms and tones into widescreen mirages of opaque texture and negative space. The name Equivalents referred to Stieglitz’s notion of the photographs as being equivalent to his “philosophical or emotional states of mind;” the same could be said of these eight weighty, shivering chiaroscuros of sound. Each piece unfolds and evolves enigmatically, adrift in low oxygen atmospheres, shifting dramatically from pockets of density to dissipated streaks of moonlit vapor. The entirety of the record was created specifically for the album with the exception of “Equivalent 7,” which began as a dance score for frequent collaborator Vanessa Goodman. The album version of this track was reworked with Vancouver musician Amir Abbey aka Secret Pyramid. Cloud photographs taken by Scott Morgan at various locations throughout Cascadia in 2018.

he fifth full-length release by SCOTT MORGAN under the LOSCIL moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil composition, contributed by DANIEL BEJAR on the final track. JASON ZUMPANO is the only returning performer from past collaborations, he is responsible for the piano parts. KIM KOCH and ROBERT SPARKS make appearances on violin and bass recorder. The cover photos for the album were taken from the backseat of the family car by Scott's newest collaborator, his 4 year old daughter SADIE. Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork.

he fifth full-length release by SCOTT MORGAN under the LOSCIL moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil composition, contributed by DANIEL BEJAR on the final track. JASON ZUMPANO is the only returning performer from past collaborations, he is responsible for the piano parts. KIM KOCH and ROBERT SPARKS make appearances on violin and bass recorder. The cover photos for the album were taken from the backseat of the family car by Scott's newest collaborator, his 4 year old daughter SADIE. Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork.

his album gets its name from an odd little ocean side park that borders industry and the Vancouver port authority and lays claim to being the birthplace of the city. In a way, Sketches from New Brighton it is a continuation of a dialogue with my environment that started with First Narrows (kranky 2004) and continued with the Strathcona Variations EP (Ghostly International 2009). It is not a rigorous ‘study’ per se, but more a series of sketches, loose interpretations of the spaces I inhabit as well as an acknowledgement of their influence on my practice. These are my impressions, a kind of sketch of New Brighton and the surrounding area in an abstract form.” This sixth full length album from kranky mainstay Scott Morgan sees his pulsing compositions gently unfolding in the understated fashion that has become his trademark. He designs a sonic architecture, slowly constructing, making subtle additions and subtractions, until an almost tactile virtual space is formed. Inside these spaces an aural feng shui is achieved, where less is more, where every element is in its place, and where maximum harmony is attained through the masterly placement of sound.

Named after the geographic formations of the seismically volatile Cascadian coastal mountains, loscil’s coast/range/arc// reissue features new artwork and an additional track. Remastered by James Plotkin and available on vinyl for the first time. 

 “This is ambient music in the classic sense.” — Boomkat

Named after the geographic formations of the seismically volatile Cascadian coastal mountains, loscil’s coast/range/arc// reissue features new artwork and an additional track. Remastered by James Plotkin and available on vinyl for the first time. 

 “This is ambient music in the classic sense.” — Boomkat

Sea Island is a collection of new material composed and recorded over the past two years. While many of these compositions were performed live extensively prior to recording, others were constructed in the studio and are being heard for the first time here. Musically, the album represents a range of compositional approaches. Murky, densely textured depths of sound are explored with subtle pulses and pings woven within, contrasted with composed or improvised moments of acoustic instrumentation making a move into the foreground. Certain tracks on Sea Island such as album opener “Ahul”l make rhythm their focus by exploring subtle polyrhythms and investigating colliding moments of repetition and variation. Though staunchly electronic at its core, instruments such as vibraphone and piano make appearances, and layers of live musicality, improvisation and detail appear in the looped and layered beds of manipulated sound recordings. A varied cast of players appear in the loscil “ensemble”, some familiar collaborators from the past such as JASON ZUMPANO on Rhodes and JOSH LINDSTROM on vibraphone, and others new to the mix such as FILEDHEAD’s ELAINE REYNOLDS, who provides layered violin on “Catalina 1943,” and ASHLEY PITRE contributing vocals on “Bleeding Ink.” Seattle pianist KELLY WYSE, who collaborated with LOSCIL on his 2013 edition of piano-centric reworks Intervalo, performs on the tracks “Sea Island Murders” and “En Masse.”