This week, we have another episode in our Lost in Transmission series featuring over an hour’s worth of alternative and acoustic gems which kicks off with Lou Rogai’s new release which we recently premiered here (also available now on Bandcamp). Recently reviewed, we have a track from Grande Est La Maison. Featuring a host of special guests, it’s the brainchild of Belgian composer, photographer, and videographer Thomas Jean Henri. I think Bob Fish’s review summed it up perfectly when he called it “one of this years most beautiful pieces of work” and concluded:
This is music of uncommon grace and nuance. Never maudlin or overwrought with emotion, it is a gentle elixir. Under the guise of Cabane, Thomas Jean Henri has created a work that is never fragile, yet filled with beauty. Grande Est La Maison works its way into your heart and soul, like a rose. There are thorns, but without them would the flower be as beautiful?
Another welcome new release comes from M G Boulter & S Whates with their second EP ‘How to Read’. Sticking with the bookish theme, they will be playing only Library and Bookshop gigs throughout the year to promote the EP their first one is on the 27th March at the TreeHouse Bookshop! Get a copy here.
A new name to many will be Santorfi. We have a track from ‘Alewa’ (out 24 April 2020 on Outhere Records) which is the debut album by young Accra-based Santrofi, an all-star band led by bass player Emmanuel Ofori, who rose from playing with Ebo Taylor as well as Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band.
Another video we premiered recently was by Andrew Tuttle from his forthcoming album ‘Alexandra’ (15 April on Room40). I’ve left a track of particular note to the very end, taken from a newish release on Okraina Records, one of my all-time favourite labels. It features an unusual instrument called a hommel, an instrument that has all but disappeared from the collective memory of Flanders. Thanks to Linus Vandewolken, we get to hear it in all it’s beauty. You can find out more and order the album on double 10″ vinyl which themselves are beautiful works of art – I know, as I have them all.
I shot the photo above on film around winter time on the Taunton and Bridgewater canal in Somerset, the clear flat reflection on the canal water gives the impression you have reached the end of the earth…it seemed to fit well with the music here, so it now has a home. You can find more of my analogue images on Instagram here: @analogue_lens.
“Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
To find out more about the rest of the music played, please click on the links in the playlist below. All links will take you to Bandcamp where you can buy or pre-order tracks/albums. Please consider purchasing these rather than streaming them on places such as Spotify. Some artists are already affected by gig and tour cancellations (more are sure to follow in coming months), so please give them the support they need and deserve.
Music Played
Lou Rogai – Arrival (Live Quartet at Susquehanna Studio)
cabane – take me home (part II)
Claire Cronin – Tourniquet
M G Boulter & S Whates – My Life in Seven Bookshops
Merry Airbrakes – Frog Song
Brigid Mae Power – On A City Night
Nadia Reid – Oh Canada
Collectress – Landing
Santrofi – Kwaakwaa
Lewsberg – From Never to Once
Mosses – Another Plan
Elkhorn – Electric Two (Part C)
Boduf Songs – Gimme Vortex
Andrew Tuttle – Sun At 5 In 4161
Mr Alec Bowman – Physics & Form
Ali Dineen – Vessels
Linus Vandewolken – Hommels dauw
Image Copyright Alex Gallacher