Radio Belbury 16: The Pattern Forms Mix
A guest mix for Radio Belbury by Jon Brooks and Ed Macfarlane of The Pattern Forms.
Peel Away the Ivy by The Pattern Forms is out 21st October on LP,CD and Download.
The Pattern Forms Pre-Orders Open Today plus Rough Trade In-Store Gig & Exclusive Colour Vinyl
Pre-orders are open today in the Ghost Box shop for the new album, Peel Away the Ivy by The Pattern Forms.
To launch the album there’ll be a live in-store performance at Rough Trade East, London, on 21st October by The Pattern Forms and a DJ set from Ghost Box sleeve designer, Julian House (also the man behind The Focus Group).
There’ll also be a limited edition of 300 translucent green vinyl LPs with alternate sleeve art exclusive to Rough Trade stores worldwide (including on line).
It’ll be 6:00 to 8:00pm and PLEASE NOTE this is a ticketed event . Wristbands are only available from Rough Trade with CD, LP or Colour Vinyl LP pre-orders or purchases on the day.
See Rough Trade’s page, here for full details.
Peel Away the Ivy by The Pattern Forms
Out 21st October
The debut album from The Pattern Forms, a collaborative project between Ed Macfarlane and Edd Gibson of Friendly Fires and Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle, is due out 21st October.
Following on from the Other Voices 03 single in 2015, this is an album that perfectly melds blissful pop with more exploratory electronics, its roots lying in the artists’ shared love of soundtracks and electronic library music of the 70s and 80s. It should appeal to fans of both bands.
On DL, CD, and heavyweight LP, with luxurious packaging designed by Julian House. There’ll also be a special coloured vinyl version exclusive to Rough Trade Records. Pre-orders will open early October.
Edd Gibson and Ed Macfarlane (Jon Brooks is Elsewhere)
More news on this here and on our other channels soon.
n CD, LP and DL.
Out 21st October
Stasis Re-Press
Pye Corner Audio’s Stasis was a runaway success and the vinyl version sold out on the day of release. We are re-pressing this but vinyl lead times mean that it won’t be available until 25th November. It’ll be a small run available exclusively from the Ghost Box shop. It’ll be sold first come first serve with no pre-orders so watch here, sign up for our newsletter or follow our Facebook page for news on this.
Until then we’d urge you not to pay the artificially inflated second hand prices. The CD is still available here and in better record stores worldwide.
Pye Corner Audio, Stasis
Out Today
The new LP from Pye Corner Audio is out today. Available in the Ghost Box shop on LP, CD and DL.
“Rather than make up his own movies, Jenkins is happy to play the movies that are already running in our heads – and we are happy to let him do it. Every track shows the confidence of someone who knows exactly which buttons to push and when.” The Wire
Most of the LP copies have already sold in pre-orders and we expect the remaining few in stock to sell out very quickly so please hurry if you want vinyl.
Out Today
Peel Away the Ivy this October
The new album from The Pattern Forms, “Peel Away the Ivy” comes out on 21st October. There’ll be clips and some special news about this later this week, here and on our other channels.
Pre-Orders for Pye Corner Audio’s
Stasis Open Today
Out on 26th August and available to preorder now at the Ghost Box Shop. Lavish CD and LP packaging designed by Julian House. The LP is on heavyweight vinyl and includes free download card.
Stasis Open Today
Plaint of Lapwing
Alasdair Roberts & James Green
In the Ghost Box Guest Shop
Available today in the Ghost Box guest shop, this remarkable collaborative LP by Alasdair Roberts and James Green (of Big Eyes Family Players ), on Clay Pipe Records. The passionate syncretism of Roberts’ own songs and those he selects coupled with Green’s varied and unusual instrumentation, is at times reminiscent of The Incredible String band. But rather than the fey and whimsical there’s a more visceral variety of mysticism at work here. This is a thing of rare and uplifting beauty.
Alasdair Roberts explains how Plaint of Lapwing came about:
“Mayday 2012: an email from James Green in Sheffield reached me in Glasgow. I knew James a little – not particularly well; we had met a few times over the years and had collaborated a little too (I’d sung on a couple of songs on the album Folk Songs 2 by his group The Big Eyes Family Players). I understood that he played the harmoniflute, an instrument somewhere between a harmonium and an accordion, and seemed very enamoured of it. His email read: “had an idea about approaching you with… an ep or few songs (trad or otherwise) accompanied by my harmoniflute, and nothing else… just an idea once the dust has settled, maybe…”
The dust was not long in the swirling before coming to rest upon both of our past endeavours, and shortly we set to work on the project which became Plaint of Lapwing. My initial thought was to concentrate on just four pieces – I’d just recorded the Drag City LP/CD A Wonder Working Stone and had some songs left over from that. In a process which James was later to characterise as ‘surreal’, I started emailing him recordings of my disembodied voice; in response I would eagerly await, tracks featuring aforesaid voice with James’ harmoniflute accompaniment.
The project gradually, almost imperceptibly, developed in scope and complexity over two years. I began sending James more vocal takes as well as other sonics I’d generated, for a variety of original compositions and some by other authors (including a song by the Perthshire folklorist Hamish Henderson, an arrangement by Benjamin Britten of a piece by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, a lyric by beekeeping Cornish film maker Timothy Neat and a setting of a work by the Angus poet Violet Jacob). James in turn increased his instrumental palette to include drums, guitars and all other kinds of musical things.”
The absolutely stunning sleeve art and design is by label owner, Frances Castle and as always with Clay Pipe records it’s a beautiful and high quality package. It includes a free download code and detailed sleeve notes by Alasdair Roberts himself on the background to each song.
The guest shop will be carrying the red version of the album sleeve – limited to only 500 copies.
Alasdair Roberts & James Green
In the Ghost Box Guest Shop
Stasis
Coming 26th August
Fractures
Fractures is the follow up compilation album to The Quietened Village from Blog and CDr label A Year in The Country. Its available now in the Ghost Box Guest Shop in two handcrafted versions.
The Dawn Edition – A hand-finished textured fold out sleeve with white/black CDr with liner notes insert and badge.
and the deluxe Night Edition – A hand-finished box-set containing an all black CDr, 12 page string bound booklet, 4 x badge pack and 2 x stickers.
The compilation is themed around the notion that the year 1973 was a cultural and psychic tipping point. Contributors include…
Circle/Temple, Sproatly Smith, Keith Seatman, Listening Center, The British Space Group, The Hare And The Moon ft Alaska/Michael Begg, Time Attendant, The Rowan Amber Mill, A Year In The Country and David Colohan.
Once again both are ultra limited hand made items. Here’s what A Year in the Country have to say…
“Fractures is a gathering of studies and explorations that take as their starting point the year 1973; a time when there appeared to be a schism in the fabric of things, a period of political, social, economic and industrial turmoil, when 1960s utopian ideals seemed to corrupt and turn inwards.
As a reaction to such, this was a possible high water mark of the experimentations of psych/acid folk, expressions of eldritch undertones in the land via what has become known in part as folk horror and an accompanying yearning to return to an imagined pastoral idyll.
Looking back, culture, television broadcasts and film from this time often seem imbued with a strange, otherly grittiness; to capture a sense of dissolution in relation to what was to become post-industrial Western culture and ways of living.
Such transmissions and signals viewed now can seem to belong to a time far removed and distant from our own; the past not just as a foreign country but almost as a parallel universe that is difficult to imagine as once being our own lands and world.”