February 16th, 2012: Listening Mirror: Wet Roads



February 16th, 2012: 24th February new releases from Listening Mirror and Antonymes

After a slight delay the Listening Mirror album and postcard ep from Antonymes will be released Friday 24th February at 10am UK time. In addition to the hibernate store, the Listening Mirror album is available from Stashed Goods, Norman Records, Boomkat, Darla, Linus Records, P*Dis and Databloem. Antonymes’ postcard is already in short stock but will be available from Norman Records and Stashed Goods in addition to the store. For those of you wanting a digital download only, Listening Mirror’s Resting in Aspic is available from iTunes, Amazon, Napster and eMusic, however we recommend that if possible you support the artist and purchase direct from their Bandcamp page where the album is available in a variety of formats including Flac. Antonymes postcard ep is solely available through his Bandcamp page. Apologies for the delay and thanks in advance for the support.



February 11th, 2012: Good Weather for an Airstrike: Aurora



February 6th, 2012: Interview with Listening Mirror

When did Listening Mirror begin and what was your inspiration and influences?

Kate: Listening Mirror began in the autumn 2009. The project really developed organically from Jeff and myself beginning to collaborate. We both wanted to make music which reflects an inner connection with the sounds all around us. Bringing our separate disciplines together provided a platform from which a purely emotive, spontaneous reaction to sound and experience could be translated into music.

How did you and Kate meet, had you both been making music separately beforehand?

Kate: I was looking for a photographer to take some publicity shots for my solo music project and a mutual friend put me in touch with Jeff. We didn’t end up taking any pictures but Jeff suggested we try collaborating on a track together. The result was “Outside Heaven” and so Listening Mirror was born.

Jeff: Oh yeah! I’d completely forgotten about the photography thing!
Kate was already doing her solo project and had been in a couple of bands in the past – in fact it turned out that we had had mutual acquaintances in the past, but our paths had never crossed. Before I met Kate I was trying to reinvigorate a project that had started and finished back in the 80’s, without much success, and when I was told that Kate was a musician I suggested that we could maybe try a few things out and see where it took us. We seemed to be on exactly the same wavelength musically, and the first couple of tracks we worked on just fell together beautifully.

How do you go about creating the textures and sounds used on the tracks Resting in Aspic?

Jeff: It mainly involves me stretching and looping found and everyday sounds and then adjusting the frequencies of those sounds before layering them anything up to 10 times. Then I apply various sound treatments and production techniques to those drones until they either disintegrate or coalesce. It’s a long laborious process and is only successful about 30% of the time. Then, if necessary I’ll add field recordings If I feel the track needs it. Once that process is complete I hand the track over to Kate, who is free to add as much or as little as she likes, either vocals, guitar or synth parts. Then when we’ve both done our parts we get together and mix the tracks down over a couple of beers.

Although Resting in Aspic is a compilation of tracks released across different labels and times, did you ever envisage an album of the pieces?

Jeff: Not really. I thought those tracks were long gone, which was a shame because we were very proud of most of them.

Can you say a little about your future projects, is there anything else in the pipeline with Kate and other collaborators, some tours perhaps?

Jeff: The nature of the Listening Mirror project is a mainly collaborative one, but I still write solo stuff when I’m trying out new techniques.
Kate and I are still working on the sequel to ‘Even in The Quietest Moments’ and we are hoping to release both tracks as an album at some stage, but we’ve promised ourselves to only release it on vinyl, so it could be quite a while before it sees the light of day!

I have two other collaborations ongoing at the moment, one with Alicia Merz (birds of passage) which I’m really excited about. We worked together on a track called ‘Mixtli Sleeps’ and that went so well that we’re currently working on an album.The other is with Ian Hazeldine (Antonymes) and this is due for release later this year on Hibernate.

There are also a couple of solo things – an album called ‘What’s Wrong With Miracles?’ to be released in April on Twiceremoved Records, and a single long form piece called ‘There Are No Stars’ which will be part of Rural Colours’ compilation ‘5 Pieces’. Don’t know about tours!! Kate and I might try and take the Listening Mirror experience to a few little venues if they’ll have us, but I need to get a few rehearsals in first.

Listening Mirror’s Resting in Aspic will be released February 14th > http://store.hibernate-recs.co.uk/products/15783



February 2nd, 2012: 18th March 2012



January 29th, 2012: Field Rotation vinyl reissues

Both Field Rotation’s handmade limited 3″ CDr edition of ‘Why things are different’ and his limited CD Edition of ‘And tomorrow I will sleep’ sold out really quick but luckily both are about to reissued on vinyl through Denovali Records.

‘And tomorrow I will sleep’ is released on 12″ 180g vinyl LP – an amazing format to present the beautiful photography by Ian Hazeldine. ‘Why things are different’ is released on a 10″ vinyl. Both re-issues are available on black vinyl (200 copies each) and on limited ultraclear vinyl (100 copies each) and include a free download code.

Both can be pre-ordered through our friends at Norman Records



January 17th, 2012: Listening Mirror: Resting in Aspic

Formed at the beginning of 2010, Listening Mirror is a collaborative ambient/drone project of Jeff Stonehouse and Kate Tustain, a hybrid of their various disciplines and an attempt to extract some beauty from the noise that surrounds us all every day. Early material was composed of field recordings, combined with improvised piano and vocals.

Throughout 2010/11, highly limited editions and now sold out/deleted EPs appeared on DIY labels such as Rural Colours, Heat Death, Audio Gourmet and also a postcard on the Hibernate series.

In ‘Resting in Aspic’ Listening Mirror have selected pieces from some of these previous releases and have included the full and unreleased version of ‘The Organist’ plus a new piece titled ‘Without Saying Goodbye’. Everything has been remastered by Wil Bolton and is available in a limited run of 200 CD’s. The sounds present on the album are everything from blissed out drifting soundscapes to darker tones, all culled from various sources such as field recordings, acoustic guitar, percussive instruments, BC8 synth, Kate’s vocals and piano.

Much is planned for the future of Listening Mirror, such as a collaborative album with Alicia Merz (Birds Of Passage), an album for the newly formed Twice Removed Records, a collaboration with Antonymes and possibly live performances in the future too.

Due February TBA.



January 13th, 2012: Good Weather for an Airstike: Underneath the stars

Officialy released today, Good Weather for an Airstike’s Underneath the stars is available from Bandcamp and soon from other digital stores such as iTunes and Amazon. The CD version is currently available through our store and also from Stashed Goods, Norman and Linus records.



January 10th, 2012: Talvihorros Live at Dalston 18/12

Talvihorros from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.



January 10th, 2012: Wil Bolton Live at Dalston 18/11

Wil Bolton from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.



January 6th, 2012: Postcard 17: Wil Bolton – Silver

No stranger to hibernate, Wil Bolton is an artist and composer based in Liverpool, UK. His debut CD release ‘Time Lapse’ uses guitars, chime bars and vintage keyboards to create warm and emotive melodies, fragmented and submerged among beds of droning ambient textures and environmental sounds.

‘Silver’ is a single long-form track based around a field recording made in Liverpool’s Chinatown at Chinese New Year, blended with enveloping analogue synthesizer drones and processed zither.

Silver’s release date is 13/01/12 but it is available for pre-order now in the store.



December 30th, 2011: 11 things I could not have lived without in 2011

In 2011 I forgot how to listen and enjoy music. In the end I deleted pretty much every mp3 download on my laptop and turned off Soundcloud returning to what I always enjoyed, spinning the same vinyl or cd for weeks on end until I found something new. So here’s 11 things I throughly enjoyed, some because there’s a personal and emotional attachment, others because I just found the music a joy to listen to.

Antonymes meets Slow Dancing Society – We don’t look back for very long: I’m glad I made friends with Ian Hazeldine as he gave me two copies of his collaboration ep and it’s one of the finest pieces of music I’ve heard all year.

Clem Leek: Home Again: Live Sessions - Clem’s solo piano at his best and probably one of the only MP3′s I’ve kept and paid for on Bandcamp.

Gareth Hardwick: Sunday Afternoon – Nothing more than an album of pure bliss that I could listen to forever, it’s just a shame that it has to end, twice.

Illuha: Shizuku – Something I heard on Fluid Radio and one of the finest field recording, abstract, minimal, ambient albums to date.

Isnaj Dui: Circle of Sleep – Another album of pure bliss, listened over and over.

Listening Mirror: Wet Roads – Jeff and Kate bid farewell with this beautiful and soothing ambience. It’s download only but I loved it so much I made my own little 3″ for it.

Taylor Deupree and Marcus Fisher: In a place of such graceful shapes – Another album of ambient at it’s upmost finest.

Scissors and Sellotape: For the ill at ease – I was asked by Dan at Facture if he could send me a test pressing to listen to and as a fan of anything by John McCaffery of course I accepted. And such a beautiful album it is and I’m happy I now have a CD version too so I don’t wear out the vinyl too quick.

The Boats: The Ballad of the Eagle – I earned this cd from Andrew Hargreaves in return for selling his cd’s for him at the Boats show in Leeds last October. Anyway I’ve pretty much worn it out now having played it probably 1000 times. For me, it’s the boats at their finest.

Two People in a Room: Self Titled – I can’t listen to ambient whilst driving.

Wil Bolton: Quarry Bank – Wil sent me a personal copy of this, it’s beautifully packaged and Wil’s work reflects it perfectly.



December 29th, 2011: Hibernate/Home Normal 18/12/11 review

Tokafi reviews the hibernate/home normal show on the 18/12 > http://www.tokafi.com/news/concert-review-hibernate-and-home-normals-christma/



December 23rd, 2011: Postcards 15 & 16 from Quinn Walker and Pascal Savy

Released today are postcard 15 & 16 from the series. These are from Quinn Walker titled Dead Bird Sing. Quinn has previous releases on Rural Colours and Heat Death Records. And the other postcard is from Pascal Savy titled Fragments. Pascal has released on Feedback Loop and Audio Moves. Both are available from the store.



December 12th, 2011: Festive Greetings from Hibernate & Home Normal Bandcamp download

Originally released as a CD edition of 100 and given away for free at the Hibernate/Home Normal Christmas show 18/12/11.
hibernate-recs.co.uk/news/?page_id=896

Proceeds will go to the Archway Foundation, established in Oxford in 1982 by Paul Hawgood to help serve those hurt by loneliness.
www.archwayfoundation.org.uk

Mastered by Wil Bolton
www.wilbolton.co.uk
Artwork by Lucia Mancilla Prieto
www.lubot.com.ar

Immediate download of 17-track album in your choice of MP3 320, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.