To promote Wil Bolton’s album Under A Name That Hides Her, Wil’s been interviewed over at Fluid Radio. Also a new video this time filmed by Ian Hazeldine has been released for another track off the album “Barbed”.

Our latest “free download for a tweet sampler” featuring selected tracks from releases October 2011 to April 2012 is now available in our store. If you want a higher bit rate format you can make a donation at the hibernate bandcamp page where you can pick any format you want including lossless.

The sampler features tracks from Bengalfuel, Arev Konn, A-Sun Amissa, Kleefstra / Pruiksma / Kleefstra, Pascal Savy, Quinn Walker, Good Weather for an Airstrike, Listening Mirror, Antonymes, Konntinent & Widesky.

Light Dispersed Through Clouds [Bristol Version] from Antonymes on Vimeo.

Taken from the forthcoming LP mastered by Taylor Deupree due late April.

Our friends over at Mini50 records just released “After A Long Dream Of Sleep” a compilation album in aid of raising money for Crisis Scotland, an important and valued mental health resource. On the album are many hibernate and rural colours favourites including Antonymes, Talvihorros, Caught in the Wake Forever, David Newyln, Yellow6, M.Ostermeier and Matthew Collings.

The whole record can be downloaded for £6, with individual tracks available for £1.

Many thanks to all those who came to the Wil Bolton / Pimmon / Riverrun / Antonymes show last Sunday 18th, we hope you enjoyed the sounds, sights and of course the tea and biscuits. Our good friend Wendy Cook has written a review which you can read on Fluid Radio and where also you’ll find another video clip but with pimmon.

In this months Wire Magazine we have a track from Ed Hamilton that features on the excellent Wire Tapper series CD. Right now the track is unreleased and will be on his album “Arabesque” out sometime in the near future. Also on the CD is a track from Mark Harris and another featuring Matteo Uggeri, both whom have seen past releases on Hibernate. All copies of the April 2012 issue will come complete with the exclusive free CD attached to the cover.

As with previous volumes the CD, which has been compiled by Shane Woolman, Andy Tait and Jennifer Lucy Allan, is packaged in a heavy duty card sleeve designed by The Wire’s art director Ben Weaver, and contains a range of new, rare or exclusive tracks from across the spectrum of the kind of underground/outsider musics covered in The Wire.

For more info and full track list:

http://thewire.co.uk/issues/338

Antony Harrison is the London based musician behind Konntinent as well as two other projects, Arev Konn and Paco Sala. Since 2009 he has released work on various labels including Home Normal, Digitalis, Sonic Pieces, Humming Conch, Symbolic Interaction and Sweat Lodge Guru. His work as a sound artist has seen him share live stage with Machinefabriek, Simon Scott, Jasper TX, Ian Hawgood, Danny Norbury, Mira Calix, Boduf Songs, Library Tapes and Talvihorros, in venues such as London’s Cafe Oto and Union Chapel.

His 2009 album Degrees, Integers released on the now defunct Symbolic Interaction was a massive highlight for us back then that we asked him if he would be interested in making an album for hibernate. A year later we met in person at a Home Normal gig in London, a load of alcohol and some sort of rancid salt beef and mustard sandwich fuelled a conversation where an idea for a Konntinent debut vinyl LP on hibernate came to fruit. And finally, titled Kiruna it will be released at the end of March,  a limited edition vinyl pressing of 200 each comes with a download code, the first 100 come with CD version of the album. Before that though, here’s a little interview with the man about the album…

Kiruna is the northernmost city in Sweden, and an interesting title for an album… Why that name?

The terminal and absolute blackness of an arctic Kiruna winter made quite an impression on me a couple of years ago. Its a relentless, foreboding kind of perma-night, coupled with a brutal cold. The record was very much inspired by that feeling.

Was there an overall vision when starting out to produce Kiruna with regards to the sound that you wanted to achieve?

The plan: Analog waves of blackness. I wanted something impenetrably relentless and with a juggernaut of momentum. Hayashi Drag Track & Pulserande were the central passages, everything grew from there.

Are there any influences that impacted on the recording of the album?

Musically speaking – Deathprod & Khate. Environmentally speaking, new old synths and the depths of mid-winter.

Can you tell us more about the artwork you chose and why you went for that cover image? Is it interlinked with the music?

The art came much later and so was a very precise decision. I wanted something cold, dark, analog in feel and with a sense of repetitive momentum. And with a lot of black of course. Kiruna itself has a moose meat pizza place – that wouldn’t have worked really – and I’m not environmental nature shots. The music/art parallels are thematic rather than literal.

Already it’s been quite a year for Konntinent what with the Home Normal album and bonus CD, but how about future Konntinent projects, is there anything else in the pipeline and any plans for some tours perhaps?

As it stands, there are no plans. There is no next Konntinent record and I have no specific plan to make one, however I have no plans not to make one either, the project isn’t closed, just not active. I’m currently working on the next Paco Sala record, which is in the very early stages – I guess that will dominate the first half of 2012. Shows, well, I’ll play anywhere thats logistically and financially possible – but again there is nothing planned.

Following on from the success of last year’s Hidden Landscapes compilation, we’ve teamed up with Audio Gourmet once again to present a second edition. This year’s follow up includes an astonishing roster of artists from across the globe, which cross-sections the modern scene. The album is set up to carefully explore this, with guitar based openers from Marsen Jules and Talvihorros onto more modern classical material from Midori Hirano, Danny Norbury, The Frozen Vaults, Rudi Arapahoe and Federico Durand. The second half of the album opens out to more subtle drone works from Quinn Walker, Pawn, Lawrence English, Field Rotation, Pjusk and Offthesky before closing with a hint of noise by Konntinent, Strom Noir and Ian Hawgood.

Compiled by Harry Towell and Bartosz Dziadosz
Mastered by Rudi Arapahoe
Photography by Jonathan Lees

CD released March TBA

After a slight delay the Listening Mirror album and postcard ep from Antonymes are released today! 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 is also available from Norman Records and Stashed Goods. 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.

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