Lung Mangled Bear

Today sees the release of an album of mixes taken from the last BHN album, Tongue Tangled Hair.  I’ve been lucky enough to have an incredible array of awesome musicians produce an incredible array of awesome remixes!  Best of all the album’s FREE to download on the Tartaruga Records website – read the full tracklisting below and then make haste to Tartaruga to download it in full in either high or lower quality MP3 format…

01 A Dialogue (Brassica’s Dark Side of the Live Aid remix)
02 All Your Words (Brometer remix)
03 Tongue Tangled Hair (The Exploits of Elaine remix)
04 David Foster Wallace (Talkingmakesnosense remix)
05 Turn Colours Turn (Max Bondi remix)
06 Tilted The Wall (Ala Muerte remix)
07 A Dialogue (Okkam remix)
08 Port and Cigars (Ladyscraper remix)
09 Protect Short Samples – Feeding Art Larynx With (DJ Topgear remix)
10 Henry Box Brown (Throwing Stones remix)
11 Fuchsia (Keyboard Choir remix)
12 The Cartographer (Destructo Swarmbots remix)
13 The Vast Museum of Insignificant Things (Euhedral remix)
14 A Your W (JRS Nocturne remix)
15 Hedlitez (Blinddate remix)
16 At The End of It All (DJ Floorclearer remix)

Cinematograph

On 15th November BHN are going to be playing quite a special one-off gig at the Cinematograph night in Dalston where we’ll be soundtracking 3 short films. Pretty excited about this as they’re 3 great films (which we chose ourselves) and the results should hopefully be pretty interesting! Full details below…

A long-delayed new posting with lots to impart

It’s been a while hasn’t it? I’d love to say that I’ve been on a hermetic retreat in some far-flung land, writing music in a state of spiritual isolation, or that I’ve been denied internet access through the spartan demands of the latest round-the-world catamaran challenge I’d embarked upon, but the simple truth is that through the necessities of a London-based existence I was distracted by day jobs and other mundane pursuits. And yet this isn’t to say that exciting things haven’t been afoot – far from it.

First of all, last month I released an EP through Tartaruga Records entitled ‘Wire and String’.  This was a collaborative effort between myself and the ludicrously talented Gosia Winter.  8 tracks long, and stuffed with a vast array of instrumentation, I’m rather proud of it.  It’s a digital-only release but you can get it from itunes or amazon or possibly other smaller, more-deserving traders of digitally-compressed-sounds-for-cash.  It also features some fantastic artwork by my friend Jocie Howe, which is pretty much worth the price alone.

Also, I’ll be setting out on a miniature UK tour at the start of October.  Actually , it was originally intended to be a UK tour but it seems to have turned into a some-of-England tour – I guess we’re focussing on a smaller area for extra quality or something.  But we’re already planning a more expansive tour for early next year so if we’re not playing anywhere near you in October we are working on it.

Anyhow, we’ll be touring with the mighty Darsombra, which is all kinds of exciting.  The dates we’ve got (semi)sorted right now are…

October 4th – Norwich, The Playhouse Bar

October 5th – Birmingham, The Flapper

October 6th – Lincoln, The Horse and Groom

October 7th – Bristol, somewhere

October 8th – Milton Keynes, somewhere

October 9th – London, Jamboree – with Brassica and Braindead Collective

So come out and say hi if you happen to live near any of those places.  If you want a taster of the recent live show check out some videos that were recently taken at a gig we did at the Shunt vaults in London Bridge.

Most excitingly the new BHN album – ‘Tongue Tangled Hair’ is due out s on Monday!  Featuring 12 new songs it’ll be available in the usual lovely packaging from Tartaruga Records.  For a taster you can also download a free track – ‘Colours Turn Colours’ – there too, for which I also made a video from old public domain cartoons.

Ok, ludicrously overlong update over – I hope to be back here far more regularly from now on…

bhn mp3 maul

The maul for June is belatedly up on site, including (amongst others) sounds from Emeralds, Moondog, BirdRib, Komitas Vartabed, and a slightly slapdash ‘remix’ I did of Battles and Rachel Stevens.  Actually, it’s less of a remix and more something I did because I found it funny how similar the tracks sounded (seriously).  Everybody loves a good stomp it seems…

In any case, you can listen for yourselves HERE.

In other news, just a heads-up that Tartaruga Records and friends will be putting on another Pins and Needles event at Cafe Oto in Dalston on September 12th.  Absolutely no details as yet but last year’s one was fantastic so put it in your diaries…

Distance Recordings showcase

The ever excellent Implex Grace has assembled a Distance Recordings label showcase mix with a track from each release they’ve put out so far all blended together in one FREE track that clocks in at just under an hour.

If you haven’t already downloaded every single release that Distance Recordings have put out then get yourself over to their website post haste, where you can download several hours worth of sonic delight absolutely free.

You can find the showcase mix HERE (‘right-click/save-as’)

Did I mention it’s free?

bhn mp3 maul

The mp3 maul for May is up on site, featuring sounds from (amongst others) Plugs, High Places, Harry Partch, Group Inerane, Kiiiiiii, and Pumice.  And loads more.  It’s a bit more of an ambient mix this time around (though I guess that’s in relative terms).  And if you’re wondering why the polaroid for this month’s maul is so much bigger than the previous two (what am I saying – of course you are), please direct your queries to the enigmatic head robot at wordpress, who doesn’t seem to want to have it any other way…

Also, those of you who used to enjoy Fraggle Rock but always felt it would be improved if the pseudo-muppets had pulled their own heads off and re-arranged their limbs a bit more might be pleased to be reminded of the scene from Labyrinth where they do just that (it kicks in somewhere around the 13-minute mark).

You can find it HERE.

Living in the Shadows: China’s Internal Migrants

The BHN track ‘As If Yearning Was All And More Than Enough’ has been used to soundtrack part of a new multimedia piece by David Campbell and Sharron Lovell;

“This multimedia project – photographed, with audio and video, by Sharron Lovell, and produced by David Campbell – tells the story of three families of Chinese migrant labourers in Shanghai, and the struggles they face as undocumented internal migrants. 

China’s massive economic growth has both created and been fueled by the world’s largest peacetime migration, with 200 million people moving from the countryside to the city. 

However, because of the ‘hukou’ or household registration system in China, internal migrants are often in a legal limbo, denied access to local social services, and discriminated against by both the state and private employers. This project reveals how three families have dealt with this situation.“

The piece is currently showing as part of the ‘Viewing Restricted: [Re]presenting Poverty’ exhibition at the London School of Economics and is highly recommended!  For those outside of London, you can view the piece HERE.

octopus review

There’s a great review of ‘This Octopus Is Going To Eat Your Face’ over on postrockcommunity - still some physical copies left for barter too if anyone wants one…

Braids and a Necklace video

The irrepressibly talented Holly Stead has made a video for the BHN song ‘Braids and a Necklace’ and it’s great.  You can watch it HERE.

‘This Octopus Is Going To Eat Your Face’ free download

I am very pleased to say that as of today, my (previously CDR-only) release – ‘This Octopus Is Going To Eat Your Face’ – will be available for download from the ever-excellent Distance Recordings.  I’m even more pleased to say that it’s free!

The EP’s available to download in both MP3 and FLAC versions and contains all 8 tracks from the original (which somebody pointed out to me the other day probably puts it outside the usual criteria for anything calling itself an EP but nevermind).  

There are also some copies of the original left if anybody prefers a hard copy – get in touch if you want one for terms of barter…

Or download it free HERE.