Hello Everyone,
Hope you’re all OK. Things are as busy as ever here at CiS HQ as we release two shiny new things today.
We’re delighted to be releasing the new album, ‘Situations | Useless Mouths’ from Manchester’s mighty The Mistys.
Always changing, always shifting shape, the Manchester-based electronic duo, singer Beth Roberts and electronics artist Andrew Hargreaves, playfully mix and explore genres to create their own self-contained sonic world, with a distinctive and tongue-in-cheek subversive pop aesthetic. Subversives in pop’s clothing.
With Situations | Useless Mouths, The Mistys turn away from the introspection of their previous album and boldly aim their sights at the hedonistic dancefloor. Here, joy becomes a form of activism: a promise of possibility and shared uplift in a dreary world. Pop, in their hands, is transformational: it can turn confinement into release, confrontation into consolation, loneliness into togetherness beneath the lights. It can make the world feel better... at least until the record ends.
The album unfolds like a collection of short stories: snapshots, phone notes, lived moments, potentialities, raptures and contingencies, rendered in the Mistys’ signature dreamlike haze. Their music remains as enigmatic and art-driven as ever but here, the pulse is brighter, the invitation clearer.
Step inside, and stay as long as the beat holds.
“Manchester duo The Mistys reinvent pop for the dance floor. Beth Robert’s pixie-like whisper whisks you away on tracks that don’t need to shout for attention and Andrew Hargreaves’ evolving tempos tell their own story on an album that quickly becomes your companion.”
Joe Banks, Electronic Sound 135
Listen and buy:
There’s also a discounted bundle with their last album for Castles in Space, ‘Detached Engagement’ available on the CiS bandcamp there.
Meanwhile, we’re closing out Season One of our Lunar Module imprint with an instant classic from Twilight Sequence.
‘Stars Of The Wayside’ captures a live improvised performance at Sherborne's hippest record shop, The Beat and Track, run by walking music encyclopaedia Paul Maskell. The performance coincided with that year's Record Store Day so the shop was particularly busy, the room intimate and close-up, the perfect environment for Matthew J Saunders to weave his strange, evolving, electronic webs around the record-browsing patrons.
“The challenge was to take along some looper pedals, a semi-modular synth, sampler, OP-1 synth and a bunch of effects pedals and make something cool without much of a plan. Some of these pieces had a germ of an idea pre-gig, some were entirely improvised from scratch in the moment.”
Saunders is a seasoned recording artist and performer. He has released records on 4AD, Castles in Space, Earworm, Folk Police and worked with artists such as Kim Deal, Kelley Deal, King Creosote and James Yorkston. As well as Twilight Sequence, he records and performs with Rapid Eye Electronics Ltd. (R.E.E.L.), Assembled Minds and Magnétophone. You’ll find his live performances of improvised guitar playing on his YouTube channel @MatthewJSaunders.
The recent R.E.E.L album ‘Archons Come In Dreams’ for the CiS Subscription Library was a barnstorming success and there a still a few copies left for new joiners at https://cissublibrary.bandcamp.com/
I’ve also put some complete sets of the first Lunar Module season up on the Twilight Sequence page for those who missed out or want to catch up. The full set includes coasters and badges.
Also just landed for subscribers is this brilliantly cinematic collection from Andy Fosberry, ‘Exoplanets’.
Andy explains:
‘On the surface, the story of EXOPLANETS is that through our own sense of wonder and discovery, we create a probe to send to our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri. We also give the probe a mind, in order to ensure completion of the mission. But as the probe becomes more and more lost, its mind begins to wander...’
I’ve also just put the orders in for these two - again Subscription Library vinyl exclusives.
I’ll leave you with the news that the new Dohnavùr LP arrived yesterday.
It’s very special and poignant, doing that thing that the best electric stuff does, walking the line between melancholy and euphoria. Should be out in the world over the next few months.
We’re moving house after 30 years in Biggleswade, so it’s all fookin’ happening. Jules got irritated at me yesterday when I was stressing about the flooring for the new office. “That’s the least of our problems”, came the terse reply. I’m also not sure she knows how many comics are up in the loft.
As ever, thanks for listening.
Colin
Castles in Space
Biggleswade
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