We’ve taken a pause from our schedule of CD albums due to our local post office closing, following the outbreak of Covid19. We launched a digital series called Home Diaries, in which we’ll release EPs and albums by an international line-up of artists, with the music created during lockdown and social distancing conditions.
The series reflects a range of sounds, styles and ideas, as each artist portrays their own reflections uniquely. Each release is digital only for now, as we hope to raise what we can to help keep our label ticking over at this time. The releases feature a recurring polaroid image of a small lonely house, with a coloured filter chosen by the artist for each respective release.
Next, we go back over to Guelph, Canada as we welcome the other half of Aural Tethers and (ph)authers, Hymns57. Steven de Taeye has run the Aural Tethers show for many years and of course, this cassette label in recent times. During the day, he works alongside Joel Cuthbert of the Stillness and The Dancing in a record store and this has been closed during the pandemic. Steven’s Home Diaries features plenty of dusty reel to reel tape textures, as the medium is used to degrade various synth and guitar recordings. The pieces are all entitled Emotioncodes as they captured the emotions felt on the day of recording. For you the listener, they’re intended to provide a welcome blanket of comfort.
We have an exciting line-up to follow and each release will include bonus PDF liner notes, which has an interview with the artist on how they made the album, what their situation is like, what they have planned, their influences and what equipment/techniques they used. There are also additional photos provided by the artist as part of the PDF too. Click on the link below to check it out:
-LABEL LINK-
https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/home-diaries-011
-ARTIST LINK-
https://hymns57.bandcamp.com/album/emotioncodes
press release
“Home Diaries is an invitation to artists and musicians to create an album or EP to document their personal experience during the lockdown or social distancing conditions that are upon us, due to the coronavirus outbreak. The series reflects a range of sounds, styles and ideas, as each artist portrays their own reflections uniquely. Each release is digital only for now, as we hope to raise what we can to help keep our label ticking over at this time. The releases feature a recurring polaroid image of a small lonely house, with a coloured filter chosen by the artist for each respective release. We interview each artist and this is included as a bonus PDF with the download. You can also check out the Home Diaries series on Spotify if you prefer, which will be available to stream in due course.
We return to Guelph, Canada for this release as we welcome another man behind the Aural Tethers label, Steven de Taeye who records as Hymns57. Aural Tethers is also a show focusing on the modern Ambient music scene and this essentially evolved into the label, which he runs alongside Fossil Hunting Collective, who contributed Home Diaries 009.
Emotioncodes is a set of 7 tracks, where synth or guitar loops were created, recorded to quarter-inch tape and then played through a 16 track recorder, before being fed back onto reel to reel tape again for some extra dust. This approach, which Steven describes as a magnetised orchestra, carries the theme of him trying to convey a specific emotion from the day of recording. The tracks became Emotioncodes, for you the listener to decode and it is hoped that throughout this dusty record, that you will find comfort.”
credits
Written and produced by Steven de Taeye
Mastered by James Edward Armstrong
Artwork by Harry Towell
whitelabrecs.com 