Browse by Label: SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)

Artist:	ICEBREAKER INTERNATIONAL & MANUAL
Title:	Into Forever
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SHAKE 001CD

Extending a friendly hand to new collaborators, Sound Of A Handshake, this subdivision is named after one of Morr's
       best-loved tracks by Anticon hip-hop supremos, Clouddead, and sets out to explore the aural symbioses between
       established Morr artists and one-off collaborators. For Into Forever, the first instalment in this series, Morr
       Music favorite Jonas Munk (Manual, Limp) and New York conceptual artist and producer Alexander
       Perls (member of an early incarnation of Piano Magic) joined to weave and mingle sparse beats and song
       structures (Munk) with layered guitars and tricky melodic leads (Perls) into the ideal accompaniment to any first rate
       planetarium show -- and this is no mean praise.

Artist:	BENNI HEMM HEMM
Title:	Benni Hemm Hemm
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SHAKE 002CD

Music from the heart of Iceland. A record that wants to boil over because of all its energy, lust and sometimes humor. A
       record, equally peculiar as idiosyncratic. Benni Hemm Hemm throws all possible ingredients in. It's a little big
       band with little big songs. In September of 2005, the record was released on the small label Smákökurnar, based in the
       Icelandic capital Reykjavik for the first time. It was re-released on Sound Of A Handshake, Morr Music's small, curious
       sister. An album that will grow with each time one listens to it, equally as Benni Hemm Hemm's band changes with each
       concert. In the center, there is Benni with his fervor and a mischievous smile, his acoustic guitar and his arrangements.
       Around him there are guitars, glockenspiel and the brass section. There are also raging waves and a deep, pure sea. You
       should listen to this record loudly and often.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN, B.
Title:	Melancholie/Sendestraße
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	SHAKE 003CD

Music from the depths of the room. Music from the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's
       transparent sculpture made of steel, concrete and glass. And in it there are the city lights, reflecting. On the occasion
       of the exhibition Melancholie -- Genie und Wahnsinn in der Kunst and a series of concerts that went were curated
       by de:bug magazine, the Vienna-based sound-bricoleur Bernhard Fleischmann has not only given a concert in
       the Neue Nationalgalerie, he has also composed a song only for that special night: 49 minutes and 15 seconds. Featuring
       the most melancholy of all instruments, the bandoneon, a cello and oscillating synthesizers. Melodies materialize softly
       and turn into bittersweet opulence, surrounded by short but central lines of loneliness recited from Rainer Maria
       Rilke's Herbsttag and Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. On CD2, there is a picnic in
       the country, at the foot of a broadcasting mast outside of Vienna. Then, in summer 2003, it was the Kunstradio, the art
       channel of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. Fleischmann took piano miniatures of the Austrian composer Franz
       Schubert as his source material. Again, the track is about 50 minutes long -- a journey from tumbling piano patterns
       to a drifty Vienna Wall of Sound, from Schubert to Fleischmann, if you want to. The tracks were performed live only once.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Music For Hairy Scary Monsters
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	SHAKE 004CD

Originally released in 2007, Music For Hairy Scary Monsters is a special gift for Iceland from a few Icelanders and other fellows from the Morr Music landscape. Originally this compilation was put together because of two Morr Music label nights, one in Reykjavik and the other in Akureyri. Both terminated in early June 2007 under a glimmering sun -- a northern light that never goes out during that season. A perfect mood for shiny music. Benni Hemm Hemm opens up with a song already released on a 7", "Aldrei." "Skavars," another one from Benni Hemm Hemm, comes in a "Rainy Version" this time. Both songs are intimate and expressive at the same time. The Go Find follows up with its elegant pop -- "Ice Bear," a cold Arctic track, close to the ear and deep in the snow. "Perfume V" is a high-definition cover version of a Pavement classic. Both tracks are previously-unreleased and so far are only available on this compilation. ISAN plays without words but is never speechless. Electronic landscapes are painted with some references to Iceland. "Re-spring My Sing Reverse" is a newly-arranged remix of a Múm track. Seabear bring viola, guitars and glockenspiel, illustrating the easiness and complexity of pop music, somewhere between Belle and Sebastian under a wide-open sky. Last but not least, is Tarwater. Bernd Jestram and Robert Lippok offer two new unreleased songs that would fit quite nicely into their Spider Smile record, with its dub to blues, electronic to analog sounds. A fine sampling of music played in the northern climes.

Artist:	SEABEAR
Title:	While The Fire Dies EP
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	SHAKE 006LP

Vinyl release. Released in conjunction with their second album We Built A Fire (MORR 097CD/CD-LTD/LP), While The Fire Dies EP brings you the vinyl version of the six tracks that are on CD2 of the limited 2CD version of the We Built A Fire album (MORR 097CD-LTD). Seabear started as the solo-project of Sindri Már Sigfússon (aka Sin Fang Bous) and meanwhile has become a creative collective of seven Icelandic musicians. While the album showcases Seabear's wide range of styles and influences from indie-rock to intense balladry, the While The Fire Dies EP focuses more on the band's folky and laid-back side. The country-esque uptempo opener "Pocket Knife" is followed by alternate acoustic versions of the Seabear classics "Arms" and "Singing Arc" as well as the perfect Seabear-ballad "Bright House." After a short country twang interlude ("Leafmask II"), this EP ends with "Doctor," a string-dominated elegy and a perfect epilogue to both: album and EP.

Artist:	BOBBY AND BLUMM
Title:	A Little Big
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	SHAKE 007CD

This is the second full-length album by Berlin-based Frank Schültge Blumm and Ellinor Blixt aka Bobby And Blumm for Morr sister-label, Sound Of A Handshake. Since the release of their debut Everybody Loves... (MORR 081CD), the duo has matured and refined their sound, creating more space in their music while still possessing an incredibly soft intimacy. Above it all floats the enchanting voice of Ellinor Blixt, a voice which sounds right up close and so far away at the same time. Evoking a state of sweet melancholy, it describes a moment of beauty and sadness at the same time. A Little Big is music of restrained urgency, of silent greatness, of magical realism. In every corner there is an understated detail, a rustling, a silky whisper, a careful finger-picking. The wonderful guitar skills of Blumm have depth and are, at the same time, light, effortless and elegant -- the perfect counterpart to Ellinor's fragile singing. Harmonic duets and dialogues are intertwined in close arrangements -- a flutter of the eyelashes, a chime, a soft beat, a muted keyboard, A Little Big is the sound of significant silence and elegant pauses. The more you listen to this album, the more beautiful it becomes, and the deeper its roots.



       "don't turn piggies into powder

       spare some sources

       bend borders

       thanks to everybody who bought this record

       there's no business like no business"

Artist:	SOLEY
Title:	Theater Island
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	SHAKE 008CD

This is the debut EP by Sóley Stefánsdóttir, a girl from Reykjavík, student of composition and a member of the highly-acclaimed Icelandic indie-collective Seabear. Theater Island is the debut of a singer and a dreamer: 6 songs held together by Sóley's piano and her voice -- because every one of her compositions comes into being while she is singing to the piano. She uses a lot of other instruments though: strings, guitars or just some electronic crackles and noises. The record opens with "Duttla," a dotty and strange song that is followed by the engrossed and nearly impressionistic "Kill The Clown." From now on, the songs become more and more catchy. The title-track is in keeping with Seabear's open-hearted indie-folk while "Blue Leaves" and "Read The Book" are touching pop ballads -- and the record's finale "We Will Put Her In Two Graves" is absolutely disarming in its simplicity. But there's something vague and unreal that sticks to all of these songs as well. This applies to the lyrics, too: Like Alice, Sóley walks through her very own wonderland where things happen that can only occur in the surreal logic of a dream.

Artist:	SOLEY
Title:	Theater Island
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	10"
Price:	$14.00
Catalog #:	SHAKE 008EP

10" version. This is the debut EP by Sóley Stefánsdóttir, a girl from Reykjavík, student of composition and a member of the highly-acclaimed Icelandic indie-collective Seabear. Theater Island is the debut of a singer and a dreamer: 6 songs held together by Sóley's piano and her voice -- because every one of her compositions comes into being while she is singing to the piano. She uses a lot of other instruments though: strings, guitars or just some electronic crackles and noises. The record opens with "Duttla," a dotty and strange song that is followed by the engrossed and nearly impressionistic "Kill The Clown." From now on, the songs become more and more catchy. The title-track is in keeping with Seabear's open-hearted indie-folk while "Blue Leaves" and "Read The Book" are touching pop ballads -- and the record's finale "We Will Put Her In Two Graves" is absolutely disarming in its simplicity. But there's something vague and unreal that sticks to all of these songs as well. This applies to the lyrics, too: Like Alice, Sóley walks through her very own wonderland where things happen that can only occur in the surreal logic of a dream. Includes download coupon.

Artist:	AMIINA
Title:	Puzzle
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.50
Catalog #:	SHAKE 011CD

Originally a string quartet formed by four girls at the Reykjavík College of Music in the 1990s, Amiina went on to cut their teeth as Sigur Rós' string section for the next decade. Now a sextet after a recent masculine infusion, Amiina presents their second full length album, Puzzle. Amiina's debut album, Kurr (2007), was performed on a disparate jumble of instruments -- musical saws, kalimbas, music boxes and seemingly anything that could be plucked, bowed or beaten on -- resulting in a work that ebbed and flowed "in a strange, powerful place between sophistication and innocence," according to The Guardian (UK). While the above is equally true of Puzzle, this time around the group's sonic palette is broadened by the contributions of drummer Magnús Trygvason Eliassen and electronic artist Kippi Kaninus, permanent members of the group since 2009. Accordingly, the songs on Puzzle are more rhythmically rugged than Amiina's previous work and feature heavier use of electronics. Amiina's long-standing fondness for zero-g melodies and open-minded instrumentation, however, continues.

Artist:	AMIINA
Title:	Puzzle
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	SHAKE 011LP

LP version. Originally a string quartet formed by four girls at the Reykjavík College of Music in the 1990s, Amiina went on to cut their teeth as Sigur Rós' string section for the next decade. Now a sextet after a recent masculine infusion, Amiina presents their second full length album, Puzzle. Amiina's debut album, Kurr (2007), was performed on a disparate jumble of instruments -- musical saws, kalimbas, music boxes and seemingly anything that could be plucked, bowed or beaten on -- resulting in a work that ebbed and flowed "in a strange, powerful place between sophistication and innocence," according to The Guardian (UK). While the above is equally true of Puzzle, this time around the group's sonic palette is broadened by the contributions of drummer Magnús Trygvason Eliassen and electronic artist Kippi Kaninus, permanent members of the group since 2009. Accordingly, the songs on Puzzle are more rhythmically rugged than Amiina's previous work and feature heavier use of electronics. Amiina's long-standing fondness for zero-g melodies and open-minded instrumentation, however, continues. Includes MP3 download.

Artist:	FLEISCHMANN, B.
Title:	For M/Mikro_Kosmos - Two Concerts
Label:	SOUND OF A HANDSHAKE (GERMANY)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$19.50
Catalog #:	SHAKE 012CD

These two concerts B. Fleischmann recorded complement each other and interlock quite smoothly and organically, lifting you up when the other is pulling you down and vice versa. The first track "For M - A Tribute To Mark Linkous" was recorded in May 2010 at Klangboden Mödling: Austrian angst might still be no option for a Weltanschauung, but there is a certain unease at work in the beginning, pushing down the strings and the cautious guitar loops. The entire piece is a musical obituary for the man who started Sparklehorse and shot himself only a few weeks prior to this very concert. While Fleischmann takes care of electronics, guitar and omnichord, as he usually does, he was joined on stage by Matthias Frey (violin, snare), Martin Siewert (guitar, lap-steel, bass, electronics), and Alexandr Vatagin (bass, electronics, cello). The resulting 45+ minutes of commemoration, initiated by B. for the late M., so to speak, is a dark yet glistening pile of leaves, in which the musicians repeatedly return to the bass line, the key note, the pulse, the "why," to all those existential questions about the end we all have to face one day. Question marks in the shape of a soaring lap-steel guitar appear on top of beats that turn and squeak, softly, like an extended lament, a form of rebellion, a consultation of yet more instruments, wondering and meandering in unison, until it all gives way to a swooshing noise, a threat to crush the listener from the inside, gnawing, biting, then resolve at last: harmony, harmonies, a shadow of zest, faith. Although he has contributed vocals now and then in the past, our man from Vienna remains silent for the second track as well, focusing on ambience alone: "Mikro_Kosmos," a solo piece, was recorded in June 2010 at "Festival Irritationen II." Like scoundrels in striped rags, a bunch of sounds appear on the quiet, two of them and a third hidden in the underbrush keeping watch, yet the electronic fetters soon get a hold of them, and a pool is filled with swirling, creaking textures, sliding downwards under a long note, long and wide like a horizon of dark clouds. "Mikro_Kosmos" is a spectacle of nature, a self-renewing environment populated by wraithlike creatures. In the middle part, Fleischmann's guitar takes the lead, runs wild, things are head over heels all of a sudden, there's beating and elopement, until we hear new paws on the ground, and the playing field is ready to be cluttered up once again: grow, thrive, wither, fade away, be eaten, until the next breakup sets this little world on fire.

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