Bison is a new label set up by Abby Thomas, digital archivist at Cafe OTO and audio engineer at the British Library. The label explores experimental song, off-pop, lyrics and language and the bleed between visual art and music.
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viewing 1 To 6 of 6 items
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BISON 014LP
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LP version.If I don't make it, I love u is Still House Plants third album and the fullest embodiment of their sound to date. Where Fast Edit formed with quick attachment and jump cuts, If I don't make it is shaped by persistence -- a commitment to the songs that makes the music solid, warmer and accepted. Marking the trio's decade of friendship, this is the first record written whilst all live in the same city since 2017's Assemblages. The band rehearsed it relentlessly, playing for nobody except themselves, consistently building support for one another and growing the way they play. Jess's voice is deeper. Fin's guitar is full size, richer. David drums harder. Focused on one point together, everyone gets bigger and nothing falls apart. The guitar and the drums blend, raise the voice, make room for what is being said, what is felt. When able to finally record, production allowed layers, gave elasticity, a chance to fully stretch. Playing with length and connections, the band brought in analog techniques -- a Leslie cabinet on "Headlight", sidechaining the snare with the guitar, pushing vocals through cheap DJ software -- each process an attempt to bring one instrument closer to another, to give bass, body, backup. If I don't make it, I love u seeks beauty, holds feeling maximum and builds surety with its sound. The most generous SHP record to date, the music is wide open, demands less. Play it again, it will come clear.
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BISON 014CD
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If I don't make it, I love u is Still House Plants third album and the fullest embodiment of their sound to date. Where Fast Edit formed with quick attachment and jump cuts, If I don't make it is shaped by persistence -- a commitment to the songs that makes the music solid, warmer and accepted. Marking the trio's decade of friendship, this is the first record written whilst all live in the same city since 2017's Assemblages. The band rehearsed it relentlessly, playing for nobody except themselves, consistently building support for one another and growing the way they play. Jess's voice is deeper. Fin's guitar is full size, richer. David drums harder. Focused on one point together, everyone gets bigger and nothing falls apart. The guitar and the drums blend, raise the voice, make room for what is being said, what is felt. When able to finally record, production allowed layers, gave elasticity, a chance to fully stretch. Playing with length and connections, the band brought in analog techniques -- a Leslie cabinet on "Headlight", sidechaining the snare with the guitar, pushing vocals through cheap DJ software -- each process an attempt to bring one instrument closer to another, to give bass, body, backup. If I don't make it, I love u seeks beauty, holds feeling maximum and builds surety with its sound. The most generous SHP record to date, the music is wide open, demands less. Play it again, it will come clear.
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BISON 006CD
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The latest chapter in the unfolding musical story of Bill Wells finds the Scottish jazz outsider's compositions played by a trio of tuba players with energetic contributions from young brass players from his adopted hometown of Glasgow. The results, The Viaduct Tuba Trio Plays The Music Of Bill Wells, are alternately ruminative, playful, and profound, ranging from the cyclical opener "Fanfare For Three Tubas" to a mischievous interpretation of "The Midges", a comic tribute to the entomological scourge of the Highlands by Scottish singer Kenneth McKellar, and the doleful "Chorale 4K" before the arresting finale of "Stone Throw Dream Anthem". Throughout the variety of moods conjured by the musicians the listener is reminded of both the power and tenderness of brass instruments -- their capacity to astound and reassure, to soothe and tickle. The trio in the title -- Antony Hook, Danielle Price, and Mark Reynolds -- formed in 2018 to perform in the lee of the Glenfinnan Viaduct as part of the Loch Shiel Festival. Wells contributed three tunes for the performance, including "Fanfare For Three Tubas", and composed the remainder after being commissioned by Glasgow's underground/experimental festival Counterflows as a direct result of the Glenfinnan Viaduct performance. The trio subsequently performed Wells's tunes in Glasgow with the Gorbals Youth Brass Band, who play on three of the album's ten tracks, sharing a bill with a duo featuring Chicago composer, flautist and educator Nicole Mitchell and London-based percussionist Mark Sanders. The Viaduct Tuba Trio Plays The Music Of Bill Wells represents another creative achievement for the prolific composer and multi-instrumentalist. Recorded at Castle of Doom studios in Glasgow by Tony Doogan, mixed by Bill at Loathsome Reels and mastered by Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub. Cover art by longtime collaborator Annabel Wright.
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BISON 004LP
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"Urs Graf Consort, a collective with a corrupted genealogy, produce trail-blazing simulacra -- songs nested within themselves, with the experimental accents of Ursonate. A protean duo operates under the name of Swiss engraver Urs Graf (1485 - c. 1529); Prune Bécheau and Adrien Bardi-Bienenstock are composers and performers for ensembles that are as varied as the motley company brought together in The Peasants War which Urs Graf depicted; Uva Ursi captured on-the-spot at acoustic vigils on the edge of amplified battlefields. Baroque violin, vièle-à-trou, bass, arranged drums, a broad spectrum of vocals, tuba, trumpet, synthesizer, spinet, sanza, shakers, bells and rattles... are all played in different concerts by: Simon Sieger, Mathias Pontévia, Joel Grip, Samuel Burjade, Sam Langer, Paul Ferbos, Pierre Borel, Adrien Perron, Rachel Ramos, Emmanuel LeGlatin, Mathieu Cahuzac, Camille Émaille, Gabriel Bristow, Antoine Hummel, Makoto Sato, Arden Day, Olivia Scemama, Pascal Sieger, Geoffroy Gesser, Malgorzata Kasprzycka, Gwladys Le Cuff, and many others. The sheer number and differing degrees of participation by these musicians and their voices avoids genre -- from passionate, rasping dialogues and the slow sedimentary effort of building the composition, to the use of six languages in various arrangements and surprise oral interventions. The same applies to the modes of recording, whether in the studio, live or by integrating direct sound recordings. The compositions on Uva Ursi -- or bearberry, a medicinal mountain plant with small white flowers -- confound expectations and established standards and attain new forms of interplay between Italian variety, free jazz, cabaret, instrumental theater, Lettrist recitation, the disruptive intensities of improvisation and noise, and walrus songs. These disjunctive synthesis do not exclude humming or toe-tapping either, even though they may initially seem untenable as a whole: the airs are captivating but any dancing only arrives in passing, and either gets bogged down by weird meter or catches a chill from deceptive disintegrations and globbed down by macabre sounds." --Gwladys Le Cuff
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BISON 003LP
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The first LP from France's Humming Dogs. Born from the radical Oiseau Mouche (Bird-Fly Company) -- a troupe of actors and comedians who focus on the theatre of gesture -- Humming Dogs make joyful, avant rock music, which pooh-poohs the po-faced in favor of a party. Humming Dogs are made up of eight members -- David Bausseron, Mathieu Breuvard, Florence Decourcelle, Thierry Dupont, Chantal Esso, Léa Le Bars, Florian Spiry, and Valérie Waroquier -- who each write and create songs, swap instruments, and sing collectively. Guitars, bass, drum kit, and keyboards mix with toy percussion, amplified pinecones, pot lids, iPads and a zither. "Ha Ha Ha" opens the record with the group dispersed and growling at one another, only to break out in infectious laughter, a free word riot and a thick bass melody. The traditional French song, "Karnaval", gets totally sent by keyboards and a heavy guitar scrawl egged on by the bands hooting and hollering. "Ça Me Gratte" haunts, grates, until it splits with a rising synthesizer, squeaking toys, vocal drones and spitting, near exhausted vocals from Chantel Esso. "Les Borigènes" contains the self-taught, simple charm of the Shaggs' Philosophy of the World (1969), performed in the spirit of village revelry and recorded and edited beautifully in the tradition of the GRM. Democratized experimentation, low ego rock n' roll, Les Borigènes is a truly joyous, remarkable and wild record. Artwork from London's Submit to Love Studios and Taylor Silk. Humming Dogs have performed at Sonic Protest, Cafe OTO, and Counterflows. 140 gram vinyl; edition of 500.
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BISON 002CD
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After 11 albums and unknown quantities of cassettes, compilations, and split releases, Sound Of Turning Earth is the first release outside of Japan for one of the most original figures in Japanese music, Kumio Kurachi. Recorded by Jim O'Rourke at his home studio, Sound Of Turning Earth is Kurachi solo on vocals and guitar, mixing surreal lyrics and theatrical vocal personas with unorthodox tunings inspired by Japan's national instrument, the koto. Lyrically, Kurachi draws life from the small events of life, the hira, the joy of choosing a lipstick in springtime, the business of changing the tatami, raindrops deciding whether to fall as snow. Set to his own brand of progressive folk in the Hirajōshi scale and laced with winding melodies which can be hard to forget, Kurachi maps his own territory for the people who inhabit his every day. As much a visual artist as a musician, Bison present Sound Of Turning Earth in the form of a deluxe CD accompanied by three double-sided art cards by Kurachi, a four-panel fold-out poster, and full translation of his poetic lyrics. These striking songs speak for a liberated imagination. Kumio Kurachi has performed actively in Japan since the '80s, and still plays shows in Fukuoka regularly. Past collaborators include Taku Unami and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. He has played with Tenniscoats, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Katsura Yamauchi, Tori Kudo, Jim O'Rourke, and Eiko Ishibashi.
"The music is so melodious that the mixture of the strange wording, guitar and variations of voices thrives all together and it can haunt you without noticing it, just like the small events of everyday life you can't escape from." --Midori Ogata
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