NEWS
March 2020
UPDATE: MADDER ROSE LP SECOND PRESSING PRE-ORDER POSTPONED
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We had hoped to re-press Madder Rose's 2019 LP To Be Beautiful in June but in light of the current pandemic this has been put on hold. The download remains available for order. We'll announce when pre-orders for the LP are available again. In the meantime, be well. |
Subtitled ‘Pretty Songs About Death, With Noise’, this collection of nine new songs muses on the death of loved ones, of relationships, and of youth. The languid exuberance of early works has matured here, with the familiar guitar/bass/drums set-up expanded to include accordion, violin, acoustic guitar and synths. Lyrically stoical in the face of it's dark subject matter, and with melodies that greet sadness with warmth, 'To Be Beatuiful' radiates an atmospheric ambience articulating the band’s reflective vantage point. An excellent return from a much-missed group of artists.
'8/10 - Long-promised reunion recalls languorous early charms' - UNCUT
'With their first album in twenty years, Madder Rose return with an exquisitely-crafted collection of atmospheric art-pop…. from a fully-rebloomed Madder Rose, a remotely-assembled but remarkably-cohesive reunion LP... Spaciously-produced but packed full of inventive intricacies that reveal themselves on repeated spins’ – Concrete Islands
‘This fifth album…happily recalls the mellowest portions of 1994’s Panic On. To Be Beautiful’s hushed restraint is interrupted by shards of cavernous guitars’ – Long Live Vinyl
'Madder Rose always seemed to be a band who played by their own rules, and it seems that little has changed in that respect in the last 20 years. To Be Beautiful is an album to get lost in, and it feels like the warmest of hugs from an old friend.' - The 405
'8/10 - Long-promised reunion recalls languorous early charms' - UNCUT
'With their first album in twenty years, Madder Rose return with an exquisitely-crafted collection of atmospheric art-pop…. from a fully-rebloomed Madder Rose, a remotely-assembled but remarkably-cohesive reunion LP... Spaciously-produced but packed full of inventive intricacies that reveal themselves on repeated spins’ – Concrete Islands
‘This fifth album…happily recalls the mellowest portions of 1994’s Panic On. To Be Beautiful’s hushed restraint is interrupted by shards of cavernous guitars’ – Long Live Vinyl
'Madder Rose always seemed to be a band who played by their own rules, and it seems that little has changed in that respect in the last 20 years. To Be Beautiful is an album to get lost in, and it feels like the warmest of hugs from an old friend.' - The 405
December 2019
NEW RELEASE:
FRAGMENT SERIES 2: CIRCLE BROS/KARINA ESP LIMITED SPLIT 7"
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We end the year with a new split 7" of old drone-songs, all written during past winters featuring long-time collaborators CIRCLE BROS and KARINA ESP. A previously unreleased Circle Bros classic, Frozen Lakes from 2004, is a gorgeous reverie of revolving delayed guitar and buried vocals, while Peaks from 2016 is a more experimental piece featuring percussion, glockenspiel, synth and vocals. On the other side is the Karina ESP song Time Is Suspended, written in the winter of 2013 and is made up of mournful guitar, hushed voice, singing bowls, cymbal and field recordings. Limited to 40 copies on clear vinyl, each 7" has been cut and pressed by hand in New Zealand by Peter King, and housed in individually-painted kraft card covers with paper sleeves. Comes with an insert and download code. A record about time passing and time suspended. |
Some notes from the artists:
Wim Lecluyse - "Frozen Lakes was written and recorded somewhere late 2004. At the time I was living in Hilversum and working in Amsterdam, and the track is pretty much about commuting between a big city and living in a small town. It's one of those tracks that is - to me - pretty obviously inspired by the great Kant 7" Non Plus Ultra (which, in its turn, is pretty much a 'I wanna be your dog' rip-off, but in an incredible way). Anyway, I played this song live relatively often, even in recent years.
Peaks on the other hand, is a recent track, from somewhere around 2016, when I was preparing for a couple of shows around the time of the release of the album Rust (on three:four records ). It's a very 'flexible' song: I can perform it on pretty much any instrument, for any amount of time. Here I made a one minute version mostly on organ and glockenspiel. In my most recent shows, it turned into a piece of approx 8 minutes, mostly on wind organ and melodica."
Chris Gowers - "The Karina ESP side is one song, Time Is Suspended, recorded around the time that the A Still From The Film LP was released on Wim’s label Morc Records in 2014. It concerns a time when my girlfriend’s illness had been diagnosed as terminal, and the moments we had left together felt ‘suspended’ in time."