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The first smallmix

Now on Mixcloud: a selection of tracks that have influenced me, plus some I’ve been enjoying recently – and cheekily, one of my own.

Tracklisting:

  1. Kassia Flux –  Hove
  2. smallhaus – to the birds, to the light
  3. Windy and Carl – Balance (Trembling)
  4. Grouper – Alien Observer
  5. Abul Mogard – The Purpose of Peace
  6. Simon Scott – Insomni (extract)
  7. Amp – Alrightfarout
  8. Popol Vuh – In den Gärten Pharaos
  9. Ben Clayton-Wolfindale – I Lived on Planet You
  10. Tangerine Dream – Birth of Liquid Plejades
  11. Christina Vantzou –  Some Limited and Waning Memory
  12. Stereocillia  – Wormhole – i
  13. Slowdive – Shine

Mixcloud assures me that it is OK to upload mixes due to its arrangements with various licensing companies. It is not my intention to infringe copyright, so please contact me if you would like me to remove anything.

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Lutra featured on Sonic Imperfections show on Resonance FM

I was thrilled that Lutra was the featured album on the Sonic Imperfections show on Resonance FM on 23 July.

Three tracks were played – a wave from the water, to the birds to the light and lutra.

I was pleased to be in some very good company too – I featured alongside some great tracks from releases on the Champion Version label amongst other things.

You can listen to the show on Mixcloud.

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Introducing lutra – the new smallhaus album

Lutra, the new smallhaus album, has been released by Linear Obsessional Recordings and is available as a CD and pay-what-you-want download.

The CD is packaged in a flexible translucent plastic case, with wrap-around cover and 4 page mini-booklet of notes.

Lutra was written and recorded between July 2017-March 2018 and uses different approaches and techniques from its predecessors, unweather and six. The result is 8 shorter tracks – reflecting my love of psychedelia, 1970s ambient, shoegaze, post-rock, drone and music concrete.

“An enveloping, immersive wash of precision moulded sound” (Richard Sanderson, Linear Obsessional Recordings)

Buy or download Lutra from the Linear Obsessional Bandcamp page.

 

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Lutra releasing into the wild

My new album, lutra, is due to be released imminently on the wonderful Linear Obsessional records.

lutra was written and recorded between July 2017 and February 2018. A departure from the sonic collage of unweather, lutra uses different techniques and features 8 shorter, more focused tracks.

Richard Sanderson, head honcho of Linear Obsessional has written these kind notes about the release:

Following on from his slow burning self-released cassette “Unweather”, “Lutra” is the first CD release by smallhaus (AKA South London based guitarist, electronicist, percussionist David Little). It expands his singular sound environment into a full-screen, full-colour and hugely enjoyable collection.

At times this almost feels like a tribute to the classic sounds of 70’s ambient – the choral textures, the infinite guitars, the synthesizers, but it’s done with a knowing wink and a contemporary layer of grit and dust. But mostly it’s an enveloping, immersive wash of precision moulded sound.

lutra is, of course, dedicated to otters everywhere.

Here’s a short video I made to mark the occasion:

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DIF ID

I’m excited to announce that the collaboration with Felix MacIntosh (Tigersonic) and Igor Olejar (Autorotation) is going to become a “proper” band – DIF ID. It’s early days yet but we’ll be looking at getting some gigs in the next couple of months.

Combining a range of influences, from dub to electronica to psychedelia, DIF ID is also exploring experimental means of performance – more on what that means shortly!

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A View from a Hill

It was a great experience and a pleasure to curate this year’s Linear Obsessional compilation, A View From a Hill.

This the intro to the accompanying “Descriptive Catalogue”:

When Richard Sanderson put out a call for volunteers to compile this year’s Linear Obsessional compilation I willingly put myself forward (after some reassurances that it wouldn’t be too much work, honest). I’d contributed to the previous year’s Utterances and really enjoyed it – not only was it great to work to a brief (two minutes exactly, must use the human voice), but hearing the results of the finished collection was ear-opening –to hear how artists had used the brief as a jumping off point to produce an astonishing variety of
work.

The theme for this year’s compilation was really the first thing that occurred to me – maybe the time of year puts me in mind of MR James – the title comes from one of his ghost stories, or maybe because when I volunteered, I’d just spent a day in Hebden Bridge, nestling amongst the Pennines. Anyway, the theme seemed to suggest two things close to my heart – landscape / countryside; and eeriness. I’m very pleased with the results and I hope you are too. Some artists have concentrated on the Jamesian aspects of the title, recorded or interpreted landscapes of importance to them, or combined both. I’ve loved hearing results from artists living down the road to me (almost literally in some cases) to ones from the other side of the world (Australia, Asia and the United States to name a few).

My own submission was a reading of one the amazing Molly Bloom‘s short ghost stories over a suitably spooky soundscape.