Nova

Nova is the fifth album by smallhaus, South-East London-based musician David Little. Nova shifts between moods of claustrophobia to setting the controls for open space – from the ambient openings of Nova Swing through the electronics of Kefahuchi, spacey dub of The Emergent to the heavy psych of Bone Dice, A Quieter Mind and These Sunken Lands. The addition of bass guitar (inherited from Rothko’s Mark Beazley) as well as live and programmed percussion adds propulsion and darker textures to smallhaus’ heaviest collection yet. Nova is in part a creative response to the writing of sci-fi and weird fiction author M John Harrison, as well as the ongoing uncertainty of the plague year.

David Little – bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, percussion, soft synths, keyboards and filters, drum programming and electronics.

Performed, recorded and mixed by David Little, September-November 2020. Mastering by Mark Beazley.

Champion Version Edition 6 at Iklecktic

I’m really excited to announce that I’ve been invited to play at Champion Version Edition 6 event at Iklecktic on 1 August – celebrating 10 years of Champion Version.

Champion Version is a wonderful London-based label who specialise in creating limited lathe-cut vinyl and digital releases.

Buy tickets for Champion Version 6 – Iklecktic 1 August.

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.