New Dissolving Records, Thomas Shrubsole, Sub Loam online shop

Dissolving Records online shop

Long time supporters and new customers alike are advised that as well as the usual channels (see below) there is now a Dissolving Records online shop for those who prefer that option.

Orders are as ever also more than welcome direct via email or by ordering through discogs or bandcamp, for those releases available there.

Vital Weekly review of Sub Loam - Excavated Relics

Thanks to Frans de Waard for reviewing Sub Loam's Excavated Relics cassette:

'Back in 2016, Thomas Shrubsole released 'The Portable archive' under his Sub Loam name (see Vital Weekly 1051), which was culled from material he already recorded in 2009 and 2010. It is something I enjoyed very much, as Sub Loam is something along the lines of lo-fi electronics, drones, ambience, and field recordings. Now there is a tape with "two recently rediscovered examples" from the same period, which Sub Loam feels they should be heard out there as well, and, sure, why not? This is something that could have also been surely been on the original release. On the first side, there is 'Soil Surface', a slow rhythm piece. Or perhaps something that is on a loop device but slowed down quite a bit. In sync we have a mild synth sound burping away. It is a very moody piece and almost a dub-like one at that; all bass but no dance riddim. This is a particularly great piece by Sub Loam. The B-side contains 'Stone Fragment', in which the guitar plays quite a big role, strummed in a really odd way, and set against a set of misty electronic backing, with an odd flanging effect on the strings. It seems like he's playing the guitar with a stick, creating odd timbres. Buried in the background there is a bit of percussion. It is a totally different kind of piece and a most enjoyable one at that as well. I sure can believe that if you found this after ten years you would want to release it.' (FdW)

Review from Vital Weekly issue number 1208

Buy a copy by emailing direct or from Boomkat

Sub Loam - Excavated Relics Cassette Now Available from Boomkat

Limited copies of Excavated Relics are now available from Boomkat (link below)

https://boomkat.com/products/excavated-relics


Here's what they have to say about it:

"Gauzy, low-key, organically textured dub and wizened folk explorations from Thomas Shrubsole, reviving his Sub Loam alias with two ‘Excavated Relics’ from the archive circa 2009-2010.

The A-side’s Soil Surface’ speaks to Shrubsole’s signature grasp of slow-moving sonic murk with nearly 10 minutes of endearingly weary dub chords perfused with acidic percolations that appear to mimic a sped-up (but still very slow) time-lapse image of soil dynamics, while the other side’s 11 minute piece ’Stone Fragment’ catches him picking out coruscating guitar strings and against peripheral percussion and distant vocal drones in a style murkily resonating with the mystic appeal of Zoviet France. Both are assuredly swaddled in layers of ferric tape hiss. Both humbly worth your time."

Supplement to the Portable Archive: Sub Loam - Excavated Relics

 Supplement to the Portable Archive

Additional Items Received 2019

Two recently rediscovered examples of Anomalous Loam dating from c. 2009 - 2010 excavated and displayed on professional, high quality, real-time duplicated cassettes in a clear cassette case with printed j-card and cardboard outer slipcase.

Outliers from the early trilogy of Cotton Goods/Dissolving releases Ohr, 2 and Earthern Circle (2009 - 2010, as documented on The Portable Archive and digitally), these two tracks, around ten minutes each, are thematically and musically related whilst standing at a remove from the circle of those original releases. Four-track murk, hiss and delay, fragmentary percussives, guitar strings as contour lines and twisting stems, burgeoning organic clouds, analogue electronics, observation and contemplation.

The connections with the spiked rural wanderings of Earthern Circle, the heavy soil dubs of 2 and the radiant moods of Ohr are clear whilst also travelling outwards from those zones towards the territory where these two other, previously unreleased, distinct artefacts were discovered.

Two Archaic Remnants, excavated from magnetic tape 2018.

Released October 19, 2019

All instruments, music, recording, production, artwork etc. Sub Loam (Thomas Shrubsole) 

C22. 45 Copies only. 

Available to order directly.

Email Sub Loam or Dissolving Records

Thomas Shrubsole - Themes and Variations (Parenthetical Activities)

Please note, new album and new label, coming later this month.

https://soundcloud.com/parentheticalactivities/thomas-shrubsole-themes-and-variations-album-preview

New Sub Loam announced for August 2017

Sub Loam has a new release out in August. Check here for further details and sound clips.

Sub Loam Bandcamp

There is now a Sub Loam Bandcamp page here

Currently uploaded projects include the previously released Dissolving and Cotton Goods album included in The Portable Archive, Ohr, 2 and Earthern Circle alongside an expanded edition of The Ley Hunter's Companion and a digital reissue of Sub Loam's piece for the Unofficial Countryside compilation on Wist from 2014. More will be uploaded in due course no doubt, but for now, head over and take a listen...

Sub Loam - The Portable Archive - Now Available at Boomkat

https://boomkat.com/products/the-portable-archive

Please note:  The Portable Archive is now sold out from Boomkat, the remaining few copies are now available by emailing directly.

"First and foremost it’s lovely to be immersed back into the project, whose naturally textured and decaying structures emerged as quietly as they dissolved back at the turn of this decade, finding good company amidst the rustle and hum of Cotton Goods and, in a way, could be said to preempt the focus of FIS’ research in similar, if noisier, rugged terrain on his From Patterns to Details album.
No mistake, though; Sub Loam’s music is endearingly tactile and better defined by its textured, nuanced fidelity: Shrubsole handles his material like an environmental researcher or botanist making sketches on his rambles, offering poetic observations on the interactions of organic matter with “ditches, hedgerows, alleys, pavements and hill tops” modelled with an electro-acoustic palette and tape loops that quietly represent his subject’s subterranean root systems and intuitive sprawl in a series of concentric spirals and microtonal whorls.
Within his chloro-centric weltanschauung, Sub Loam divines the music of “rhythmic footfall, creeping rootstock, vaporous billows, transformational marginalia” in an esoteric yet tangible way that should sweetly resonate with anyone who appreciates the ebb and flow or warp and weft of nature on the smaller scales, as well as its larger form landscapes, and who can appreciate the same within the parameters of ambient music.
A beautiful package."


Limited copies of previous Sub Loam releases are still available direct from Dissolving

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/dissolvingrecords/sub-loam-a-concise-dictionary

https://soundcloud.com/dissolvingrecords/sub-loam-ruderal-memory-henge

https://soundcloud.com/dissolvingrecords/sub-loam-ley-hunters-companion

Back catalogue items that are still available from Dissolving are The Ley Hunter's Companion and Ruderal Memory (both cost £9.00 each plus shipping to your location)

A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses is now sold out.

email dissolving (dot) records (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk for any orders or enquiries or buy through discogs https://www.discogs.com/seller/dissolving/profile

The Portable Archive by Sub Loam, photos, sounds and pre-order information...

The Portable Archive is now available to pre-order, follow the link to the Sub Loam site with descriptions, pictures, sound clips and information on how to order:

http://subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-portable-archive-limited-art.html

Sub Loam Portable Archive Soundcloud Preview

Sub Loam has posted a preview of the soon-to-be-released archive box-set containing his long out of print first trilogy of albums for Dissolving and Cotton Goods from 2009 and 2010.

http://subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-portable-archive-audio-preview.html

Spooked, spiked, spoked, spooled; levitational and particuar rural, ruderal ambiences, be sure to lend them an ohr. The box set comes with risograph art prints, poems and a 20-page 'concrete guidebook' furher illuminating in flickering fragment Sub Loam's earlier explorations and classic day routes for meditative ramblings.

https://soundcloud.com/subloam/the-portable-archive-preview

Sub Loam re-issues and unreleased archival material announced

Ohr (originally released Cotton Goods, 2009), 2 (Originally released Dissolving, 2010) and Earthern Circle (orginally released Cotton Goods 2010)

+ 2 extra previously unreleased albums from the same era issued to be issued together and available soon in one package, The Portable Archive.

Announced here: http://subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-portable-archive-sub-loam-re-issues.html

New Department

For those who may or may not have picked up Thomas Shrubsole (Dissolving, Sub Loam) & Craig Tattersall's (Humble Bee, Cotton Goods) first release who might or may or may not have or perhaps will or will not or may in the future enjoy it or consider doing so and even those who haven't, please direct your attention additionally to a new, tripartite report from a new department initiated by the pair...

cast your browsers to the shelves in this direction - https://soundcloud.com/local-studies/thomas-shrubsole-craig-tattersall-new-album-preview

Additional details will surface no doubt, and will be photostatted here for the curious.

Sub Loam reviewed in The Wire

Sub Loam's latest was given favourable notice in the 2014 Rewind issue of The Wire magazine.

See below for more details:

http://www.subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/ov-wires-and-connections.html

For anyone intrigued in further exploring the tangled sonic undergrowth of the Sub Loam back catalogue the following titles are still available direct from dissolving

Sub Loam - Ruderal Memory (Henge 008)  £9.00

Sub Loam - A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses (Henge 010)  £9.00

Limited copies of the Unofficial Countryside release that features the Sub Loam piece reviewed in The Wire are also available from dissolving. 

Additionally, for anyone wanting to push on further towards related outer sonic reaches, other projects involving Thomas Shrubsole that are still available from dissolving include:

Space Capsule - Space Capsule (Henge 009) £9.00

T. Shrubsole - C. Tattersall - Cassette (Other Ideas OTC 002) £6.00

Prices do not include postage.

As always, mail for orders, enquiries, trades, etc.

Botanical Reflections

Stuart Marshall in The Sound Projector about Sub Loam's Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses:

"Again and again I return to this intriguing mini CD from Sub Loam (i.e. saxophonist and SP reviewer Thomas Shrubsole), as if it would yield to me its mysteries, but alas! Swiftly am I ensnared and borne upon its pulsating airways, yet just as swiftly it’s over! Where fled those rogue minutes? In this wise, concise designates more than botanical taxonomy, though both here are central concerns: manifest in the splicing of Shrubsole’s pithy breath work and the bloom and swirl of spectral electronic backdrops. Most distinct is this in the first of the three untitled pieces: multiple rows of delicate, trowel-headed honks slowly summoning wispy, electroacoustic spirits, while at the same time suggesting an attitude of horticultural preparation that inspires me to chop carrots in concert. Tracks two and tree are (even) giddier: a tiny sax twittering like butterfly wings caught in swerving currents of pure colour; and finally a slow kaleidoscopic reimagining of all that has preceded. It’s an unearthing of unearthly sensations that could well uproot your mental stability. 39 further copies of the CDR are in existence, all of which are accompanied by a hand-numbered A4-sized abstract print by the artist."

 http://www.thesoundprojector.com/2014/09/24/natural-kingdoms/

Limited copies still available direct from Dissolving. As always, email for availability for this, any other Dissolving and related releases and for any other enquiries.

One Hour and Thirty Nine Minutes

Richard Cunliffe has very kindly played another track from A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses on the latest edition of his Soundart Radio show 'It's Just Music Baby'. The show is two hours long and features plenty of fun sounds for your ears, listen out particularly at 1 hour 39 minutes to hear the Sub Loam track: https://soundcloud.com/its-just-music-baby/its-just-music-baby-thursday As ever, if these sounds please you then orders or any other communications can be achieved simply by mailing: dissolving (dot) records (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk

Hisvoice review A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses

Thanks are due to Tomáš Procházka who has listened to and pondered Sub Loam's latest and has written a thoughtful and sympathetic review in the excellent Czech magazine hisvoice: Jedná se v podstatě o EP o třech skladbách se shouhrnnou délkou necelých šestnáct minut, tak aby se pohodlně vešly na třípalcové CDr, na kterém vychází spolu s autorskou grafikou Thomase Shrubsola v počtu čtyřiceti kusů. Hudba byla nahrána na čtyřstopý kazetový magnetofon a jde, jak ostatně název napovídá, o poctu rostlinnému světu a životu. Jednotlivé skladby označené pouze čísly, jsou věnovány půdě, slunci a rostlinným vláknům. Pokud si nepřečte legendu, která se k nahrávce váže, může být leckterý posluchač zklamán, hudba zní jako jaksi divně úporný minimalismus, saxofon má škytavku a štěká na jednom místě jako opuštěný pták v polích, zajímavé elektronické zvuky za ním nejsou pro změnu téměř slyšet. V druhém tracku má zase šum pásku téměř stejnou důležitost jako užitečný hudební záznam a v pozadí diktuje nějaký lunatický varhaník do kláves náhodná data. Ani třetí track nevysvobodí posluchače z chaotických chuchvalců mimozemského jazzu, bloumavé melodie saxofonu se proplétají s vyťukávanýmy klávesovými zvuky a trochu archaicky znějící elektronikou. Pokud ale posloucháme A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses s vědomím, že jde o umělecký obraz “chlorocentrického” světa, nalézáme zajímavý amorfní hudební tvar, poměrně výstižně přibližující představu rostlinných světů, klíčení, rašení, rhizomatické spoje, tlení, vznik i zánik probíhající v jediný moment. V tomto vesmíru nic nemá přednost, vše pracuje v součinnosti s ostatními elementy, tomuto světu je efektní čištění za účelem přehlednosti či ušlechtilosti. Toto je hudba permakultury - cenný pokus připomenout pyšné lidské kultuře existenci i jiných vesmírů, než toho, ve kterém aktuálně žijeme. Přál bych si aby takových pokusů bylo víc. Link here: http://www.hisvoice.cz/clanek_1763_sub-loam-a-concise-dictionary-of-plants-and-their-uses.html

Reed Streams

A track from Sub Loam's Concise Dictionary of Plants kicks off the latest mix from our friends over at the Kosmiche Club... There's Conrad Schnitzler, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Palais Schaumberg and more in there, too. Listen here: http://www.mixcloud.com/Kosmische/the-kosmische-club-kosmik-elektronik-part-1/

Airplay for Today

Friend of the label Richard Cunliffe played track three from Sub Loam's A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses on last Thursday's 'It's Just Music Baby' show on Sound Art Radio in Devon. The whole show is available on Soundcloud to listen to for your delectation and enjoyment https://soundcloud.com/its-just-music-baby/its-just-music-baby-on

Three of a Perfect Pair

A Trio of Recent Reviews...

As a reminder that Space Capsule is still orbiting sound systems in living rooms across Europe (and also that there are a couple of foil-fresh copies still available from here and from Boomkat) here are two lovely reviews, the first from hisvoice magazine in the Czech Republic and the second from Bad Alchemy in Germany, both of whom have also reviewed previous Dissolving albums favourably.   

Space Capsule: Space Capsule

Thomas Shrubsole se na debutovém albu svého projektu Space Capsule pouští zostra na území free jazzu a kosmické elektroniky. Domácí produkce pomocí dvojkazeťáku není prezentována jako znouzectnost, ale jako záměrné vyznání neutuchajícího páskového futurismu. Pod nánosy páskového šumu zní prolínání mírně hysterického saxofonu, klavíru a zklidněné elektroniky tak nějak zaobleněji, bez ostrých hran, a i když je hudba dosti energická a nespoutaná, tak celkové vyznění alba má zvláštně meditativní charakter. Občasné zavytí syntezátoru, zvuková mračna a prapodivné atmosféry dotváří silně kosmické ladění a třeba dodat, že se nejedná o žádnou levnou, podbízivou psychedelii, ale o řádně mimozemský úlet.
Postupné opakování spojené s pomalou destrukcí klavírního motivu v první skladbě 1 může sloužit jako chvilková jistota, ale o náhlé změny na albu vůbec není nouze. Repetice se náhle odebéře kamsi, aby se meditativní nálady ještě více rozvinuly ve zpomalených zvukových mlhách zaechovaného saxofonu, občasného úderu do klaviatury a ztišených syntezátorových efektech. Shrubsole se nebojí vedle sebe stavět melodické a disonantní linky z útrob saxofonu, ale výsledek nezní nikdy zmateně a Shrubsole se suverenitou sobě vlastní vytváří neobydlené zvukové světy. Strhující závěr první skladby v taylorovské kadenci je nepochybně vrcholem alba, zatímco druhá skladba se posouvá spíš dále do vod zklidněného meditativního zvuku, nikdy však neupadá do určitého druhu podbízivosti, kterou lze najít v žánrové škatulce "ambient". Podivně rezonující klavírní úvod skladby 2 může krátce připomenout Basinskiho páskové orgie, nicméně dlouho se nezastaví na místě, a po chvíli zamíří zpět do oblasti free improvizace. Syntezátor se prolíná s klavírem a pod vrstvou efektů může posluchač nacházet stále nové zvukové nuance.

Nazývat tuto muziku jako kosmický jazz, či po anglicku "space jazz" může znít jako stokrát omleté klišé, ale svádí k tomu jak název projektu, celkové mimozemské vyznění desky. Pokud plánujete v brzké době opuštění sluneční soustavy, toto album může být na cestě velmi příjemným společníkem.

Jan Sůsa


SPACE CAPSULE Space Capsule (Dissolving Records, Henge 009, CD-R w/ A3 poster): Thomas Shrubsole ist einer, der im Himmel wie auf Erden zugange ist, unten als Sub Loam und In the Field, oben als Jesus on Mars oder Space Capsule. Wobei sein Oben Kopfsache ist, nicht eine Frage von Hightech oder Weltabkehr. Drei Instrumentalstimmen mischen sich, umgarnen sich: Das schreitende und repetierte Klimpern eines Pianos, die Klangspuren eines Keyboards, die träumerischen und kaskadierenden Tonfolgen eines Sopransaxophons, bisweilen gefolgt von seinem Echo oder Doubles. Das mischt sich vielschichtig, um nicht zu sagen mehr und mehr chaotisch. Klingt aber dann doch nicht so (so chaotisch), weil alle Stimmen dezent, luftig, versponnen weder unter sich um die Oberhand ringen, noch auf Aufmerksamkeit pochen. Es geht da eher eine schleichende Eindringlichkeit von diesem Klanggeflecht aus. Eine ätherische, liquide, psychedelische Suggestivität, wie sie für gewisse weltoffene und luftige Formen von Jazz der Hippiejahre nicht untypisch gewesen ist. Erst als crescendierendes Finale wühlt sich das Piano cecil-tayloresk in sämliche Gehirnwindungen. 'Space Capsule 2' beginnt mit einem prickelnden Geräusch und von feinsten Keyboardsounds umschweiftem Einfingerpiano. Ein hubschrauberndes Wummern mischt sich leise ein und überträgt dem Keyboard sein Wummermotiv. Die Finger klopfen dazu erratische und dissonante Noten, in zunehmender Häufung, raunend, trillernd kaskadierend. In der 10. Min. setzt auch das Soprano ein, mit wieder träumerischen und kaskadierenden Wellen. In einer Wellenlänge, nicht weit von denen auch Evan Parkers elektroakustische Abenteuer schwingen. Und fällt der Blick nach oben, ziehen da Wolken, faszinierender als jedes Ufo.

[BA 79 rbd]

Plenty more great reviews in that issue of Bad Alchemy, as always, I can thoroughly recommend picking up a copy.

On to newer pastures Frans de Waard has reviewd Sub Loam's Concise Dictionary of Plants in the latest Vital Weekly http://www.vitalweekly.net/915.html


SUBLOAM - A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF PLANTS AND THEIR USES (3"CDR by Dissolving Records)
Thomas Shrubsole is an active person, working with such guises as Jesus On Mars and Space Capsule (the latter reviewed in Vital Weekly 902) and Sub Loam. His releases are in a small edition, but recently also started to look better. Here with a larger print on cardboard and the CDR packed in another print, folded around the CDR itself. There are three pieces on this release, with a total length of sixteen minutes. That's not much, I was thinking, when playing this. The website learns me this is "Composed and played by Sub Loam using organic, acoustic and electro-mechanical instruments and means, composted direct to 4-track tape." Nice; composted. However, when I first played this, I was thinking that the opening piece, the longest of the three, was made with the use of a saxophone, multi tracked and processed using computer means. A bit like Lol Coxhill once did, on his split release with Eyeless In Gaza, but less jazzy. Maybe another point of reference would be Nurse With Wound with a more sparse use of resources. A tape collage of saxophone sounds. But then perhaps I am all wrong, and I happen not to know what these organic, acoustic and electro-mechanical instruments are. Of course you could as easily argue it is not really interesting to know these things. Do I like what I hear? Yes I do. Do I care what how it was made? Not really (and when I wrote this before someone said "so you also don't care your shoes are made in a third world sweatshop?" - it seems something different to me, entirely). Like Space Capsule this is vaguely rooted in the world of jazz, but then, perhaps, also connected to the world of musique concrete - more that than jazz, I was musing. Excellent small release, great package, but way too short, I'd say.  (FdW)

It is included on the podcast, too, here: http://www.vitalweekly.net/915.mp3

Many thanks to Jan, Rigo and Frans for taking the time to listen and write such lovely things about Dissolving music...

As ever, to order any Dissolving releases simply drop an email to dissolving (dot) records (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk 

A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses - Available to order now.

Sub Loam's A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses is now available from

Boomkat: http://boomkat.com/cds/904978-sub-loam-a-concise-dictionary-of-plants-their-uses

Norman Records: http://www.normanrecords.com/records/144883-sub-loam-a-concise-dictionary-of-plants

And direct from Dissolving by contacting the usual email address.

Remember, as ever, whether you are new to Dissolving or have been enjoying our music for a while, you can stay up to date with releases, special editions, exclusives etc. by joining the Dissolving Mailing list. Send an email with 'Mailing List' as the subject or in the body of the mail and you will be added to the list.