Thomas Shrubsole & Craig Tattersall's 2014 untitled cassette reissued on Local Studies

Thomas Shrubsole & Craig Tattersall's out of print 2014 collaborative cassette has been reissued as an expanded digital release on Local Studies.

See here for details and to purchase: 

Tape Music by Thomas Shrubsole on Parenthetical Activities available digitally from Bandcamp

Thomas Shrubsole's Tape Music box set, released earlier this year in a limited Art Edition on Dissolving sub-label Parenthetical Activities, is now available to purchase in digital format from the Parenthetical Activities bandcamp page.

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.

Thomas Shrubsole - Tape Music @ Boomkat

Tape Music is now available from Boomkat.com

Here is their take on it:

"Highly organic, kinetic concrete and reel-time ferric sculptures from Thomas Shrubsole, yielding almost 3 hours of lower case rustles resembling free jazz played by nature.
Working in a richly imaginative realm shared by everyone from Rashad Becker to Anne Guthrie, Ekoplekz to Decimus, ‘Tape Music’ is a significant batch of scrabbly abstraction from one of the North West’s most quietly unassuming and uncompromising operators. Working hands-on with his trusted reel-to-reel, found objects and 2nd-hand instrumentation, Shrubsole enacts a form of intimate animism that gives life to sounds lesser heard. Mixing skin with grit and machine, his improvised interventions coax out a plethora of almost anthropomorphic or bestial tones from things without a heart or brain, and effectively using his own body to better connect with the world around him and bring listeners to a granular, haptic level of musical perception.
Recorded in 2015 and left to mulch in the archive, the results are entirely analog from nose to tail, exploring a bio-organic feedback system that investigates, in his own words, “notions of the prosaic and the exotic, the personal as it pertains to the physically local and the distant, proximate and disembodied, the diaristic and the documentary: Kinetic performative physical improvisational concrete.” "

Copies are also available direct by emailing dissolving or through dissolving on discogs.

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

Forthcoming on Parenthetical Activities: Thomas Shrubsole - Tape Music

Coming soon on Dissolving sub-label Parenthetical Activities, a special limited edition Double Cassette/Art Box Set containing two and a half hours of music and a 48-page full-colour art booklet alongside postcards and inserts.


Available Soon.

https://soundcloud.com/parentheticalactivities

http://parentheticalactivities.blogspot.com/

Thomas Shrubsole - Themes and Variations (Parenthetical Activities) - Available now

Buy from boomkat https://boomkat.com/products/themes-and-variations

or read and order direct: http://parentheticalactivities.blogspot.com/

https://soundcloud.com/parentheticalactivities

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

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

Interested Parties Are Also Directed

To point their browsers...

here: http://www.localstudiesunit.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/thomas-shrubsole-craig-tattersall.html

Triple tape action on pre-order, feat. Thomas Shrubsole and Craig Tattersall.

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.

Related Release

T Shrubsole & C Tattersall, 

Collaboration between Thomas Shrubsole (Dissolving Records, Sub Loam, Jesus on Mars, Dissolving Orchestra etc.) and Craig Tattersall (Other Ideas, Cotton Goods, The Humble Bee, The Boats, The Remote Viewer, Dissolving Orchestra etc.)

new cassette out on Other Ideas.

Copies available at Boomkat, Other Ideas and through Dissolving. Email For availability.

 http://boomkat.com/cassettes/1081172-t-shrubsole-c-tattershall-untitled

 http://ourotherideas.tumblr.com/post/93894610334/otr-c-002-thomas-shrubsole-craig-tattersall

Dissolving back catalogue items also available.

Early Analogue available @ Boomkat

  

LISTEN/READ/BUY

"Dissolving Records' Thomas Shrubsole - aka Sub Loam, In The Field, Jesus On Mars - presents early, archival recordings, using his birth name for the first name. It's a personal and far-reaching suite of disparate sounds tripping from Decimus-like astral chaos thru vivid synth wormholes to surprising Detroit techno deviations , gamelan-like percussive meditations and extended passages of atonal noise, all free as you like and unhindered by anything but his own wild imagination."
 

Early Analogue

LISTEN HERE 

Order by emailing Dissolving

New Release

Limited Art Edition C40 on Dissolving.

Listen here: Preview

Available Soon.

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

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