Fishrider Records

From the latest Waitrose Weekend magazine. The Rev Army. Gulp.

George Henderson’s brother Ian also plays in The Puddle and runs the amazing Fishrider Records label.

We’re now taking preorders for the new Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus album “Songs of Yearning”, with a bonus companion album “Nocturnes”. Either website: https://www.occultation.co.uk/Occultation_Space/Releases/LOGOS7E4072/Orders/soy_orders.html or Bandcamp: https://revolutionaryarmyoftheinfantjesus.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-yearning

Listen/purchase: I Carry The Sun (single) by Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Tidal Rave seem like they could have been part of the late 80s/early 90s Flying Nun scene - keyboards, pop songs, ect (The Able Tasmans).   Tidal Rave is not derivative…they just sound like they are a band out of time.  Some would say they remind them of The Renderers or The Terminals.  

A review of our reissue of The Distractions’ “Nobody’s Perfect” from the new issue of “Uncut” magazine. We expect to ship preorders over the next week. https://www.occultation.co.uk/Occultation_Space/Releases/YMIR7E4070/Orders/np2020_orders.html

A short piece on Emily Fairlight from French website Soul Kitchen

“This is the New Zealand folk globetrotter’s second album (the first came out in 2011 - it takes time to travel around doing odd little jobs to finance all this). The (excellent) British label Occultation Recordings fell in love with this wonderful record and decided to release it on this side of the planet - which was a brilliant idea! Because the young lady has made a 21st century globalised country folk album (although it sidesteps fashionable world music)! Imagine the emotional power of the Cowboy Junkies transported into our own period of ultra-modern solitude. It’s so lovely it’ll have you crying into your beer and/or restore your faith in humanity. There are plenty of the “classic” components of country and/or folk here: violin, pedal steel-style sounds, accordion, brass, etc. but they’re never used in an unwieldy or awkward way, because the main feature of this beautiful, deep album is the grace it gives off. This album recorded in Austin is a two-hander, with each person playing quite a wide variety of different instruments, giving the songs depth and density, topped by Emily Fairlight’s voice which places her in the great tradition of strong women who’ve forged a career without letting anyone walk all over them!“

An absolutely wonderful review of Emily Fairlight’s “Mother of Gloom” - we agree that it’s “an important album”. Available on vinyl and CD either from us, FIshrider or via Cargo Records.

“I sometimes feel a thrill caused by the strange, supernatural sensation that I’ve had the same impression on a previous occasion - or in a previous life. I make myself seize and nurture the feeling so that I can predict - or even control - what’s about to happen, or what I’m about to feel, although it usually disappears without anything happening. I wait for it to come, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve always been fascinated by “déjà vu”, that elusive, recurring mixture of illusion and reality which is one of the typical manifestations of paramnesia. It’s a recollection that’s got distorted in my mind; remembering having lived through situations and sensations that I’ve actually never experienced or felt before.I also - albeit less frequently – experience phenomena that are closely connected with paramnesia such as “jamais vu” (never seen before) and “presque vu”, (almost seen before). There are sudden moments (which can be both terrifying and exciting) when sensations, objects, and even people that I’ve known all my life are inexplicably seen in a fresh, unknown light - this is “jamais vu”. Then there are others (which are no less exciting and captivating) when I feel as though I’m grasping an absolute truth in a sudden flash of clarity - this is “presque vu”. On each of my repeated listens to the second album by New Zealander Emily Fairlight I get all three of these sensations in rapid succession - sometimes even at the same time.“Mother of Gloom” was recorded in Austin, Texas, and borrowing its title from a song by Martha Wainwright; it arrives seven years after her eponymous debut album and is being reissued in late spring by two labels, Occultation (UK) and Fishrider (NZ), after Emily put it out as a private pressing last year. It offers a dream-like soundscape, which immediately fills your senses with a passionate, uninhibited voice over a lush bed of acoustic instruments.The album opens with “Body Below” and, all of a sudden, that sense of “déjà vu” (or “déjà entendu”) pervades my senses. Even so, it’s a positive, calming feeling - I’ve been here before, I’ve had these dreams before, they’re already part of my emotional baggage. Even so, after just a moment, nothing really feels familiar to me. Ms Fairlight’s vocal depth and heartfelt tone are both disturbing and exciting; although the songs are performed conventionally, there’s something unusual about them that makes them seem strange, yet suddenly no less dear to me for all that.Then, as the refined sounds and delicate melodies of “Mother Of Gloom” succeed one another, I start to experience little epiphanies, as the reverb of “Water Water” drags me underwater, “The Desert”, which is almost instrumental, dazzles my senses, the trumpet on “Loneliest Race” leads me into a kind of rapture which is mystical yet worldly, with its southern scents and flavours. The desolate-sounding accordion and (even more so) trumpet on “The Bed” are somewhere between Morricone and Belville, while the sweet, melancholic “Sinking Ship” sets me on the road back home.The album is a book of poetry to be browsed, studied and savoured slowly, then assimilated consciously as you give yourself up to it. On “Private Apocalypse” Emily sings, “When no memories or words, pass through your lips/In my own apocalypse”, while the incredible “Time’s Unfaithful Wife” (“I love you like I loved the first ‘til death takes him one day”) deserves to ring on in my ears indefinitely, and the closing “Breathe Baby Breathe”, is airy and simple, with a caressing violin; such a short yet effective track yet what actually happens is that, when it ends, I find myself asking myself who I am, where I am and what I was doing before I immersed myself in such beauty.The pathos and depth of the experience that Emily Fairlight expresses through her unusual vocal performance makes “Mother Of Gloom” a suggestive, melancholic work, heartfelt and sad. This is an album that could be a treaty on paramnesia, where the expressions “déjà vu”, “jamais vu” and “presque vu” take on immediate, positive meanings, coloured with therapeutic intensity and melancholic exultation.“

Get the album here: https://smarturl.it/jeanines

The year is 2019 A.D. The UK is entirely occupied by Brexit-related depression… Well, not entirely… A small label run by indomitable aesthetes still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the garrisons of Brexit legionaries … The UK is in turmoil and nobody knows what tomorrow might hold. The people at Occultation Recordings (a label whose roster includes The Wild Swans, The Granite Shore and The June Brides) don’t know what the future will look like either, but they’re going to help us to fall in love with Emily Fairlight’s music.In 1995 we loved Oceania for The Chills, The Bats and The Apartments. In 2019, the women have seized power and we love Oceania for Stella Donnelly, Julia Jacklin and Emily Fairlight.Emily Fairlight knows how to put a team together (we notice that Cully Symington of Bright Eyes and Okkervil River plays on The Escape) and she writes wonderful little songs with a knack for grabbing you right from the very first note. Fairlight is like the strength of PJ Harvey combined with nocturnal ambiance of Wellington. Mother Of Gloom came out in New Zealand last year and went totally unnoticed in Europe. Now it’s coming. All praise be to Occultation Recordings.Mother of Gloom by Emily Fairlight will be available in June 2019 from Fishrider Records and Occultation Recordings.“