Aldous Harding - Designer - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Aldous Harding / WARM CHRIS - For Warm Chris, the New Zealand musician reunited with producer John Parish, continuing a professional partnership that began in 2017 and has forged pivotal bodies of work (2017's Party and the aforementioned Designer). All ten tracks were recorded at Rockfield Studios and includes contributions from H. Hawkline, Seb Rochford, Gavin Fitzjohn, John and Hopey Parish and Jason Williamson (Sleaford Mods).

The sinister yet beguiling images that DARKHER aka Jayn Maiven paints with her ethereal vocals, guitars, and added strings conjure iridescent cinematic scenes in which it becomes hard to tell whether there lies beauty in darkness or if it is the other way around. With her sophomore full-length InchThe Buried StormInch, the guitarist, composer, lyricist, and producer has clearly succeeded to even improve the beloved alchemic musical formula that was firmly established on DARKHER's debut album InchRealmsInch in 2016. DARKHER were conceived as the sole brainchild and solo-project of Northern English singer and guitarist Jayn Maiven in 2012. The dark and melancholic yet also massively heavy sound on the self-titled debut EP InchDarkherInch 2013) combined with the distinct vocals of the shy pre-Raphaelite beauty caused an audible buzz - particularly in the doom scene and led to the following EP InchThe Kingdom FieldInch (2014) appearing via Prophecy Productions. Despite not even having an album out, DARKHER were invited to prestigious festivals such as Roadburn in Tilburg, The Netherlands and Prophecy Fest in the Cave of Balve. In 2016, the debut full-length InchRealmsInch was released to much praise from critics and fans alike. Press compared DARKHER's music with a wide range of highly individual acts such as CHELSEA WOLFE, ESBEN AND THE WITCH, SOLSTAFIR, LOREENA MCKENNITT, and PORTISHEAD. InchThe Buried StormInch gives shape to the darkness lurking at the edge of consciousness, hidden from plain sight but patiently biding it's time to strike out at the heart.

New Zealand based musician and songwriter Aldous Harding's fifth album, Train on the Island, arrives on May 8. The 10-track record was co-produced with long-time collaborator John Parish (PJ Harvey, Dry Cleaning, Sparklehorse) at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, where the pair recorded Harding's previous albums Party (2017), Designer (2019) and Warm Chris (2022). Musical contributions to the new recordings come from pedal steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte; harpist Mali Llywelyn; synth artist Thomas Poli; drummer Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear); and Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), across bass, vocals, acoustic/electric guitar, and organ.