Out on September 8th is a brand new label sampler from the fine Cold Spring label. “Arise – A Cold Spring Sampler” is being released as a 2CD in gatefold ecopak and holds 33 tracks.

“Arise” is the first sampler in this 20+ years old label sampler series since the “Earthen”, which was released in November 2018. Included is material from Cold Spring’s current and forthcoming releases covering industrial, esoteric, dark ambient, noise, ritual, drone, doom metal, experimental, electronica, or yet dark soundtracks.

Included is work from Kollaps, Llyn Y Cwn, Khost, Jagath, Trepaneringsritualen, Coil, Merzbow, She Spread Sorrow, Frank Hall, Dead Voices On Air feat. Cevin Key, Lull, Mz.412 , The Circular Ruins And Mystified, Common Eider, King Eider, Colossloth, We Be Echo, George Fenton, Kristian Eidnes Andersen / Lars Von Trier, , Himukalt, Sonologyst, Satøri , 400 Lonely Things, Tunnels Of Ah, Sleep Research Facility, Burial Hex, Tenhornedbeast, Fm Einheit / Lee Ranaldo, Spk, Oleg Karpachov, Drew Daniel / John Wiese, La Breiche,
Neil Chaney, Gp-Orridge & Dave Ball.

Check out the tracks below. Warmly recommended!

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Genre/Influences: Cinematic, Dark-Ambient, Experimental.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Craig Varian released his first works as 400 Lonely Things twenty years ago. This new work is a conceptual release inspired by the artistic work of Richard Scott Hill. You’ll find information about his work on the net while the front cover is an illustration made by him.

Content: This work leads us into deep, mysterious, Ambient fields. It has something pretty Cinematic as well. The composition is made of field recordings, electronic sound treatments and a few, spoken, words.

+ + + : There’s a kind of duality running throughout the work I really like. It has a deeply relaxing, and evasive effect on one side and an ominous sensation at the other side. The artist excels in the use of an extended, sonic, canvas which he infused with few spoken, sampled, words getting git more mysterious and still visual at the same time. I like most of the tracks but especially the last -and maybe darkest one, is my personal favorite.

– – – : You feel that the album has been conceived as a conceptual work and I miss the visual side it has been inspired by.

Conclusion: An interesting album filled with contrast although remaining pretty homogenous.

Best songs: “I Live In The Green Blooded Forest”, “Oh My Soul”, “Many Moons”.

Rate: 7½.

Artist: www.400lonelythings.com / www.facebook.com/400LonelyThings

Label: www.coldspring.co.uk / www.facebook.com/coldspringhq Read the news on ‘Mother Moon’.

About 400 Lonely Things

400 Lonely Things is the dark ambient, drone and electronica project of American musician Craig Varian, working with weathered sampling and melancholic instrumentals that trace back to recordings he made with late musical partner Jonathan McCall in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, Varian frequented Banning Mill, a haven for artists in the backwoods of the American Deep South, where he was exposed to the artwork of Richard Scott Hill, whose piece “Minotauress” he later purchased and used for the cover of “Mother Moon”. The album was released on Cold Spring on 24 March 2023, produced by William Basinski and presented in a 6-panel spot-varnished digipak.

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

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The dark ambient / drone / electronica project 400 Lonely Things returns with an all new album on the 24th March via Cold Spring. Produced by William Basinski it is a dark ambient, sample-based ‘séance to the Banning Mill’, which was basically a mansion and haven for artists in the backwoods of the American Deep South in the 1970s-1990s.

In the 90’s, 400 Lonely Things’s Craig Varian frequented the Mill in the years before it closed. It was here that he was exposed to the artwork of Richard Scott Hill, whose artwork “Minotauress” is on the album cover. This album, born out of that first visit to the Mill, is an imaginary soundtrack ‘to the many years of solitude the Minotauress spent hanging in the musty, secret winding halls of Banning Mill’.

Since the days of the Mill (and Varian’s subsequent purchase of “Minotauress” shortly before the Mill closed), Craig Varian, along with best friend and late musical partner Jonathan McCall, found a thread of music they’d been consistently making yet had previously failed to notice – melancholic instrumentals with weathered sampling at its core – going back to their earliest recordings in the late 1980’s. Eventually, this music was called 400 Lonely Things.

The release comes presented in a 6-panel spot-varnished digipak. Check below for the download too. Read the review of ‘Mother Moon’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com