Full Circle Anniversary and Charity Compilation: now available

We’re very excited to share with you our ten year anniversary compilation titled, Full Circle. This has been well over a year in the making and was due to be released on the exact anniversary of August 26th, (the date of the first blog post in 2008), but due to our need to get a perfect press, it has been delayed a little until now.

The music presented in this compilation is probably the closest distillation of what has inspired ASIP over the past ten years. The ASIP website and its many versions; blog posts; guest mixes; even some of the older archived (now hidden) posts, were revisited to find the perfect tracks to put forward.

There was however, a few limitations in mind: (1) It had to be a track previously written about or featured in some capacity on ASIP from 2008-2018. (2) The track has previously not been released on vinyl. (3) The artist isn’t currently a part of the ASIP label family.

The end result isn’t a compilation of rarities, b-sides or label exclusives that you may have expected at a typical ten year milestone. Instead, it’s a compilation of music that has helped define ASIP as many people know it today. From drone and space ambient; to shoegaze inspired guitars; nostalgic electronica and melodic synthesizer music, Full Circle presents many of the elements that have been captured over the past ten years on A Strangely Isolated Place.

Pressed into the grooves of this record is some of the finest music to grace my ears that I felt passionate enough to feature on ASIP in the past, and now once more on vinyl - Ryan.

To help celebrate the occasion, all profits from this compilation will go to a charity called The Harmony Project: www.harmony-project.org. We felt that investing in and helping the next generation of potential musicians would be a fitting tribute to the overall concept of the release.

In more ways than one, we’ve come full circle.

For more information, links to buy and listen see the release page.

Thank you to all of the artists, labels and everyone involved in bringing this to life.

Winterlight - The Longest Sleep Through The Darkest Days

One of music's greatest powers comes in its ability to trigger memories. And as ASIP turns ten this year (ten-years since the very first blog post went up in 2008), it's harmonious that one of the first artists we featured way-back, releases a long awaited follow-up.

Listening to Winterlight's new album, I've got a giddy feeling of exploring not only Tim Ingham's music at the time, but the other music that made me tick around that time, too. It's  funny to think that only a very small percentage of you reading this now, remember hearing or reading about Winterlight all those years back. But for me, memories come flooding back.

Tim's sound as Winterlight remains a glistening, softly-told journey, portrayed and influenced by many years listening to post-rock and shoegaze music. Not much has changed in the seven years Tim has been away and his last album Hope Dies Last, apart from the inclusion of his daughter on bass, but this is a style of music that rarely comes about. By the sounds of things, it's been a tough journey for them both to see this one through, so for that, and for sticking to the sound many of us loved, I'm grateful to see another album come to fruition. 

As a comparison (which is arguably necessary if you're muttering shoegaze or post-rock influences), we often we see this kind of shoegaze/post-rock inspired ambient music descending into the more grandiose, orchestral side of things. With Hammock, for example, melding modern-classical elements, bigger drums, or soaring guitar leads on the more soundtracked moments. Tim keeps it simple and uplifting, with gentle ambient pads and  melodies built for stargazing. Drums are minimal and the bass a crucial accent, and structural focus is kept on the guitars. Progression comes in layers, instead of numerous additional instruments, slowly building palettes of sound around the lead chords.

Only then, three-quarters of the way through, do you realize Tim's music influences - as you look back to where the track started, he's turned a simple melody and subtle ambient sounds, into a full-blown wave of colorful shoegaze. 

Available on colored vinyl & digital at n5MD. 

Listen to Winterlight's isolatedmix, featuring Helios, port-royal, Slowdive Robin Guthrie and Crisopa. 

isolatedmix 17 - Winterlight

It’s weird to think that Winterlight was one of the very first artists featured on ASIP around three years ago. I can’t remember how I managed to stumble across Tim’s Winterlight and Lightsway projects, but it was one of those finds which ultimately ended up shaping many epic train journeys, hours of headphone time, endlessly long commutes, moments of personal reflection and of course, (not forgetting) a great night out last year.

Tim’s music pays homage to classic shoegaze and is filled with beautiful atmospherics and ethereal ambience – the perfect matrimony of shimmering guitars and electronic ambient music. I’m often asked for similar music to the likes of Ulrich Schnauss and artists such as Winterlight are first to mind.  Whilst Winterlight can sound completely different and is definitely more instrumental in approach (with a heavy focus on guitars, delays and reverb), Tim manages to capture the most unimaginable beauty and escapism in his productions, which can only lead to a mutual admiration for epic shoegaze influenced music I often associate with the likes of Schnauss, Jonas Munk, The Cocteau Twins, and Hammock.

It’s this combination of guitars and electronic ambient which has shaped Tim’s isolatedmix, reflecting on his own personal journeys:

“When I was younger I used to go on long coach journeys just to escape. I made up C90 mixtapes and then bought a return ticket for somewhere far away. I would travel through the day and night watching the world pass by me in a blur and listen to my Walkman and disappear somewhere inside myself to a place I wanted to be. It was if there wasn’t any real world just a backdrop to the music. Nowadays I make my own music to do the same thing. This mix is an attempt to recreate the feel of those tapes and those journeys.”

Classic shoegaze from the originators, including Robin Guthrie, Slowdive and Airiel, amongst the more electronic ambient influences of personal favourites, port-royal. Tim also manages to sneak in some lesser known yet similarly talented artists such as Luga, kontakte and Jesper Lundager, adding depth and variety to the already mouthwatering lineup.

Modest in his ways, Tim hasn’t included any tracks of his own in the mix. But, after a recent signing to one of our favourite labels N5MD(home of port-royal, Lights Out Asia and Near The Parenthesis), the door is open for you to explore Tim’s latest and greatest album, ‘Hope Dies Last’. Including some reworked tracks from Tim’s early Lightsway guise, guest vocals and additional production duties from Mike Cadoo (Bitcrush), the album is a welcome return after what has seemed like an eternity of missing dreamy and ethereal Winterlight productions.Available now on N5MD.

The isolatedmix series will always be a way for me to enlist the musical minds of some of my biggest influences, so I think many of you will join me in saying what a pleasure it is to have a stunning mix from one of the original discoveries on ASIP – and one that’s still releasing amazing music to this day.

Download.

Tracklist:
01. Northern Picture Library – Dreams and Stars and Sleep
02. Helios – Coast Off
03. Disco Inferno – Footprints in Snow
04. The Papertiger Sound – This is How it Ends
05. kontakte – A Snowflake in Her Hand
06. Ultra Vivid Scene – Lynne-Marie #1
07. Airiel – Firefly
08. Slowdive – In Mind
09. Jesper Lundager – Robot Friend Sleeps Well
10. Robin Guthrie – Camera Lucida
11. Dif Juz – The Last Day
12. Luga – This Hard Day
13. Aerosol – Excess
14. Crisopa – Fibra de Carbona y Cambios Automaticos
15. Angelmark – Twilight World
16. port-royal – Ernst Bloch
17. Felt – Be Still
18. Pacific UV – L.A.P.D vs N.Y.P.D (Eluvium remix)

Tracknotes from Tim:

Northern Picture Library – Dreams and Stars and Sleep
Perfect music to watch the world drift past to from a great album.

Helios – Coast Off
I could have made an entire mix of Helios, like epic 45 this sounds exactly like travelling in a bus or train, staring out of the window to me.

Disco Inferno – Footprints in Snow
I love all the messy sonic stuff that is going on in the background just doing enough to disturb the pretty piano line.

The Papertiger Sound – This is How it Ends
I love short instrumentals. Felt did an album of them, Let the Snakes Crinkle their Heads to Death, and this one is just perfect – comes along does its thing then stops.

kontakte – A Snowflake in Her Hand
I have been lucky enough to play with kontakte a few times and they are a fantastic, powerful live band. This track from their new album shows what beautiful music they make.

Ultra Vivid Scene – Lynne-Marie #1
I loved the first UVS album when it came out and remember being amazed he did it all himself, not so common then but it is probably the first time I thought it might be interesting to make music without a band. Only short but sometimes, like here, that works.

Airiel – Firefly
It sounds like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive, what more could you want?

Slowdive – In Mind
It always comes back to this band for me, the blueprint shoegaze female vocal in a hypnotic setting and not a guitar in sight.

Jesper Lundager – Robot Friend Sleeps Well
The Schnauss of Denmark.

Robin Guthrie – Camera Lucida
Cocteau twins are an obvious influence and Robin’s solo work showcases his incredibly beautiful guitar sound. He makes the guitar sound so beautiful; I wish I had his effects set up.

Dif Juz – The Last Day
I saw Dif Juz quite a few times and they were one of the most inventive bands and the fact they were instrumental impressed me enormously. So far ahead of their time, they invented post-rock years before it happened.

Luga – This Hard Day
I love the distorted keyboard layers on this, Mirror started from an attempt to copy that sound.

Aerosol – Excess
All That is Solid Melts Into Air is one of my favourite albums and this track is sublime.

Crisopa – Fibra de Carbono y Cambios Automaticos
Santi is newly signed to n5md; I have constantly listened to this song since I first heard it a few years ago. Just a perfectly put together, relaxed feel; I could probably listen to it on repeat for the whole journey!

Angelmark – Twilight World
Beautifully resonant guitar, sounds like sadness to my ears (a good thing!)

port-royal – Ernst Bloch
No mix would be complete without port-royal! This track is an epic journey in itself, they are the masters of ebb and flow. I can’t think of anyone who influences my music as much as Attilio.

Felt – Be Still
I will never stop loving Felt. This is a wonderful cover of a Beach Boys song.

Pacific UV – L.A.P.D vs N.Y.P.D (Eluvium remix)
This is my standard “set finisher”. It is a great remix, I love the way it overwhelms you with waves of distortion and feedback building into crescendos over and over again. Superb.