Untitled #01, 1999 – Rarities and Unreleased

“Without further ado – One of many, many tracks I’ve made from long ago when I first started creating. This one was made sometime around 1999 – 2001, recorded using nothing but hardware – my MC505 Groovebox being the main sequencer at the heart of it all with various synths and a sampler in the mix.

If it goes over well enough and you all enjoy hearing this stuff I’ll keep posting them from time to time. It’s good to go back every so often and see how far you’ve come sonically. Enjoy peeps!”

- The Bear and The Sea

Tags: 1999, damon sheeley, MC505 Groovebox, Music, rarities, song, soundcloud, the bear and the sea, track, Unreleased

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2013 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Trees Like You

Mark your calendars: on February 5th, The Bear and The Sea debuts his full-length album, Trees Like You. It will be available via Bandcamp, iTunes, Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Amazon MP3, Deezer, and XBOX Music. In the meantime, stream a few tracks from the release!

About the release:

Trees Like You, clocking in at a sharpened and stirring 12 tracks, is The Bear and the Sea’s debut full-length album. If you’re a start from the top kind of listener, you’ll join in at My Fire Burns The Same, a chirping, wind chime of an introduction into an earthy, blustering soundscape of pneumatic yet skintight gratification.

Crystal Swords will only surprise you a little bit with its pop and lock gusto, its sway/sway tap tap tap, because even in the whisper quiet spots, the Bear has you in motion.

These tracks are titled like the Galápagos Islands under the Northern Lights at a virtual reality party where hours later, you still find grains of sand between your toes. Human Loop hits an exotic yet square place in your gut that’ll have your freewheeling head doing figure 8s, and Pink Route warps itself around a guttural heartbeat while clacking away at something you want to hear again and again.

And just like that, in a mournful yet ritualistically tidal fashion, it’s over. While tricky to place in context, Trees Like You is a lot like its title, the leafy and fleshy stuff of our very existence – you need it in your lives.

Tags: Album, damon sheeley, Debut Album, record, the bear and the sea, trees like you

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2013 at 12:16 am and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The Bear and The Sea – The Girl’s Got Angel Wings

It’s bleary. The air’s thick as soup and every breath is heavier than the last; more ghostly than gusty, yet still the very stuff of life.

The Bear and the Sea’s debut single with Nueva Forma, The Girl’s Got Angel Wings, is the compressed soundtrack to taking a preternatural drive through Twin Peaks, Washington on any given night in history – you’re destined for trouble and the temper of the atmosphere is almost too right to bear.

It’s all romance and piano keys, overspreading fog and red roses in glass vases. In this moment, you realize that the Earth could stop bearing and sustaining your every need. It’s exhilarating. And then you’re just fumes, a tiny speck of familiar yellow in the distance. Until you hit repeat.

Tags: Album, chromatic dream, damon sheeley, enjoyed, iameb 57, IG88, mogi grumbles, Nueva Forma, Péninsolar, Release, single, the bear and the sea

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2012 at 3:18 am and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases, remix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Gouseion – Puisne

There exists a crunchy netherworld of whipping hips and closed eyes; there exists a shuddering whirlpool where hard living begs for a badly behaved soundtrack, where aggressive contraptions nag at the frayed edges of nature.

Puisne, Gouseion’s first release with Nueva Forma, doesn’t bother with the scenery of things. Like a noisy companion who likes things a certain way and operates as a remote soldier with one thing in mind, Gouseion comes from a place of inner quiet – but it’s bloody insane on the outside.

Pirony really sets the whole thing off with a windshield wiper powerhouse jam that’s as consistent and metrical as you like it. It all starts with the jagged chomp of the bass and spreads like an infection into the audio context. Three tracks later, Turing Test loosens the screws a bit and knocks it all down a few notches, but doesn’t let go of a thing.

All in all, there are sweet moments of slow recoil and deep breaths of nasty, pulverized darkness in here. Stagger reminds you that your heart’s still beating and that there is a way out, a way back into the fold where the familiar will always remind you that you’re human. Then it’s all popping circuits and touches of brutal melody from there until EOD (II) fades out into a dark and gentle reprieve.

We think Gouseion is trying to tell us that there’s something lesser yet totally scintillating behind the natural world – innocence be damned. Puisne hails weakness, both as a flaw and an openness, and we all need to hear what that sounds like every now and then – however it is we choose to hear it.

Tags: 8-bit, Album, chiptune, Colorcubic, electronic, Electronica, Gouseion, Nueva Forma, Puisne, Release

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2012 at 2:22 am and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Del Dot (Anuj Girdhar)

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Last month, Anuj Girdhar of Del Dot was interviewed by WZBC 90.3 FM out of Boston College. In this hour-long program, he shares a handful of new cuts from his forthcoming EP You Can Play These Songs With Cords as well as various production techniques. Stream it all right here or download it.

Tags: anuj girdhar, boston college, del dot, electronic, fm, IDM, interview, Music, process, production, radio, wzbc

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Artists, Music, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

iameb 57 - Delicate Glitch (EP)

A glitch at its most basic is an intrusion into expectation. Such is the world of iameb 57’s sophomore release for Nueva Forma, Delicate Glitch. At once hard and biting, soft and lush, dark and impenetrable, bucolic and bright, the five-track EP is as intricate as its name suggests. These are the stylings of Jimmy Batista, who works brilliantly in the world of contrast. At the core of each track is a head-bobbing mid-tempo dance pulse perfect for late night summer mixes; the pads are luscious, the bass tones warm and inviting. Built on this is a precise balance of urban static, post-digital glitch, and minimalist melody that holds a cracked mirror up to the cuts he produces.

As we expected from his music after the release of Tipsy Hax last August, iameb 57 has become an intriguing writer of melodies. His skeletal leads leave much to the imagination, a fair accomplishment considering the ability of digital artists to become omnipotent over-writers. Check out the emotive sparsity of the strings on “Thelpwe” to hear how much he can say with so little.

Batista in general has a more concise approach to style in this offering. Where Tipsy Hax was more sprawling as he explored every color and option of the IDM idiom, he is here dialing into a recipe of composing that suits him well. He has distilled himself into an intimidating potency on Delicate Glitch, and this twenty minutes of bliss bodes well for his followers.

You can purchase the album exclusively on Nueva Forma’s Bandcamp.

Tags: Album, bandcamp, Colorcubic, delicate glitch, electronic, Electronica, ep, glitch, iameb 57, IDM, jimmy batista, Music, Nueva Forma, Release, tipsy hax

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Creta - Closing the Doors of Perception

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We’re kicking off the New Year with a new album by Creta entitled Closing the Doors of Perception. Formerly known as White Car, Creta was the first artist signed to Nueva Forma. We therefore find it only fitting to start the year at the beginning. As an album, the hour-long offering has nine of the sweetest glitched-out, source-material-pulverizing, groove-minded, crooning tracks we’ve heard in a long time. With samplings as divergent as a Langston Hughes poem and an internet pop-up ad, it’s no wonder how Creta got his reputation for being notoriously restless. We love it because we never know what to expect. You love it because no matter what it is, it’s always on point. Forget what you know or how you perceive him. Grab the album on shopnuevaforma.com for the new gestalt.

Tags: 2011, Album, closing the doors of perception, Creta, electronic, glitch, IDM, Nueva Forma, Release, samples, White Car

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 9:36 am and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

While the days are getting shorter and the ice cream trucks creep through the neighborhoods playing their siren songs with dwindling frequency, we here at Nueva Forma are taking advantage of the lengthening nights of September to bring you more great music out of the darkness. New additions to our catalog this month include releases by roster members Miori and Lapse. Drink up, ladies and gentlemen…

Miori - I Have No Memory Of This Place

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Imagine Aaron Sjogren, aka Miori, as your tour guide through an ethereal, illusory land. I Have No Memory of This Place has this sense about it. Miori invites the listener into his domain with open arms for a half-hour exploration of its terrain and inhabitants: mellow grooves, eerie synth patches, acousmatic layering, a filtered and detached voice surfacing here and there. A timeless sense of music emerges from the album as tracks fade in and out, swirling in the atmosphere of its planet. You may find the title fitting as everything feels new while at the same time familiar and comfortable. Sjogren is the conduit, not the architect. Let him show you what he has found. Samples are available here and the full 11-track album is up for purchase at shopnuevaforma.com.

Lapse - The Living Lucid

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If you want to witness, in a single sitting, the budding and decay of a flower, or perhaps someone driving from Los Angeles to New York City, check out the art of time-lapse photography. If you want to listen to a composer who can successfully and coherently develop a single track through a multitude of concise musical themes, look no further than Lapse. The Living Lucid is not exactly what you’d expect from an IDM artist. Straying from pop sensibilities, the ten cuts on this release have deeper bows to improvising jazz artists of the mid-20th century than to the more immediate predecessors of techno and glitch. Strong polyrhythmic layers permeate the electronic beats while the guitar-driven melodies wander freely from one idea to the next in a stream-of-consciousness bliss. Listen to segmented motifs here and head on over to shopnuevaforma.com for your unabridged version.

Insert your earbuds and enjoy. And while you are doing so, check back for the next installment of our podcast, Listening Pleasures Vol. 9, coming to a music player near you, in a time near now. See you soon!

Tags: aaron sjogren, albums, Ambient, charles garcia, Colorcubic, downtempo, Electronica, i have no memory of this place, IDM, lapse, miori, new music, Nueva Forma, Releases, the living lucid

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Transitory Timing, Pinscape’s debut release for Nueva Forma, has arrived safely into the digital world. Check out the samples on the player below, buy the complete album, and enjoy the offering from our computer to yours.

Pinscape - Transitory Timing (EP)

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What shines through brightest in the lens of Transitory Timing is Pinscape founder Matthew Flook’s fixation with the shoegaze music of the early ‘90s. The tracks are laced thread-and-needle with Flook’s gorgeous vocal work and mixed to blend his ethereal orating deep into the layers. And while nods to My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive would explain much of what you hear in this 7-track EP, the landscape shows a broader horizon of musical upbringing and experiences.

In lieu of the heavily effected guitars traditionally used by bands of the shoegaze era, Pinscape turns to electronica and IDM tactics to fill out the backdrops. “Last Wish” puts on a bass-heavy synthetic beat perfect for either a night on the dance floor or a mellow evening on the couch, while “Tres Pasitos” and “Through the Window” follow the more ambient wanderings of bands like Telefon Tel Aviv and Aphex Twin. Occasional acoustic instruments and analog sampling and manipulations add ear-catching details throughout.

In the end, it’s Flook’s voice that will bring you back to the album again and again. Its dark, emotive power will not be denied. He has impressed upon Transitory Timing the grey, gloomy din of Pacific Northwestern weather and midnight outings in pitch-black corners of a dim city. Similarities to Sparklehorse’s collaboration with David Lynch surface on more than a few instances. With this in mind, the ethereal reverb placed on the vocal tracks gives an almost otherworldly and uplifting sense to the music as a whole. It is the space rock musician turning his head from his more shoe-conscious forebears.

We hope you enjoy the listening. Keep your ears out for more aural pinscapes on the upcoming Listening Pleasures Vol. 9 and the imminent release of Social Club Vol. 2, which you will most certainly be the first to know about if you join our mailing list. Until then…

Tags: Acousmatic Pop, Colorcubic, Electronica, IDM, matthew flook, Nueva Forma, Pinscape, shoegaze, transitory timing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 11:40 am and is filed under Artists, Music, News, Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.