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M. CRAFT Shares ‘Blood Moon’ Remix by Cavern of Anti-Matter

August 18, 2016

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M. CRAFT

Shares ‘Blood Moon‘ Remix by Cavern of Anti-Matter

New album, Blood Moon out now via Heavenly Recordings

 

Following rave reviews for his new album Blood Moon, released in May on Heavenly Recordings, M. Craft had unveiled another excellent remix from the album, following on from the Beyond The Wizard Sleeve reanimation of “Chemical Trails” unveiled earlier this summer. This time around Cavern Of Anti-Matter, the recording alias of Stereolabfounder Tim Gane, brings his spaced-out electronic brilliance to the album’s stunning title track, maintaining the otherworldly beauty of the original whilst adding an array of psychedelic and atmospheric synth effects. Listen below…

Critical acclaim for Blood Mood, out now on Heavenly:“Like a baroque suite set adrift from its moorings… One of the most exquisite soul-searching odysseys of this or any other year.” MOJO – 4 Stars ****

“Remarkable… A sense of otherworldly isolation fills the gentle, piano-centric Blood Moon, as completely as it does Nick Drake’s Pink Moon… A wonderful album.” Q – 4 Stars ****

“A meditative mood-piece, wrought from echoing piano, minimalist orchestrations and sudden, cascading waves of vocal harmonies. This is atmospheric ghost music, recalling Mercury Rev, Sufjan Stevens and Simon & Garfunkel at their most ethereal, while the lovely ‘Chemical Trails’ sounds like CSN in space.” Uncut

“Blood Moon stands alone as a perfectly judged synthesis of conventional songwriting skills and detailed, cinematic music that revels in the silence between the notes… Superb.” The Observer – 4 Stars ****

“With its twinkly desert aesthetic and night-sky prettiness, the emphasis on piano and Craft’s melodies recall British folk traditions as well as US ones.”
The Guardian – 4 Stars ****

“A ten point meditation constructed in isolation and centred around gorgeous midnight piano pieces, this is the classical pop album that Villagers’ Conor O’Brien would fawn over.” London In Stereo

“Reminiscent of the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Talk Talk and Mercury Rev, Blood Moon is a record that is as soothing as it is powerful, showing a songwriter at the top of his game.”Louder Than War – 8/10

Living in a cabin on the edge of the Mojave desert, M. CRAFT discovered that isolation loves a soundtrack. Without the usual urban chaos to disturb the natural order, the volume of the eco-system rose on everything within earshot – a daily orchestration of animals and elements in organic harmony. Staying alone in Joshua Tree, the noises of the city fading from nagging tinnitus to distant memory, Canberra born / London resident Martin found himself tuning into the unmuted sounds of the natural world for the first time in years.

“The silence around Joshua Tree is otherworldly, deep, almost impossible,” he says. “But once immersed in this silence, you notice that it’s not really silence at all. Little flecks of sound, which would have gone unheard on a city street corner, become like splashes of neon. The rustle of wind in a smoke tree, the hoot of an owl, the beating wings of a passing crow, all become vivid, important. Musical.”

Blood Moon – M. Craft’s third full album – is very much a score for seclusion. Inspired by witnessing the titular lunar event twice during his time as a desert resident, Blood Moon began life in a studio in nearby Los Angeles as a series of unstructured, experimental piano pieces. “I’d long been planning a piano-based record and I found a recording studio in Echo Park with a hundred-year-old Mason and Hamlin concert grand piano.” says Craft. “I simply sat down and improvised, with no plans or direction. Over a few months of these sessions, I ended up with several hour-long pieces of piano music. Taking everything back to the desert, I started to carve shapes from these pieces and songs started to form.”

If the songs on Blood Moon have been hacked from bigger pieces, the technique used to craft them is exemplary. Over its ten tracks, the album occasionally echoes the ghost forms of Talk Talk’s peerless Laughing Stock and the hymnal beauty of Sufjan Stevens’ Seven Swans. Mainly though, it’s Craft’s own unique meditation. Constructed from those piano recordings with additional percussion from another temporary desert dweller, Seb Rochford (Polar Bear) and occasional orchestration, Blood Moon is a stunning fusion of freeform instrumental explorations and properly pure songs.

“I hope the record takes the listener off into the clear night air of Joshua Tree, that profound, neon-flecked silence, the star-spangled skies of the Mojave desert, under that lonely little sphere of rock caught in a red shadow.” Blood Moon does that and so much more. It’s a record from and for the small hours, and Martin Craft’s best record to date.

Order the album here: https://itun.es/gb/Cxorbb

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