It’s been a bit quiet few months for us. I suppose we’ve been on a sort of break, and having realised we’ve released 5 albums and 12 EPs in 2 years, I guess we deserve it! We do have some more stuff we recorded with some other guys in a live studio set up which will see the light of day maybe at the end of the summer, it depends how good you are I guess…

Sobrellevar has been out for a little while, and The 405 wrote some nice words about it recently. We’re still quite proud of it, and it’s starting to look more like a limited edition rather than a short run, so if you want one, you should get one before they are gone.

 Speaking of which, as far as I know there are now only around 4 physical copies of “Noson O Haf” left, and they’re all at Spillers in Cardiff, which is incidentally the oldest record shop in the world, if you didn’t know, like?

So yes, album is good, you should have a listen and maybe buy it cos it’s a nice thing to have and it’s good. New music is real and exists, we’re just doing other things atm until we have time to make it ready.

I think that’s the end of this now.

Love you,

Josh 

“Despite being spread between Cardiff and Manchester, this duo has managed to be quite a prolific outfit. Fifth album Sobrellevar, released earlier this year, is a 90-minute ambient soundscape constructed from gentle atmospheric noise, delicate guitar lines and the occasional vocal. Live performances are hard to come by, but this cassette only release might well be the best way to experience their post-rock ideas.” - The 405

“Give in to the delicate and melancholic guitar lines and just mong the hell out”  

 There’s a review of us in this month’s Miniature Music Press. They seemed to get what we were trying to do, but also seemed to quite like it, which is pretty good. If you buy the tape, you’ll probably enjoy it lots.

Anonymous asked: what happened to your older EPs? Are they still available for purchase/download anywhere? I don't see them on bandcamp any more...

We took them down.

We liked the idea of them being somewhat ephemeral. A nice treat for anyone that got them at the time. All the best bits were gathered into “noson o haf” and “sobrellevar”. If there’s enough demand, we might put them back or even remaster them. 

Sam. 

Lovely words from Buzz magazine. 

Listen to the new LP below. 

Sam.

Tapes are now ready to buy on our Bandcamp page. 

http://grandcanonicalensemble.bandcamp.com/album/sobrellevar

Sam.

Tapes/Downloadable version will be available to purchase soon. 

Oh, what could this be?

Sam.

Hope to see you there!

Sam.

We’re going to be releasing a new collection of our sounds! 

Things to know:

- A lot like “noson o haf”, it’ll be the highlights of the past 6 months worth of EPs.

- There’ll be different mixes/edits/mastering of the stuff we did.

- It will be 90 minutes in length and in two parts.

- Not sure where/what we’ll be releasing it on, but I suppose we’ll have a lot of fun finding out.

- We haven’t got a name for it yet. Thinking hats are being prepared, though.

- That pretty picture above is what it will look like. 

Hope y’all will enjoy. 

Hugs and kisses, 

Sam.

We’ve added side B of the cassette to our bandcamp page. The entire collection is now ready for download, and is now the only way of listening to our first 6 EPs.

Hope you guys enjoy. 

Sam. 

It’s only Christmas.

We made a Christmas thing. It’s 5 songs that we made into 6 songs. It really is those songs too, underneath the layers of distortion, delay, and reverb. You have to concentrate though, and remember what carol it is to realise.

We took carols, rearranged them with nice synthesisers, guitars and such, then slowed them down lots. Then we did one where Josh sings on it, and there are sleigh bells, because it’s Christmas.

John Lennon wrote “Merry Xmas (War Is Over)” because he was bored of hearing Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, and I’d guess we’ve done something similar, except because by the second week in December we’re all sick of hearing Slade, Mariah Carey, and even John & Yoko I’d have thought. So, come Christmas morning, stick this on, wave away your family’s protests, because this is Christmas music, and that’s what you’re meant to listen to at this time of year.

Merry Christmas/Nadolig Llawen/Feliz Navidad/Joyeaux Nöel

Josh & Sam

Well, that’s it. 12 months, 12 EPs. Some really good stuff, some stuff we’re really proud of. We got to release an album on an actual physical release that will be in Spillers Records in Cardiff tomorrow morning (it’s the oldest record shop in the world, don’t you know!). We experimented a lot and we learned a lot.

We recorded and released some absolutely batshit crazy stuff, and some vaguely conventional stuff; the craziest of which I think is Tal Véz on October’s EP. A German children’s choir singing along to an out of tune piano in a hostel in Venice, interspersed with me talking in Spanish about the indeterminacy and temporariness of life.

We’ve discovered it’s just about possible to be in a band with someone when you live 200 miles apart, and we’ve also discovered that the lines between EP, album and demo are, in this day and age, essentially a question of post production - we learned to master our own stuff, which made a big difference in the quality.

We’ve been reminded that some people are ace and tell you that they think your stuff is ace. We’ve also had some people try and pirate our stuff (boo!), which was odd seeing as we were giving it away merely in return for an email address so we could tell them about more stuff, which was again odd. But this is the world we live in, and we’re not going to let it get us down when people try and share our stuff in a lame way.

We also realised print media is still relevant! We had a ton of people find us after Buzz  Magazine in South Wales wrote a thing about us, which was fun.

So what next? If you follow us on twitter, you’ll know we’re going to record a Christmas thing, and take a little time out to work on some other musical projects (Josh does a Europop thing called Tour de Josh), as well as do and record some live stuff, which we’ll be releasing in the new year at some point, then probably release another compilation of the 2nd half of EP releases, maybe an album, maybe on cassette again, we’ll have to see. It’s all exciting, isn’t it?

Lots of love,

Josh and Sam.

x

We’ll be releasing November’s EP super soon. Promise!

Hugs and kisses!

Sam