LP Edition of 300. Co-Release with Rocket Recordings (UK) $30 Engelchen literally translates as ‘little angels,’ and for many in the febrile, dangerous era of the 1930s in Nazi-occupied Europe, as they wrote letters to arrange their paths out of danger as refugees, these were Ida and Louise Cook Ida and Louise spent much of their early years in Sunderland, and in adulthood lived in a suburb of London with their parents. They were enormous fans of opera, and led relatively quiet and unfussy lives, Ida working for the civil service as a secretary and Louise as a writer of Mills & Boon romances under a pseudonym. Yet secretly these resourceful and eccentric women were using their musical obsessions as… Read more »
Search Results for: alison cotton
The Portrait You Painted of Me
LP Edition of 400. FTR Orange Vinyl Edition. Co-Released with Rocket Recordings $27 Here we have the third solo LP by London’s Alison Cotton, following on previous successes, All Quiet at the Ancient Theatre and Only Darkness Now. And as with each of Cotton’s projects it is a stylistic advance as well as another example of her dark signature sound. Alison’s work with bands is well documented by recordings with Saloon, 18th Day of May, Trimdon Grange Explosion, and her current, ecstatic folk/psych duo, The Left Outsides. But her solo recordings always seem a bit more experimental in terms of song structure and musical texture, as the six tracks on The Portrait You Painted of Me clearly demonstrate. The touchstones… Read more »
QuaranTunes Series No.024
12″ Lathe Edition of 26. Numbered. Risograph looseleaf cover and back art printed at LOOKYHERE. OUT OF PRINT Recorded on the evening of Friday Sept. 5, 2020 (Saturday morning where she was) at a secret location in London, this session captures Alison Cotton’s sound in gleaming late night clarity. All of the pieces, apart from “I Buried the Candlesticks,” are from one of Alison’s extant releases, but her approach to the material maintained a holistic feel shimmering with a ghostly precision. Playing beautifully drone-canted viola, with the occasional glimmer of hanging wind chimes, Alison’s voice sounded incredible. Her work often has an out-of-time quality that makes its century of origin tough to nail down, but this performance was even more… Read more »
Are You Sure I Was There
LP Edition of 700 Pressing (200 x Ltd Cream and 450 on Heavy Black Vinyl. Full size double sided insert Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz BLACK VINYL – OUT OF PRINT CREAM VINYL – OUT OF PRINT At last, a new studio LP from superb London duo, The Left Outsides, to follow up on 2018’s amazing All That Remains. The basic building blocks remain the same — half of the sound is Alison Cotton and her viola and keys, the other half is Mark Nicholas with a stunning array of guitars — but the structures they create this time are darker and more forbidding than their antecedents. This album feels very much a piece of the season in which it is being… Read more »
Only Darkness Now
LP Edition of 300. Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz. Artwork – Luke Drodz OUT OF PRINT Here is the second solo LP by the wonderful London-based singer/multi-instrumentalist Alison Cotton. Originally issued on cassette by the mighty Bloxham Tapes, just about everyone who heard Only Darkness Now suggested it might make for an excellent LP. And hey — they were right. Alison’s debut LP ‘All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre’ received wide ranging critical acclaim from placing in the Guardians Writers Album Of The Year to placing in the Quietus Albums of the Year. Ms. Cotton has a storied past performing with Saloon and The Eighteenth Day of May, and she still may be found doing likewise with The Left Outsides. And… Read more »
S/T (Retrospective)
2xLP Edition of 598 (250 x Transparent Green / Transparent Gold & 348 x Black Vinyl) – Gatefold Jacket Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz Black Vinyl – Out of Print Transparent Green / Transparent Gold Vinyl – Out of Print The Eighteenth Day of May were a six-piece, London based group. Originally formed as an acoustic trio consisting of American Alison Brice (vocals, flute), Swede Richard Olson (acoustic guitar, harmonica and sitar) and Ben Phillipson (guitar and mandolin), they combined elements of traditional and contemporary folk with a psychedelic jangle. They spent the summer and autumn of 2003 bonding over Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, Steeleye Span, Sandy Denny and Trees all blending in with the Psychedelic music they… Read more »
There Is A Place
LP Edition of 300 Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz OUT OF PRINT A new reissue of this masterpiece by the Left Outsides, originally issued on cassette in 2015, then first put to vinyl in 2017, as the long-format follow-up to the classic The Shape of Things to Come LP (FTR387). The current edition is demarcated by a glossy cover and metallic gold printing. Its music remains as timeless a gust of dark autumnal wind as any you’ll ever hear. Some of the music here was written as part of the soundtrack to Gus Alavrez’s 2009 noir-pastoral short, Stand and Deliver, but the songs evoke their own host of images. The band, consisting of Alison Cotton and Mark Nicholas (once of the… Read more »
All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre
LP Edition of 500 comes with Download Code. Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz. Bandcamp The Quietus Albums of the Year 2018 – No.49 !! DUSTED MAGAZINE BLACK VINYL – OUT OF PRINT COLOR VINYL – $26 Alison Cotton may be best known as one half of The Left Outsides as well as being a name to be found on many of the finest folk/drone/experimental contemporary recording artists releases via her sonorous Viola playing. So, both Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records (U.S.A.) can bring to you via the medium of Vinyl, Alison Cotton’s debut release – “All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre” (after 3 sold out runs via Bloxham Tapes). Over 35 minutes Alison Cotton casts you into the… Read more »
S/T
LP Edition of 500 Comes with Download Code. Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz BLACK VINYL – OUT OF PRINT COLOR VINYL – OUT OF PRINT Back in the early Oughts, there was a great UK folk rock combo called The Eighteenth of May. They did one album and cut out. Trimdon Grange Explosion is that band, minus two members, and their debut LP kicks up one of the finest blends of UK folk and West Coast psych since the glory days of Fairport. Alison Cotton and Mark Nicholas (also of Left Outsides) comprise half the band, alongside guitarist Ben Phillipson and drummer Karl Sabino. And their vibe is akin to a classic Witchseason production. Ringing layers of psychedelic guitars, backed by throbbing… Read more »
All That Remains
LP Edition of 650 (175 x Colour and 475 x Black (well 469 as we are 6 units short) Co-Released with Cardinal Fuzz Take Me Home Again BLACK VINYL – OUT OF PRINT PURPLE VINYL – OUT OF PRINT Counting their live CDR from 2007, All That Remains is the fifth album by Walthamstow’s finest duo since at least the halcyon days of Bevis Frond’s Inner Marshland. Hard to pin down with any certitude, the music created by The Left Outsides varies from track to track and even moment to moment. Alison Cotton’s vocals, harmonium and viola blend with Mark Nicholas’s voice, bass, guitar, piano and drums in ways that recall everything from Kendra Smith and David Roback’s drony duo, Opal (on… Read more »