★Latitudes
A Gourd of Gold
2013 release "From the time we started Latitudes, we’ve held a secret wish list of bands that we intended to lure into our studio. We’ve cut a major notch in our bedpost by finally scoring with Arbouretum, a band that meets universal approval at Latitudes HQ. Arbouretum offer up four cover versions of the brilliant Gordon Lightfoot, the oft-overlooked Canadian singer-songwriter who helped define the folk-rock sound of the Sixties and Seventies. The highlight of the session is unsurprisingly the …
The Godward Way
Daniel Higgs has always been held in the highest esteem by us here at Southern, becoming an almost totemic figure in the process. Certainly an appreciation for his work, and the canon of the band Lungfish, has been a job requirement for all the staff who've worked with us over the years. He has graced us with visits from time to time, and his London shows have always been must attend events for Southern alumni. Naturally, a Latitudes recording would be the jewel in the crown for our catal…
Glass Crocodile Medicine
500 hand-numbered copies on blue 180gm vinyl in diecut cardstock outer sleeve, with foilstamped cardstock insert and colour insert. Aidan Baker brought British tour-mates Plurals to the studio with him. A gradual unfurling of intricate layers of sound builds and envelopes the listener over 'Dead Foxes in the Street's' 20 minutes, creating a warm and uplifting aural atmosphere. 'Turning Children into Mice' is a brooding, decidedly sinister beast, weaving a repetitive and increasingly dark threat,…
La Strega And The Cunning Man In The Smoke
Doom rock pioneer, influential drone-master, occultist and professed anglophile, Dylan Carlson ov Earth comissioned by the Southern studios on 16th April, 2012 to record six covers and one original song, found on his latest Drcarlsonalbion issue. Accompanied by Teresa Colamonaco on vocals and Jodie Cox on guitar, 'La Strega and The Cunning Man In The Smoke' continues a progression from his ace instrumental recordings for The Tapeworm to the more recent, collaboration-oriented work 'Modern…
Alice
Limited, hand-numbered edition of 500 green vinyls housed in lavish die-cut and foil-block embossed jacket** Alexander Tucker (Imbogodom/Guapo) and Daniel O'Sullivan (Æthenor/Ulver/Guapo) reprise their Grumbling Fur alias for the Latitudes series following that excellent album for Aurora Borealis in 2011. Both artists have previously graced the series already - Tucker solo and with Ginnugagap, and O'Sullivan with Miasma And The Carousel Of Headless Horses - and don't disappoint with their…
The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water
Numbered edition of 700 housed in die-cut, origami fold and foil-blocked jacket** 'The Men Parted The Sea To Devour The Water' is The Haxan Cloak's long awaited Latitudes edition. It's his first release since that jaw-dropping eponymous album (an end of year favourite across the board) and means that we're possibly one step closer to two things: a vinyl edition of said LP, and his hugely anticipated album debut for Tri Angle. But let's not get ahead of ourselves....here we find Bobby Kr…
Untitled
FINALLY AVAILABLE ON VINYL, this sprawling avant hip hop doomscape from Dalek, who already pushes the boundaries with his proper releases, but this one takes it even further, a massive 44 minute untitled sonic sprawl, epic and abstract, dark and ominous, lush and majestic, a slow burning dubbed out bass heavy intro lays the groundwork. Warped and warbly, a shimmery downtempo creep, laced with distant melodies, buried vox, folky guitars, there's some rapping, more like spoken word, but it …
Broken Bones
This latest in the Latitudes series of limited LPs comes from American noise-pop band Gowns, whose Red State album you may recall as being one of 2007's more unclassifiable recordings. A folkish spectre hangs over these pieces, particularly when it comes to the wiry, haunting violin sequences strewn liberally across the session - they bring to life the sinister spoken word of 'Dog', crowning a soundscape that's always on the precipice of turning nasty. Much of Gowns' music tends towards uncertai…
New Egypt
One track, Ten minutes. Latest Latitudes session from Mira Billotte and Doug Shaw’s Psychedelic folk combo.- New Egypt follows White Magic's hugely successful Dark Stars EP (Drag City, 2007).- This track was created specially for the Latitudes series and recorded during White Magic's 2007 European tour.- As usual this Latitudes release is in super fancy art cardstock packaging with gold foil blocking, limited to 1000 only!When i saw White Magic play for the first time I walked away charmed and e…
Grey onion
"For this new Latitudes release All Tomorrow's Parties mainstay Alexander Tucker joins forces with Dean Garwood, resulting in three terrific stretched out jams. Perhaps it's got something to do with the fusion of prog influences with jazz and psychedelia, but stretches of this bring to mind the Canterbury scene of the '60s and '70s from which Robert Wyatt and Soft Machine came to prominence. 'Golden Dome' slips into a bluesy cello riff (if that's not too much of a contradiction in terms) that lo…
Black wooden
6 songs, 21 minutes. In high summer of 2007, Phil Elverum, in the guise of Mount Eerie, found his way to Southern Studios. Armed with a borrowed guitar and some notebook paper, and with little time before an evening gig, Mount Eerie and Southern's engineer Harvey Birrell recorded the six songs of Black Wooden.Black Wooden is the coming together of ideas that had travelled with Mount Eerie for months and had solidified into compositions in the days and hours before the studio session. The title i…
Manfauna
Miasma are a band comprised of various members of Guapo, Cathedral, Chrome Hoof and Elsa Drake all playing at the top of their form on this three-part sequence of instrumentals. The band court references to prog, the occult and Victoriana - at least that's what the press release is saying, and I'm not one to argue. The group's fearsome instrumental abilities are the real source of Miasma's strength, with sophisticated, thorough arrangements boasting some of the finest implementation of bassoon y…
Elogia De La Sombra
Two tracks, 31 minutes. Southern are very excited to present the latest release in our Latitudes series from Master Musicians of Bukkake. Recorded at Southern Studios by Harvey Birrell on 17 April 2010. Additional tracking and mixing at Aleph Studios in Seattle. Produced by Randall Dunn. Mastered by Mell Dettmer. Artwork by Randall Dunn and A.Turner. Elogia de la sombra is the 24th recording in the Latitudes series.Master Musicians Of Bukkake are an enchanting collective, comprising a fine pedig…
Kamakura
Excellent 15 minute session recorded by Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance in August 2007, prior to their 'St. Dymphna' opus for Warp. At this point in their sound we find the group in transition between the cut-up forms of their earlier releases and the magpied beat structures of their current style. Essentially they treat rhythms from B-More to Grime, Dubstep and techno as modern folk forms to be weaved with their Far and Mid-eastern inclinations as if they're stepping 20 years into the future to gaze…
Grey onion
"For this new Latitudes release All Tomorrow's Parties mainstay Alexander Tucker joins forces with Dean Garwood, resulting in three terrific stretched out jams. Perhaps it's got something to do with the fusion of prog influences with jazz and psychedelia, but stretches of this bring to mind the Canterbury scene of the '60s and '70s from which Robert Wyatt and Soft Machine came to prominence. 'Golden Dome' slips into a bluesy cello riff (if that's not too much of a contradiction in terms) that lo…
Sky Burial
"Canadian doomgazers Nadja make an outstanding contribution to Southern's ongoing Latitudes series with this immense album, divided into two long-form compositions. The first, 'Jaguar' is a slow-building droner, stirring up a grim collage of processed bell tolls, guitar scrapes and difficult to decipher field recordings that builds up into a booming low-end dominated soundscape that exudes abstract sludge-maetal gravitas. 'Sky Burial' is quicker to assert itself, cranking up the Nadja drum machi…
Tyrant
"NOW AVAILABLE ON LIMITED VINYL EDITION. Circle really have it all don't they? Not content with their innate ability to rock the damn place down, they managed to cough and splutter their way through two jam packed discs of melancholy, gloomy moonlit ambience on last weeks 'Miljard' and now they're back with a unique contribution to Southern's killer Lattitudes series of releases. I'm sure you're all aware now how limited these are, Sir Richard Bishop's disc must have lasted all of five minutes, …
Strait Gait
The Southern Records Latitudes juggernaut thunders into town once more, this time driven by Kranky's very own Boduf Songs, aka Mat Sweet, who for the purposes of this release teams up with a couple of collaborators and strays slightly from his established sonic parameters, venturing into the realms of dark, cinematic drone for first piece ' Please Extract My Teeth With Your Rustiest Pliers (For Redemptive)', whose title is not only massively 'eww' inducing, but commits a grammatical felony at th…
Untitled
Blood & Time is an offshoot of Neurosis, featuring band members Noah Landis, Scott Kelly and Josh Graham, who take country blues into some seriously dark territory. Like, country navy blues, perhaps? As with all the releases in Southern Records' consistently excellent Latitudes series this set was recorded as a specially commissioned session, designed to capture a band at its rawest - or at least as raw as a band is likely to get in a studio environment. The results here are especially bewitchin…
Requiem
"Accompanying the White Magic session also released on Latitudes this week, The (Fallen) Black Deer's Requiem (what's with the parentheses back there?) bills itself as an alternate soundtrack to Kubrick's movie adaptation of The Shining. Any such intention instantly squares the record up against the sublime Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind score not to mention the various snatches of Ligeti, Pendercki and Bartok that populate the movie. The original's going to take some beating, and of course this t…