MANDAÏ DISTRIBUTION - independent music distributor

Copyright : 2002-2025
HOME | MAIL ORDER | DISTRIBUTION | LINKS | CONTACT | FAQ | NEWS | CONCERTS
SEARCH
The on-line catalog contains 2469 references
BROWSE BY
- Artists
- Labels
- Formats
- Styles
- Mid prices
- Last items
- LP
- 10in
- 7in
- Mandaï Gift Vouchers
NEWSLETTER
- Subscribe
LOGIN
Sign in or Register.

CONCERTS
01/09/2025
Zu @ Le Botanique
01/09/2025
Ovo @ Le Botanique
13/09/2025
KrÖtale @ Coopcyclette
13/09/2025
Billions Of Comrades @ Drink Drink
23/09/2025
Fabiola @ La Source Beer & Co.
27/09/2025
Delwood @ La Verrerie
More concerts ...
NEWS
28/08/2025
RIP James Kimball
26/08/2025
We've been working on our website - Now things should work correctly again :)
21/08/2025
No more shipping to the US can be afford at the moment - We're waiting for new terms before working back with the US.
06/08/2025
Back from our Summer break !
More news ...
FEEDBACKS
m... (Belgium)
Parfait!!! Merci...
o... (Netherlands)
Received everything in good order and as...
j... (Belgium)
Fast and safe shipping, excellent !...
More feedbacks ...
DESCRIPTION
V/A
Mick Harris / Martyn Bates : Murder Ballads (Drift)

Label : Sub Rosa
Year : 2021
Format : 2xLP
Style : Electronics
Availability : In stock

Price : 22.70 € - BUY
Description :For the first time on LP vinyl Post-Isolationist - Deep Ambiance & Folksong re-emerge in this first vinyl outing of the classic 'Murder Ballads' (Drift) by M.J. Harris / Martyn Bates

Limited Textured Sleeve + Marbled Vinyls

'Leaving nothing behind but the wild birds to moan'

Rarely do two types of music meet on a level where they threaten to cancel each other out - let alone create something even more meaningful in their mutual vanishing. But the music created within the seminal Murder Ballads (Drift) by Martyn Bates (Eyeless in Gaza, & parallel solo career) and Mick Harris (Napalm Death, Lull, Painkiller, Scorn) creates just such a world. Murder Ballads (Drift) evolves Martyn Bates vocalisations / storytelling song-voices, by turns expressed as labyrinthine layers, calls and responses, muted and distant echoes, sung whispers and counter-melodies, ultimately resulting in a mesmeric conversation of musical inferences and correspondences. Murder Ballads (Drift) created the post-isolationist frame of reference, innovating and extemporising into a truly original dazzlingly unique form.

Mick Harris traffics in the isolationist ambience of Lull, while Martyn Bates is the emotive voice of literate cult-pop duo Eyeless in Gaza. The unlikely pair - one given to terminally frigid drone, the other to impassioned, bittersweet voicings - finds common ground in folk music's most macabre tradition, the murder ballad. These ghoulish parables are awash in blood and tears, the strands of love, hate, birth, death, sin, and salvation entwined within like the roots of an ancient tree. Mothers callously kill their children; suitors slay their maidens without remorse; and fate exacts its cruel price from all.

The archaic murder ballads that leak from Bates' vocal cords are intensely sad and carnal. They tend to leap off cliffs of hollow effects or drone darkly, offering neither a robust delivery nor an element of irony to take the edge off. The archetypal characters that live and die in them give life's full tragedy back to Harris' electronically numbed 'post-isolationist' dreaming.

Drift (originally released in 1994) plays out an unbreakable and timeless cycle of bloody folklore (people) and hypnotic soundscapes (the god who watches). The effect is chilling yet engrossing. Where most ambient music has barely enough courage to ring the doorbell and run, Murder Ballads slips through the cracks of the unconscious and does its work with remarkable ease.

All the more reason to listen thoughtfully.

In 2021 - re-emerging nearly twenty years after its initial inception - somewhat surprisingly, Murder Ballads (Drift) still remains/exists in an area overlooked by other artists, an area that truly still remains the sole province of M.J. Harris / Martyn Bates.

Titles :01. The Death of Polly / 14'06
02. The Fowler / 18'28
03. Lucy Wan / 14'38
04. Long Lankin / 16'02


BEST SELLING

U.S. MAPLE
Long Hair In Three Stages (LP) - 29.40 €
Skin Graft Records

MOE
La Bufa (LP) - 16.60 €
Conrad Sounds

MOMBU
Zombi (LP+CD) - 18.60 €
Subsounds Records

SOFT MACHINE
Hovikodden 1971 (4xLP) - 123.80 €
Cuneiform Records
NEW RELEASES

TIMÜT
Touka Touka (LP) - 12.40 €
La Face Cachée

DEDALUS ENSEMBLE (PERFORMING PHILIP GLASS)
Music with Changing Parts (CD) - 14.50 €
Sub Rosa

HEAT ON
S/t (CD) - 14.70 €
Cuneiform Records

SOPA BOBA
That Moment (CD) - 15.00 €
Sub Rosa

ATHERTON, MARIUS
Music for a While (LP) - 18.60 €
Cheap Satanism Records

BUÑUEL
Mansuetude (2xLP) - 32.60 €
Skin Graft Records / Overdrive

V.O.
Pictures (LP) - 22.70 €
Humpty Dumpty

PNEU
Get Old or Die Tryin (CD) - 13.70 €
Head Records
-MORE NEW RELEASE-