MANDAÏ DISTRIBUTION - independent music distributor

Copyright : 2002-2025
HOME | MAIL ORDER | DISTRIBUTION | LINKS | CONTACT | FAQ | NEWS | CONCERTS
SEARCH
The on-line catalog contains 2448 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
27/10/2025
Membrane @ Le Labo
07/11/2025
Billions Of Comrades @ Le Belvédère
10/11/2025
Billions Of Comrades @ Le Botanique
15/11/2025
Billions Of Comrades @ Primitive Music
21/11/2025
Peter Kernel @ Magasin 4
26/11/2025
Ovo @ La Malterie
More concerts ...
NEWS
22/10/2025
New releases by Cuneiform Records will be soon in stock.
07/10/2025
Small update done !
18/09/2025
Proceeding to a Skin GRaft records restock !
16/09/2025
Dazzling Killmen records are in stock and shipping
More news ...
FEEDBACKS
P... (United Kingdom)
Great service as always...
t... (Germany)
fast delivery (bel->ger), great produ...
d... (Belgium)
As with previous orders : 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

OLIVEROS, PAULINE (AND MUSIQUES NOUVELLES)
Four Meditations / Sound Geometrics (CD) - 13.50 €
Sub Rosa

UNIVERS ZERO
Hérésie (LP) - 18.60 €
Sub Rosa

DAZZLING KILLMEN
Dig Out the Switch (LP) - 29.40 €
Skin Graft Records

MOE
La Bufa (LP) - 16.60 €
Conrad Sounds
NEW RELEASES

V/A
Miao Mouthorgans & other rare instruments : in Guizhou, Sichuan, China (LP) - 17.60 €
Sub Rosa

YOWIE
Taking Umbrage (CD) - 15.80 €
Skin Graft Records

ALICIA F.
Sans Détour (LP) - 16.60 €
La Face Cachée

MOUNTAIN BIKE
S/t (LP) - 22.70 €
Humpty Dumpty

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

ZU
Bromio (LP) - 20.70 €
Subsounds Records

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

YOWIE
Taking Umbrage (LP) - 29.90 €
Skin Graft Records
-MORE NEW RELEASE-