If you’re not familiar with the DIY label Lily Tapes and Discs then you really should be. Since 2011 they have been putting out really beautiful music in even more beautiful handmade packages. Their latest release is this split EP from German Error Message and Lung Cycles. I’m pleased to say it’s very very good.
German Error Message (the alias of multi-instrumentalist Paul Kintzing) provides the first three tracks, making what the blurb wonderfully describes as “densely-layered and blanket-thick bedroom folk” (a line I plan on stealing the next time someone asks me what music I’m into). It’s something along the lines of the melancholy mumble of Talons’ crossed with earthy folk-rock and gauzy bedroom pop. That’s a pretty terrible description, so just check it out for yourself.
Ben Lovell (who, unless I am mistaken used to record as Squanto) then chips in with two tracks of his own, under the moniker Lung Cycles. But this is no flying visit as they come in at 10+ and 7+ minutes respectively. The songs are subtle and restrained for the most part but prone to the odd grand gesture, like some post-rock that got to feeling really sad and wandered off into the fog.
I’m going to go back to LT&D’s blurb to finish, mainly because they’ve already done it far better than I’m going to. “Bear with us as we stumble through the snow, wondering about who lives behind all the windows on the way to our own. Keep these songs close to you this winter and they’ll keep you warm”. That sums up how I feel about this release rather nicely. It’s perfect for a quiet, cosy moment on a pitch-black night in the dead of the oncoming winter. To put it succinctly, it’s hibernation music.
You can buy the EP on a lovely casette tape in a letterpress printed, watercolour painted package via Lily Tapes and Discs. Follow the same link to grab it as a name-your-price download.
Another option is the ‘2014 Batch’ which, for a reasonable $20, gets you a tape copy of every Lily Tapes and Discs release from this year. What better way to familiarise yourself with one of the coolest little labels around?