The product of the tour was a tour album, entitled Milwaukee To Edinburgh, 2013, comprised of recordings made at various venues that Umhoefer visited whilst in Scotland. The tracks range from recordings from shows (e.g. ‘Less Words’ at Henry’s Cellar Bar) and live sessions for Song, By Toad, to rather more intimate performances in less conventional environments. A personal favourite is ‘Unanswered Echo Verse’ from Small Hours, a field recording at Euan and Ali’s (presumably the home of mini50’s Euan McMeeken), with its ambient baby noise and resulting shushing from its parents.

There is also a video of the tour, filmed by Lindsay Slepekis, basically a short film, a collage of performances in a multitude of locations. The film ends with an incredibly intimate shot of Umhoefer’s performance of ‘Unanswered Echo Verse’ which I mentioned above, in which he is approached by the baby from the front and a cat from behind.  The whole thing is great and serves as a collage that perfectly illustrates the trip. It also shows that Old Earth’s songs hold up well in the live setting, and sort of proves what I already knew in that I could sit and listen to him play guitar for hours.

You can buy Milwaukee To Edinburgh, 2013 via Old Earth’s Bandcamp page.

P.S. Old Earth are playing a show with White Hinterland and S. Carey on April the 24th, so if you’re in Milwaukee get yourself along!

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Haraket – Ilk

“Haraket don’t tread much new ground on Ílk, but what they lack in innovation they more than make up for in solid production, tight songwriting and sensuous atmosphere. Abigail Hardiman’s vocals float above the band’s moody, reverby instrumentation which is refreshingly light on the laptop trickery but delivers the same end of the night / start of the morning haziness of their ambient, dubby South London contemporaries. Thankfully, it’s clear they are drawing influence from beyond their Peckham postcode, and the moments where the jazzier, more soulful sounds come through are where the EP really shines. I look forward to hearing them flesh that sound out even more in future releases.” Dave

Wes Tirey – I Stood Among Trees

“A dusty slice of American folk, I Stood Among Trees by Wes Tirey is a literate EP, a collection of atmospheric and evocative songs that owe as much to the American masters of writing as they do to Dylan and Van Zandt.” Jon

Old Earth – Small Hours

“Strange, ominous and dream-like, Old Earth’s Small Hours is quite unlike anything else released this year. Traditional folk music serves as the bedrock on which Umhoefer does his experimentation, dipping his toes into rock, punk psych and drone in the process. If you are a fan of lo-fi folk music (e.g. Phil Elvrum) or even of drone/ambient stuff such as Grouper, then I suggest that you quickly get familiar with Small Hours.” Liam

Chrome Sparks – Sparks

“Equal parts complex, fidgety rhythms, stoned synthesizers and retro video game melodies, Jeremy Malvin’s Sparks EP is a crash course in the Chrome Sparks sound. 2013 has been a good year for Malvin, with appearances on the UK festival circuit, Carson Daly’s Last Call and a Nokia Lumia advert, and he’s definitely a producer to watch out for in 2014.” Matt

Deco Child – Skinless

“Deco Child’s Skinless was a release of thrilling juxtaposition; transcending everything from minimal piano to full blown rave. At times gentle and fragile, others bombastic and striking, Skinless contains more ideas in four brief tracks than most artists can conjure in a full length album. The variation within this EP make it seriously rewarding upon repeated listening” Will

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The second release was the aforementioned debut album, The Awkward Hello, Handshake, Kiss. The album smoulders with a brooding intensity, the sombre guitar and lonely cello complemented with a variety of forms of percussion to create an organic piece of art which billows and swirls and seems to seep through your headphones. Hailey Beavis also provides vocals on many of the tracks, allowing male and female vocals to interchange and interact (in a way that on several occasions brought to mind an even more sad and dolorous A Weather).

The Awkward Hello‘s opener, ‘The Floods Have Woken The Quiet Sleepers’ starts with delicate finger-picking and the gentle throb of percussion, punctuated with the aforementioned cello, and continues to build until a glockenspiel twinkles, heralding the crescendo that breaks the song as if it’s a pane of fragile glass, the repeated exclamation of the line “We go down” the beautiful shards that tumble away after the impact. Another of my favourites is ‘Thunder’, which is composed of a forlorn guitar, down-tempo drones and glum vocals. Ensure you stay tuned after the album closer for an incredibly beautiful hidden track that is just man and guitar and sounds like something from very early albums by The Antlers.

You can buy The Awkward Hello, Handshake, Kiss now from mini50 Records for a very reasonable £10. I would also recommend checking out The Good Ship, an album made by Stephen Houlihan (of Hiva Oa) and Hailey Beavis, which is also really quite lovely.

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Small Hours follows a similar pattern to previous old earth releases, although that is about the only ‘convention’ that it follows at all. Umhoefer is a great believer in experimentation and in taking risks. He says:

“If you want to be an inoffensive “regular” musician that just aims to please everyone, go ahead, but meaningful art comes out of making extraordinary choices. There are plenty of ways to avoid challenges and risks in life, and nothing interesting, unpredictable, unique, or inspiring comes from cowards.This is the most valuable lesson I learned from punk – celebrate yourself, whether everyone likes it or not.” 

This attitude is very apparent when listening to the album. It consists of just three tracks, all of which exceed five minutes in length (the longest clocks in at over ten minutes). The titles of these tracks are extremely vague, simply 1, 2 and 3 (although there is a more detailed list on old earth’s bandcamp which splits each track into several more). From that evidence alone I think it’s pretty clear that Umhoefer does whatever he wants, and that he is unconcerned about generating huge media buzz, or getting prime-time radio coverage. What he makes is art, and he makes it because he feels compelled to do so. This fact seems to have further relevance this week, when hundreds of bands and music people descend on Austin and huge, multi-million dollar companies splash their logos all over stages that are meant to be the platform for aspiring artists.

The music itself is in the same vein as previous old earth releases. Traditional folk music serves as a bedrock on which Umhoefer does his experimentation. The atmosphere is strange and dreamlike and Umhoefer’s vocals only add to the surreality, sporadically sounding like ominous demands or earnest pleas or the shamanistic chants of some psychedelic ritual. If you are a fan of lo-fi folk music (e.g.Phil Elvrum or The Wandering Lake) or even of drone/ambient stuff such as Grouper,  then I suggest that you quickly get familiar with old earth.

Small Hours will be released on the 22nd of April and is now available for pre-order via mini50 records. The CD comes with a beautiful lyric booklet that contains art by Jamie Mills (check out his website, some of his work is simply amazing). There are several packages on offer – you can just get the CD, the CD plus and old earth tote bag or a bundle which contains the CD, the bag, a bonus EP and a download for old earth’s previous album a low place at The Old Place. This is a very limited release, so I’d strongly recommend you order yourself a copy right away.

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