Silence, like when a midnight forest goes quiet, often denotes a brooding dark presence. Thus the seeming lethargy from Hjalti has been masking a flurry of activity at d.iscontent studios. His obsession with metal (especially black metal) has moved from a passing fancy to a thirst that cannot be slaked. Coming out of this unquenchable passion is Hjalti’s fourth full length album, Snö Från Toma Himmel, nearing the final stages of completion as we speak. Rather than the delicately constructed electronic sounds that earlier releases have showcased, the new material is harsh and distorted. Previous albums have been melancholic, but the screams (yes actual vocals) in the new Hjalti material convey a sense of anger, hate, and power. Needless to say we here at d.iscontent are extremely excited to see the reactions this April release will provoke.
We’ve been asleep at the wheel. Not only did we forget to tell you about Miniature Airlines’ entry into the 10th Annual Seattle Laptop Battle in a timely manner, we also neglected to inform you that he took it all the way to the finals this year, and went home with the title of Laptop Battle Champion. Mea culpa. There is a little video evidence floating around though (Round 3, and Round 1) if you’d like to relive the experience from the comfort of our own home.
In other news though, we understand that the miniature one is cutting through a slab of writer’s block with the dull razor of necessity, and preparing new material for a future release. No word yet on the format, release date, style, or working title (though one apparently exists now), but we’ll report as soon as there’s more to tell. You can catch the first public airing of this material in late March, at the Shameless Social. More details on that soon.
And, in last minute news, you can catch Miniature Airlines playing improvised guitar noise at the 23rd installment of Monster Planet at the Can Can on Monday night. Hopefully we’ll see some of you there.
It’s here. It’s finally landed. The third Hjalti album, If Once We Lose This Light, is finally available to the general public. We’ve been teasing you about it long enough! Go take a look, and head over to Bandcamp to stream the full album, and purchase it on CD and a variety of digital formats, including FLAC and high-quality MP3.
If you’d prefer to buy in person, come out to the Lo-Fi Gallery tonight, where Hjalti and Miniature Airlines will be bookending a showcase of our pals on Pleasureboat Records tonight. It’ll be the first time the album is available, but there’s an official release party coming up later this month. Stay tuned!
Since the new Hjalti album is finally available, we felt it was about time to give you a little bit of insight into the album from the man himself. We sent him a few questions while working out the final release details, and he sent back some great responses that give you a sense of the personality and history behind this unique release. Dive into the interview after the jump…
Here’s the long-awaited new version of d.iscontent.com. Nice, don’t you think? Take a look around, soak in the details, and appreciate the refined new layout we’re sporting. Let us know if you run into any issues with the site.
And then come back in the morning, when we release the new Hjalti album onto the world.
Final masters for the new Hjalti album will be out the door and ready for pressing early next week – this means that with a little luck, we should have CDs in hand on April 15th. Why is April 15th an important date? Well, Hjalti will be playing at the Lofi Gallery, along with Miniature Airlines, Monty Luke, Jon McMillion, and the Pleasureboat Records lineup! This will be the first time the new album, is publically available, but there will also be an official CD release show later in the month. More detail on that soon!
Also this month, Miniature Airlines and Chrissy will be DJing shoegaze and shoegaze-inspired tracks on vinyl and cassette, as part of James Grindle’s new recurring shoegaze DJ night, Vapour Trail, at the Living Room. Coem enjoy some blissful noise, and antiquated technology at one of the coziest bars in Capitol Hill on April 10th.
We thought you might be interested in getting a sneak peek of a few tracks from If Once We Lose This Light - so here you go! These are just short snippets from three of the tracks from the upcoming album, to give you a bit of a taste of what’s to come. We’ll be posting a short interview with the man himself soon as well, so keep an eye out for that.
Well, it’s 2011. We’ve come a long way since registering this domain name at the very tail-end of 2007, and launching our first release in May of 2008. 7 releases and a couple dozen shows later, we’re preparing for our biggest year yet.
The biggest news of the moment is the impending release of the third Hjalti album, In Solace’s Hands. Final mixdowns are in progress as we speak, and artwork concepts are percolating. The new album is a progression from the previous records, showcasing Hjalti’s continuing exploration of the dark, delicate, and destructive side of abstract electronic music. We’ll be dropping a preview track for you shortly, so pay attention.
We also have more big news coming up regarding our second release of 2011, which will be following hot on the heels of the Hjalti album…but we’re not quite ready to let the details slip yet. All I can say is that we’re really excited to be expanding our boundaries a bit with this release…
Finally (for the moment), Miniature Airlines will be playing live later in January, in Bremerton, WA. Again, we’re not ready to spill the details, but rest assured, once everything is finalized, you’ll see that info here.
This will be a busy week for the d.iscontent crew, a perfect way to end a pretty busy year.
On Saturday, December 4th (yes, that’s tomorrow night!) Miniature Airlines and Hjalti will be playing short sets at the Emerald City Supportersyear-end party, along with the Uninvited, Grammatrain, and more.
Then, on Wednesday, December 8th, the boys will be returning to the Living Room, along with Powermitten (aka visuals mastermind Looptid) for a jam-packed Show & Tell evening.
And if that wasn’t enough, Miniature Airlines will be returning to the Seattle Laptop Battle on Saturday, December 11th, to duke it out with 15 other contenders. Chop Suey will be full of geeked out audio nerds and their lovely fans, for an evening of audio carnage.
Hope to see you all out there in the real world. I hope 2010 was good for you, and we know 2011 will be even better.
The third full-length album from Hjalti is finally here, and it’s a monster. Chords stretch and drag, pulled like tides reacting to some distant mass, while thundering drums press in from all around…
rom deep, deep bass, welling up from nothingness, to the harsh metallic screams that herald some vague apocalypse, this new Hjalti album is a journey of extremes…
NQ | On Sinking: Remember NQ’s remix from the Arrivals & Departures Remixes album, last year? Check out his new pay-what-you-like release, On Sinking. […]
The source code for the audio application Pure Data being interpreted as audio data by…Pure Data itself. Hjalti has used a similar technique to generate samples before - opening the executable file for an application as if it was raw audio data, and choosing snippets of the results to build compositions with. It’s an interesting and sometimes surprising appr […]
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