Sam GreenwoodBrand new label, Remote Town Records return with their follow up release, as the County Wicklow based label launch the first track titled ‘Before Vanishing’, from Automatic Tasty’s 4 track EP ahead of its full release over Halloween.
Remote Town Records launched in September and is a new music label that releases music exclusively by artists from County Wicklow. Predominantly focusing on electronic music, but with an open ended ethos to style, the releases will cover a variety of mediums, including digital, vinyl and cassette. We can also expect regular podcasts, mixtapes as well as some merch as well.
Much like their debut release back in September, the sounds and influences we hear and feel within the tracks reflect the mystical and dreamy surroundings that Wicklow and its jaw dropping mountains and woodland landscapes have to offer.
Folk tradition holds that certain points in the natural landscape are enchanted, having the power to bring fits of confusion and bewilderment to those who tread upon them.
The ‘stray sod’ so called, was generally understood as an entry point to the Otherworld resting in the natural landscape, and wayfarers who would tread on one, would become confused, deranged and lose their way (even on familiar ground). With ‘A Barony Unknown’ Automatic Tasty has crossed the threshold and stepped over to the other side, in a droning, darkly ambient four track EP drawing inspiration from folk belief, and the Wicklow landscape of his childhood.
The EP opens with ‘Before Vanishing (Calary Moor)’, in which a thick fog of reverberating bass drones and noise filters give way to rising calls of alarm. ‘Through Hedges and Ditches’ brings the listener on a psychedelic journey through the undergrowth, with birdsong and chiming analogue synthesisers rising and falling across a bleak and primordial landscape.
With a belly full of mushrooms, the EP reaches its peak with ‘Sweet Nothings From The Government’, where low drones and wailing sirens give way to a female vocal repeating talk of ‘human rights’ and ‘social healing’ amidst a chorus of sinister laughter. The mists recede, the clouds give way and dawn again breaks with ‘The Hearth Remembered on the Hill’, a dreamy and warm syrup of Juno pads, with 101 and SH5 arpeggios ambling slowly back over the fields. There’s nothing head-bopping about this EP, and our advice is that it is best consumed in the dark for ritual purposes. Cross the threshold, experience revelation in the Abyss of Death and Rebirth, and return anew from ‘A Barony Unknown’
You can puchase ‘Before Vanishing’ and pre-order the 4 track EP for €5 ahead of it’s full Halloween release via Bandcamp here.