Plinths 'Music For Smalls Lighthouse'

 

Plinths 'Music for Smalls Lighthouse' is now available in the shop.

£14.99 + P&P  BUY

Plinth's, Michael Tanner is a musician from Dorset who has recorded under a myriad collection of names and guises these include Cloisters, Taskerlands, Thalassing, part of the duo The A Lords - on Mark Fry's 'I Lived in Trees', and with Irish improvisers the United Bible Studies.

Music For Smalls Lighthouse was initially released in 2010 as a very limited edition CD by Second Language, since then it has been unavailable on a physical format. The album has been specially re-mastered for vinyl by ISAN's Antony Ryan and features completely new artwork by Frances Castle, including an illustrated booklet that tells the story of Smalls Lighthouse. Limited to 500 hand numbered copies it includes a download of the LP and the bonus mini album 'Flotsam' that was included in the original release.

Smalls Lighthouse, is located approximately 20 miles west of St Davids Peninsula in Pembrokeshire Wales . Engineered by a violin-maker and standing on flat rocks battered by the sea, the original lighthouse resembled a squat hut on giant stilts. In the year 1800 two men Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffin, well known locally for their drunken spats and quarrels, boarded a fishing-vessel to spend six months together as lighthouse keepers on Smalls Rock. During this time Griffith was killed in an accident and Howell was left alone to fend for himself struggling to stay sane in the isolation of the lighthouse. The music on this record soundtracks the events that took place with beautiful and often gruesome clarity.

Music For Smalls Lighthouse fosters a subliminal mixture of arcane atmospherics and mournful chamber music....Tanner seals six exquisitely evocative pieces together into one bleakly alluring whole...DOA

Music For Smalls Lighthouseis a quite remarkable record...feels like a slice of Britain has been carved and pressed to vinyl for the listener to enjoy at will… Fluid Radio

We’ll likely never see a glut of similar albums, because they are so difficult to do well, without theatrics or pretense.  But when they are done well, as is the case here, they stick in the mind like cherished guests in a cozy house.  It’s not only their stories that we want to remember, but the ways in which they were told.  A Closer Listen (Richard Allen)

Music and Migration III on Second Language.

I have designed the artwork and contributed a track to the the 3rd 'Music and Migration' compilation on Second Language records, all profits will go to BirdLife International.

It can be bought from HERE

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Way back in 2010, Second Language released a compilation album called Music and Migration, which proffered exclusive sonic wares by artists including Vashti Bunyan, Xela, Hauschka, Leyland Kirby and Peter Broderick. Themed around issues of avian migration, and the many man-made threats to international ‘flyways’ as highlighted by the nature conservation organization, BirdLife International’s Born to Travel campaign, the album proved to be both an artistic and critical ‘hit’, selling out its limited edition almost immediately.

Encouraged by its success, Second Language went on to release a second volume in 2011, the aptly-titled, Music and Migration II, this time in support of BirdLife Malta and their efforts to secure avian migratory routes across the islands. Artists included Marissa Nadler, Piano Magic, Sophie Hutchings and James Brewster.
The third and final instalment in the Music & Migration series Music & Migration III congratulates BirdLife International on their 20th Anniversary and particularly celebrates their important global work for migratory birds. M&MIII has a no less stellar cast, including as it does, exclusive contributions from eminent field recordist Chris Watson, Mark Fry, Colleen, Morr Music label mates ISAN and Pascal Pinon, Lisa Knapp, Memory Drawings, Frances Castle, Oliver Cherer (Dollboy), Gareth Dickson, acid-folk doyenne Sharron Kraus, Directorsound and Glen Johnson (Piano Magic).
'Music & Migration III' comes packaged as a 6 panel concertina sleeve beautifully illustrated by Frances Castle of Clay Pipe Records/The Hardy Tree.

Included with M&MIII is a free bonus disc, Mizieb EP, by The Home Current featuring remixes of Theme From Mizieb (originally released on M&MII) by the likes of The Boats, Opiate, Chronomad, El Búho and Blood On The Snare (Jerome Tcherneyan of Piano Magic). Two original tracks complete the set - Fiddien Torchlight Procession (feat. Anna Rose Carter) and A Case Of Domestic Violins (feat. Sarah Kemp of brave timbers/Lanterns On The Lake).
Even when the music stops, migratory birds will still face threats along their routes of travel. Find out how you can help here: www.birdlife.org
Tracklisting :

1. ISAN - Kirkeskov
2. Colleen - Bird Score
3. Frances Castle - Flight Of The Swans
4. Oliver Cherer - Croham Hurst
5. Directorsound - Is That The Heron?
6. Mark Fry - In Times Like These
7. Memory Drawings - Wheatfields
8. Glen Johnson - L'abandon
9. Pascal Pinon - Fuglar
10. Sharron Kraus - Birds Of The Air
11. Gareth Dickson - Amber Sky
12. Lisa Knapp - Fine Horseman
13. Chris Watson - Namaqua Moves