Staccato Signals by Ben Chatwin and Black River Promise by Lomond Campbell with the Pumpkinseeds String Quartet

Ben Chatwin (also known as Talvihorros) is an electronic, ambient producer based in South Queensferry. Working with primarily guitar and analogue electronics, he makes dense and dark ambient compositions that aspire to take in the beauty and chaos of the cosmos. Sonically ambitious, with a keen sense of melody always teetering on the edge of collapsing under its own weight.

On the 6th July 2018 Chatwin released ‘Staccato Signals,’ a bolder and more ambitious record than anything he has written before, largely the result of relinquishing different levels of control over the musical process. Featuring the string arrangements of the sought after arranger, Pete Harvey (Modern Studies, King Creosote, Adam Stafford) Staccato Signals is a triumph and not only one of the best Scottish records of the year, but one of the greatest releases anywhere in 2018.

Lomond Campbell hails from the Scottish Borders, ached for Aberdeen and, for many years, was lodged as a lamppost in Leith, Edina. More recently (to you & I), he tore himself out of the city, uprooted, left Auld Reekie’s ancient urban burst behind (carrying a sack of sun shaft and shadow) and set forth fur the Highlands. Here he found a derelict, wheezing school, on the skirt of a stunning Loch, with Ben Nevis brooding overhead like a bull seal ready to brawl. Do you picture that? Try harder please, strain like skies do until you see birds there and fish puckered lipped below – so still and serene but not really silent at all. This school became THE recording studio, the cauldron from which Black River Promise bubbled up and was brewed.

Black River Promise’s musical landscape is as charmingly disparate as Campbell’s own geographical movements, winks and burdensome talents. From white noise to near silence.

Campbell’s well-kent aptitude for lyrical lustre and churning out complex, yet perfectly dirty, pop enters new realms with Black River Promise. Two instrumental tracks recorded live in a five hunner year old castle wi a 10-piece string ensemble whisper, wail then wander out into the ether around you. These gargantuan and gossamer sounds – harvested by cellist and arranger Pete Harvey – dance daintily in their Fallen Stag; whilst you’re best advised to run and hide from the growl in their undulating Acharacle.

The Pumpkinseeds is a collective of live and studio session musicians assembled by chief arranger, Pete Harvey. They are a group of exceptionally talented friends gathered from all walks of musical life and nurtured in the fertile furrows of Pumpkinfield. They can be heard in the works of King Creosote, Deacon Blue, Lomond Campbell, Modern Studies and many, many more.