Out Now

Out Now

Live Shows

Saturday 21st January - Cafe Oto, London

Doors 8pm, £7 adv - Get Tickets From WeGotTickets

We are so glad to be helping get Richard to Cafe Oto to celebrate the release of Amaranthine

"When we recently saw that our friends at Tracer Trails/Braw Gigs in Scotland had organised an evening with Richard Youngs in Edinburgh we couldn't think of a finer idea and shamelessly decided to copy them and bring Richard down to London for our own evening of him performing two different sets. These might follow the same accapella/with guitar format as the Edinburgh event, but as is customary for someone with such a striking and wide-ranging discography, things might be different by the time the date swings around.

With hundreds of solo and collaborative releases on countless labels (including his own “No Fans” label) Richard’s music has been heaped with accolades since the 1990’s. Whether through his collaborations with the likes of Simon Wickham-Smith, Jandek, Neil Campbell or Makoto Kawabata, or in his solo work encompassing the starkest minimalism, lush acapella and acoustic balladry, Richard adds a touch of humanity to any project he’s involved with.

Despite his longstanding reservations about live performance, Richard has been blessing audiences with more and more live gigs, mostly in his hometown of Glasgow. Consistently remarkable, if consistently unpredictable, Richard's performances have run the gamut - from scuzzy over-amped guitar, oscillator blasts and LP auctions to gorgeous song suites." - Cafe Oto

Thursday 19th April - Cafe Oto, London

Doors 8pm, £8 adv - Get Tickets From WeGotTickets

We are extremely happy to be supporting this excellent show at Cafe Oto

San Franscisco's Barn Owl bring their dual guitar/tube amp worship strategies to Cafe OTO for an evening of transcendent sonics alongside shapeshifting Swiss composer/improvisor Antoine Chessex presenting a piece for Tape/Saxophone and the post-Takoma 12 string explorations of London guitarist Cam Deas.

Barn Owl

Formed in 2006 by Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti, Barn Owl use their guitars to paint broad musical strokes on a canvas stretched between the framework of ambient, drone, americana, and black metal. On record, Barn Owl combine densely layered electric and acoustic instruments and walls of melting amplifiers and feedback alchemy. The lines between strict structure and ordered chaos blur as third-eye opening e-bowed drones explode like beams of light and corrode into crumbling distortion, baking tones that sizzle like brittle bones left in the desert sun. An experience only intensified in a live setting

Between rhythmic, turning strums that recall Saharan twilight, radiant synth swells and choral clusters that echo the desolation of deep space, the duo’s sound has no doubt ascended from it’s desert-rock roots into a new, beaming realm. Evocative as they are, the sounds on their latest Thrill Jockey LP 'Lost in The Glare' aren’t easy to tie down to particular imagery. A myriad of influences from blues and raga to the guitar style most often associated with the Tuareg people meld into a new universal sound that can only be described as cosmic and sublime.

Antione Chessex

Antoine Chessex is a composer and sound artist born in 1980 in Vevey, Switzerland, with a background as a saxophone player and performer. His sonic researches include compositions for ensembles, solo works, transdisciplinary collaborations and sound installations based on the exploration of the physicality of sounds and spaces.

His solo works feature dense layers of sustained pitches reacting with the architecture of the space or massive clouds of amplified sax resulting in intense live actions in total immersion in the sound. He has collaborated with musicians like Lasse Marhaug, Zbigniew Karkowski, Maja Ratkje, Chris Corsano, Ilios, Valerio Tricoli, C. Spencer Yeh, Axel Dörner, Hans Koch, Robin Hayward, Thomas Ankersmit, Lucio Capece and many more...

Cam Deas

Cam Deas is a London based 12 string guitarist exploring the post-Takoma terrain through extended part-improvised, part-composed works. His last solo double full length, Quadtych, released on his own Present Time Exercises imprint, was called 'a major UK guitar statement' by David Keenan/Volcanic Tongue and 'a quantum step forward after a decade of Fahey acolytion' by Keith Fullerton Whitman. He has toured Europe extensively over the past few years with around 80 concerts in 2011 alone and has been seen to collaborate live and in the studio with the likes of Chie Mukai, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Ignatz, Jack Allett, C. Joynes, and Belgian free jazz group, Sheldon Siegel among others.

Richard Youngs & Birchall/Cheetham Duo

Now that we have moved back down to London we shall be focusing more on the label side of things and slowing down on the show front. So we're extremely excited about releasing Richard Youngs' 'Amaranthine' LP at the beginning of January, we'll be getting the test pressings next week and will hopefully have a pre-order link up before christmas, this one isn't going to be around for too long. We're also extremely happy to be starting our new CDr series with 'TIPPING POINT' by the Birchall/Cheetham Duo, an explosive improv-drone rock duo from Manchester, you can see more details about our CDr series in the new section of our site here.

We have removed our blog page, as I haven't updated that in years (see our twitter page for the most up to date news), and we've replaced it with our soundcloud page where you'll be able to stream nearly every release by MIE.

We're looking at a very busy year next year and those of you who read the Wire next issue will se that we've got loads of upcoming releases with somefrom Cian Nugent, Chord, Bong, Hallock Hill and hopefully some more Trouble Books, Talons' and Keith Freund releases

MIE 008 Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides - Poisson

One of the greatest things about being a promoter in Manchester was being able to work constantly with the huge range of amazing local artists and this release comes after MIE put PWHMOBS and various side projects on quite a few times in the last year and worked up a great relationship with the guys. We're hugely excited then to be releasing on heavyweight vinyl this excellent reissue of a early cassette by the band, its called 'Poisson' and is one amazing highlight of their exemplary back catalogue. Each copy will be customised by the band and some gold paint. Pre Orders will be taken now for shipping in early August

Pre-order links over on the left or on our releases page here

Trouble Books & Mark McGuire - Self titled LP

When we heard that our favourite band and good friends, Trouble Books, were starting to collaborate with Emeralds guitarist and fellow Ohioan, Mark McGuire, we were pretty excited about what they might come up with. This LP is the fruit of their labours and its amazing, it wonderfully brings togther the sublime sounds of Emeralds, Marks solo stuff and Trouble Books. The first pressing is only 250 LPs, I'll have 50 copies for distro in the UK and Europe from mid-June, these will go like hotcakes so get on them quick. We'll also have a Trouble Books Acquaintance Pack for all Emeralds/Mark McGuire fans not familiar with Trouble Books.

Pre-order links over on the left or on our releases page here

MIE 007 Daniel Menche & Anla Courtis - Yagua Ovy

Yet another stellar release on MIE, we're hugely proud to be releasing the brand new collaboration between Daniel Menche, Portland's sublime noise musician who strives for vehement natural beauty in his work, and Anla Courtis, the legendary Argentina guitarist and founder of Reynols. Yagua Ovy centres around the Argentinean mythology of the Werewolf and the duos work really hits hard and loud.

Available to order in our releases page.

MIE 006 Cath & Phil Tyler - Dumb Supper

We're hugely excited to announce that the next release on our label will be the rerelease of Cath & Phil Tyler's utterly gorgeous and spellbinding Dumb Supper. This shall be released on April 4th on 180 gram vinyl in lovely card inners and a heavyweight sleeve. Its going to be a record to cherish. Listen to them here, and I'll leave you with a quote about the LP: "Folk moves into a new era with Cath and Phil. Their combination of earthiness and grit, raw yet hearfelt and beautiful singing and immaculate playing makes this one of the most exciting and most moving albums I've heard in a long while." Fiona Talkington, BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’

The LP is now available to pre-order, head on over to the releases page to order your copy now.

Bags and Shows

Firstly thanks very much to everyone who came to our shows this year, we've had an excellent time and now need a deserved rest for a month. But we defintily aren't stopping planning for next year as you can see with our Oval show, the inaugration of our Wooden Guitar Series and then a much anticipated show from Our Love Will Destory The World. And theres so much more being planned at the moment. As the above picture suggests MIE's resident artist Bizzy Huthers has made two lovely designs on book bags, you can grab one of these highly limted, 25 of each design, bags over at her website here

Manchester Shows

After our Steffen Basho-Junghans and Cian Nugent show at Café Oto in London this July we decided we liked it so much that we’d book a load of shows when we moved up to Manchester. So we have a whole raft of shows for discerning Mancuians. 15th Sept – Trouble Books @ Trof NQ, 5th Oct – Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band @ Sacred Trinity Church, 19th Oct – Demons and Sick Llama @ Islington Mill, 27th Oct – Lichens, Paul Metzger and Part Wild Horses Manes On Both Sides @ Sacred Trinity Church, 4th Nov – Grouper and Rafael Anton Irisarri @ Islington Mill, 14th Nov – Cath & Phil Tyler @ Trof NQ,. See you at some of them!

Trouble Books Uk Tour!

We’re hugely excited to announce that the band that made us start up our label and release their music is finally touring the UK! Trouble Books and their utterly unique type of experimental ambient pop are just too darn good to pass up so make your way down to one of their shows. Also if you want to put them on drop us a line now!

15/09/10 Manchester, Trof NQ

16/09/10 Newcastle, The Cumberland Arms

more dates to come soon

New Website

Welcome to the new MIE website. Brand new and super slick, we hope its easy to use and will be updated regularly. To kept up to date with everything we’re doing (we’re definitely going to be very busy in the next year) sign up to newsletter via the mailing list bit. Thanks for visiting! MIE