Melting Vinyl: Bringing the cream of live music to Brighton.

Bella Union and Melting Vinyl present:
Lost Horizons

Currently celebrating 20 years piloting the revered record label Bella Union, Simon Raymonde has scaled another personal peak, a new collaboration with drummer Richie Thomas. They’re called Lost Horizons, and though neither of them have strictly been lost, their stunning debut album, Ojalá, is a rare sighting of two gifted musicians who, for different reasons, have been largely absent from music-making for the last 20 years. Yet the record is proof of a telepathic relationship through music, established when the pair first became collaborators and friends in the eighties.

Ojalá incorporates a heady cast of guest singers. Some are signed to Bella Union, such as Marissa Nadler, former Midlake frontman Tim Smith, Cameron Neal (Horse Thief), others are
long-time favourites of Raymonde’s (Leila Moss of The Duke Spirit and Ghostpoet), or newer discoveries (Beth Cannon, Ed Riman, Gemma Dunleavy and Phil McDonnell). And then there is the incomparable Karen Peris of The Innocence Mission, one of Raymonde’s most beloved artists, in her first collaboration outside of The Innocent Mission and solo recordings.

Together, the Lost Horizons ensemble has created an hour of exquisite, expansive and diverse spellcasting, from facets of soul, to dreamier invocations like ‘She Led Me Away’ and Ojalá’s lengthiest trip, ‘The Engine’. There’s the odd louder, faster detour, like ‘Life Inside A Paradox’, but the dominant mood is a deep, rich melancholia.

Support comes from:
Dog In The Snow
Dog In The Snow finds inspiration in the juxtapositions: the warm project title goes hand-in-hand with the grim ending of Kafka’s ’The Trial’. Inspired by the dark underbelly of Scott Walker, the mortal anxieties of Sufjan Stevens, the glistening soundscapes of Susumu Yokota, Helen also finds influence from her own experience of being mixed race and a foreigner to her homelands, whilst exploring self-identity in its culture and ideas.

DJ sets from local Brighton band Penelope Isles.