Sounds of Subterrania

»Wooden Heart«

LP / CD 2014

Sounds of Subterrania

SoS 138

1. You Have Never Lived Because You Have Never Died
2. I Don\'t Want To Live Forever
3. Most Roads Lead To Home
4. Wooden Heart
5. Falling In Love With Glaciers
6. Failing Is Not Just For Failures
7. Building Better Bridges
8. Seatbelt Hands
9. These Hands Weren`t Meant For Us
10. You Were A House On Fire
11. Save Up Your Hopes Friends

Second studio album from (then) talk-music duo, Listener; Wooden Heart is a concept album that loosely draws it`s framework from the popular children`s tale The Never Ending Story, with each song having an alternate title that corresponds with characters, places and things from the story. Overall a more delicate affair it`s predecessor, the album features 11 heartfelt songs that combine delicate and considered instrumentation with the trademark vocal delivery and vivid poetry of Dan Smith. Unlike anything you will have heard. Originally self released in July 2010, this album is re-issued on vinyl.

»Time Is a Machine«

LP / CD 2014

Sounds of Subterrania

SoS 139

1. Eyes To The Ground For Change
2. Good News First
3. Not Today
4. Tornadoes
5. I Think It's Called Survival
6. Everything Sleeps
7. There Are Wrecking Balls Inside Of Us
8. It Will All Happen The Way It Should

»Being Empty : Being Filled«

LP / CD 2018

Sounds of Subterrania

SoS 170 / SoS 171

1. Pent Up Genes
2. Little Folded Fingers
3. There's Money In the Walls
4. Add Blue
5. Bloodshot/New Love
6. Shock and Value
7. Window To the World
8. A Love Letter To Detroit
9. Manhattan Projects
10. Plague Doctor

It was with great luck that I was able to discover Listener in the Hamburg-based venue Hafenklang a few years ago. I saw three men on stage, playing the very music I missed so much since the "break up" of Hot Water Music. There weren`t a lot of people in the audience, but I got the impression that I was not the only one with goose bumps in the room. The band's three previous records were completely sold out, so I did something I'd never done in my label history so far: I asked for a re- release. We agreed and I developed the lasered Special Editions. On the day of the release, my server collapsed, because I received too many orders and by then I also recognized for the first time how many fans Listener have worldwide, because the orders really came in from all over the world. This is even more impressiv, if you know that Listener publish either on their own or on very small labels. These fans they earn themselves with their almost 150 shows a year and the good old mouth- to-mouth propaganda.
I think this echo for their music is coming, or at least that's how it works with me, through another form of poetry in their lyrics. Dan, the singer, calls it talkmusic, I would describe it as a form of storytelling, as it is common in more original forms of music. Away from the idiom, the idle gesture, the staging, to the story, which must be told. And this is exactly where the genius of this band shows itself. Because these stories could also be made by Kubrick, Gus van Sant or Wes Anderson. They are small-scale and self-consistent, they make a big whole and yet are like a fragmented mirror in front of you and let only guess what world you can expect. Now, Being Empty: Being Filled is the first release I have been able to join from the start, and I hope this album will do many rounds on your turntables.
Gregor Samsa

If you want to make it easy, the basic theme of the new, fourth album "Being Empty: Being Filled" could be the reference to all the outstanding personalities being presented on it. But it's not that easy, of course. Listener have become louder, the guitars more rocking, sometimes more angry. Kris hits the drums as if there is no tomorrow. But this is just the musical side. The other is poetry and Dan sings, or should we say, talks, about life, with its edges, with the big moments, the many questions and the many failures, like no other singer in this world. No pathos, no false theatricality obscures the view of the content of the narrative. This way Dan recounts his stories, which may be our stories, makes Listener by a long way one of the most interesting bands of today. It is these analogies that best describe our time and let us understand them. This pointing out the contradictions without lifting your finger. This warmth, which in the end still gives hope, makes their music unique.