Inner Islands Offers A Name To Return To With Acceptance

Braden over at spiritual exploration label Inner Islands has two new releases for you, and they are both game-changers for the artists involved.

Firstly we have To Return To, the debut album for Ashan (AKA Sean Conrad AKA gkfoes vjgoaf - foregoing that mouthful is a good idea...). To Return To is a peaceful blend of organics and subtle electronics, things that followers of Conrad would be aware and open to, yet it's the male/female choral vocal chants that lead us through the keyhole into a different world altogether.

Ashan - How Sweetly I Am Loved

Secondly we have Acceptance, the latest (and final) recording from Braden's own project WYLD WYZRDZ. The songs are a reflection on acceptance, built on a collection of soft drones, melodic hooks, vocal chants and moving percussion. It's easily the best thing that WW has put together, and furthermore highlights the hole left after such an artist bids us adieu.

WYLD WYZRDZ - The Road Of Acceptance

Go on, support this rad label by heading here and getting amongst these astral jams. Well worth all effort and time exerted.

Turning Circles In Inner Islands

Another two releases worth mentioning out of the Inner Islands stable - and as always, they are damn good. The circle turns once more...


The first is From a Stone by WYLD WYZRDZ. The album is a peaceful blend of electronics and organics combining simple steady rhythms, field recordings and vocal chants along with various melodic instruments (dulcimer, flute, strum stick, bass, guitar, keys). Exactly what you would expect from a WYLD WYZRDZ release, sure, but if it ain't broke...


The second is a re-release of Sandpaintings by Stag Hare. This album was originally released on Moon Dial last year, the album shows SH's more reserved, languid side. One track per side - perfect for drifting away.

Both albums are on sale on cassette and digital download via Inner Islands here.

Stag Hare - Holy Person

WYLD WYZRDZ - In Wonder

Double Dose Of Inner Islands

Braden J McKenna (WYLD WYZRDZ) has just started up his own label called Inner Islands. Basically its a place for him and other like-minded chaps to produce musical pieces that hark back to nature and the inner journey. No sonic stone is left unturned.

The first of two latest releases is The Joy of Awakening, a contemplative suite of tracks that marries rainforest field recordings with finger picking guitar and shimmering dreams by Sean Conrad, going under the moniker Gkfoes Vjgoaf (and no, I have no idea how to pronounce it). Its a fairly dense piece, and feels more like a meditative experience rather than an actual album to listen to. As Conrad states, The Joy Of Awakening has come to be "about a journey that the listener goes on. Imagine your celestial body traveling and being taken by an unseeable tribe of spirits that are trying to help you see the true nature of things. They sing and play for you and lead you from day to night through the forest, the ocean, and up into the mountains to reach your final resting place in the temple".

River Spirit Dragon (comprised of Stag Hare, who alongside White Rainbow put out a great split LP last year; Gkfoes Vjgoaf; and WYLD WYZRDZ) on the other hand is a forty minute, two track, meandering opus, built up out of an initial droning foundation and allowed to float on the slipstreams of time and space. It is not as exciting as The Joy Of Awakening, but there is a definite sense of kindred spirit in what Inner Islands is attempting to achieve here. Later in the year the label will release LPs from all three of these spatial mavericks, adhering to that continual spiritual sojourn into the sonic Other...

Gkfoes Vjgoaf - In Clouds
River Spirit Dragon - Spaceways