We're Moving

We're heading back to www.thedecliningwinter.com so if you've bookmarked the blogspot address please change it. A new improved website will be coming soon..........

Home Assembly Music HALF PRICE SALE

As I write there are three days left in January. Thats three days to get any of our lovely Home Assembly Music records or any other on the label (bar Northerner 'The Ridings now sold out) for HALF PRICE. Move fast. Don't delay etc. I sound like a sofa salesman. Go HERE

Blow Up

Wow, its been some time since I last posted....or did anything really. I'm still on the go in any case so thats the main bit of news.

Otherwise we were really happy to see our last record 'Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window', reviewed in Blow Up which I'm told is the Italian version of The Wire. Here is the review below:-

The new EP by former Hood Richard Adams is a really nice surprise. The sound that spreads from these 4 tracks is reminiscent of the previous band's but without the intermission, the disturbed frequencies that made us love Hood. Here the sound is reduced to the bone, to an impalpable substance resting on everything and leaving a soft, permanent track, recalling the golden years of 4AD and Project. The choice might appear dated but is actually appropriate, if guided by the feeling of loss and melancholy that is Richard's most sincere link with the past (7/8) Roberto Canella 

Oh and its now available domestically in Japan care of Linus Records

Otherwise Secret Furry Hole, Norman Records 

Leonards Lair Review

A nice review of our 'Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window EP from the ever reliable and perceptive Leonards Lair

"As a member of Hood, Richard Adams has played a major part in leading a group of British artists who bring the sounds of the environment in to their music, whilst also incorporating hip-hop and electronica in to their peculiarly brilliant vision. With Hood still on hiatus, Adams has led The Declining Winter through a couple of albums and singles which have even encompassed an alternative (and pretty decent) World Cup theme. ‘Scenes From The Back Bedroom Window’ is their latest EP and one which epitomises Adams’ skills and wilfully subervise approach to music."

"The EP begins with doomy church organ straight from the Talk Talk school of misery as Adams sighs dejectedly. It’s a strange choice for a lead-off track since what comes after it is far more involving. As you’d expect from its title, ‘Killer’ is a instrumental that demands to be noticed. Adams sings in a distant whisper but the distorted guitars circle round in hypnotic fashion. ‘Nobody Else’ features the rustic-sounding guitars which will be familiar to those who have appreciated Hood’s Northern take on post-rock over the years. This leaves the despairing ‘Rachel’; a song so tender and sad and reminiscent of July Skies at his lovelorn best."

‘Scenes…’ takes the unusual step of each track being better than the last one. However, since The Declining Winter don’t have the pressure of front-loading their releases, this is a good move as the listener gets rewarded the more he/she listens. Best of all, Adams proves that rather than distancing himself from his parent band, he celebrates those influences to produce a brief but moving selection.

In Love With These Times, In Spite Of These Times

One of our favourite blogs has re-appeared of late. Much love for our World Cup Theme. No 8 out of their top (yikes!) 100

http://kisschase.blogspot.com/2010/12/were-falling-were-falling-were.html

8. The Declining Winter "Official World Cup Theme 2010" (Home Assembly Music, CD single)

Comfortably the best World Cup record since Jules Rimet's prize comp kicked off in Uruguay eighty years ago (incidentally, does anyone else agree that Uruguay's rather pretty national anthem knocked spots off the dirges of most other teams in the summer ?) Anyway, Richard Adams' plaintive half-whisper optimistically implores our overpaid timewasters to "bring back the old silverware" over a typical Declining backdrop, an exquisite rustic knit of gently tumbling guitars and aching violin, all broken twigs and twisted bracken underfoot, with production stalwart Choque Husein serene at the controls. This, and last year's wonderful "Haunt The Upper Hallways", remind us a little of the former Creation Records band, the mysterious Pacific, who despite being rather maligned in their day managed to release two excellent, multi-instrumental singles that straddled traditional and modern rather acely. Indeed, "Official World Cup Theme 2010" is *such* a tizzingly beautiful record that the obligatory sampled commentary (in this case of John Barnes' mazy run in Rio), however tongue-in-cheek, rather takes the edge off the magic. Still, a further demonstration - along with the gorgeous second track, "Red Kite", as majestically rare as the endangered bird that's its subject - that the Declining Winter have flowered, with typical pastoral grace, into being one of England's very finest bands. In sharp contrast to the England team, they deserve our (and your) support.

2010 - the year that was

Here is a round up of all The Declining Winter and related activities this year.

We started 'on the road' with a UK and Europe tour which included a robbery, sickness, hospitalisation, freezing cold and some very good shows. Here is a video of us on that very tour performing the old favourite 'Yorkcity3'



Our good friends at Norman Records re-issued our debut album 'Goodbye Minnesota' on wonderful 180 gram vinyl. These things look an absolute treat and still seem to be selling by the erm..... thimble load

'The Official World Cup Theme 2010' would have been great on vinyl but alas time got in the way/ or I didn't get my act together quick enough. Yet we did manage to get a release out and got our first mentions on Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound, and other more confused media outlets on which the joke was lost on. A nightmare start to finish this one, but we still think it sounds great and are hoping to reap the benefits in 2014. Here's the video........

We performed our final show (until mid next year) at the extraordinary Forest of Sound is Dead event at Left Bank, Leeds and waved a temporary goodbye to guitarist Paul Elam who headed for the stunning climes of Toronto.

With everything else happening, I forgot that I'd recorded 'Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window' which snuck out in November through our friends at Secret Furry Hole. The packaging on this is phenomenal and I was pleased the release coincided with freezing weather.

I also completed remixes for Brave Timbers, Winter North Atlantic, Team Forest, The Green Kingdom and performed on upcoming albums by Absent Without Leave and Epic 45.

Yet somehow its been a quiet year, I've spent a lot of it moving house or sorting out moving house or sorting out complications relating to moving house.

That all said we should be back next year though I can't promise when, I have a house to renovate. Don't give up on us though. Thanks to anyone who still reads/listens. An even bigger thanks to anyone who buys stuff, this keeps it all going in the days of diminishing returns.

richard/the declining winter

dec 2012

Seasonal Free Stuff

I like to give away a christmas treat or two each year and with the season fast approaching here is this years selection. Both are downloadable for absolutely nothing!

You can download for free a live version of our hit 'My Name In Ruins' taken from a performance in Antwerp, Belgium. The story behind the very different version is that our drummer had been rushed to hospital and so we had about an hour to come up with an acoustic set! Hence this version is very different from the one found on our 'Haunt the Upper Hallways' album.

and here for your christmas delectation is the original home sketch of 'The Official World Cup Theme 2010'

'Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window'

"A warm, ponderous, yet sad, organ line - simple as you like - overlaid with the kind of decaying, spectral vocal manipulation Grouper may endorse. Really quite unnerving & beautiful in its haunting bleakness."

Buy from Norman Records (UK)

Buy from Secret Furry Hole (IT)

You can also get these direct from my discogs page

'Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window' OUT NOW

Four stifled/suffocated titles, the acoustic muted and the singing veiled, revealing a facet of the Declining Winter far more atmospheric than usual AUTRES DIRECTIONS

Organ chords, granulated vocals, and judiciously applied reverbs combine to form a slow burning, steady state piece – elemental and commanding, this is a far cry from anything released under the Declining Winter moniker thus far. FLUID RADIO

The ability of the piece to retain its instrumental-ness even in the presence of a voice says a lot about the accomplishment of the instrumentation, a heavily reverberant hall of sonic mirrors in which guitar strings flutter endlessly. DISQUIET

Scenes from the Back Bedroom Window

Its here! And it looks great. It comes in a fold out piece of card that folds forever and ever. I couldn't fold mine back up. Here are some pictures.......

At the moment only available from Secret Furry Hole. But as more places stock it I will add to the list.