The music video for Tragedy Fractures, directed by the talented Gregory Hoepffner at Radius Labs, premiered today on No Fear Of Pop. Watch the video below and also download the track for free on my bandcamp:
http://russellmharmon.bandcamp.com/track/tragedy-fractures
RUSSELL M. HARMON “Tragedy Fractures” from Radius Labs on Vimeo.
I am releasing a limited edition cassette tape of We Are Failed through the Ohio-based record label Rano. The B-side includes remixes from dsic, Micromelancolié, Laica, oh/ex/oh, and Gavin Miller.
You can pre-order a copy here via Rano’s Bandcamp:
http://rano.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-failed
Happy to announce that Without You, I’d Cease from We Are Failed has been featured on a compilation release by the new UK label Hidden Trail Records…
http://hiddentrailrecords.bandcamp.com/track/without-you-id-cease
The remix of Time Without Question I did for Ghosting Season is now up on their YouTube channel. Check out their other videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/seasonofghosting
Ghosting Season – Time Without Question (Russell.M.Harmon remix)
Here is an interview I did with quint magazine for their black and white issue. If you live in the UAE you can pick up your copy at any Virgin Megastore outlet, as well as other selected places. For those of you that don’t, you can read it online by clicking the link below. Thanks to Zaina for this…
read here: http://www.quintmagazine.com/issue16.html
Just organised my YouTube account and uploaded the We Are Failed EP. You can subscribe to my channel here…
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussellMHarmon
Russell.M.Harmon – An Ending To Everything; The Ending Means Everything
Here is an interview I did with the music blog Someofitistrue. Thanks to Jeremy for this…
“We are a little lost for words when it comes to describing this new EP from Russell.M.Harmon. It’s probably best you read his interview below because he articulates it perfectly. For us this is sparse, evocative music that is both challenging, engaging and beautiful. Please read on and listen to ’We Are Failed’”
read here: http://someofitistrue.com/2012/10/19/in-bloom-2-russell-m-harmon/
Great review of We Are Failed by Magda Wrzeszcz on Echoes And Dust…
Russell.M.Harmon’s debut EP opens very ominously, with the ‘bed of machine music’ mentioned in his bio – a phrase that completely sold me on his sound. Previously known as her.eyes.like_static, Russell abandoned UK for Reykjavik, started to record under his own name and came up with an instrumental, minimal record that’s absolutely captivating.
The tone of the EP is set by the title and from the opening, foreboding ‘Amidst Wolves’ it only gets darker. The iciness of Iceland can definitely be heard in ‘Without You, I’d Cease’ – a beautiful piece that starts with silence punctuated only by piano keys and electronic sound, reminding me of a heart monitor. It’s the monitor that cuts the silence with a sound sharp as an icicle, creating a solitary, cold sound space that soon unravels into a melody building up to a heartbreaking and desperate crescendo. It’s 7 minutes and 20 seconds of the most beautiful, sound painted sadness.
The theme of heartbeat and monitor follows in ‘Like Blood Off A Dove’s Back’, where the sound of the piano is suffocated and the monitor torn and ripped apart by heavy guitar riffs. Perfectly timed chords guide through ‘Tragedy Fractures’, another 7 minute piece with spiralling dark melody leading to ‘An Ending To Everything; The Ending Means Everything’. The last composition on the EP opens with chords that bring to mind Chopin’s nocturnes. The heart monitor is not there anymore. The melancholy and despair is overcoming. The last flat note fading into painful nothing only underlines that there was more to be had and the final wasn’t necessary – yet inevitable.
As far as electronic ambient music goes, Russell.M.Harmon has delivered an EP that’s a little conceptual masterpiece. His music is brilliantly atmospheric, however dark and gloomy (which shouldn’t come as a surprise knowing he worked with Ghosting Season / worriedaboutsatan). It’s one of the records that I feel privileged to have listened to – the theme creates a certain intimacy between the artist and the listener and I feel like I’ve been let into someone’s deeply hidden secret, painted with musical notes. Now I can only impatiently wait for a full album.
source: http://echoesanddust.com/2012/10/russell-m-harmon-we-are-failed-ep/
Free download of a remix I did for composer Adam Chetty as part of his Still EP now up on soundcloud…
http://soundcloud.com/russell-m-harmon/adam-chetty-still-russell-m-harmon-remix
We Are Failed receives 8/10 from shout4music. Thanks to Gareth O’Malley for such a great review…
Russell.M.Harmon – ‘We Are Failed’ EP
The power of instrumental music is that it can sometimes convey emotions with just as much clarity as words can. The debut EP from Icelandic composer Russell.M.Harmon serves as a shining example of this. Sometimes quite dark (as if its title wasn’t a giveaway), ‘We Are Failed’ is nonetheless a wonderfully engaging listen, loaded with atmospheric ambience but never once forgetting that melody is king. ‘Without You, I’d Cease’ builds over 7 minutes to a searingly intense finale, guided along by a glorious piano melody that is soon joined by confident drumming. The unconventional time-signature that ‘Like Blood Off A Dove’s Back’ is written in gives it a curious sort of energy, even though the song, moving through quiet, meditative passages and juxtaposing them with outbursts of noise, is distinctly mid-tempo. The EP improves as it goes on, and the emotionally resonant closer ‘An Ending To Everything; The Ending Is Everything’ helps to wind down the EP in a typically understated fashion, heralding the arrival of a dazzling new talent.
source: http://www.shout4music.com/albums-eps/russellmharmon-we-are-failed-ep