A LITTLE FABLE, by ASPIDISTRAFLY

Landscape With A Fairy - Directed by April Lee & Rika M

A LITTLE FABLE

by ASPIDISTRAFLY

supported by

orchardnight favourite album !! thank you thank you you are both wonderful <3 Favorite track: Twinkling Fall.

vi sjunger i kör 心洗われる、昔のアメリカ南部の白人社会をフィルム越しに覗いてる気分

Verlyss It's all filled with dreams and wisps of light, exactly what I love. Favorite track: Landscape With A Fairy.

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Glass-mastered CD housed in die-cut thick board case, premium art paper outer slipcase, 6-page insert offset printed on newsprint paper.

CD includes 2 bonus tracks
1. Landscape With A Fairy (Live in Fujimigaoka Church, Tokyo)
2. Endless Dreamless (Live in Fujimigaoka Church, Tokyo)

Includes unlimited streaming of A LITTLE FABLE via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Purchasable with gift card

$14 USD or more
CD + Art Book
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Glass-mastered CD mounted on 210 x 150 x 6mm 4-panel die-cut premium art paper cover, 48 pages book, offset printed, perfect bound, full color on newsprint paper.

Includes unlimited streaming of A LITTLE FABLE via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	A Black-Necked Swan 01:16	buy track
2.	Landscape With A Fairy 04:25 video	buy track
3.	Homeward Waltz 04:34	buy track
4.	Cocina 02:40	buy track
5.	Sea Of Glass 04:59	buy track
6.	Countless White Moons 04:15	buy track
7.	Language Of Flowers 02:53	buy track
8.	Wooden Room 03:00	buy track
9.	Gensei 05:14	buy track
10.	Blue Bonnet Of The Seven Stars 01:10	buy track
11.	Dear Sylvan 03:08	buy track
12.	Twinkling Fall 03:16	buy track

about

“I went mourning without the sun; I am a companion to owls.”

In the autumn/winter of 2010, Singapore-based April Lee and Ricks Ang of ASPIDISTRAFLY (also founders of Kitchen. Label) embarked on the recording of their second album A LITTLE FABLE in Japan in collaboration with several artists. Fascinated by the patina of time and themes of folklore, A LITTLE FABLE narrates a surrealist procession of tales, twelve compositions simmering one into the other lyrically and picturesquely. This album sees the duo returning to a warm, organic palette of closely-whispered vocals, fingerpicked guitar, string arrangements and their trademark texture-focused arrangements. Featuring guest collaborators Kyo Ichinose, Seigen Tokuzawa, haruka nakamura, Junya Yanagidaira (ironomi), honagayoko, Akira Kosemura, Janis Crunch and more.

A dusty bottom drawer of forgotten memoirs is unlocked, and the album opens with a mourning, solitary cello while a harmonium drone forebodes an oscillating motif of glockenspiel tones, or sprinkled stars if you will. In LANDSCAPE WITH A FAIRY, a tale of loss and longing during the earliest dawn mist – the world in its daily transition – is daubed in the hues of intensified sunlight, foliage or shadows, only to be diffused and faded by time, not unlike Andrei Tarkovsky’s polaroids of the Russian countryside. April Lee’s intimate vocals and acoustic guitar gently break the silence of a cold morning, backed by graceful string flourishes arranged by Kyo Ichinose. Kitchen. Label’s very own haruka nakamura and Junya Yanagidaira (ironomi) add harmonizing colors of the guitar and piano respectively.

Tracing the mysterious migration routes of nocturnal animals, HOMEWARD WALTZ skips home along a breadcrumbed-path with ephemeral glimpses of forest sights, ornamented by violins and other curious sounds before fulminating into a amorphous guitar drone, as Seigen Tokuzawa’s improvised cello strokes drift and wander with split-second apparitions in the night sky. Sounds of wooden creaks and early morning spoon-in-coffee stirrings permeate the spontaneous atmosphere of COCINA. honagayoko’s quaint and chopped piano phrases waltz with spliced vocals and flute.

Emerging from the darkened foliage into a vast, cryptic hemisphere, the second half of the album teeters on the frailty and transitoriness of the world. A LITTLE FABLE’s voyage reaches a turning point by SEA OF GLASS. Ricks Ang constructs a prolonged arpeggio of sonorous looping guitar motifs that float in and out of focus, reverberating almost like a narcotic percussion across tumultuous oceans. Now distanced and gauzy, sounds of surging waves open COUNTLESS WHITE MOONS in a misty indefiniteness, yet held together charmingly by Akira Kosemura’s luminous piano. The elusive narration in LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS tells of a deliberate escape from the passage of time with a folkloric enchantress who wordlessly casts her spells. In GENSEI, April Lee relates an unspoken anguish in her tender, wavering vibrato while Janis Crunch’s somber piano and chorus vocals loom like a harbinger of death. The last chapter TWINKLING FALL, the second track to feature haruka nakamura, now shuts the drawer of secrets, dissipated monochrome colours restored once again to full bloom.

A LITTLE FABLE is available on CD and the digital format on 15th December 2011. The physical CD copy comes in a 48-page artbook edition (21 x 15cm) featuring photographs and collages by April Lee and Miu Nozaka, with styling by Rika M. Orrery, who have, from their expeditions during the making of this album, directed a dream sequence around the encompassing atmosphere of a secluded hilltop cottage, a forest hued in the splendor of autumn and distant, rocky shores.

credits

released December 15, 2011

All music by ASPIDISTRAFLY
Mastered by Zengyo

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about

ASPIDISTRAFLY Singapore

Taking their name from George Orwell’s novel “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, ASPIDISTRAFLY was formed by Singapore-based singer-songwriter April Lee and producer Ricks Ang in 2003. The duo play a flickeringly filmic mixture of ambient folk with gossamer-like vocal harmonies and guitar-based drone wrapped in delicate lo-fi haziness. ... more

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