ATIC Records - News

It's with great pleasure that we can announce the first of this years ATIC / Movement 'parties in the park', our free-for-all, open-air afternoon get-togethers set in the glorious surrounds of Barrow's park bandstand and gardens. Chilled vibes, a beautiful location and the finest musical selections from the Movement crew (Ste, Ad, Chatty and Peter), our very own Aim and Gripper, and special guest Funkmaster Moon (www.soullotto.com). Trust us, if the weather's right it doesn't get any better than this!

Niko's classic debut album 'Life on Earth' has been out of print and un-available to download for years. Due to popular demand this album, origianlly released in 2004, is now re-released digitally on ATIC. Boasting timeless song-writing with production from Aim, Mark Rae and Mr Scruff, it sounds as fresh as the day it first came out. Enjoy and stay tuned for her second LP due out later this year.

"Life on Earth is... a debut of delicious self-assurance, with beats that sashay from slouchy electro to brassy, soulful funk and hip hop. By turns ballsy, elegant and utterly intoxincating, a record to grab you by the collar and shove you onto the dancefloor" - Q

"Niko.. NY found protege, a singer- and, boy can she sing... production from friends and family like Aim, Mar Rae and Mr Scruff...Some fancy beats and that voice (complete with that range) hold it all together rather beautifully" - City Life

"There's a unifying charisma to Niko's songwriting and deadpan delivery...Life on Earth sings in the universal language of brill pop music" -NME

"Niko's debut is a highly original take on modern soul, showcasing her big versatile voice over equally round grooves" - Flux

LIsten / Download this album

The Witch and the Robot have had a fantastic past few months, with their debut release "On Safari" they have had tons of great reactions from the music press. Here's what they've been saying...

“Some sort of freak-folk, pastoral, krautrock mindblow. seriously, SOOO good!...On Safari gives the folk tradition a twenty-first century kick up the arse... The breadth of approach and scale of ambition mark TWATR out as innovators."
Drowned in Sound 8/10

"Great tunes: lyrics at once bizarre and erudite: groovy arrangements. A bit of a punt but I don't think man of you will regret it."
The Sunday Telegraph 4/5

"The Witch And The Robot add something piquant and properly odd to the psyche-folk pot... On Safari is studded with cracked gems."
Uncut 4/5

"genuinely great."
NME 7/10

"It's Twisted, It's charming and it's too good to miss"
Bearded

"On Safari is indeed a delight, fusing its different styles into one tempting whole. It’s pessimistic, pastoral, frantic, psychedelic in parts, and floating face down in a lake of lost desperation – the stuff of which nightmares are seeded."
Head full of Snow

"You cannot help but get absorbed by the music...an enderingly weird and irreverent listen." To Cool to Die 8/10

“As the music gets more intense, so the mood gets a little sinister. It‘s obviously performance art put to music, but so against the grain of typical ‘indie’ careerists it’s a little un-nerving.”
The Cumberland News

“The music started with Cumbria’s The Witch And The Robot. This unfathomably absurdist gang sing of industrial disease and Morecambe Bay tour guide Cedric Robinson - over guitar, flute and volleys of cream pies.”
Review of Britsh Sea Power’s Sing Ye From The Hillsides Festival

“TWATr (their preferred abbreviation, case sensitive) play darkly psychedelic anti-folk with a bit of blues about it, an occasional flute and a large sense of impending doom. It has no close relatives (no small achievement in itself)... were it played by the sort of boring looking beards that normally produce stuff that people call "anti-folk" (whatever that even means), it would still be as disturbing as walking alone across a deserted landscape as the clouds close in and stumbling across a dead body with your own face on it.” 
Cath Aubergine's famous blog

“Putting the projectors to their best use, these masters of mood control conjour a heck of an atmosphere. Described as “Bizarre, compelling, always entertaining” their music is powerful, technically superb, and frankly speaking if they hadn’t assaulted each other with cream pies periodically for light relief, the atmosphere of menace might have become too intense for my comfort “
The Juice ‘Contemporay Media E-Zine’

“One minute they're a mildly threatening Violent Femmes doing film noir soundtracks, the next an acoustic goth Fall with the scariest sounding flute you've ever heard. These comparisons are still pretty wide of the mark”
Manchester Music

“No matter how much you've been told about The Witch and the Robot (or TWATr, of course), they are at least ten times more deranged.”
Fugitive Motel
 

Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed debut LP ‘On Safari’, comes TWATr’s first single - brand new track ‘Hetero’, backed with album and live favourite ‘Giant’s Graves.’ Available to download from the 22nd February, here’s Sam (aka Venice) to explain what ‘Hetero’ is on about;

"In 1518, Frau Troffea began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg. This lasted somewhere between four to six days. Within a week, 34 others had joined, and within a month, there were around 400 dancers. Most of these people eventually died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion... In Ambleside there is a late night disco called Sportsmans Inn, every small town has one, the type of nightclub where big men stare at women while listening to Vega Bus or Dario G, totally Hetero..."

But that's not all. That other nicely good band of Cumbrian instrumentists (British Sea Power) are friends and fans of The Witch And The Robot and for this release, BSP’s Martin Noble provides a stunning, apocolyptic re-working of 'Hetero' which we can't get enough of. Massive. Check our live section for details of an upcoming TWATr micro-tour .

Follow the Outline our first label compiltaion was named 'ALBUM OF THE WEEK' by The Independent. What a great start to 2010! Well done everyone!!

Andy 'Aim' Turner's delicate hip-hop soothed many a hangover in the early Noughties, and a decade on, his label's debut compilation should do the same. Highlights include Aim's ambling beatscapes, Gripper's lo-fi cosmic disco and accordian house, and Crowhead's tense rave. A spirit-lifting anitdote to the January blues. - Rahul Verma - The Independent (Saturday Jan 2nd 2010)

Availiable now on CD and MP3

Listen/Buy this album

If you're in or around Manchester on the 19th of Decmber come and join us for the Follow the Outline Album Launch Party / ATIC Records Christmas Party at the wonderful Odder Bar on Oxford Road. Tickets are available now from The Odd Bar, The Odder Bar, and The Oddest Bar. Call the nice people at Odder on 01612389132 to reserve tickets as it's looking like this will sell out well in advance. The night boasts DJ sets from Aim, Crowhead and Gripper, live PA's from Niko and Mikey D.O.N. (Krispy) and the hosting and toasting abilities of Manchester legend MC Kwasi. We can't wait!!! See you there?

Set up in 2005 by Andy ‘Aim’ Turner and Nicole ‘Niko’ Vergel de Dios after both decided to leave their old label Grand Central, ATIC Records is gearing up for the release it’s first full compilation, ‘Follow The Outline’.

"Our time at Grand Central had come to an end. The label had lost its direction somewhat and I didn't want to put any more music out with them. There were no fireworks or anything, it just felt like our relationship had run its course. At that point we had the option of either looking for another label or starting our own. I'd had enough of arguing about artwork or meeting deadlines so we decided to start ATIC Records and do it ourselves," explains Andy.

Thus far, it sounds like it was the right decision and at only 4 years young ATIC clearly has something good going on. As well as a handful of 12"s and his fourth Aim album, 'Flight 602', Andy got the rights back to all his music following the demise of GC and in 2007 released extended versions of his classic LPs ‘Cold Water Music’, ‘Hinterland’ and ‘Means Of Production’. ATIC has since released acclaimed albums by four other very special artists - Death of the Neighbourhood, The Witch and the Robot, Crowhead, and Gripper - and boasts what’s fast-becoming the makings of a back catalogue to be proud of.

‘Follow the Outline’ is a celebration of this. It’s also a brief pause for the label as it comes to the end of one chapter and takes a breather before cracking on with the next. According to Andy “It's a chance to take stock of what we've done and where we stand, music and business wise. Now's the time to make sure we have everything set and ready for our next wave of releases in 2010”.

The compilation contains unreleased songs, B-sides and tracks written for limited edition EP's. There are also a couple of tracks that have been remixed especially for ‘Follow The Outline’ - 'Zombie' (Crowhead Remix) and 'Cokeholes' (Aim Remix).

We’re told it's the first in an ongoing series so don’t expect Andy, Niko or indeed any of the ATIC family to be slowing down any time soon. “We already have half of the second volume ready as well as new albums due for release in 2010 by Aim, Niko, Paperboy and QNC” reveals Andy. Exciting times indeed.

This Friday ATIC Records goes head to head with Manchester's famed club night and Independent label Akousik Anarkhy. Aim and Gripper will be on the decks and The Witch and the Robot live on stage performing tracks from their debut album 'On Safari'. From aA live on stage we have Mechanical Owl and aA’s resident DJs Lego & Will. The night will take place at The Deaf Institute, Grosvenor Street, Mcr from 8pm till 3am. Tickets are £5 advanced and you can get these here .

The Witch And The Robot are a band. They grew up together in the English Lake District. Their self-produced debut LP, ‘On Safari’ is out now on ATIC Records.

Using guitars, accordions, ukuleles and keyboards, Mold's Mechanical Owl are creating new sounds and winning lots of acclaim. Radio 1 plays, Becks Fusions appearances and upcoming record releases are all about the Owl...

Aim runs ATIC and for the last two years Andy has been hard at work in the studio overseeing the production of Crowhead’s upcoming LP ‘Born With Teeth’. He’s also producing Niko’s second album and preparing tracks for his own eagerly awaited new long player featuring collaborations with QNC, Mikey D.O.N., Death of the Neighbourhood and James Yorkston.

Gripper released his debut album 'A Life of Consummate Ease' on ATIC in 2008 and since has been busy DJing and co-producing Crowhead's 'Born With Teeth' he is currently in the studio working on his second album. 

Lego & Will are residents at aA so expect folk, psych, soul, pop, tropicalla, electronica, kraut, harmonies & oddball rock from the leftfield 'til the early hours.

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'The Bends EP' is the second single from Crowhead's upcoming debut LP 'Born With Teeth'. It's a DJ-friendly 4-track maxi-disc featuring the title track and instrumental, along with two brand new and exclusive non-lp tracks that have been going down a storm off test pressings mailed out this summer - 'Tackle Lad' is an old-school rave anthem with dirty synth bass lines and dusty break-beats giving way to a tuff 4/4 kick. If you're a DJ you need this in your box. 'Broken Unit' is a cosmic hip-hop groove that bubbles and builds towards a shimmering acoustic guitar climax. Beautiful. The EP is getting plays and support from discerning industry heavyweights such as Laurent Garnier, Robert Owens, Qool DJ Marv (NYC), and Andrew Weatherall and it's available NOW on MP3 and Limited Edition 12" vinyl.

Robert Owens - "Old school styles! I like these ATIC guys."
Laurent Garnier - "I liked 'Best Kept Secret' which I played on my radio show and now I will play 'The Bends' too - thanks!"
Andrew Weatherall - "'Tackle Lad' going down well with the kids, well done to these boys - I need to listen to this more."
Aim - "Easily the biggest and best 12" we've released so far, playing all the tracks but 'Tackle Lad' is the one. Covers all the bases and sounds massive on a proper sound-system."

LISTEN & BUY NOW

Listen to this clip of TWATr LIVE on BBC Radio 6 with Mark Riley.  Here they play 'The Beatification of St Thomas Aquinas'. The show ends with a lump of raw meat landing on Mark Riley's desk...
Pre-order your copy of 'On Safari' Now!!