{"title":"Flaer","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"preludes-vypdhb","title":"Preludes","description":"\u003cp\u003eArtist and multi-instrumentalist Flaer looks to the landscape to explore pastoral melancholy on debut release, \u003ci\u003ePreludes\u003c\/i\u003e.  Ensconced in his family home in rural Leicestershire in the early months of 2020, painter and musician Realf Heygate (b. 1994) picked up his childhood cello for the first time in several years and began to play. Setting himself parameters to only record onto 4-track tape with acoustic instruments – cello, piano and acoustic guitar – he assembled a suite of instrumental compositions that form the basis of \u003ci\u003ePreludes\u003c\/i\u003e, his debut album as Flaer and the inaugural release on Odda Recordings. Channelling the tension and unease between the pastoral idyll of the English countryside and the darkness which lurks beneath the surface, the mini-album draws inspiration from the analogue aesthetic of 1970s folk horror films, weaving field recordings of birdsong, church bells and the natural environment into chimerical melodies that reflect on Heygate’s childhood experiences of rural England.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Odda Recordings","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black \/ Signed Copy","offer_id":50388488913227,"sku":"2051392","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Tape.","offer_id":50388489470283,"sku":"2164188","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Black \/ Second Edition","offer_id":56748737200459,"sku":"R3963-3020","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/product_id._6a73fafa_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726343094"},{"product_id":"translations","title":"Translations","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2023, Realf Heygate - who makes music as Flaer - released his debut mini-album \u003cem\u003ePreludes\u003c\/em\u003e, composed on his mother’s piano and his childhood cello. Returning to Odda for his debut full-length album, Heygate is now looking in another direction. A record that embraces transition and movement, \u003cem\u003eTranslations\u003c\/em\u003e is in many ways more internal, less rooted to a single place and reflective of the process of laying new foundations in Cornwall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike \u003cem\u003ePreludes, Translations\u003c\/em\u003e is coloured with found sounds and field recordings, from the starlings which can be heard singing through the open window of his studio, to the brittle recordings of his mother, who was a linguist, learning Spanish on a set of language tapes. In both cases, Heygate embraced the translations and memories inherent to the sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“When I digitised my mother’s tapes, they warped and stuttered in a very similar way to the starling’s song,” he explains. “They had this uncanny rhythm and pulse that I couldn’t quite decode, but was saying something.\" These decayed transmissions hint at loss, resisting clarity in favour of the ineffable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTranslations\u003c\/em\u003e is also a record of ambiguities and in-betweens, suggested by the double meaning of the album’s opening track ‘Entre’. At once intricate and expansive, threaded with birdsong and acoustic guitar motifs, this and ‘Starling Descends’ (a reference to Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’) act as a bridge away from the pastoral themes of Preludes towards a more assertive sound. At times intimate in its textured instrumentation and at others more overtly grand in orchestration, reflecting a wider palette of influences.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecorded between 2023 and 2025 – what Heygate calls “A gradual process of sowing and harvesting ideas rather than a single intense creative period” - each track follows a rhythm similar to the small maquettes and sculptures he has been working on in his visual practice, whereby structures and melodies form intuitively in moments that are as rare as they are fleeting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Odda Recordings","offers":[{"title":"LP - White","offer_id":53060788486475,"sku":"R2501-9528","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":53060788519243,"sku":"R2501-0480","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ODA06M.jpg?v=1753877981"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/flaer.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}