His Name is Alive/Time Stereo S/D

Three albums of unreleased early Defever/HNIA are coming out - here's the first ("All the Mirrors in the House") to be released in June:
https://hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-mirrors-in-the-house-early-recordings-1979-1986
https://bleep.com/release/129581-his-name-is-alive-all-the-mirrors-in-the-house-home-recordings-1979-1986

^ Ordered! Curiously excited about this.

That 86-89 thing that is out there is so cool and loco, i’m tempted by this.

When I met Warren Defever and got a chance to talk to him for a while, I was surprised that he actually studied modern composition for a brief time before dropping out. But when I have thought about his earliest instrumental works – and now this sample of new early Defever – I feel we are lucky he dropped out. If he had made a career in contemporary-classic circles, he might have just ended up as yet another forgettable post-minimalist composer among many. Working in the pop world let him instead take that post-minimalist experimentation and create albums like *Livonia* and *Home is in Your Head* that sound like no one else.

There is now a review of "All the Mirrors in the House" on The Quietus. The author raises the possibility that these ambient tracks do not actually date from Defever’s youth, but rather that back story is just another one of the lies and fabrications that Defever is notorious for.

What are his other lies?

Here is a list of some of them up to 1999. There have been a fair few since. Warren Defever is not a bad man, he just likes having some fun with interviewers and publicity.

Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth is still an incredibly beautiful record and if you'd never heard it and someone told you it came out this year you wouldn't bat an eyelid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJFZplt-0nw

yeah it's really good. frankly most of the albums are good if not great. Blues got a raw deal at the time, so much backlash from 4ad fans that was frankly racist in nature. I saw Warn and Lovetta play a duo show in SF and the crowd was fucking terrible.

i don't understand how that album happened just like i don't really understand most of his stuff, but i appreciate the hell out smbwcte, the combo is remarkable.

All through 2000–2001 it was claimed that the release of Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth was delayed because the designers hadn’t finished the artwork. Then, a few years later it was revealed that 4AD was actually sitting on the release of the record because they didn’t know how to market it. I can’t help but feel that they weren’t trying too hard. Upon the album’s release I was surprised at how no advertising was being done in R&B and soul media – 4AD just couldn’t go beyond the indie music circles it was used to – and so is it any surprised that it was a flop sales-wise?

That said, Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth is at the bottom of my HNIA album rankings. Warren praised Lovetta for never singing a song the same way twice, but I see that as a flaw in technique, not a plus. But even within Lovetta-era His Name Is Alive, I found the Time Stereo release When the Stars Refuse to Shine a lot more moving.

Interview with Warren: https://therecoup.com/2019/08/07/beauty-only-lingers-a-conversation-with-warren-defever/

"I vaguely remembered having six or seven new age or ambient recordings that never really got released so I got Shelley from Tyvek to do the transfers for me. I really can’t listen to much of that stuff, like the tapes of me adding harmonica to Bob Dylan songs that didn’t have harmonica when I was 12 or all the U2 covers. She did a great job and didn’t judge me too harshly. We’re still friends."

The new tape is coming out September 19, "6teen Ok": https://hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com/album/6teen-ok

The postage (shipping from the U.K. to the U.S.A. in my case) is almost the cost of the tape unfortunately. Total price via PayPal is just under $20, FYI, but since it's Bandcamp, you'll also get high quality downloads.

Also, the whole album won't be available as digital downloads unless you buy the tape: "PLEASE NOTE DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS THE FULL RELEASE IS ONLY AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE - IF YOU PURCHASE THE DIGITAL VERSION YOU ARE ONLY PURCHASING THE 3 PREVIEW EDITS"

Hmm, so actually if you buy the "6teen Ok" tape like I did, you WON'T get digital downloads of the whole thing...just 3 tracks.
But just now I discovered that the whole thing is streaming on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/d_i_s_c_i_p_l_e_s/sets/hnia-mixtape

https://bleep.com/release/202434-model-home-his-name-is-alive-return-versions-versions-returned-bundle

https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/643564024451284993/listed-his-name-is-alive

https://boomkat.com/products/kingdom-of-heaven-22646e74-18be-4929-b465-e36c238d33b8

is this new? ESP Summer doing 13th Floor Elevators

(it has been out before in what looks like an edition of 23 lathe cut vinyl

https://www.discogs.com/release/16002737-ESP-Summer-%E5%A4%A9%E5%9B%BD%E3%81%AE%E7%8E%8B%E5%9B%BD-

and it turns out there's been a flurry of activity at the Institute of Spoons lately - https://sites.google.com/view/institute-of-spoons/home

Thanks for the reminder that I needed to order this!

Also just noticed on the HNIA Bandcamp page that there's a brand new digital single from Lovetta Pippen:
https://hisnameisalive.bandcamp.com/album/picture