Daniel Blumberg quietly released a vinyl-only album with Hebronix

Posted on Rough Trade's website, Blumberg and Hebronix's Liv project "preceded Minus by several years", and was recorded in live from start to finish in just three days at London's Sarm West Studios live from start to finish, with the exception of some additional vocals and saxaphone, which were added at a later date. On recording the record, Blumberg expands, “We only had three days for tracking the whole thing so I didn’t want to waste any time. We trapped ourselves in Notting Hill which was sort of like being on holiday. A strange holiday where we'd record for 16 hours a day in Bob Marley’s studio.”

The product description reveals Daniel Blumberg provided vocals, harmonica, and guitars (on a Steinberger), while Billy Steiger played the violin, Kohhei Matsuda on monosynth, and Tom Wheatley on double bass. The record was only mixed this year by Marta Salogni.

Expanding on the newly-surfaced record, Blumberg explains, "I made a few studio unreleased albums in the period between Hebronix and the Minus album and many, many recordings on tapes at my flat. After Liv was finished we talked about releasing it but I felt I wasn’t ready at the time. I wanted to focus more on drawing than on touring and there were more questions I had with the work we were doing."

He goes on to state why no drums feature on the album, “they reminded me of stainless steel kitchen utensils. I think Kohhei was relieved also cos' he’d been touring quite heavily with Bo Ningen and they are very loud. Listening back to this years later it sounds pretty strange, but all our instruments have percussive capabilities, so there is still a lot of percussion."

While there's no trace of the album on digital platforms, a recording of "Off And On" has surfaced on YouTube, which will give a taster of the record's more experimental feel. The album even features a 16-minute track called "Caught".

Tracklist:

1. Liv
2. Digital
3. Off And On
4. Caught
5. Life Support