The Driftwood Manor "The Same Figure (Leaving)" released July 15th 2011 + Irish tour...

Lookee here.... http://youtu.be/6vMQkhAEhoI

and here.... http://youtu.be/d419SGAyq5c

and here..... http://rustedrail.com/driftwood2.html

Cubs "The Whispering Woods" - out on Feb 4th 2011

Cubs "The Whispering Woods" CD Album is now available on Rusted Rail & Deadslackstring (Feb4th 2011)!!!

Click Here to order - http://www.rustedrail.com/cubs2.html

check out some SONGS from the album at: http://www.soundcloud.com/rusted-rail

WATCH THE VIDEO for "Blackberry Lane" -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97ScJfa0vJU

Read REVIEWS of the album: http://www.rustedrail.com/cubsreviews1.html

Driftwood Manor "Holy Ghost" EP out now!

Rusted Rail is proud to announce the release of the Holy Ghost EP by the Irish avant-folk project The Driftwood Manor. For this extended player, The Driftwood Manor (based around lynchpin Eddie Keenan) have crafted their own brand of apocalyptic appalachia. For Holy Ghost, Keenan worked with a number of long-time collaborators including co-producer Steve Fanagan to create an EP which takes on his fascination with the darker side of American folk and its relation to Irish traditional music. Although initially intended to be an incredibly stark record with little instrumentation, the songs took on new layers of skin over the course of the winter months during which it was recorded. After adding a plethora of instruments in Steve Fanagan's home studio, Keenan called in Bean Dolan (of Resurrection Fern), Fiddle player Neil Fitzgibbon and vocalist Anne Marie Hynes to add their own touch to proceedings. This 3” EP is housed in a hand-assembled and hand-stamped card sleeve, featuring a cover shot by labelmate Yawning Chasm.

The Driftwood Manor
“Holy Ghost” EP
1. After The Fall
2. Bury Me Alive
3. Gone Devil
4. I Would Lose You Still
5. Mountains Slowly Collapsing
6. The Devil is My Brother

Available to order from http://www.rustedrail.com/driftwood2.html

Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon album OUT NOW!! & reviews!!!

The Trees, The Sea In A Lunar Stream is a muted, subtle album from Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon, a duo of Aaron Hurley and Scott McLaughlin. It’s such a lovely piece of work that I’m going to invent a new genre, ‘folk-gaze’, for it: the music has that faraway glide of shoegazing at its best, but the guitars and strings derive from contemporary folk experimentation. It’s wrapped within leaves of dronish modernity and tied together with high, chiming vocals; the whole thing then goes supernova on the climax, ‘Halloween’. Marvellous. - Shindig Magazine

Phantom Dog Beneath the Moon are an Irish duo of Aaron Hurley and Scott McLaughlin, whose “The Trees, The Sea in a Lunar Stream” is a haunting and at times quite beautiful collection of avant-folk compositions, which distil modern folk, shoegaze, drone and laid-back jazz backdrops into a heady and intriguing infusion. Reminiscent by turn of Nick Drake, introspective Neil Young, Satie, Sigur Ros, the more serene end of the Incredible String Band’s catalogue, and early Kate Bush, these eerie and ethereal soundscapes, often sung in a high pitched and tremulous voice, stand up well whatever the comparisons. “The Trees…” is consistently good throughout and worth checking out, particularly for the slow-burningly stupendous show-closer, “Halloween”. - Terrascope

The band - Aaron Hurley (vocals/guitar) and Scott McLaughlin (multi-instrumentalist) - have created an album that is haunting, ethereal, atmospheric, personal, and challenging. Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon’s music ranges from dreamy, free form, avant-folk to lush shoegaze to introspective indie-rock, with experimental and atmospheric textures. It is clear Talk Talk’s minimalist masterpiece Laughing Stock is a powerful influence on the band. However PDBTM are no mere copyists. Instead the music they love, Talk Talk, Radiohead, and My Bloody Valentine, has encouraged them - and Aaron in particular - to be brave in their songwriting, to use music as a way of navigating and exploring a personal inner world of sound, expression, and reflection, and realising that through the voice and the medium of song. Taking such a course inevitably produces music that is individual and firmly in the avant-folk/underground realm. Standout tracks are opener ‘As Perceived By Mice’, ‘Stealing Owls’, and the majestic ‘Two Hours After Dusk’, distinguished by its descending piano riff. - Galway Advertiser

Here's a long overdue new thing on Ireland's super Rusted Rail label (or maybe I just haven't been paying attention) in lovely handmade arigato packaging. The music is mysterious homespun folk music. Long drawn out dusty distant songs that at times recall a more palatable Richard Youngs (if anyone hasn't heard his high water mark 'Sapphie' you should do right away). It's full of eerie melodies, finger picked acoustic guitars and high pitched lost, longing vocals. Cello's weep despondently but theres a soothing quality to the music and after a few spins the subtle melodies start emerging from the murk. Recommended. - Norman Records

After a couple of years I finally hear an official release by this duo, consisting of Aaron Hurley and Scott McLauglin. Leading are Aaron’s slightly melancholic, moody, emotional high pitched whispery vocal led songs (on the first song slightly broken), accompanied by acoustic and electrified acoustic pickings with warm additional arrangements of cello, drums, piano, double bass, harpsichord, melodica, glockenspiel, softly breathed trumpet and subtle electronics. This sort of melancholy is highly attractive and drags you into the whole album. One track with deformed voice his voices whines stronger, and the arrangements becomes sort of rockier. On the last track, the band arrangements even slightly “freak-out” in a temperamental way, bringing the shoegazing factor into its heights of energy. Very good ! - http://psychefolk.com/

Phantom Dog is an Irish duo - Aaron Hurley and Scott McLaughlin which is usually labelled as avant-folk/shoegaze/indie rock."The Trees, The Sea in a Lunar Stream" is actually their first album - a debut following by "In a Light" as Snowmachine released on Deserted Village and a 3" EP "Through a forest only" under current alias. Vocals, guitars, piano, cello, glockenspiel, bass guitar, melodica, double bass, harpsichord, vibraphone and a slight touch of electronics make their way to the point where singer/songwriter etiquette fuses with psychedelia and fragile sphere of inner journey. There is a great deal of poetry in this which isn't suppresive by any means and has enough power to become more than a music wallpaper which is a usual fact in case of songs of this type. Two gentlemen refer to Nick Drake's archetype in their own manner and style - very much retro and gets everything what is good from that. Time to chill out... - Felt Hat Reviews

Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon are an Irish two piece outfit featuring Aaron Hurley and Scott Mclaughlin. This is their first full length album so far, they have released two mini albums in the past, one for the Rusted Rail label and one for Deserted village. The album features eight tracks of gentle intimate almost indie folk like sounds. At times they kind of remind me of Low, on a slightly more acoustic buzz with lots of added string sounds, featuring lots of extended instrumental passages bordering on some kind of psychfolk take on the likes of the Rachels. - Road Records

So, what do we have here? It’s released by Rusted Rail, so it better be something good! Probably something leaning towards the folkier side. Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon, interesting band name for sure. Gets me exited somehow.And it looks great in that thin cardboard wallet. Basically, this is a very sentimental Michael Stipe kind of singer, moving around in high registers, singing melancholic songs about nights, loves and losses. The music is rather minimal,yet quite rich. While a song may consist of like three tiny melodies repeated over and over, them melodies are usually very nice.The album’s got some kind of ghastly lullaby feeling to it, which appeals to me. I also learned to cope with the wheezy vocals. Sometimes, they even send goosebumps over my skin, like in the first song when they go from high, to higher to even higher.And oh, the damped rolling drums and the bass work in the extremely atmospheric “Hide and Seek” is worth mentioning, bringinga slight Cinema Strange sound to the sound. Nice. “The Trees, The Sea in a Lunar Stream” is hereby by all means a recommendeddebut album from Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon . You who fancy laid-back folk experimentation in darker hues might check this out,and like it just the same. - The Shadows Commence

Listening to Aaron Hurley and Scott McLaughlin's music reminds me of that wonderful expression from Hank Williams about that high and lonesome sound. It could come across like too much of an attempt at a pun on my part to call Phantom Dog haunting, but it's true, nonetheless. This album is a landscape of very carefully crafted textures, including vibraphone, 'cello, double bass and electronics. - Boa Melody Bar

L'ultima proposta della benemerita etichetta irlandese Rusted Rail combina i caratteri più avanguardisti dell'attuale cantautorato folk con una sensibilità post-classica che fa ampio uso di una strumentazione orchestrale e di una lunga serie di organi analogici e texture elettroniche.
I responsabili di questo nuovo progetto contrassegnato dal suggestivo moniker Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon sono il cantautore Aaron Hurley e il polistrumentista Scott McLaughlin, artisti già in precedenza attivi nel cenacolo avant-folk coagulatosi intorno alla Deserted Village ma solo da poco attivi in duo sotto questa nuova denominazione.

I cinquanta minuti del loro debutto "The Trees, The Sea In A Lunar Stream" coniugano i loro diversi background e le relative attitudini in un lavoro che rifugge rigidi inquadramenti per presentare le mille diverse sfaccettature risultanti dalla progressiva stratificazione di vesti sonore su un tessuto musicale tradizionale. Così, se comune denominatore di quasi tutti i brani è l'evocativa scrittura di Hurley - che affonda le proprie radici nel più classico cantautorato drakeiano - gli otto brani racchiusi nel lavoro si ammantano di volta in volta di un'aura psichedelica e mistica, delineando una dimensione rurale e aliena, attraverso la quale rifulgono limpidi sentori bucolici ma anche astrazioni e deragliamenti chitarristici prossimi a torsioni drone-folk.

Il risultato è ottenuto da un lato attraverso una scrittura visionaria e ulteriormente arricchita dal febbrile avvicendamento sulla scena di una sorta di orchestra da camera, riassunta dall'abilità da polistrumentista di McLaughlin e composta di volta in volta di pianoforte, violoncello, glockenspiel, contrabbasso, vibrafono e harpsichord. Ed è proprio la cura strumentale riposta negli arrangiamenti, a trasfigurare con grande disinvoltura i brani da polverose nenie ancestrali ("Poems") a limpidi frammenti acustici ("Ellipse Of A Forest Walk"), da ritualismi atmosferici che rimandano ai Talk Talk di "Laughing Stock" ("Hide And Seek") a languidi saggi jazzy di un notturno ensemble cameristico come quello degli Spain ("A Shimmering Clown").
Il tutto è per di più puntellato da ricorrenti incursioni elettriche, al cui affiorare le composizioni dei Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon subiscono una mutazione genetica in bilico tra psichedelia della West Coast degli anni 70 e attualissime elucubrazioni drone-folk, particolarmente evidenti nella parte conclusiva del disco, ove lo stesso falsetto di Hurley si fonde in una specie di invocazione in un unicum con il brulicante substrato strumentale.

Indecifrabile e ispirato, "The Trees, The Sea In A Lunar Stream" risulta un'opera confezionata con cura e rimarchevole classe compositiva, che con la sua strana coniugazione tra sensibilità antica e gusto performativo post-moderno si atteggia quale ulteriore testimonianza della straordinaria vitalità delle mille declinazioni del folk contemporaneo. E in questo senso, sulla scia di esperienze come quelle di Agitated Radio Pilot e The Magickal Folk Of The Faraway Tree, l'Irlanda sembra sempre più la terra ideale in grado di unire in maniera stimolante tradizione ed evoluzione. - Ondarock

“The Trees, The Sea in a Lunar Stream” debut CD by Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon - PRE ORDERING

“The Trees, The Sea in a Lunar Stream” is the debut CD album by Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon. The album will be released on May 1st. But if you pre-order the album from RUSTED RAIL then you’ll receive a bonus disc of rarities, remixes and previously unreleased tracks called "Glisten and the Night Sky"! All pre-orders will be sent by May 1st. So you know what do to!

Phantom Dog Beneath The Moon.....album arrival!

Brigid Power Ryce - "You Are Here" EP....OUT NOW!!

Rusted Rail is proud to announce the release of “You Are Here” a five song EP by Brigid Power Ryce. Recorded in Philadelphia with Eric Carbonara and in London at ToeRag studios with Liam Watson, these transatlantic sessions capture Brigid’s steel strung out cosmic folk ballads. As Rusted Rail's newest discovery, Brigid Power Ryce’s stellar yet earthy folk-blues stylings and languid lullabies are sure to hypnotise. This 3inch hand-stamped EP/mini-album is housed in a handmade sleeve.


"Proving that the ladies can be equally as tormented, Brigid Power Ryce’s “You Are Here” has a melancholia coursing through it that congeals in the yowling sadness of her voice. ‘Like A Sun’ in particular makes a deep impression, with its downhearted 12-string strumming framing the vocals perfectly, recalling heartbreaks as old as time. It’s appealingly under-produced, making Power-Ryce’s long dark night of the soul even crueller." – Shindig Magazine

A truly outstanding release on one of my favourite labels. Two of these tracks were recorded at ToeRag Studios and the other three in Philadelphia by Eric Carbonara and the sound on all five is warm and full. Brigid plays 12 string guitar and sings with a languid free-flowing style, reminiscent of Tim Buckley. Highly recommended – Boa Melody Bar

Five track ep on the Irish-based label Rusted Rail from avant folk artist Brigid Power Ryce. recorded in Philadelphia with Eric Carbonara and also in London at Toe Rag studios with Liam Watson. The ep features some beautifully haunting avant-folk sounds from this Galway-based artist. Its a lovely raw kind of stripped down sound simply featuring steel-strung acoustic guitar picking and vocals. Almost like a more rustic Cat Power with the weirdness of Joanna Newsom. Comes in a lovely hand stamped three inch card sleeve, all lovingly hand made by the Rusted Rail label. – Road Records

Brigid Power Ryce's voice wistfully swoops through this eerie folk tidbit, accompanied only by minimal, bluesy guitar strokes...these songs otherwise bear an appealing, sepulchral campfire sound. Resigned dirge "Wild Grin" and lachrymose "Lost Night Girls" both exhibit this poignantly mysterious charm, revealing a talent for dimly-lit folk wondrousness. - Indieville

With three tracks recorded spring 2009 in Philadelphia, interwoven with two more recorded the prior spring in London, it’s hard to tell exactly where we are on ‘You Are Here’ particularly as place feels less the music’s concern than time. With a voice like a reigned-in Mira Billotte of White Magic, Ryce brings a kindred melancholy and inquiry to simple, strong verses, mystifying the mundane and self-evident now with lyrical imagination indebted to pagan virtue as much as those interpreters who came before (Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Karen Dalton, etc). Her shaggy delivery expresses a modest range as much as it amplifies the lone guitar which picks faithfully alongside like the score’s staff, grounded on its belly as her vowels grow loftier and loftier. Though the song at times threatens to lose itself in the sustained high (rephrasing the bold title on the cover as a mantra directed inward) the clean production brings both characters to the fore with fine separation and complimentary colors. Stamped disc comes in standard RR hand-assembled sleeve with pasted photo. Recommended! - Animal Psi

Brigid’s music is strongly folk influenced and owes an audible debt to the great Tim Buckley. However she has a discernible style of her own, where, over languid guitar strums, her large, strong voice muses, rises, and drifts, often becoming an instrument itself. - Galway Advertiser

available from http://www.rustedrail.com/bpr2

an interview with Brigid can be found here - http://www.rustedrail.com/brigid%20advertiser%20feature.pdf