High Moss

01/12/2023

Support the artists!

It's that time of year when musicians publish their annual Spotify statistics. Well I can tell you I have had zero streams from zero listeners in zero countries, totalling zero hours of listening on Spotify. You can, however, find my music on Bandcamp, which offers streaming at MP3 quality free of charge and downloads at CD quality with a much more generous proportion of what you pay going to the artist. And Friday 1 December is once again Bandcamp Friday, meaning that if you make a purchase on that day, Bandcamp will send all the revenue to the artist without charging the usual modest handling fee. Support your favourite musicians on Bandcamp! You can find me at https://highmoss.bandcamp.com/ and read more about the releases at http://www.highmoss.co.uk/

06/10/2023

It's Bandcamp Friday again, the day your money goes direct to the artist for any purchase you make. This month's featured album, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the introduction of cassette tape, is "A Birthday Sequence", originally recorded on cassette in 1989, and remastered for digital release in 2017. The sections of this piece alternate between bright and dark modes, with an artificial intelligence system used to generate modulations between the modes.

A Birthday Sequence
Released 24 February 2019
www.highmoss.co.uk/a-birthday-sequence

01/09/2023

It's Bandcamp Friday! Buy today and your money goes direct to the artist! A suggestion from the back catalogue, given today's date: "Year's Embers" charts the lengthening nights of the last four months of the year, frantic, demonic, and ultimately calm.
https://highmoss.bandcamp.com/album/years-embers

Year's Embers
Released 31 October 2016
www.highmoss.co.uk/years-embers
Cover image by David Henry

04/08/2023

Please show your support, and tell your musical friends!

25/03/2023

Are you ready?

from the album Clock Change Music

03/02/2023

"All Souls to Cecilia" (2022) finds voices in the wind blowing across Buchan in November, the souls of all those people who were lost to us during the pandemic, to whom we never got to say goodbye. Buy it today and more of your money goes direct to the composer.

from the album Domestic Geographies

03/02/2023

"Prime Measures" (2021) is a conceptual piece involving 25 sound events, ranging from harpsichord and tam-tam notes to woodpecker and chaffinch sounds. Buy it today and more of your money goes direct to the composer.

from the album Domestic Geographies

03/02/2023

In "Wheeze-Box Trance" (2022) a harmonium with a lung deficiency provides a metaphor for the struggle to breath during an attack of covid, and relief is provided by a Turkish cymbal. Buy it today and more of your money goes direct to the composer.

from the album Domestic Geographies

03/02/2023

In "A Throstle's Tale" (2021) a song thrush is accompanied by crows, pigeons, seagulls, a tractor and an aircraft, before string drones and tenor recorder join in. Buy it today and more of your money goes direct to the composer.

from the album Domestic Geographies

27/12/2022

Music made close to home under lockdown conditions and after an attack of covid, featuring a song thrush, a wheezy harmonium, and the November wind blowing ceaselessly across the Buchan plateau.

Haworth Hodgkinson's new album "Domestic Geographies" is now available to stream or to download via Bandcamp:

http://www.highmoss.co.uk/domestic-geographies
https://highmoss.bandcamp.com/album/domestic-geographies

Domestic Geographies
Released 27 December 2022
www.highmoss.co.uk/domestic-geographies

21/12/2022

Recommended listening for the evening of the solstice....

The solstice falls later this evening. "Dundee Ambient, Part 5: Winter Solstice Again" brings the year full circle, ending the whole "Dundee Ambient" sequence in the deepest stillness and most restful sleep. http://www.highmoss.co.uk/winter-solstice-again/

20/12/2022

Domestic Geographies
Released 27 December 2022
www.highmoss.co.uk/domestic-geographies

29/10/2022

Are you ready?

High Moss: A download-only record label featuring music by the Scottish-based composer Haworth Hodgkinson

22/09/2022

Music for the time of year when change is fastest....

The autumn equinox falls in the small hours of tomorrow morning. In "Autumn Equinox", Part 4 of my "Dundee Ambient" sequence, music from earlier in the year returns in transformed states, the dream music of spring turned nightmarish and the blackbird of summer slowed down to become a terrifying creature of the night. Find it on High Moss:
http://www.highmoss.co.uk/autumn-equinox/

11/09/2022

Released one year ago as a single....

High Moss: A download-only record label featuring music by the Scottish-based composer Haworth Hodgkinson

02/09/2022

Bandcamp has reintroduced Bandcamp Fridays. If you buy from High Moss today, Bandcamp will not charge, so more of your money goes to support the artist directly. Browse the catalogue here: www.highmoss.co.uk

21/06/2022

Music for the still turning point of the year....

It's the Summer Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere), the still turning point of the year. In Part 3 of Dundee Ambient a blackbird sings. The blackbird was recorded in Dundee one evening in 1997, but today I've been attempting to record a Buchan blackbird. Results to follow!

Find Summer Solstice at http://www.highmoss.co.uk/summer-solstice/

06/05/2022

It's Bandcamp Friday once again. Buy from High Moss today and your money goes to the artist without Bandcamp taking a share. Your chance to support musicians struggling after a difficult two years.
Visit http://www.highmoss.co.uk/ to see releases currently available.

20/03/2022

It's the time of change....

It's the March Equinox, Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, the time of the year at which the earth's equatorial plane passes through the centre of the sun, or, looking at it in an earth-centric way, when the sun appears to cross the equator, moving from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere.

It's also the time at which the length of daylight is approximately equal everywhere on the planet, but at which daylight hours are lengthening fastest in the northern hemisphere and shortening fastest in the southern.

In UTC/GMT, the equinox has fallen on 20 March every year since 2008, and will continue to do so until 2043. This must be one of the longest periods for which the date has not changed.

In 2015/16 I tracked our journey through the seasons in "Dundee Ambient", the longest piece of music I have ever composed. Part 2: "Spring Equinox" corresponds to this time of year. Let its slow process of gradual change wash over you!

Listen and buy from High Moss: http://www.highmoss.co.uk/spring-equinox

13/03/2022

The Time and Tide Bell on Morecambe Pier is set in motion by the sea at high tide. Recorded 13 March 2020. See www.timeandtidebell.org for more information about these bells at various points on the B

04/03/2022

https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

Is it?

04/02/2022

After a break last month, Bandcamp has reintroduced Bandcamp Fridays. This means that if you buy from High Moss today, Bandcamp will not charge a fee and more of your money will go directly to the artist. Have you heard the latest release "East to West to East" yet?
www.highmoss.co.uk/east-to-west-to-east

31/12/2021

In ports around the world, ships sound their horns at midnight to welcome the new year. Since 1993 I have attempted to record this phenomenon in different ports in Scotland. I think the most success

21/12/2021

A solstice invitation from Haworth Hodgkinson....

Today is the winter solstice, the nominal turning point of the year. Of course it's a compromise; whilst it is the day when the sun reaches its lowest mid-day altitude in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun has already been setting later for about a week, and will not start rising earlier until the middle of next week, due to the Earth's inherent wobble. In some ways I would rather celebrate the earliest sunset or the latest sunrise, but for my Dundee Ambient project I chose to split the difference as this is the conventional and traditional thing to do.

Dundee Ambient is the most ambitious thing I have ever made: a musical response to the turning of the year, in five parts made and released at the solstices and equinoxes from December 2015 to December 2016. Since then, the solstice sections have been used as the backdrop for a number of events with poetry, stories and live musicians, but the music is perhaps best heard as originally intended, on its own in a quiet darkened space. Only then does its sense of stillness become fully apparent, with its gentle alternation of dreaming and restful sleep, unfolding at a deeply unhurried pace.

I invite you to join me in listening to Part 1 today, beginning a new journey around the year. You'll find all five parts on High Moss on five separate albums, with covers based on distinctive images by Jeni Reid.

Part 1: Winter Solstice - www.highmoss.co.uk/winter-solstice
Part 2: Spring Equinox - www.highmoss.co.uk/spring-equinox
Part 3: Summer Solstice - www.highmoss.co.uk/summer-solstice
Part 4: Autumn Equinox - www.highmoss.co.uk/autumn-equinox
Part 5: Winter Solstice Again - www.highmoss.co.uk/winter-solstice-again