Hidden Shoal Records' 5th birthday

One of my favourite record labels is celebrating 5 years in 2011, the Perth-based Hidden Shoal Recordings. They've released some wonderful music in that time. I think it was 2009 I first became aware of them - some of my top albums of that year were from this release list -

2009: A Million Square Miles

I might also direct your attention to a couple of Hidden Shoal artists who have been interviewed on the show, German ambient artist Markus Mehr in 2010 and Blake Madden from Seattle band Hotels just a few months ago (links here, or jump straight to the interview below that - you could also follow a search for "Hidden Shoal" at the top of the page).

http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/01/markus-mehr-interview.html

Markus Mehr Interview Podcast by underground of happiness

http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/04/hotels-interview.html



And even more recently, the glorious and uplifting pop music keeps flowing from Western Australia (via many other parts of the world very often). Check this beautiful neo-classical ambient piece from Welsh artist Antonymes.



Or this great slice of indie guitar-pop from hometown Perth band Umpire.



I'd hate not to mention Liam Singer, Boxharp, Rich Bennett, Elisa Luu, Jumpel, Sankt Otten, HC-B, but that's still only the tip of the iceberg. Check the full roster for yourself. Considerately, and conveniently for you time-pressured types, they've also put together a free label sampler, called Hydrozoa, to give you a taste of the treasures contained within. They describe the music choice on it as "a graduated ride from the ambient and minimal all the way through to the widescreen and guitar-fuelled". Sounds good, I hear you say. I recommend you get some at this link.

http://agora.hiddenshoal.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=169

Happy Birthday HSR, here's to 5(0) more.