Better Place Recordings

Rhys Marsh And The Autumn Ghost’s debut album, ‘The Fragile State Of Inbetween’, is out now!
Buy it from:Scandinavia / Europe...
Japan...
Canada...
USA...
France...

“Richly-orchestrated dramatic pop.”
Adresseavisen“Melancholic and complex music, filled with unexpected chord progressions, rich layers of Mellotron and emotionally-loaded vocals.”
Norway Rock Magazine“It may challenge your idea of what progressive music should sound like in 2008.”
Tarkus Magazine“A beautiful auburn empire.”
DotShop.se“A dreamy slice of progressive pop that doesn’t sound quite like anything else we’ve heard in a long time.”
Popsicle“Inspiring and gorgeous, albeit heartbreaking, classical-countered sophisticated pop. This is a demurring 10 track collection that veers between heartbreak and euphoria, whilst touching base with all the boundaries between. A dizzying spectacle of spell-woven beauty...”
Losing Today“Nick Drake is the obvious touchstone here, but Marsh doesn’t sound like a clone. Instead, like kindred spirit Eric Matthews, Marsh is an unabashed fan of the same shimmering folk/pop sound and wants to adapt to the 21st century. Based on this beautiful record, he’s succeeded handily.”
The Big Takeover
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The Official Bootleg — Autumn 2008...To launch the label, we’ve decided to give you, for free, a downloadable sampler, featuring all of our artists, plus some related artists. How nice is that?!To download it, simply click on the pretty picture...
It’s free, it’s meant to be shared — so download it (for free!), then go and tell your friends!
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The History...The idea for Better Place Recordings came from a series of conversations that took place between Ketil Vestrum Einarsen (of Jaga Jazzist) and Rhys Marsh (of And The Autumn Ghost). Well, I say conversations, but they were actually emails. Well, not really emails as such, but MySpace messages. Anyway, they bounced lots and lots of ideas around about the music industry and all its flaws, which is why there were so many messages, and realised that they had an almost unbelievable amount in common.As they both have their own musical projects and are fans of each other’s music, they thought, and then said, “Hey, why don't we jump ship and set up our own label? We’re bound to do more justice to our music than some guys in an office who don't even know what music is, let alone care what it sounds like”.Quite simply, this is music that would be heard more widely, if the world was a better place. Hence the name, you see? But they’re not really idealists — they swing more to the side of the realists.They originally called their venture Better Place Records, but someone kindly pointed out that Whitney Houston had already used that name. Who’d have guessed? They considered filing a lawsuit, but decided to add an ‘ing’ instead, which is better anyway. This event has rightfully gone down in the annals of rock‘n’roll as ‘the infamous Whitney Houston incident’. The rest is history, which is why it was in the conveniently-named ‘History’ paragraph. Let us continue...
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The Now And The Beyond...Rhys Marsh And The Autumn Ghost
“Inspiring and gorgeous, albeit heartbreaking, classical-countered sophisticated pop.”Trondheim-based Rhys released his debut album, ‘The Fragile State Of Inbetween’, last November. For this organic and lush affair, he drafted in an incredible amount of musicians to accompany him. Seventeen, in fact, taken from such bands as Jaga Jazzist, Änglagård and Anekdoten.On the record, you’ll hear lots of hushed voices, acoustic guitar, piano, double bass, fretless bass, three drummers, two flutes, trumpet, pedal steel, a string section, lots of Mellotron and, despite the potential for complete wall-of-sound syndrome, still an impressive amount of space.
Okasa
“70’s prog and folk, 80’s art pop, 90’s indie... And a whole lot more.”Led by Ketil, who handles the flutes, songwriting, vocals, percussion, keyboards, guitars and arrangements, Okasa also features a who’s who of talent. At the last count, he was joined by Brynjar (keyboards, accordion, guitars, bass, studio tech and producer), Rhys (vocals), Gaute (guitars), Henning (bass), Finn (guitars), Haakon (banjo and guitars), Pål (drums), Martin (drums), Erik (trombone), Morten (clarinet), Sonja (lyricist) and Katarina (fx and good vibrations).Okasa are currently working on two or three records. The first one will hopefully surface towards the end of this year.
Unit
Unit is the collaborative project of Takashi Mori (from Kyoto, now living in Shiga, Japan) and Rhys Marsh (from London, England, now living in Trondheim, Norway). Takashi handles the compositions and arrangements, while Rhys takes charge of the vocals and lyrics.They met a couple of years ago on MySpace and began by collaborating on each other's solo works, before deciding to create their own project and co-write some songs. It was to become their own ‘unit’.They work from their own studios, sending files back and forth via the internet. They met once, in the summer of 2007, when Takashi visited Rhys in his new home of Norway. Rhys hopes to visit Takashi as soon as he can!They are currently working on an EP, ‘Falls From View’, which will be out in this summer.
Ignore
“Swirling to the edge of chaos and dissolving into tales of quiet beauty and loss.”This experimental indie-jazz ensemble, led by Gaute Storsve, will be releasing their follow-up to 2006’s ‘Happiness Not Yet Won’ this summer, which will be called ‘Death Is Just The End’.
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So there you have it. There’ll be more details on all these as and when it happens, or thereabouts.Over and out,The Better Place Recordings Team.