Rewilding
“There’s certainly something here that ought to appeal to those much tuned into the domino catalogue c. 99 not least for the way in which its dreamily reflective tones are teasingly sculptured in a disarmingly fragile whittling…” – The Sunday Experience
The mid-fi, meandering beauty of Rewilding emphasises how music can be an organic, flowing process, leading the listener into disorientating new territory. While Rewilding’s precedents are clear – Fridge, Pram, Broadcast – the personality and texture of these instrumental miniatures is unique and disarming. Experimental pop is rarely so approachable and beguiling.
Discography
Rain Patch
April 2020
Following on from 2017’s self-titled debut album, Rain Patch continues Rewilding’s exploration of the neglected, dusty spaces found between lo-fi indie-pop, post-rock and film soundtracks. While there are the obvious recent touchstones, such as Fridge, Beak and Olivia Tremor Control, and the less obvious, such as the soundtrack to cult 1980s sci-fi movie Liquid Sky, Rain Patch mines a primitive yet mesmerising vein of instrumental music in which process and result are intimately entwined. The songs on Rain Patch are their own ecosystems, requiring the listener to step inside to fully experience their vivid details.
This ecological analogy extends to the process of the album’s creation. In 2017 Jake McFee relocated to Glacier Bay, Alaska, where much of the album was conceived and recorded. Given the limitations of not being able to transport all the studio equipment he used on previous Rewilding music, he wrote and recorded many of the original ideas using small, portable instruments such as hand percussion, glockenspiel, acoustic guitar and mini Korg synths. The summers were spent at Glacier Bay, while winters were spent back in Philadelphia, where he was able to overdub drums and electric guitars. Between 2017 and 2019, the songs evolved into the forms heard on Rain Patch, as McFee reckoned with his experience of witnessing the pristine wilderness of Glacier Bay being transformed by climate change.
Rewilding
September 2017
Teeming with disorienting organic details and often taking surreal detours, Rewilding possesses a rare, meandering beauty. While the album’s precedents are clear – Fridge, Pram, Broadcast – the personality and texture of these instrumental miniatures is unique and disarming. Instrumental pop is rarely so approachable and beguiling. With each track seemingly inspired by a specific environment, creature or atmosphere, there’s a natural, evocative ecology at work in the album as a whole. From the dry expanses of single ‘High Desert’ via the warbling analogue tones of ‘Under Water Footage’ through to the melancholic slow-motion motorik of ‘Lonesome Briar Patch’, this instrumental journey is a deeply felt ride.
Biography
Rewilding is the solo project of Philadelphia-based musician and producer Jake McFee (Connected View). Jake began making music with Charlie Fieger and Kyle Pieloch in 1999 in a band called Psychic Violence, influenced by artists like Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Mazzy Star and The Velvet Underground. Psychic Violence broke up in 2000, then reconvened as Connected View in 2008 with a fresh range of diverse new influences, including Ennio Morricone, Stereolab, Broadcast, Boards of Canada, Lali Puna, Pram, Piero Umiliani, Can and Cluster. Jake started Rewilding to creatively invest himself in a musical project in which he could assert sole control over the creative decision-making. Although his Connected View bandmates Charlie Fieger and Kyle Pieloch both play on the self-titled debut, released by Hidden Shoal in 2017, all of the composition, production, editing and mixing was done by Jake. Rain Patch is his second album, released by Hidden Shoal in 2020.
News
Rewilding Feature at Anchorage Press
Check out this awesome feature and mini-interview with Jake McFee (aka Rewilding) over at Anchorage Press. Jake talks about the new album, Rain Patch, and his experience as a Park Ranger at The Grand Canyon and Glacier Bay.Following on from 2017’s self-titled debut album, Rain Patch continues Rewilding’s exploration of the neglected, dusty spaces found between lo-fi indie-pop, post-rock and film soundtracks. While there are the obvious recent touchstones, such as Fridge, Beak and Olivia Tremor Control, and the less obvious, such as the soundtrack to cult 1980s sci-fi movie Liquid Sky, Rain Patch mines a primitive yet mesmerising vein of instrumental music in which process and result are intimately entwined. The songs on Rain Patch are their own ecosystems, requiring the listener to step inside to fully experience their vivid details.
Continue reading →
Rewilding “Rain Patch” Album Out Now
Hidden Shoal is proud to announce the official release of Rain Patch, the new album from US based experimental pop project Rewilding. The album is available now in digital and cassette formats via Bandcamp and the new music video for album track ‘Fjord’s End’ on is streaming on YouTube.Following on from 2017’s self-titled debut album, Rain Patch continues Rewilding’s exploration of the neglected, dusty spaces found between lo-fi indie-pop, post-rock and film soundtracks. While there are the obvious recent touchstones, such as Fridge, Beak and Olivia Tremor Control, and the less obvious, such as the soundtrack to cult 1980s sci-fi movie Liquid Sky, Rain Patch mines a primitive yet mesmerising vein of instrumental music in which process and result are intimately entwined. The songs on Rain Patch are their own ecosystems, requiring the listener to step inside to fully experience their vivid details.
This ecological analogy extends to the process of the album’s creation. In 2017 Jake McFee relocated to Glacier Bay, Alaska, where much of the album was conceived and recorded. Given the limitations of not being able to transport all the studio equipment he used on previous Rewilding music, he wrote and recorded many of the original ideas using small, portable instruments such as hand percussion, glockenspiel, acoustic guitar and mini Korg synths. The summers were spent at Glacier Bay, while winters were spent back in Philadelphia, where he was able to overdub drums and electric guitars. Between 2017 and 2019, the songs evolved into the forms heard on Rain Patch, as McFee reckoned with his experience of witnessing the pristine wilderness of Glacier Bay being transformed by climate change.
The music of Rewilding is available for licensing for film, tv, web, games and beyond via Hidden Shoal. Check here for more info.
Continue reading →New Rewilding Single and Music Video, Album Soon!
We’re excited to share the new single and accompanying music video from Rewilding. ‘Home Shore Highlights’ is lifted from the forthcoming Rewilding album Rain Patch, out April 10 2020 in digital and vinyl formats. Stream the track via SoundCloud, watch the video on YouTube and pre-order the album via Bandcamp,Following on from 2017’s self-titled debut album, Rain Patch continues Rewilding’s exploration of the neglected, dusty spaces found between lo-fi indie-pop, post-rock and film soundtracks. While there are the obvious recent touchstones, such as Fridge, Beak and Olivia Tremor Control, and the less obvious, such as the soundtrack to cult 1980s sci-fi movie Liquid Sky, Rain Patch mines a primitive yet mesmerising vein of instrumental music in which process and result are intimately entwined. The songs on Rain Patch are their own ecosystems, requiring the listener to step inside to fully experience their vivid details.
This ecological analogy extends to the process of the album’s creation. In 2017 Jake McFee relocated to Glacier Bay, Alaska, where much of the album was conceived and recorded. Given the limitations of not being able to transport all the studio equipment he used on previous Rewilding music, he wrote and recorded many of the original ideas using small, portable instruments such as hand percussion, glockenspiel, acoustic guitar and mini Korg synths. The summers were spent at Glacier Bay, while winters were spent back in Philadelphia, where he was able to overdub drums and electric guitars. Between 2017 and 2019, the songs evolved into the forms heard on Rain Patch, as McFee reckoned with his experience of witnessing the pristine wilderness of Glacier Bay being transformed by climate change.
The music of Rewilding is available for licensing for film, tv, web, games and beyond via Hidden Shoal. Check here for more info.
Continue reading →
Hidden Shoal in Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018 List!
Hidden Shoal is incredibly honoured to have been selected as one of Textura’s Ten Favourite Labels of 2018. Textura is, in our opinion, the premiere new music magazine and favourite of the label team for unearthing and exposing new and exciting new music. This is the second time Hidden Shoal has been selected in Textura’s best labels list and as always we are nestled against some other very special labels, all of who you should check out.Now for a very brief and unnecessary acceptance speech – we are nothing without our incredible roster of artists, who continually amaze, inspire and surprise us. Thank you all!
Continue reading →Connected View “Energy Negative House” Out Now!
We’re excited to announce the release of Negative Energy House, the new EP by US-based experimental instrumental pop outfit Connected View. The EP is available now via the Connected View Bandcamp.“As though pulled from some rarely seen and certainly forgotten, straight to VHS sci-fi cult classic soundtrack, ‘lizard’ prowls with playful impishness ducking between the narrowing corridors that divide the worlds of the Stranger Things community and Zombi, its mooching mutant funk gouging tripping imagined wastelands of dystopic future worlds.” – The Sunday Experience
Following on from their stunning Hidden Shoal debut release Chun Pop, Connected View’s Energy Negative House finds them at their playful best, weaving rugged analogue tones with playful percussion, aching synth lines and growling bass. Recorded during the course of a single inspired evening, the jumping off point for the tracks was the drum loop from Chun Pop’s ‘Energy Positive House’, which was then reworked to create opening track ‘Empty Surroundings’, effectively becoming a continuation, but shadowy inverse or negative, of the album’s sun-dappled positivity. Reminiscent of Tortoise at their most obtuse, or Dialogue-era Four Tet, Energy Negative House is simultaneously playful and malevolent – a party played out in a maze of warped mirrors.
Connected View’s music is available for licensing (film, tv, web, games and beyond). More info here.
Continue reading →
Connected View ‘Dark Dogs’ – New Track and Music Video
We’re excited to announce the release of ‘Dark Dogs’, the brooding first single taken from Chun Pop, the new album by experimental instrumental pop trio Connected View. The track is available for download via Bandcamp, for streaming via SoundCloud and is accompanied by a wonderful music video by Australian video artist and Hidden Shoal honcho Cam Merton. Chun Pop will see release on the 21st of March 2018.The on-the-fly yet incredibly dreamy nature of Chun Pop’s magic feels like switching between hidden late-night radio stations after a handful of quaaludes. Whether it’s the filthy, sinuous bass of ‘Galacticraft II’ or the interweaving synth tones of ‘Energy Positive House’, all the musical decisions here feel inspired, without obtrusive thought. Right from brooding opening track and single ‘Dark Dogs’, the album feels like eavesdropping on a wonderfully flowing jam session, with each successive track a gleaming gem that radiates and reflects off its neighbours in fascinating ways.
Continue reading →New Rewilding Single and Video!
We’re excited to share the new Rewilding single and music video ‘High Desert’, taken from the forthcoming self-titled debut album (17/10/17). Rewilding is the solo project of New Jersey-based musician and producer Jake McFee (Connected View). Check out the video on YouTube and stream the single at SoundCloud.Teeming with disorienting organic details and often taking surreal detours, Rewilding possesses a rare, meandering beauty. While the album’s precedents are clear – Fridge, Pram, Broadcast – the personality and texture of these instrumental miniatures is unique and disarming. Instrumental pop is rarely so approachable and beguiling. With each track seemingly inspired by a specific environment, creature or atmosphere, there’s a natural, evocative ecology at work in the album as a whole. From the dry expanses of single ‘High Desert’ via the warbling analogue tones of ‘Under Water Footage’ through to the melancholic slow-motion motorik of ‘Lonesome Briar Patch’, this instrumental journey is a deeply felt ride.
Continue reading →
Rewilding Signs to Hidden Shoal
We’re very excited to announce the signing of Rewilding, the solo project of New Jersey-based musician and producer Jake McFee (Connected View), to the Hidden Shoal roster. The first taste of Rewilding’s self-titled debut will drop next week preceding the full length on the 17th of October.The mid-fi, meandering beauty of Rewilding emphasises how music can be an organic, flowing process, leading the listener into disorientating new territory. While Rewilding’s precedents are clear – Fridge, Pram, Broadcast – the personality and texture of these instrumental miniatures is unique and disarming. Experimental pop is rarely so approachable and beguiling.
Read more about the project here.
Continue reading →
Reviews
Rewilding ‘Home Shore Highlights’ Reviewed at Fingertips
“The oddly inviting instrumental “Home Shore Highlights” intermingles the organic and the electronic with idiosyncratic aplomb. Listen, for instance, to how the synthesizer takes the lead at some moments, a homely glockenspiel at others. The overall effect is a singular type of unsophisticated sophistication—it feels both homespun and skillfully assembled. On the one hand, the song is little more than a variety of recurring, related melodies on top of an unhurried tropical beat; on the other hand, things feel ongoingly off-kilter and endearing. As different sounds take turns in the spotlight, one consistent underlying element is the hands-on percussion, mixed with a bashy spaciousness that adds three-dimensionality to the aural landscape.
What might be the song’s signature moment, if not an actual hook, is that repeating place in the unfolding melody in which we get an even-tempoed march up the scale: a full, eight-note ascent that, in fact, occurs in pairs—when it happens once, it happens again a few seconds later (first at 0:43/0:51). Once this progression gets in your head, you tend to anticipate it in a variety of spots in which it doesn’t show itself. This makes its final appearance, at 3:04/3:12, seem particularly gratifying
“Home Shore Highlights” is the first single available from Rain Patch, the second Rewilding album, which is due out in April. Rewilding is masterminded by the Philadelphia-based musician Jake McFee, who wrote and recorded the bulk of the album in Glacier Bay, Alaska, where he decamped for a few summers starting in 2017.”
Continue reading →Rewilding ‘High Desert’ Reviewed at The Sunday Experience
“Further Hidden Shoal loveliness, this time in the shape of Rewilding’s ‘high desert’ – a track called from an imminent self-titled set due middle of next month. Rewilding is the alter ego / instrumental project of one Jake McFee of Connected View, as the accompanying blurb rightly notes is a set made up of intricately teased melodic miniatures with an affectionate nod to both Fridge and Pram. There’s certainly something here that ought to appeal to those much tuned into the domino catalogue c. 99 not least for the way in which its dreamily reflective tones are teasingly sculptured in a disarmingly fragile whittling who willowy palette casts a busily beautified lullaby lilting whose playfulness recalls flowchart.”
Continue reading →Rewilding ‘High Desert’ Reviewed at The Sunday Experience
“Further Hidden Shoal loveliness, this time in the shape of Rewilding’s ‘high desert’ – a track called from an imminent self-titled set due middle of next month. Rewilding is the alter ego / instrumental project of one Jake McFee of Connected View, as the accompanying blurb rightly notes is a set made up of intricately teased melodic miniatures with an affectionate nod to both Fridge and Pram. There’s certainly something here that ought to appeal to those much tuned into the domino catalogue c. 99 not least for the way in which its dreamily reflective tones are teasingly sculptured in a disarmingly fragile whittling who willowy palette casts a busily beautified lullaby lilting whose playfulness recalls flowchart. ”
Continue reading →Rewilding ‘High Desert’ Reviewed at The Sunday Experience
“Further Hidden Shoal loveliness, this time in the shape of Rewilding’s ‘high desert’ – a track called from an imminent self-titled set due middle of next month. Rewilding is the alter ego / instrumental project of one Jake McFee of Connected View, as the accompanying blurb rightly notes is a set made up of intricately teased melodic miniatures with an affectionate nod to both Fridge and Pram. There’s certainly something here that ought to appeal to those much tuned into the domino catalogue c. 99 not least for the way in which its dreamily reflective tones are teasingly sculptured in a disarmingly fragile whittling who willowy palette casts a busily beautified lullaby lilting whose playfulness recalls flowchart.”
Continue reading →
Press Releases
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Artist Photos
Music Videos
Licensing
Rewilding’s music is available for licensing (master & sync cleared) through Hidden Shoal. Please contact us with some basic details about your project and the track(s) you wish to use and we’ll be sure to get back to you straight away.