Hipwell “Too Much” cassette (Island House)

Hipwell’s debut album Too Much, set for reissue on March 7 via Island House Recordings (home to Tarotplane and Seawind of Battery), feels like an exploration of the landscapes we construct in our minds to navigate the highs and lows of our collective reality and the universal pain of love lost.

Adam’s previous release on Island House Recordings, Gardenworld, was a beautifully crafted, immersive work – a fusion of kosmiche, ambient, spiritual jazz, and drone that left listeners eager for what would come next. In contrast, Too Much has a bedroom-recording intimacy to it, a document of an artist discovering his voice in a new and naive way. This album oscillates between sonic worlds: opener ‘Sparkle Me Wet’ foreshadows his later work, with euphoric guitar leads that propel the listener into an inward-facing expanse. The title track ‘Too Much’ channels Spacemen 3’s hypnotic drone-pop (with vocals no less!) that feels like an unexplored version of Hipwell. While ‘Smoke You’ loops a fleeting, fragile moment in time, too painful to fully hold onto before ‘Red Mist Morning’ featuring Jakub Kasperkiewicz on guitar, conveys a chance meeting between Emeralds and Robert Fripp.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of Windy & Carl, Ashra, and Pauline Anna Strom, Too Much carries this lineage forward into the 2020’s with a rare urgency, one that eludes many in this space. Hipwell invites you to bliss out, drone deep, and listen for the divine.

-Joe Trainor