North Head

Lovely Midget is Rachel Shearer, an integral player in the New Zealand underground. Since becoming Lovely Midget in 1995, Shearer has created a transcendent world of shivering ambient sounds, distant ruptures and warm washes of analog sheen. Shearer builds pieces around aching tube equipment and delicate strokes of guitar, bass, percussion and vocal hum. At times it seems a cross of Elaine Radigue and Francois Bayle with a personal intimacy and the lovingly woven aural tapestries New Zealand has become known for. North Head brings together two years of recording to reinstate Lovely Midget as a sublime aural architect of a new order. Includes a video for "North Head," directed by Shearer.

"Dark and langorous soundscapes of gently rippling reverb, heartbeat-like pulses buried beneath barely played guitars, rumbling almost-not-there bass, occasional percussive clatter, and ultra minimal vocalizations. Some of the most beautiful, serene, dreamy ambient noise we've heard in a while." -- Aquarius Records

"There are ghosts in here. They're floating around this room and swirling around my head like a stray funnel cloud. I can feel them above me and below me. They are everywhere. In this ethereal world created by Lovely Midget AKA Rachel Shearer, the spirits of the undead seem to be rising once more. Over a maze of heavily processed synthesizers and guitars, these voices command the attention of anyone who is listening. It's like having your head thrust underwater, into an underworld of trapped souls longing to escape." -- Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis