We are delighted (obviously) to announce a new project on Front & Follow, called The Blow. Over the course of the next year (and perhaps beyond) we’ll be releasing a series of collaborations between some of our favourite artists.  We are kicking off with Volume 1 by IX Tab and Hoofus in July, and Volume 2 will follow in the autumn by Time Attendant and Howlround.

**Pre-order now from the F&F shop and bandcamp**

‘The Blow’ project brings two artists together to formulate a collaborative release of their own making. Each artist has a side of audio (30-45 mins in length) to do whatever they want with. The two artists are encouraged to work together on the release, but the length and depth of this collaboration is completely up to them and agreed on a release-by-release basis – there are no set parameters, no fancy rules, no memorandum of understanding, no initiation ceremonies.

Each edition of The Blow comes on limited edition cassette with artwork by letterpress artist David Armes of Red Plate Press (redplatepress.tumblr.com), and download.

**Pre-order coming soon**

About IX Tab

IX Tab is the short-sighted, long-limbed project of failed West Country philosopher-philanthropist Saxon Roach, who doesn’t believe in any of the other Ixtabs and still thinks Anais Nin whispers sweet nothings to him at night (she does). He has released two acclaimed albums on boutique label Twiggwytch Recordings: Spindle & The Bregnut Tree and R.O.C.

The songs on this release (with the ignoble exception of To All Others, a loose jazz cannon that somehow failed to find it’s place amongst the loamy roots of Spindle & The Bregnut Tree) were written especially for this project at The Place It Never Rains, somewhere about the Spring Equinox, 2016. The Early Owl, Harvest and The Herepath Comes Away were based on recordings made around this time at Castle Neroche. Flauter is part of a 23 minute ‘Loplop suite’ due to be released as a 10” mini-album tribute to Max Ernst, on Twiggwytch Recordings sometime around the Autumnal Equinox. The Ministry of Ontological Insecurity and The Ploughs & The Machines are both collaborations with Hoofus, who supplies all the grace and agility.

About Hoofus

Hoofus is an electronic musician based in coastal Suffolk. Focused on live performance, emergence and improvisation, Hoofus uses drifting oscillators, overlapping frequency modulation, ragged percussion and a sense of tactile interaction between performer and machines to create music of wayward eerie wonder.

Drawing on ideas of edgelands and peripheries and the intersecting of wilderness with urban / industrial spaces, Hoofus explores the uncanny beauty of the intangible, the occult and the arcane seeping through into the post-industrial 21st century world of reason and corporate compliance. The tracks for The Blow are drawn from one take improvisations made over the past two years.