Releases

Emotionally raw, minimalist, cathartic album by West Yorkshire “slowcore” group evokes a particularly pastoral, English melancholy.

2007 album from Anglo-French, cult “ghost-rock” band, produced by Guy Fixsen (Laika), finally gets the vinyl treatment.

Voted by Piano Magic fans as their favourite album, ‘The Troubled Sleep…’ finally got the vinyl treatment via a Bandcamp pledge campaign in 2022. Completely redesigned by Andersen M Studio.

Monolithic double CD (plus bonus EP) from Anglo-French duo reflects on the deception of time and how, particularly in the Internet Age, much of life is wasted on trivia and self-obsession.

Second album of sleek electro-pop from Glen Johnson and Cédric Pin, both former members of the Anglo-French “ghostrock” group, Piano Magic.

A sister compilation to both ‘Avenue With Trees’ and ‘Drifts & Flurries,’ this one builds a defiant bridge in place of the one burnt by Brexit, uniting artists from France and the UK in artistic fraternité.

Completely redesigned vinyl re-issue of Piano Magic’s oft-maligned, though creatively unbridled 2002 album on 4AD, featuring special guest appearances from Vashti Bunyan and John Grant.

Second Language’s Winter-themed compilation is chock full of glistening paeans to the cruelest and often most beautiful of seasons. Featuring friends old new across two discs, which interweaves glitchy electronics, ghostly voices, woodwind, strings, piano and much more.

Beguiling, instrumental project of hammered dulcimer player Joel Hanson and an ever-changing cast of musicians.

Inventively packaged, multi-artist sonic smorgasbord pays homage to the golden era of European indie label compilations.

Inspired by the discovery of a cassette of uncompleted songs dating back to 1984, Oliver Cherer set about finishing them off over 30 years later. Shades of early Ben Watt and early The Durutti Column (Vini Reilly’s guitar is even utilised on some tracks here).

Long time coming second album by Glen Johnson’s Textile Ranch project of experimental electronica serves as a Fluxus toybox.

Transmanche dark electronica project of ex-Piano Magic members create expansive, immersive, memento mori/vanitas-themed opus.

Widely-acclaimed, 12th and final album from Anglo-French “ghost-rock” group includes guest appearances from Peter Milton Walsh (The Apartments) and Audrey Riley on cello.

Composer/painter/poet’s third album for Second Language inspired by the beautiful, remote, ancient islands off the west coast of mainland Scotland.

London-based Macedonian visual artist collaborates with Piano Magic main man on album of abstract electronica.

Dark electronic debut by Italian singer/songwriter, aided by Piano Magic members, explores transgressive themes.

2014 beautiful follow-up to ‘I Lived In Trees’ from songsmith/painter evokes the dreamy English pastoralism of Kevin Ayers and Bill Fay.

Minimalist analogue electronic sounds from reclusive Scottish brothers evokes Will Sergeant’s ‘Themes For Grind’ and Thomas Leer/Robert Rental’s ‘The Bridge.’

Second Language “supergroup” improvise an inspired, protean collection of modern pop songs on the outer margins of electro-acoustic experimentation.

“Pagan folk music from a modern dark age,” Oliver Cherer’s home-recorded album of beautiful, pastoral reminisces and uneasy nostalgia on the subject of loss.

Beguiling album of playful, organic electronic experimentation from one half of ISAN, with echoes of Steve Reich, Piero Milesi and Cluster. 

Follow-up to ‘The Edge-Blown Aerophone’ broadens flute-centric duo’s sonic palate to include keyboards, guitar, drums and Eastern percussion. For fans of Cluster, Philip Glass, Can.

2013 re-issue of limited edition original 2010 album, redesigned and expanded by remixes. Isolationist electronica evokes the abandoned metro stations of Berlin and London.

Third and final installment in the Music & Migration series collects avian-themed contributions from a stellar cast, beautifully designed by Frances Castle (Clay Pipe Music).

Singer/songwriter/improviser utilises voice, field recordings and sparse instrumentation to sketch the wild landscapes of Mid-Wales.

Although it’s her sole release on Second Language, ‘The Weighing Of The Heart’ is significant in Colleen’s canon in that it’s the first time we hear Cécile’s Schott’s voice committed to tape. This is an incandescent musical landscape of plucked viola de gamba, classical guitar, clarinet, piano, organ and percussion.

Astonishing song suite from London-based, Irish improviser utilises voice, harp, organ, cello and more to mesmeric effect.

Luxuriant 2 CD, 27 track compilation in beautifully designed hardback book spans prolific early ’00s singles, EPs, compilation tracks and rarities by cult “ghostrock” group.

“Narrative-driven folk horror symphony” by one-time A.Lord multi-instrumentalist, Nick Palmer, takes the listener on a rattling journey from Dorset to Transylvania.

Gorgeous, abstracted, psycho-geographic English folk-soundscapes, dreamlike Mellotron woodwinds, plangent string drones, lambent field recordings from erstwhile Plinth/A.Lords fellow, Michael Tanner.

Our label sampler from 2012, the perfect reflection of where we were at the time, straddling the fence of modern composition, post-rock, pastoralism, electronica, folk and much more.

The album on which Piano Magic returned to the crossroads between baroque pop and icy electronics, all guided by Glen Johnson’s unashamedly nihilistic ruminations on the human condition.

Partly inspired by the West Yorkshire landscape ‘Music For Another Loss’ maps the contours between brooding melancholy and redemptive calm. It’s an equipoise reflected in a musical signature which simultaneously suggests both classical minimalism and hearth-side folk, but which, tantalizingly, is never quite either.

A joint release between the London-based independent labels, Second Language and Clay Pipe Music, ‘Tyneham House’ is a pastoral, wistful and yet disquieting soundtrack to a lost Dorset village, requisitioned by the British government in the run up to WWII.

Second installment of avian-themed, issue-raising, artistically rich compilation pools contributions from Great Britain, Japan, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia and the USA.

Mesmeric chamber-folk album of instant, copasetic allure, hallmarked by Mark’s painterly take on existence and memory, deftly augmented by Michael Tanner (Plinth, The Cloisters) and Nick Palmer (Directorsound).

Lushly arranged, timeless chamber-rock, brimming with wry lyrical insight and haunting melodic hooks from prolific Creation Records icon.

Flute-centric debut redolent of late-’60s English folk pastoralism, mid-’90s post-rock, Popul Vuh and early Kraftwerk.

Three-movement suite of stark, immersive, beauty by reclusive composer/painter/poet.

Perhaps Second Language’s most ambitious curatorial exercise. Comprising 60, one-minute-long tracks purveyed by a pan-global retinue of left-of-centre artists.

Second album by Angèle David-Guillou, aka Klima, proffers an ambitious and alluring blend of acoustic and orchestral instruments, analogue synths and teeming percussion – much of it essayed by Angèle alone and decorated with her seductive, melancholy-tinged voice.

A delightfully drowsy procession of mellifluous, melancholy-tinged instrumental vignettes for violin, tenor guitar and piano that will immediately appeal to fans of Rachel’s, Balmorhea and Dakota Suite.

17 track, multi-artist compilation features a litany of wonderful, exclusive tracks in a plethora of styles, by an international roster.

Evocative rendering of 19th century lighthouse mystery by prolific multi-instrumentalist, Michael Tanner (Thalassing, The A. Lords, The Cloisters, Silver Servants, etc).

Beyond easy categorisation, this is music informed as much by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and the British Sound Archive as it is various currents in leftfield pop, electronica, folk and plunderphonics.

Oliver Cherer (Gilroy Mere/Aircooled) evokes lost London and Berlin “ghost stations” via haunting electronica.

The first multi-artist compilation on Second Language, “inspired by the miracle of the migratory impulse,” includes exclusive tracks by Vashti Bunyan, Hauschka, Peter Broderick and many more.

Over 52 tracks, the very first release on Second Language stretches electronica in all directions.