Between 2002 and 2004, the Chicago-based False Walls label released six CDs. The label has been dormant since 2004, with its six CDs long out of print. Now based in Faversham (UK), the label re-launches in 2021, with its old catalogue of six releases made available for download for the first time.

The first three digital releases come out on November 19, 2021:

 

 

Tiny Hairs: Subtle Invisible Bodies (fw01)

“… Tiny Hairs can be dreamlike and poignant like the more abstract, soundscaped moments of Hood, where melodies uncoil out of a melee of atmospherics. … Tiny Hairs achieve a balance, where the found sounds and electronic trickery that is often seen as an intriguing backdrop to the more ‘musical’ portions, is afforded equal aural status. … a great album.”
Comes With A Smile, London

 

 

Ribbon Effect: ep98 (fw02)

“ … this half-hour excursion … confirms the Chicagoan trio’s capacity to deliver a convincing ragout of rock-oriented improvisation and practised studio know-how. Electronic keyboards, guitar, drums and accordian are cast in moulds that owe a debt to dub, melodic Krautrock or the sound design skills of group members Jacob Ross, Danielle Malkoff and Bill Talsma.”
The Wire magazine, UK

 

 

Tiny Hairs: Coldless (fw03)

“Tiny Hairs’ new album Coldless is a work of desolate beauty: violinist Peter Rosenbloom and guitarists Mark Booth and Jonathan Liss are wonderful at shaping their parts around one another’s, sometimes in interlocking patterns, sometimes in three-way solo explorations, but always with satisfying musicality; drummer Jim Lutes, upright bassist John DeVylder, and electronics guy Charles King alternately gird their elliptical patterns in loose-limbed grooves and strident noise. “Stalk of an Eye”, with its Morricone-esque twang, suggests a Tortoise piece condensed to the succinctness of haiku.”
Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader, USA

The remaining three digital releases come out January 28, 2022.

Tiny Hairs released two CDs on False Walls: Subtle Invisible Bodies and Coldless.

They improvised their live shows, between 2000 to 2009: http://www.tinyhairs.com/dates.html

From The Onion’s listing for Tiny Hairs w/Pow!ers/Cozzolino (at Mother Fool’s, 1101 Williamson St., Madison, WI), July 21, 2001:

“Tiny Hairs has a penchant for long songs with longer titles (“The Water has its Skin as Does the Sky,” “The Sun behind you makes your ears look red”). “Songs” might be the wrong word to describe Tiny Hairs’ minimalist improvisations, which combine the sound of traditional acoustic instruments with often-random electric noises — interrupting, say, a lovely violin melody with the sound of a short-wave radio transmission. It’s spontaneous music without the frequently punishing atonality of free jazz, proving that experimental doesn’t necessarily mean unlistenable.”

Images:
Tiny Hairs at Lula’s Cafe, 2537 N. Kedzie, Chicago, IL.  March 11, 2000

March 30, 2002 at the Empty Bottle, Tiny Hairs’ Subtle Invisible Bodies (fw01) and Ribbon Effect’s ep98 (fw02) were launched. Lou Mallozzi and Michael Zerang also performed.

from the Chicago Reader, 2001:

“This is a party for the two initial releases by the Chicago label False Walls; both Tiny Hairs’s second release, Subtle Invisible Bodies, and Ribbon Effect’s EP98 (recorded before last year’s debut album, Slip) come out April 1. Both bands rely on improvisation to generate ideas; though Ribbon Effect consider themselves a song-oriented band, none of the four long tracks on the EP coalesces into a pop structure. Nonetheless they seem the more light-footed of the two, percussive and sometimes even effervescent as keyboards and drums interlace; the very analog accordion challenges the electronics to a playful duel. Tiny Hairs go into darker territory; the tracks unfold gradually and with a slow pulse; if you follow Peter Rosenbloom’s violin it behaves like a fairy light, getting a listener more and more lost in the moonlit forest of Charles King’s magical miscellany (“electronics, turntable, shortwave, electromagnetic bicycle/shelving/fan/jar of bolts”).

March 14, 2004 at the PAC/edge Performance Festival, Tiny Hairs’ second album Coldless (fw01) and Molar’s The Time and Motion Studies (fw05) were launched. Gene Coleman (from Storobo Imp., fw04) and Jon Chen also performed.

Between 2002 and 2004, the Chicago-based False Walls label released six CDs. Run by CJ Mitchell alongside his other work in the performing arts, the CDs were predominantly instrumental and experimental: including post-rock, acoustic improvisation, electronics and a radio project.

After 2004, the label went dormant, with the original six CDs out of print.

In 2021, following CJ’s re-location to Faversham (UK), the label launches again, with its old catalogue of six releases being made available for download for the first time.

New releases will follow in 2022: a new CD from Cindytalk and a boxset of live recordings and writings from Andrew Poppy.

Image: variations on the False Walls logo design, by John DeVylder http://john.devylder.com