We always pay atten­tion here at Gourmet Gigs when­ev­er Lost Map Records announces a new release. It is run by John­ny Lynch aka Pic­tish Trail from his remote island home in Eigg in the High­lands and, apart from sound­ing like a very appeal­ing loca­tion, the label nev­er dis­ap­point with its eclec­tic and quirky range of artists. 

This lat­est sign­ing is Kin­bote – the alias of found-sound sam­ple based elec­tron­ic glitch-pop pro­duc­er Matt Gibb. His debut album Shift­ing Dis­tance will be released by Lost Map on lim­it­ed edi­tion CD‑R and via dig­i­tal ser­vices on 4 Decem­ber 2020. 

The just-released sin­gle tak­en from the upcom­ing album is Hiemalis. The track has a shim­mery and dream­like qual­i­ty, enhanced by expres­sive found-sound sam­ples, such as echo­ing voic­es as heard from anoth­er room. 

Accord­ing to Gibb, Hiemalis is a song about “gain­ing per­spec­tive on events that seemed incon­ve­nient or frus­trat­ing at the time, but I can now accept as valu­able,” Matt explains. The track was inspired in part by the book To The Light­house by Vir­ginia Woolf, and fea­tures drums made from sam­ples of Matt walk­ing through a for­est, leaves and sticks crunch­ing and snap­ping under his feet.

The accom­pa­ny­ing video is cap­ti­vat­ing, mak­ing a sim­ple but pow­er­ful state­ment as its pro­tag­o­nist, dressed in a suit and tie, takes both a men­tal and phys­i­cal leap. His jour­ney takes on a mys­ti­cal qual­i­ty as he wan­ders through the land­scape, tum­bling through sand dunes, seek­ing some kind of per­son­al shel­ter. It is a uni­ver­sal state­ment but one that is giv­en extra res­o­nance by these strange times.

Shift­ing Dis­tance by Kin­bote is out on 4 Decem­ber, 2020 on Lost Map Records. Debut sin­gle Hiemalis is out now 

kinbote.bandcamp.com