Daniel Land

Hello everybody!

On Friday, I released Pearl Daddy, on all digital platforms. That means the full release is available, including the second of its two tracks, “Bilal”.

If you’ve already purchased Pearl Daddy on Bandcamp, simply head to your collection to download it. It is also available on Spotify and all the usual platforms. 

In case you missed it: Pearl Daddy is my limited-edition “Concept Single”: two companion songs—“Pearl Daddy” and “Bilal”—written specifically for the 7" format. 

Sharing melodic fragments and harmonic ideas, the tracks reimagine noisy My Bloody Valentine–style shoegaze through a subtle North African lens.

Both songs feature darbouka and other Moroccan percussion by Othmane El Mansouri, while “Bilal” adds oud by Maryan Karpinskyi, giving the music a distinctly Moroccan colour.

Pressed on white vinyl and limited to just 100 copies, the record also includes an unusual extra for a 7": a 12-page full-colour booklet of artwork, lyric fragments, and text.

► Purchase Here

Thanks to anyone reading this!

Daniel

Hello everyone

Just wanted to flag a rather lovely interview I did with WROTE podcast. 

You can watch it here, although there's also a podcast version available from the usual places.

WROTE focuses on LGBTQ+ authors, so we mainly talked about my forthcoming "Concept Single" Pearl Daddy through that lens, although there were some entertaining questions outside of that.

Along the way, I also talked about why I think my best songs tend to be rooted in compassion, why the idea of “innovation” in music is wildly overrated, and why I can’t get enough of reading AIDS literature. 

It was genuinely lovely to catch up with Vance and Baz, who are resolute supporters of queer authors and outsider artists. I'm sure they're appreciate a few more views of their stuff. 

Thanks

Daniel

Hello everyone!

Good news for anyone who likes my ambient side-projects: I announced a couple of albums this week.

First up is the latest album by my droney guitar alias "Alan Lidden" (an anagram of my name!) called The North Coast. It's available at the Alan Lidden Bandcamp page here.

Also, and perhaps most significantly, a new riverrun release!

A Secret Cove (Spring Tide) is a longform, 15-hour variation of the generative A Secret Cove composition that I released last year. That release is available from the riverrun Bandcamp page here.

Both albums are download-only, with no physical format. 

Thanks to anyone who listens or purchases!

Daniel

Some releases from 2025 that I thought were, in some way, remarkable and worth a listen.

The C Duncan record, It's Only a Love Song, is a major, major piece of work—lushly orchestrated chamber-pop with amazing chord sequences, arrangements, and vocal harmonies. It didn't make nearly as much of a splash as I thought it deserved; perhaps only people who are themselves musicians can really see the craft in it...?

Cate Le Bon’s Michelangelo Dying is astonishing and abstract in the way the Cocteau Twins’ 1985 EPs seemed to me; the production sounds as if the whole mix has been put through a chorus pedal (not the worst idea; I may have to try that...)

Deacon Blue—well, I won’t even call them a guilty pleasure anymore. They are one of the bands of my life and I'll defend them forever. Their latest album, The Great Western Road, the final one before keyboardist James Prime died this summer, shows some classic songwriting and contains two or three of Ricky Ross’s best songs, in my opinion. 

So many bands tread the reunion circuit and only play the hits; Deacon Blue always have a new album ready to go, and pepper their setlists with obscurities and rarities that they may only play one night on tour. They're a deeper, more hardworking band than "Real Gone Kid" would suggest. But that's the subject for some more serious writing...

Goldmund’s Layers of Afternoon—made up of piano and violin—is beautiful, one of the best things Keith Kenniff has ever released in my opinion.

Roger Eno released Without Wind, Without Air. He continues to impress, much more than his brother’s recent work, in my eyes.

These New Puritans’ Crooked Wing has definite Talk Talk / The Blue Nile vibes, with spiky modern edges, which is no bad thing.

Men I Trust released two albums this year. Out of the two, Equus Caballus slightly edges it for me, although both are good. Hatchie's new album, Liquorice, was in a similar vein and was as gorgeous as her stuff always is. 

The Men I Trust and Hatchie records were probably the only classic shoegaze/dream pop releases I really loved this year—largely because I made an effort to listen more widely this year. Blood Orange’s Essex Honey was a good example of that—it's not usually what I'd consider my thing, but it was my surprise of the year; I adore it.

The record of the year for me personally has got to be Tamino’s Every Dawn’s a Mountain—Arabic-influenced acoustic pop with occasional dream pop guitars, strings, and Buckley-adjacent vocals. An intoxicating mix I’ve returned to many times.

Hello everyone

Thanks to anyone reading this, who has pre-ordered my new 7-inch single already! I'm delighted to say that yesterday the release was Number 1 in Bandcamp's Dream Pop Best-Sellers, #7 in Shoegaze, and #9 in Indie Rock!

(I think it's slipped a bit since then but—hehe—maybe you can rectify that? 🙃)

Head to my Bandcamp page here if you want to pre-order and reserve your copy. I've sold about half of the run that I have available (some are reserved for distribution into UK and Chinese shops).

Plugging aside, I just wanted to say that it was a lovely weekend, seeing the pre-orders rolling in, and reading people's messages and feedback. It always blows me away, how many people take the time to write a few thoughtful, generous lines. I’m slowly working my way through all the comments and messages; if I haven’t replied yet, I will eventually.

Anyway, if you missed it: Pearl Daddy is a limited edition "Concept Single" (rather than concept album), featuring two exclusive, noisy tracks. They won't be re-released or compiled anywhere else. 

Both are vaguely Moroccan in theme, growing out of my reading over the past few years about key 20th century writers visiting Tangier, Morocco. And it's all basically part of geeky need on my part to release a 45rpm now that I'm 45 😂😂

Pre-order Link: 🔗 🎵
https://danielland.bandcamp.com/album/pearl-daddy

Thanks everyone!

Daniel 

Hello, everybody!

I’m happy to announce my new release, Pearl Daddy—a limited-edition “Concept Single” featuring two exclusive tracks, “Pearl Daddy” and “Bilal”. 

Strictly limited to 100 copies, it is pressed on 7” white vinyl and presented in a lovingly prepared package with a pull-out 12-page booklet. It will be released on 8 April, but it is available to order at my Bandcamp page, where the title track is available to stream now.

Pearl Daddy began life as a slightly geeky joke—the idea of marking my 45th birthday with a 45rpm single. From there, it felt like a natural step to use the songs to reflect on being 45 itself. Middle-aged experience is still rarely addressed in popular music, and middle-aged queer experience even less so; it was this latter perspective that I wanted to begin to explore here. 

Rather than leaning heavily into autobiography, I chose instead to write songs informed by my reading of queer literature. This impulse connects to a broader and growing preoccupation in my work with history and identity—something that will be explored much more fully in the album to come.

I wasn’t consciously seeking out writing about Morocco, but in the course of my reading I began to notice a recurring pattern: 20th-century gay writers such as Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, and William S. Burroughs repeatedly travelling to Tangier in search of a more hospitable climate for gay life. 

That detail gradually suggested a setting and emotional world for the songs, which were inspired by the age-gap love affair between E. M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl, as described in Wendy Moffat’s biography of Forster (and in Damon Galgut’s fictionalised retelling in his novel Arctic Summer).

Given this North African context, I’ve tried to subtly expand my usual dream-pop palette with light Moroccan textures and influences, including contributions from Othmane El Mansouri (darbouka and other percussion) and Maryan Karpinskyi (oud), particularly on the second track, “Bilal”. 

Pearl Daddy is also one of the noisiest things I’ve released, with more distortion and grit than usual—an intentional sidestep rather than a permanent shift in musical direction.

Alongside the music itself, I wanted to do something intentional with the 7” format and present two songs developed specifically for this release. Pearl Daddy is intended as a standalone work; these two tracks will not be compiled or re-released elsewhere. 

The songs share melodic fragments and harmonic relationships, and are written as companion pieces: two halves of an affair, each addressed to the other person. This is what I mean by calling it a “Concept Single”—a song cycle, albeit a very compact one.

I put a great deal of thought into the artwork too. The 7” is housed in a sleeve with a 3mm spine, making room for a 12-page full-colour booklet—a lavish and almost unheard-of addition for the format—containing artwork, lyric fragments, and an essay. The sleeve features my own rustic pastel illustration of the Tangier skyline.

I’m very happy with how this release has turned out, having put almost as much conceptual thought into it as I would an album. I hope you enjoy it too.

Pearl Daddy will be released by Hinney Beast Records and will be available through UK record shops (distributed by Forte), in China (via Otter Records), and via my Bandcamp page.

Yours,

Daniel

Sessions for a new album, coming in late 2026 or early 2027, plus a handful of singles, special releases, and practices for 2026 shows. 

Locations: Home Studio, London; ‘Summerhome by the Sea’, in West Somerset; Pirate and Storm Studios, London.

Out today! The latest album by my ambient side-project, riverrun.

A Secret Cove is a 60-hour generative ambient composition, and every one of the fifty CDs contains a different 72-minute slice of the music. No two copies are the same.

This release caps the Somerset Trilogy that began with Avalon Marsh and Crow Covert, all of which were put together at my regular retreat in West Somerset.

Available on CD, but also as a download-only version; the download version contains two hour-long iterations of the piece which are the same for everyone who purchases. It's also on Spotify and all reputable streaming services from today.

If you're curious, head to the riverrun Bandcamp page to stream, download, or purchase on CD.

Now time to turn my attention back to the next song record(s) 😊

Hello everybody,

I'm happy to announce a new album by my ambient side-project riverrun called A Secret Cove. This album closes the Somerset Trilogy, which began with the albums Avalon Marsh and Crow Covert. 

With this release, I’m revisiting an experiment I first undertook with the album Lilliput in 2018. Technically, the full version of A Secret Cove is a 60-hour generative composition. Each of the fifty CDs contains a different 72-minute “slice” of this larger piece.

Each disc is, in effect, a highly limited art object, since no two copies will contain exactly the same music. And not only will no one else’s version sound exactly like yours, but given the composition’s length, it’s unlikely even I will have heard your particular excerpt in full!

The CD version is presented in a digipack with artwork echoing the first two parts of the Somerset Trilogy, and a liner note essay that reflects on the landscape that inspired the album and the wider trilogy

If this sounds like it could be up your strasse, the album is available on CD from my Bandcamp page. Purchases come with a download of the “Standard” 58-minute version which is also available separately as a download.

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BACKGROUND TO A SECRET COVE

A Secret Cove, like most riverrun works, is a patchwork of sonic elements. I create most riverrun pieces by letting these elements loop on various cycles (often alongside long stretches of silence). What ends up on the final release is usually just a segment of a much longer whole. Because the loops are unrhythmic and of irregular lengths, it’s entirely possible the full composition could continue generating for years before repeating itself exactly.

Whereas Lilliput was a darker work, built largely around the Dorian mode (close in feel to a minor key), A Secret Cove is constructed in the Lydian mode—similar to a major key, but richer, sweeter, and slightly more unsettled (this mode is often associated with the piano works of Harold Budd, for example). Perhaps because of that tonal palette, I think this is one of the more moving riverrun pieces. There are passages that feel genuinely touching—which isn’t usually the intention with these works.

As with Lilliput, the piece weaves in material from earlier works; compositional elements from across the Somerset Trilogy are recontextualised here, alongside many additional drones, instrumental takes, and field recordings, some of which were made specifically for this release, others being repurposed “cutting room floor” material originally intended for my song albums. The core element is a background drone, also heard in "Swill Point" (the second side of Avalon Marsh), which is an edited and heavily-treated segment of a keyboard pad buried in the background of my song "Summerhome by the Sea" from Out of Season. All told, there are perhaps a hundred distinct layers of sound, looping and combining endlessly.

There’s little in the way of traditional ‘development’, but the piece evolves slowly and organically. Even when the surface textures seem static, the underlying combinations are always shifting—each moment formed of a unique blend of elements, like uncertain light moving across a landscape.

I apologise for the slightly higher-than-usual cost of the CD, but as you can imagine, rendering and editing 60 hours of material—and burning each copy individually—is going to be a labour-intensive process. This is also why the pre-order period is a little longer than normal. I do aim to get the CDs to you well before the official release date. And in the meantime, each purchase also includes a downloadable version of the piece: a separate, “standard” 58-minute edition that’s the same for everyone. (I expect to release seasonal updates and new iterations of the composition later this year.)

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SOUTHERNMOST  LIMITED CD RE-PRESS

Completists may also be interested to know that I have also put up for pre-order a limited edition CD re-press of the collaborative album Southernmost, which I made with William Delano in 2019. That is also available from my Bandcamp page. 

Thanks for reading, and all the best

Daniel