rusted rail
Active Member
“Goodbye Minnesota” by The Declining Winter is out now on Rusted Rail! And it’s already been awarded "Album of the Week" by the good folks at Road Records and Norman Records! 
“The debut album from the Declining Winter is released on the Irish-based label Rusted Rail. The label has gained quite a reputation for its beautiful hand made sleeves and is a perfect home for this kind of intimate collection from Richard Adams, member of Domino band Hood. Like his former band, this is a really beautiful collection of live instruments, found sounds and touches of electronica. There are slight comparisons to the early dubby post-rock of Tortoise along with the more subdued intimate pop of Postal Service but Adams also adds in lots of lo-fi scratchy sound effects and heaps of crafty underground hip-hop beats. It's a superbly wide ranging collection of sounds all held together with a certain rustic live feel. It's both highly intricate and hypnotic at the same time. A rare gem that you shouldn't let pass you by”. - Road Records
“Funnily enough, the sun has just popped out its fat, orange head for a minute whilst I stretch my head looking for "great verbiage" to describe Pudsey's wonderful The Declining Winter. This for the uninitiated is Richard Vincent Adams from Hood and assorted cohorts. The older of the two brothers who proudly proclaims himself as a "Stricken office worker" I guess the meaning behind the title 'Goodbye Minnesota' and that helps understand the delicate, organic and wistful beauty behind these tingling downtempo grooves. A mingling of simple acoustic guitar codas, dub textures, stargazing ambient electronics that give you goose bumps, melancholic one note keyboard lines, sad, graceful drums & reserved, tender vocals. I reckon that we've got ourselves an altogether sensual, pure and quietly exhilarating album that will delight fans of (especially) mid-period Hood & the legendary Bristol indie underground. Includes help from his lil' bro Chris (track 6, a more upbeat & cerebral number could just be a classic Hood track!) and Manyfingers' Chris Coles on peerless backing duties. All dressed in a recycled house mounted with photo on Ireland's Rusted Rail recordings”. - Norman Records
“After one excellent 7" and a none-too-shabby remix 3"CD, Hood's Richard Adams delivers his debut solo album as The Declining Winter, and it amply delivers on all that early promise. From the opening of 'Summer Turns To Hurt' there's an instantly recognisable waft of that classic Hood sound (possibly due to some input from Richard's brother and bandmate Chris - in fact, while we're on the subject of guest spots, Chris Cole of Manyfingers shows up as a contributor too), but it seems so much more decrepit and weary (in a good way, you understand) than any recent emissions by the band, instead harking back to the ramshackle, rustic sounds of their classic form. Whispered, frail vocals disperse amongst the roomy, acoustic productions, casting a tangible sense of gloom (again, in a good way) over these subtle and melancholy songs. Over the course of this record you can hear elements of abstract hip hop mingling with weird plug-in experiments and a kind of primitive, unplugged approach to shoegaze, and then, just when you think you've got the album pegged, you'll hear something like 'Last Train To Maple Grove', which is every bit as lonesome and dejected as its title suggests, calling upon sepia tone string samples in a fashion that recalls the finest L. Pierre recordings. The further you stray into Goodbye Minnesota, the better it seems to get, and by the time you arrive at the Haircut 100 referencing, '60s soundtrack-inspired penultimate track ('Hey, Nick Heyward') complete with echoing dulcimers, it becomes pretty clear that you're in the presence of a quietly very special, very memorable album.” - Boomkat
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The Declining Winter is the solo musical project of Richard Vincent Adams of Leeds, England, a co-founder of Hood. "Goodbye Minnesota" is his debut album under this guise. Ranging from epic claustrophobia to rustic folk-dub explorations, with spectral atmospheres anchored to pastoral roots, "Goodbye Minnesota" delivers hypnotic melancholia via abstract hiphop, shoegaze, dub and post rock explorations. Along the way there's also rain-drenched pop and globally warmed electronic folk. These are ghostly songs filled with absence, longing and seasonally affected melodies - the sound of cassette tapes spilling out of the glovebox of a 1970's Datsun Sunny somewhere in the north of England, captured on Super 8 film. This CD album is housed in a recycled card sleeve in keeping with the environmentally-concerned nature of the project.
“The debut album from the Declining Winter is released on the Irish-based label Rusted Rail. The label has gained quite a reputation for its beautiful hand made sleeves and is a perfect home for this kind of intimate collection from Richard Adams, member of Domino band Hood. Like his former band, this is a really beautiful collection of live instruments, found sounds and touches of electronica. There are slight comparisons to the early dubby post-rock of Tortoise along with the more subdued intimate pop of Postal Service but Adams also adds in lots of lo-fi scratchy sound effects and heaps of crafty underground hip-hop beats. It's a superbly wide ranging collection of sounds all held together with a certain rustic live feel. It's both highly intricate and hypnotic at the same time. A rare gem that you shouldn't let pass you by”. - Road Records
“Funnily enough, the sun has just popped out its fat, orange head for a minute whilst I stretch my head looking for "great verbiage" to describe Pudsey's wonderful The Declining Winter. This for the uninitiated is Richard Vincent Adams from Hood and assorted cohorts. The older of the two brothers who proudly proclaims himself as a "Stricken office worker" I guess the meaning behind the title 'Goodbye Minnesota' and that helps understand the delicate, organic and wistful beauty behind these tingling downtempo grooves. A mingling of simple acoustic guitar codas, dub textures, stargazing ambient electronics that give you goose bumps, melancholic one note keyboard lines, sad, graceful drums & reserved, tender vocals. I reckon that we've got ourselves an altogether sensual, pure and quietly exhilarating album that will delight fans of (especially) mid-period Hood & the legendary Bristol indie underground. Includes help from his lil' bro Chris (track 6, a more upbeat & cerebral number could just be a classic Hood track!) and Manyfingers' Chris Coles on peerless backing duties. All dressed in a recycled house mounted with photo on Ireland's Rusted Rail recordings”. - Norman Records
“After one excellent 7" and a none-too-shabby remix 3"CD, Hood's Richard Adams delivers his debut solo album as The Declining Winter, and it amply delivers on all that early promise. From the opening of 'Summer Turns To Hurt' there's an instantly recognisable waft of that classic Hood sound (possibly due to some input from Richard's brother and bandmate Chris - in fact, while we're on the subject of guest spots, Chris Cole of Manyfingers shows up as a contributor too), but it seems so much more decrepit and weary (in a good way, you understand) than any recent emissions by the band, instead harking back to the ramshackle, rustic sounds of their classic form. Whispered, frail vocals disperse amongst the roomy, acoustic productions, casting a tangible sense of gloom (again, in a good way) over these subtle and melancholy songs. Over the course of this record you can hear elements of abstract hip hop mingling with weird plug-in experiments and a kind of primitive, unplugged approach to shoegaze, and then, just when you think you've got the album pegged, you'll hear something like 'Last Train To Maple Grove', which is every bit as lonesome and dejected as its title suggests, calling upon sepia tone string samples in a fashion that recalls the finest L. Pierre recordings. The further you stray into Goodbye Minnesota, the better it seems to get, and by the time you arrive at the Haircut 100 referencing, '60s soundtrack-inspired penultimate track ('Hey, Nick Heyward') complete with echoing dulcimers, it becomes pretty clear that you're in the presence of a quietly very special, very memorable album.” - Boomkat
______________________________________________
The Declining Winter is the solo musical project of Richard Vincent Adams of Leeds, England, a co-founder of Hood. "Goodbye Minnesota" is his debut album under this guise. Ranging from epic claustrophobia to rustic folk-dub explorations, with spectral atmospheres anchored to pastoral roots, "Goodbye Minnesota" delivers hypnotic melancholia via abstract hiphop, shoegaze, dub and post rock explorations. Along the way there's also rain-drenched pop and globally warmed electronic folk. These are ghostly songs filled with absence, longing and seasonally affected melodies - the sound of cassette tapes spilling out of the glovebox of a 1970's Datsun Sunny somewhere in the north of England, captured on Super 8 film. This CD album is housed in a recycled card sleeve in keeping with the environmentally-concerned nature of the project.
