DIFFICULT ART AND MUSIC.

Boutique 'record' label, specialising in short-run, research-orientated, art-objects. Focussed on all manner of experimental, challenging composition.

Abstract digital artwork released as part of the DAAM Hybri Print series of digital music and physical art print.
Abstract digital artwork featuring a central pointed star shape over a textured, grayscale background with rocky and organic elements. Released as part of the Polygone archive project.
Logo for the record label 'Difficult Art and Music', pink text on a grey background.

Difficult Art and Music is a record label and small press dedicated to releasing public-facing artefacts from creative research projects. Working with academics, independent researchers, as well as grass-roots musicians, writers and artists, the label has curated a broad range of experimental practice. From the cerebral synthesis of J.Lynch (senior lecturer, popular music, Falmouth University), to the electro-acoustic compositions of Chelidon Frame (Asychronous Drone Orchestra, Italy), the label is home to a host of cutting-edge contemporary artists.

At the same time, DAAM focuses on experimental community art projects: the archival work of rave pioneers Polygone, the site-specific field-recordings of Scolpaig, supporting self-defined ‘outsider’ zine Neverwork, and curated compilations exploring everyday witchcraft and modern feminism. The label’s goal is not to compete with larger, better-resourced outlets, but to actively support cutting-edge, conceptually-weighted music and art that might otherwise not find a home.

Releases

  • Near Minerals - The Talking Castle OST

  • Federico Balducci & nobuka - Depth is Not a Place

  • Veiled Existence - All the Quiet Hurts

  • Column of Trout/Partager - Split/Lop

  • Post - s/t

  • F U and Your A-sides - Cronework

  • Will Parker - Red Lake, Black Mine

  • John Garner & Martin Donkin - Adrift

  • DAAM 3 year anniversary comp - VA

  • Mico Boule - Cellular Degradation

  • Kerchiefs - At Knees Start

  • Heavy Cloud - Here Is Where It Hurts

  • Scolpaig - s/t

Difficult Art and Music have spent the last four years curating, producing, and releasing cutting-edge experimental art from around the globe. Where many labels are defined by a focus on one particular genre or aesthetic, DAAM is different. Founded by Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully - PhD in experimental composition, and a music journalist who has written for the likes of The Quietus, Freq, Toneshift, Tusk, and MEANS - the label curates a broad range of conceptual, considered work by often underusing artists working to push the boundaries of their practice. From contemporary classical to avant-garde works, synthesis to generative composition, drone to sound-art, and even odd forays into post-punk, noise, slow-wave and outsider art, the label seeks out the bold and the innovative wherever it lives.

VISIT THE STORE

New video!

Watch the latest music video from Column of Trout - ‘Ears’, the lead single of our latest release, ‘Split / Lop’.

Latest Release:

Column of Trout / Partager

Split / Lop

Cassette Tape / DL

Split/Lop marks the first in a new series of DAAM releases, focussing on experimental song-writing: where the label has built a reputation around drone, sound-art, and experimental electronic music, this new series explores the weirder side of more 'traditional' forms of composition.

Split/Lop features Column of Trout - a solo alt / experimental art rock project helmed by Ben Wiggs (One Eyed Ancestor / Kerchiefs) that melds simple, melody-driven compositions with a quietly off-kilter aesthetic. More vocal-led than Wiggs' other projects, Column of Trout celebrates the purity found in raw, stripped-down song-writing and a decidedly un-polished approach to its production. Complimenting this, label-boss Distant Animals showcases his own more 'musical' project: Partager - blending elements of neo-folk, grunge, and lo-fi art-pop into a (in)cohesive mass of autoharps, harmoniums, synthesizers and drums.

Together, both acts have created a beguiling split album - actual songs, but somehow still eschewing the comfort of genre.

Cronework: A compilation of spells by self-identified women and gender-diverse artists

Abstract mixed media artwork featuring a dark rectangular block at the top, with green and black brushstrokes below, including thin, jagged lines resembling roots or cracks. Created in participatory workshops as part of the 'Cronework' project.
The CD release of 'Cronework' - a participatory compilation of spells and songs exploring feminist witchcraft.
Line drawing of flowers, leaves, and ice cubes on a pink background. Created in participatory workshops as part of the 'Cronework' project.
Pink notebook with the words "CRONEWORK" written in red, parking against a pink wall. Created in participatory workshops as part of the 'Cronework' project.

Cronework is a feminist curated compilation where every song is a spell, celebrating the unique cultural contributions of self-identified women and gender-diverse artists.

Engaging with both traditional folklore and modern interpretations of esoteric magical practice, Cronework invited practitioners across music and visual art to provide materials for an album and accompanying spell book. Based around a series of community workshops funded and led by Magnetic Ideals, the project sought to give a voice and a sense of community to marginalised groups through the still stigmatised practice of political magics, a practice Sylvia Federici described as ‘re-enchanting the world’.

Book cover of 'Spaceport One' photobook, exploring the plight of residents of North Uist faced with the forthcoming development of a commercial spaceport.

Spaceport One: Communities under threat

Spaceport One was a practice-based research project that sought to document and share the plight of the residents of North Uist - an island in the Scottish Hebrides. Here, the community is threatened by the development of a commercial sub-orbital spaceport - a development that, if built, will hugely impede the already challenging lives of the island’s residents.

The research project incorporated some 300 photographs of the area, alongside sound recordings and site-specific performances. Together, these artefacts were edited into a book and CD album, later released on the Difficult Art and Music record label. Recordings from the project have been played on BBC Radio 3, NAISA radio, Radio Mercure, ERR Klassikaraadio, and others.