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.
Bandcamp

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

  • CIGFA/SEGFA - Elfed/Elmet

  • Lille & rsn - The diversity of nature

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.

New video!

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

Latest Release:

CIGFA//SEGFA

Elfed/Elmet

CD / DL

A welsh-language speculative history of the kingdom of Elfed/Elmet - or Leeds to ill-educated English folk - CIGFA//SEGFA explore the rich and ritualistic history of their countries overlooked past. 

ELFED is a lamment for the phantom limb that is the kingdom of Elfed, excised from the corpus of brythonic speaking peoples following the battle of Chester.

Mae ELFED yn marwnad i'r goes-rithiol - megis y deurnas Elmet/Elfed a dorrwyd o gorpus diwilliant Brythoneg yn dilyn brwydyr Caer.

The kingdom of Elfed/Elmet, now Leeds, prior to the battle of Chester cutting off 'yr hen ogledd' (the old north) from the rest of the Brythonic speaking lands that corresponds to modern Wales/Cymru. 

A magic square, EG*FED, a recurrent scale, then improvised by means of the 'concordance of poetry' that is a large file repository of Welsh strict meter corpus.

A neurodivergent speculative/exploratory play using a set of histories as it's foundations, namely the kingdom of Elfed/Elmet and it's possible psychogeographic residues remaining in the West Yorkshire/Leeds area comprehensible only in the Brythonic register (hence it's interpolation in Welsh).

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.