First Light Records

15/01/2025

After a lot of thought, and some long chats, we’ve decided that it’s time for First Light to go on hiatus.

The end of an era is always strange. We were wide-eyed and overambitious undergrads when we started First Light. Despite our ambitions, we never could have imagined the projects we’d be fortunate enough to be involved in, or the beautifully talented artists we’d be fortunate enough to work with. Above all, we have always been touched by the amount of time and careful attention you’ve given to the music we’ve released. In the context of an attention economy that is constantly screaming at us all, the fact that people are willing to sit with new and imaginative music is something we hold very dear.

First Light will rear its head again - we’re sure of that. For now, though, thank you!

Liam & Rob

27/09/2024

Mara MacDonald’s new album ‘August and June’ is out today on digital and limited edition cassette. Find it in all the usual places. We hope you find as much grace and beauty in it as we do.

On August and June, Mara MacDonald treads intimate ground, picking up fragments of sound and voice and holding them to the light. Sewn together, these fragments (water, doors, breath, pulse) become stories about relationships: their possibility, their awkwardness, their joy, and their grief. Like the relationships they recount, each one of the album’s five tracks is the product of collaboration: an object fashioned by dialogue between two perspectives. Guests include pillar of the Australian noise scene, Uboa, and prolific Portland producer, Kaho Matsui.

“Making music has often been a very lonely process for me”, Mara tells us. “It can feel like mining a deep cave all alone, so I’m very grateful to anyone who has made it feel open and new again… A lot of those people aren’t in my life anymore, for one reason or another, and I miss them very much. A lot of that grief is in the music.”

The result of these creative relationships is an album that floats decisively between daydreaming ambience and unflinching dissonance, its delicate fluttering electronics and spacious piano lines punctuated by searing, unsteady noise. It is, like all collaborations, more than the sum of its parts: a hopeful and tender artifact that lives and grows outside the bodies that created it.


Featuring
Artwork by Phoebe Jenkins
Mastered by Joseph Buchan

27/09/2024

Mara MacDonald’s new album ‘August and June’ is out today on digital and limited edition cassette. Find it in all the usual places. We hope you find as much grace and beauty in it as we do.

On August and June, Mara MacDonald treads intimate ground, picking up fragments of sound and voice and holding them to the light. Sewn together, these fragments (water, doors, breath, pulse) become stories about relationships: their possibility, their awkwardness, their joy, and their grief. Like the relationships they recount, each one of the album’s five tracks is the product of collaboration: an object fashioned by dialogue between two perspectives. Guests include pillar of the Australian noise scene, Uboa, and prolific Portland producer, Kaho Matsui.

“Making music has often been a very lonely process for me”, Mara tells us. “It can feel like mining a deep cave all alone, so I’m very grateful to anyone who has made it feel open and new again… A lot of those people aren’t in my life anymore, for one reason or another, and I miss them very much. A lot of that grief is in the music.”

The result of these creative relationships is an album that floats decisively between daydreaming ambience and unflinching dissonance, its delicate fluttering electronics and spacious piano lines punctuated by searing, unsteady noise. It is, like all collaborations, more than the sum of its parts: a hopeful and tender artifact that lives and grows outside the bodies that created it.


Featuring
Artwork by Phoebe Jenkins
Mastered by Joseph Buchan

16/09/2024

Third Space is back on today from 14:00-16:00 (BST) - tune in via the link in our bio!

This month’s show features location-centred mixes from Berlin-based sound artist Marta Forsberg and Poznań-based composer and sound engineer .slyz. The show focuses on music from each city, but also nods to the interconnectedness of different music scenes and identities. Although now based in Berlin, Marta is of Swedish-Polish heritage and Aleksandra has lived and worked in both Poznań and Stockholm. Nods to these connections can be heard throughout. 

Artwork by .

11/09/2024

We are excited to be able to announce that we will be releasing the new album ‘August and June’ on September 27th. Pre-order on digital and limited edition cassette now.

On August and June, Mara MacDonald treads intimate ground, picking up fragments of sound and voice and holding them to the light. Sewn together, these fragments (water, doors, breath, pulse) become stories about relationships: their possibility, their awkwardness, their joy, and their grief. Like the relationships they recount, each one of the album’s five tracks is the product of collaboration: an object fashioned by dialogue between two perspectives. Guests include pillar of the Australian noise scene, , and prolific Portland producer,

17/06/2024

Third Space is back on today from 14:00-16:00 BST - with mixes from and . Tune in via link in bio.

For the first hour of the show, Dania takes us on a soundwalk around Barcelona. The sounds of the city’s residents singing in the park, reciting poetry, and playing the Iranian tar are mixed with traditional Catalan music and recordings of Barcelona’s infamous pigeon population. In the second hour, Anna and Cesare (Rosso Polare) chart a journey from the Lombardy countryside into the urban bustle of Milan, accompanied by bursts of folk song and traditional chants from the region.

Artwork by

09/04/2024

live at New Cross Road Baptist Church, 21st July 2023.

📷

05/04/2024

Today, we release ‘The Deafening Veil’ by J. Doursou - a sweeping full-length exploring the impact of conflicts both past and present. We can’t wait for you to hear it!

Grab yourself a limited run cassette on our Bandcamp now, or purchase/stream the digital album: jdoursou.bandcamp.com/album/the-deafening-veil

“Captivating melodies, painted over with beautiful distortion and non-verbal agony” - Headphone Commute

“Dense and unsettling” - Mojo

Artwork by Živilė Aleknavičiūtė
Mastered by Lawrence English

09/03/2024

We’re really excited to announce that the next release on First Light Records will be ‘The Deafening Veil’ by J. Doursou - a full-length exploring the impact of conflicts both past and present. The first single from the album will be previewed on Monday.

Available on streaming and limited edition cassette 6th April. Pre-order is live now!

Artwork by Živilė Aleknavičiūtė
Mastered by Lawrence English

8 track album