ARTIST
DANIEL LEA & JAMIE MICHAEL MCCARTHY

ALBUM TITLE
HTOCNEA

CATALOGUE NUMBER
VH004

ARTIST
DANIEL LEA & JAMIE MICHAEL MCCARTHY

ALBUM TITLE
HTOCNEA

CATALOGUE NUMBER
VH004

The indistinct moments before the horizon comes into focus.
A glacial lake shrouded in a luminescent mist, its outline smudged.

HTOCNEA is an invitation to new aural vistas, sharp focused tracks rounded out with the mysterious and the unseen. The result of a decade-long musical collaboration between Jamie Michael McCarthy and Daniel Lea, this new body of work paints these aural horizons with violin or cello motifs, layered and mixed with the torque of drones and atmospheric processing.
The record is nothing other than a spectral and lush invitation to another world.

Creating a rich hybrid musical language, the pair communicated through an ever-growing bedrock of material, from acoustic elements and instruments, to household objects and field recordings. HTOCNEA is nevertheless also a formally grounded project that saw McCarthy fully notate the string arrangements. The result is a mature, confident journey in harmony and decay that’s not afraid of breakage or stoppage while still enjoying melody.

The name of the project becomes fitting in this regard: the titles and project name are readymades from an eye-test chart McCarthy found on the street, cementing the pair’s play with the tracks’ depth of field through the morphing and blurring of sounds that sit underneath the gorgeously transparent musical elements of the surface. The organic and the technological, whether devastating or beautiful, allow the otherworldly space of these tracks to evoke the shimmering augmentation of a 21st century humanity.

TRACK
NUMBER

TITLE

STREAMING

STREAMING

01

HLAOT

02

AECO

03

OXHWA

04

VUAXT

05

XOA

06

XUA

07

YUTXIHM / THYU

08

HTOCNEA

01    HLAOT

02     AECO

03     OXHWA

04     VUAXT

05     XOA

06     XUA

07     YUTXIHM / THYU

08     HTOCNEA

RELEASE DATE
DECEMBER 5, 2025

DOWNLOADS

CREDITS

COMPOSED BY DANIEL LEA AND JAMIE MICHAEL MCCARTHY
PRODUCED BY DANIEL LEA
ARRANGED BY DANIEL LEA AND JAMIE MICHAEL MCCARTHY
STRINGS COMPOSED BY JAMIE MICHAEL MCCARTHY

DANIEL LEA: SYNTHESIZERS, ELECTRONICS, SOUND DESIGN, PIANO AND PROCESSING
JAMIE MICHAEL MCCARTHY: VIOLIN, VIOLA, CELLO, ELECTRONICS PROCESSING AND SYNTHESIZERS

ADDITIONAL PLAYERS
YAIR ELAZAR GLOTMAN: CONTRA BASS
ROBERTA JEAN: VOCALS
RICK VINCENT WILL: PIANO

MIXED BY DANIEL REJMER
MASTERED BY CHRISTIAN WRIGHT AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS