HHY & The Macumbas announce fourth album, Bom Sangue Mau, and share lead single ‘Lago de Puro Êxtase’

06 April 2024

Photo: Rui Pina

Porto based ensemble HHY & The Macumbas have announced the release of a new album titled Bom Sangue Mau, which translates from Portuguese as “good bad blood”. Due out on May 31st, their forthcoming album will also mark the inaugural release on new label Horror Vector.

Multidisciplinary artist Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, who’s at the helm of the project, and his collaborators Brendan Hemsworth, Filipe Silva, Frankão, João Pais Filipe, André Rocha and Francisco Antão, recorded the album in an empty theatre, where they set up a full arsenal of sound-systems, lighting rigs, and smoke machines to capture the raw essence of their kinetic live performances. As the press release describes, “they immersed the stage in a deep red glow, using crumpled rhythms, eerie synthesisers, wild-eyed horn sounds and serious bass pressure to build a place of dread and ascension.”

The album news comes paired with the first transcendent single, ‘Lago de Puro Êxtase’ and you can listen to it below.

Jake Long’s debut solo album, City Swamp, out in May; listen to lead single ‘Silhouette’

03 April 2024

Drummer, composer, and producer Jake Long, best known as the founder and bandleader of Maisha, is gearing up to release his debut solo album. Entitled City Swamp, it is the fruit of a collaborative effort, which started in September 2019 with Long inviting former Maisha collaborators Amané Suganami, Tim Doyle Twm Dylan, Nubya Garcia, Binker Golding, Tamar Osborn, Shirley Tetteh, Artie Zaitz, and Al MacSween to record some tracks at Lightship 95 Recording Studios in London. Depicting dystopian themes and with influences ranging from Funkadelic and Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew to dub pioneers like King Tubby, the album “rises out of the rubble to stake its claim to the future of London’s musical landscape”, as the press release describes.

City Swamp is set for release on May 17th through New Soil and ahead of it, Long has shared the first single, ‘Silhouette’. Expansive, intricate, and pulsing with vibrancy, ‘Silhouette’ is after your ears.

Eric Chenaux Trio unveil lead single, ‘This Ain’t Life’, from forthcoming new album, Delights Of My Life

28 March 2024

Photo: Sylvestre Nonique-Desvergnes

For huge fans like us of experimental guitar virtuoso and singer-songwriter Eric Chenaux, news of new music from him fills us with joy and anticipation. He has consistently captivated us with his striking voice of gold and unique blend of majestic songcraft and improvisation. So we’re thrilled to know he has a new album on the way, now as Eric Chenaux Trio, also featuring fellow Canadian musicians Phillipe Melanson (Bernice, Joseph Shabason, U.S Girls) on electronic percussion, and longtime collaborator Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ.

Entitled Delights Of My Life, the upcoming album was recorded at Chenaux’s home studio in rural France, and arrives on May 31st through Constellation and Murailles Music. As the press release describes, Delights Of My Life is somewhat of a follow-up to his previous album Say Laura, “in its subversions of a classic, timeless jazz-inflected balladry, with the interplay of the trio formation indeed unfurling many new delights.” As always, Chenaux’s music is marked by its subtlety and nuance, allowing us to engage with its intricacies in different ways.  He comments:

“I like to make music that continues in such a way that one does not feel the pressure to listen all the time, that does not petition for your attention but welcomes it, and if you drift out and think about whatever it is one can think about in this day and age, when you come back, well it is there, and you have not necessarily missed anything that will hinder your re-engagement: a fidelity to duration in an unearthly sense.”

Clocking in at a sprawling 10 minutes, album opener ‘This Ain’t Life’ is the first sonic delight from Eric Chenaux Trio’s new album to be unveiled. The single comes with an accompanying video, offering a visual exploration of the trio’s creative process and interplay. Experimental filmmaker and longtime collaborator Eric Cazdyn directs.


Aquaserge tease upcoming seventh album, La Fin de l’Économie, with lead single ‘Le saut du tigre’

27 March 2024

Photo: Baptiste Dété

Aquaserge have been turning our heads for a long time, enthralling us with every single album they release. A wonderful and thrilling supergroup, featuring a revolving lineup of incredible musicians, they draw on their collective musical background and improvisational sensibilities to create kaleidoscopic and bold compositions which effortlessly transcend genres.

We’re over the moon to know they are gracing us with a new album, following 2021’s The Possibility Of A New Work For Aquaserge, which was one of our Album Picks of the Year. Entitled La Fin de l’Économie, the new album will see the light of day on May 24th through Crammed Discs. Described as an ecological poem where present and past collide, the album draws inspiration from sources aplenty. “Listeners will encounter traces of Oulipo (the famous experimental French literary movement founded in the ’60s), Dada and free jazz”, as the press release says. “They will cross paths with the ghosts of Ennio Morricone, Walter Benjamin and Marguerite Duras, with the shadows of Kim Gordon and Brigitte Fontaine”.

Audrey Ginestet, Benjamin Glibert, Olivier Kelchtermans, Manon Glibert, and Julien Chamla, who make up the current lineup of Aquaserge, were all involved in the recording, each bringing their unique talents to the table.

May seems like a long while away but lucky for us they have today shared the opening track, ‘Le saut du tigre’, which means “The Tiger’s Leap” and refers to a famous text by cult thinker Walter Benjamin. ‘Le saut du tigre’ is an exhilarating and infectious guitar-driven track, with the band’s “trademark touches of jazz, ’70s film music, and poetry reflecting their radical views on the state of the world.” Aquaserge are offering the track with an accompanying video directed by their own Audrey Ginestet. Here it is.

Church Andrews & Matt Davies announce mini-album, Yucca

23 March 2024

Following 2022’s LP Axis, producer and composer Church Andrews (aka Kirk Barley) and drummer Matt Davies are gearing to release a six-track mini-album. Entitled Yucca, the effort is set for release on May 17th through Odda Recordings.

On Yucca, the pair explore the Fibonacci sequence, with natural order meeting synthesized innovation. Embracing minimal instrumentation – one synth and live drums -, they “found creativity in limitation, developing a compositional dialogue between the sonic timbres of Kirk’s productions and Matt’s percussive practice”, as the press release describes.

With a shared affinity for hip-hop, dub techno, and minimalist pioneers like Terry Riley, Andrews and Davies cite inspiration from drumming legend like Roy Haynes and his grandson Marcus Gilmore, and also sabar drummers from Senegal and Mridangam drumming of South India.

To get us enticed for the release of Yucca, the duo have shared the title track alongside a video of them performing the track live, filmed by Ben Danzig. Watch it below.


Listen to Qwalia’s new single ‘Omega’

20 March 2024

Photo: Christopher Hargreaves

A innovative force within London’s experimental music scene, Qwalia is an improvisational psychedelic-jazz quartet led by drummer Yusuf Ahmed, known for his work with Joy Crookes and Anoushka Shankar, and also featuring a lineup of seasoned musicians including Ben Reed on bass (Frank Ocean, David Byrne, Richard Russell’s Everything Is Recorded), Tal Janes on guitar (Jordan Rakei, Cherise, Waaju), and Joseph Costi on keys and synths (Cat Stevens, Tom Herbert, Heidi Vogel).

They made a splash last year with their debut album, Sound And Reason, which, sadly, slipped under our radar. A year on, and now firmly on our radar, Qwalia have new music on the way, recorded in a two-day session at the Fish Factory in Willesden, West London. Despite its improvisational nature, their pieces feel meticulously composed.

Whilst they are yet to unveil more details about an upcoming second album, Qwalia have just released their latest sonic masterpiece, ‘Omega’, through Albert’s Favourites. As the press release describes, the new single “is the very definition of a slow burn, emerging from the quiet pulses of a drum machine, the band lock quickly into Ben Reed’s lyrical bass line in a brooding but ever expanding ascent that you feel could confidently journey onwards forever”. Listen to it below.