Following duo improvised performances and screenings in Cairo and Beirut, and other showcases for Rencontres d’Arles, the Lille photography center, and Halogénure magazine, Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête) and Grégory Dargent (H) joined forces with Tony Elieh (Karkhana) and Wassim Halal (Polyphème). As a quartet, Oberland, Dargent, Elieh, Halal set out on a sonic quest, “that of a neo-folklore for troubled times”, as the press release describes, “a music seeping with many kinds of atavism and experimenting in all directions”. The result is Sihr, an album birthed in a bunker studio between Paris and Berlin, weaving through “trance and contemplation, jazz and electronica, acoustics and electricity”. Slated for a May 24th release through Sub Rosa, Sihr is a ” hallucinated and generous testimony”, resonating with the echoes of our contemporary chaos.
“Oui-Ja’aa” is their inaugural and tantalizing single, offering an exhilarating glimpse into the forthcoming Sihr. Listen to it below.
Renowned and highly sought-after drummer Jharis Yokley has collaborated and played in innumerable projects and bands over his career, from Solange and Chance the Rapper to Ani DiFranco and DJ Premier. As a solo artist, he is gearing up to release the first recording under his own name. Entitled Sometimes, Late At Night, the record captures Yokley’s playful, versatile and energetic approach to music. Inspired by personal experiences, particularly a breakup, Yokley explores themes of love, loss, and self-discovery throughout the album’s 10 tracks. “So, the album’s mainly about this relationship,” he explains. “It’s not like that I regret ending it, but I knew it had to happen. But reminiscing back on those times, I was wondering if I made a mistake.”
BIGYUKI, José James and Taali have all been enlisted as collaborators by Yokley who started writing Sometimes, Late At Night alone in 2020. He elaborates:
“So, obviously in March of 2020, everybody had a lot of free time.” Yokley says. “I was just in my bedroom, on my laptop making a lot of beats at the time. I was using Logic and a lot of my beats were sample-based. I would make beats with the samples and then take away the samples and try to come up with my own lyrics and melodies to these beats. Sometimes it would just be me on the keyboard picking a sound I like, or making a sound that I feel sounds cool. And then just playing around until I find a cool melody.”
A boundary-pushing album that defies categorization, Sometimes, Late At Night is a testament to Yokley’s boundless creativity and diverse musical influences, as he explains:
“I don’t really consider genre, because I love so many different genres. And I’ve played with a bunch of different artists from jazz to hip hop, to folk music, and R&B. So, all that stuff is already ingrained in my mind when I’m creating things. The music I make pulls from all the genres that I listen to and love, automatically. It wasn’t a conscious decision.”
Ahead of the album’s release on May 3rd through Rainbow Blonde Records, Yokley had previously let loose the thrilling and astounding lead single ‘Move On’. Take a listen below.
LA-based Grammy Award-winning drummer and producer Amy Aileen Wood is stepping into the spotlight with her upcoming LP, The Heartening. Known for her multifaceted talents as a composer, engineer, and multi-instrumentalist, Wood has spent years honing her craft behind the scenes, collaborating with an impressive roster of artists including Fiona Apple, St. Vincent, David Garza, The Donnies The Amys and Shirley Manson, among others.
Despite her reluctance when first approached by producer Pete Min of Colorfield Records, Wood embraced the challenge of creating her own album, guided by Min’s vision. “My motivation was entirely fear based,” she explains, “I think my first question for Pete was, ‘are you sure?’ But it’s always good to get out of your comfort zone. And ultimately it was equal parts uncomfortable and rewarding.”
Drawing inspiration from diverse musical influences, from 90s hip-hop and punk rock to artists like Floating Points and Brian Eno, The Heartening is a captivating debut paradoxically blending tranquility and frenzy. The album features guest contributions from Daphne Chen, Nicole McCabe, Wayne Whittaker, and Kelsey Wood, as well as cameo appearances from Fiona Apple, Sebastian Steinberg, and John Would.
The Heartening arrives on April 29th through Colorfield Records and we can already hear the lead single ‘Rolling Stops’. Of the track, Wood says:
“”Rolling Stops” captures raw, playful performances in a stream of consciousness. It began with a drum take, shaped and slowed down by producer Pete Min, setting the tone. I then added layers of percussion and Kalimba. Inviting friends Fiona Apple, Sebastian Steinberg, Wayne Whittaker, and Nicole McCabe to contribute unfiltered, spontaneous takes propelled this musical exploration to new heights.”
Sublime, unfettered and pulsating, ‘Rolling Stops’ is after your ears.
There’s a new album on the way from virtuoso saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Kamasi Washington. Entitled Fearless Movement, Kamasi calls it his dance album. “It’s not literal,” he says. “Dance is movement and expression, and in a way it’s the same thing as music—expressing your spirit through your body. That’s what this album is pushing.” Fearless Movement marks a shift in Washington’s musical journey, with fatherhod also prompting a deeper exploration of the everyday aspects of life. He comments:
“Being a father means the horizon of your life all of a sudden shows up. My mortality became more apparent to me, but also my immortality—realizing that my daughter is going to live on and see things that I’m never going to see. I had to become comfortable with this, and that affected the music that I was making.”
The upcoming Fearless Movement features Washington’s daughter as well as a stellar lineup of collaborators including André 3000, Thundercat, George Clinton, Terrace Martin, Patrice Quinn, Brandon Coleman, BJ The Chicago Kid, D-Smoke and twins Taj and Ras Austin of Coast Contra, among others.
We’ll have to wait until May 3rd for the album to be out through Young but we can already hear the exhilarating and electrifying lead single ‘Prologue’. The track comes with an accompanying video directed by AG Rojas and choreographed by Samantha Blake Goodman, and you can watch it below.
After nearly a decade-long hiatus, London-based four-piece Adult Jazz made a triumphant return in January unleashing ‘Dusk Song’, a track full of brooding beauty. Today, the quartet of Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe announced the release of So Sorry So Slow, their eagerly awaited full-length album. Described as containing some of their “most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date”, So Sorry So Slow encapsulates a spectrum of emotions including “romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love.” Imbued with a sense of urgency and introspection, the upcoming record intertwines personal narratives with ecological concerns.
So Sorry So Slow was recorded over several years across various studios in London and also in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex. Speaking about it, Harry Burgess says:
“We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018. We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.”
Against a backdrop of ecological uncertainty, the album’s themes emphasize the importance of love, both for the earth and for each other. “Once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret”, Burgess explained. He continues:
“Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together – even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. “
The album will see the light of day on April 26th through Spare Thought and ahead of it, Adult Jazz have shared a new single called ‘Suffer One’, featuring a string arrangement by Owen Pallett. Of the track, the band says:
“We recorded the cello and guitar together at Konk, with no-metronome, to get a loose shifting rhythm – then spent time adding splashes of other things in the studio. The final stage was Owen Pallett’s string arrangement, and viola + violin playing. We’ve been listening to Owen’s music since we were 15, and have always admired their songwriting so we were incredibly honoured they were up for it. The strings lent this final surge of energy that helped us feel it was done.
The song itself is about romance and seeking connection- and the sometimes terror baked into that. It was one of the earlier tracks the lyrics were completed on, and it ends with a bit of pathetic fallacy indulgence, which I think in hindsight teed up a lot of the conflation of the personal with the ecological in the rest of the record.”
With its lush instrumentation and heartfelt lyrics, ‘Suffer One’ is a powerful and poignant track cementing Adult Jazz’s status as one of the most incredible and innovative bands in contemporary music. Listen to it below.
Wonderful news from one of our favourite outfits, Catalan high-energy duo ZA!. They have joined forces with Andalusian Flamenco singer Perrate for a collaborative album. Entitled Jolifanto, it is a meeting of minds between two powerful musical forces from distante corners of Spain, who embrace experimentalism and radicalism. Rooted in the Dadaist spirit, Jolifanto takes its name from Hugo Ball’s seminal phonetic poem Karawane, which was first recited at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916.
Jolifanto arrives on March 22nd through Lovemonk and they have unleashed a new single called ‘La Milonga’. Epitomizing the bold fusion they have in store for us, ‘La Milonga’ begins with Perrate’s raw and stripped-back vocals and guitar before seamlessly transitioning into a vocoder-laden exploration, aptly described as “an Iberian Lemon Jelly for the enlightened”. Perrate comments:
“I don’t care what the most radical traditionalist minds may think of this or any other work I do. This is my time and I intend to live it according to my way of feeling and living flamenco – my ancestors had a lot to do with the birth of this culture, and each of them created according to their feelings and their time. And I do the same.”
