Listen to Joy Guidry’s first single, ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’, off forthcoming album AMEN

24 February 2024

Photo: Nykelle Devivo

Gifted bassoonist and composer Joy Guidry has announced the follow up to last years’s Radical Acceptance. Entitled AMEN, their upcoming album will see the light of day on May 10th through Whited Sepulchre Records. “I wanted to give a voice and give power and provide community to the people I love and truly care for on this record by tackling songs and challenging myself,” Guidry said. “I knew I got the right people, the right community to drive it home, to take my ideas and really bring it together.” They continue:

“In AMEN there is a lot experimentation with different forms of Black American music. I wanted to lean heavily on my Texas, Louisiana and Creole roots in this project. There were many days spent with my ancestors during the writing of this album and I’m eternally grateful for the music they sang to me during our time together. I’m excited for y’all to hear this project that experiments with gospel, jazz, ambient and the blues on May 10th.”

Alongside the album news, Guidry has shared the first single ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’, a poignant tribute to jazz luminaire Max Roach, celebrating his centennial birthday. Soul-stirring and soul-soothing, ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’ is after your ears.

Jim White to release debut album, All Hits: Memories, next month; listen to new single ‘Marketplace’

23 February 2024

Prolific and virtuoso drummer Jim White is treating us to his debut solo album next month. His 30-plus year career spans bands like Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, Xylouris White and Springtime and White has also performed and recorded with a ton of other artists and bands like Marisa Anderson, Jessica Moss, Daniel Blumberg, PJ Harvey, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Cat Power, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Nina Nastasia, and Bill Callahan, to name but a few. His footprint in the music world is humongous but as a solo artist, White is now releasing his debut album under his own name.

Entitled All Hits: Memories, the records arrives on March 29th through Drag City. After sharing lead single ‘Names Make the Name’, White has unveiled a new single from the album called ‘Marketplace”. Speaking about the track, he comments:

“‘Marketplace’ emulates the sound and energy of the Saturday morning Victoria Market in North Melbourne. All kinds of people, boxes, trucks, yelling, chickens, fish, vegetables, bakers, donuts, and musicking, flowing through all the other markets.”

‘Marketplace’ has been paired with a video made by Anna White, and you can watch it below.

Laetitia Sadier’s new solo album, Rooting for Love, out today

23 February 2024

Today sees the release of Laetitia Sadier‘s new album, Rooting for Love, through Duophonic Super 45s and Drag City.  Her first solo album in seven years, on Rooting for Love she “continues her journey of the self through time, space and collective consciousness”, as the album’s accompanying blurb describes.

Following ‘Une Autre Attente’ and ‘Panser L’inacceptable’, ‘Who + What’ is the latest single to emerge from the album, and is intended as “transformational sonic balm to aid the evolution of Earth’s traumatized civilizations”. Take a listen below.

An Alien Called Harmony announce debut self-titled EP and share first single ‘Ruminations’

22 February 2024

Photo: Sophie Jouvenaar

Drummer, composer and vocalist Momoko Gill and visual artist, filmmaker and poet Nadeem Din-Gabisi have both been an integral and highly respected part of the London’s thriving jazz and hip-hop scenes. The pair have teamed up for a new project called An Alien Called Harmony and a self-titled EP is the first fruit of this collaboration. Their debut EP, as the press release describes, “holds a mirror up to the realities of mortality and conflict, forging a hybrid sound defined by sonic playfulness, spontaneous improvisation and just a little philosophical questioning”.

The EP arrives on March 15th through New Soil x Total Refreshment Centre and for a taste of what’s to come, the pair have shared the bewitching ‘Ruminations’ as the first single. In their own words, the track is “a lush, airy fever dream, reflecting on the gap between what we intend to communicate and how it is received”. The single comes with a visualiser and you can watch below.

clipping.’s cover of J-Kwon’s ‘Tipsy’ out now

22 February 2024

Oh hell yes! clipping. have released a blistering banger. Back in 2020, the West Coast experimental hip hop trio of Daveed Diggs, William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes had covered J-Kwon’s 2004 hit ‘Tipsy’, “one of the greatest party rap songs of all time,” as clipping. puts it. “We could never make a beat as hard as the original, so we took our version in another direction — something like if Skinny Puppy had somehow remixed it in the late 1980s.” Now their take has been officially released on a 7″ split single through Sub Pop Records. It also features Cooling Prongs’s cover of Ice-T’s ‘Midnight’ on the B side.

Listen to ‘Tipsy’ below, you’ll be playing it again the second it ends.

Listen to Forest Law’s first new music in four years, ‘Ooo, I’

21 February 2024

London based singer and multi-instrumentalist Forest Law has shared his first new music in four years in the shape of new single ‘Ooo, I’. The track is also the first release from a special new collaboration between Swiss based label Bongo Joe and London’s Total Refreshment Centre. Forest Law, who wrote the single in a converted fish net factory in Iceland, comments:

“’Ooo, I’ was the first piece of music that came out of me during an artist’s residency at the LungA school in Iceland. I put together a makeshift studio overlooking a fjord which got zero sunlight from November to February. Unavoidable inspiration.”

A perfect slice of what to expect from his yet to be announced new album, the catchy melodies and infectious grooves of ‘Ooo, I’ will make you wanna dance.