Right in time for the incoming festivities, Maurice Louca has gifted us with a buoyant banger. The immeasurably talented and adventurous composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer unleashed yesterday a brand new single called ‘El Gawhara’. Uplifting, ebullient and kaleidoscopic, ‘El Gawhara’ features Tarek Elshbah on drums, Ayman Asfour on violin, Rosa Brunello on bass and Louca himself on microtonal guitar. An end of year treat, behold!
Last month, Australian-born, Berlin-based drummer and percussionist Eilis Frawley announced the release of Fall Forward, her debut album, and alongside the news she had shared the title track as the first single. Now, and ahead of the album’s release on March 7th through Sinnbus, Frawley has dropped a second single called ‘Be A Lady’, which offers a subtle yet impactful commentary on outdated and sexist language. ‘Be A Lady’ features backing vocals by Kat Frankie and you can listen to it below.
ECHT! swept us off our feet with their debut EP, DOUF, released in 2019, and both albums that followed it, 2021’s Inwane and 2023’s Sink-Along completely blew our minds. So we’re obviously buzzing with today’s announcement of an incoming third full-lengh album. Entitled Boilerism, the new album sees the Brussels based futuristic quartet explore genres like acid, drum & bass, footwork, and UK garage, all while diving into faster tempos. Described as both a celebration and a reinvention, Boilerism is “an ode to club culture, to the energy of live music, and to the thrill of experimentation.”
We’ll have to wait un March 7th for the album to be out through Sdban Ultra but there’s already good reasons to be excited with the heady and intoxicating ‘Highed’, the first single unveiled today. Pulsing with “pounding rhythms, unexpected drops, exhilarating twists, and relentless energy”, ‘Highed’ captures the euphoria and mind-altering rush of a rave. Take a listen now.
Photo: Léo Alestro
February 14th will see the release of Jean-Claude Vannier‘s new album Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines (Jean Claude Vannier and his mandolin orchestra), a record created as the soundtrack to a non-existent silent film. The French musician, composer and arranger had already shared the tender and heartfelt ‘Perdue dans la cité (Lost in the city)’ and the charming ‘Comme les enfants savent aimer’ and today he’s sharing a new single called ‘La 2CV rouillée (The rusty 2CV)’. Of the track, he says:
“I’ve always dreamed of writing for a mandolin orchestra – the instrument’s tremors seemed apt to expose romantic and sentimental melodies. It brings back old memories.
On Sundays, my father used to take us to the countryside in his 2cv.
It’s a funny car, with the slightest change in speed, a flick of the brake or the gas pedal, and it rocks like a duck on the water.
During these drives, I was unable to see the landscape because I was seasick.
My father was an inventor, and had come up with a rudimentary air bag that went off at the slightest jolt.
Those rides in the countryside were a nightmare for me, and I now avoid trips in the 2CV…”
Listen to ‘La 2CV rouillée (The rusty 2CV)’ below and grab the album when it drops on February 14th through Ipecac.
Photo: Jamie Kelter Davis
A seminal figure in Chicago’s underground music scenes, artist, educator, musician, deejay, and vocalist Damon Locks has been leading and involved in various projects since the late 1980s, including Trenchmouth, The Eternals, Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, Black Monument Ensemble and collaborated with artists such as Nicole Mitchell and Ben LaMar Gay, amongst many more. A man of many talents and disciplines, Locks has in recent years expanded his creative work across different media, including sound/animation projects with unreleased Sun Ra recordings, collaborations with dancers and choreographers, and residencies at The New Quorum in New Orleans. He has also worked with incarcerated artists for the Prison and Neighborhood Arts Project, produced album artwork for International Anthem label mates like Makaya McCraven or Irreversible Entanglements, and worked on numerous interdisciplinary projects.
List of Demands is his latest work, a longplayer which for the first time is completely based off his poetry and texts, whilst still retaining his signature collage style. As is so often the case for Locks’ work, on List of Demands we find him “projecting an ecstatic positivity via his nuanced grasp of reality, and lucidly articulating the ever-evasive concept of what could be”, as the press release describes.
The album sprouted from an invitation by Experimental Sound Studio to create a piece for an exhibition. Later Locks was encouraged by ESS’s Alex Inglizian to expand it into a full recording, and he enlisted regular collaborators including cornetist Ben LaMar Gay, violinist Macie Stewart, poet Krista Franklin, and turntablist / drummer Ralph Darden (aka DJ Major Taylor) to help bring the album to life. Despite their contributions, List of Demands remains a deeply personal work, described as “arguably the most Damon Locks Damon Locks record to date, with his depth of experience as a mic controller on full display, as his voice soars above a strikingly melodic cadence of carefully chosen archival samples.”
The album’s title stems from Locks’ work in Stateville Correctional Center with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project. “In the summer of 2023 I taught a class where we developed a document that stated the desires of the incarcerated artists in the group,” he explains. The group then spent a summer creating the Artist Constitution, a document outlining their beliefs, aspirations, and demands, which was later distributed outside the prison. “List of Demands is not just my list,” said Locks. “The list is in conveyance, in response, and in honour of all of those great Black speakers that turned a phrase to generate movement and change. It owes as much to Rammellzee, Fred Moten and Sun Ra’s oratory excellence as it does to Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis, to Michael Smith and Linton Kwesi Johnson (across the pond), to Ruby Dee’s spoken recordings, and to others too numerous to mention.”
We’ll have to wait until January 31st for List of Demands to be out through International Anthem but can already get an exhilarating taste of what’s to come with the album’s lead single ‘Click’. Here it is.
Following the radiant and energized ‘Roda’, TUKAN are teasing their upcoming album with a second riveting and pulsating single called ‘Pluck’. The track is lifted from Human Drift, the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2022 debut Atoll. Outlined by a gentle progression and enveloping textures, as the press release describes, on the new track the Brussels based outfit “explore the space between movement and stillness, capturing a suspended moment in the flow of the album.”
Listen to ‘Pluck’ below and watch out for the release of Human Drift on January 24th through Magma.