Category Archives: Blog

Tropical Fuck Storm set to release third album, Deep States, in August

10 July 2021

Last month Tropical Fuck Storm announced the release of Deep States, their third album following 2019’s Braindrops. The Australian four piece continues to craft killer tunes blending everything from post punk and rock to psychedelia and pop, whilst also outlining real-world issues in the socio-political context of our times. On Deep States, “the band chronicles weird adventures in statecraft and surveillance, ponders the global infatuation with resurgent fascisms”, describes the press release. “Tropical Fuck Storm shines an incandescent light on a world in which corporate media, bad-faith leaders, and charismatics of all stripes lose the ability to recognize their own deceptiveness.”

Alongside the album announcement, Tropical Fuck Storm have shared the first brilliant and blistering single ‘G.A.F.F.’, which stands for ‘Give A Fuck Fatigue’. Speaking about it, the band said:

“‘Give A Fuck Fatigue’ is an ode to the occasional dispassion brought about by the mandatory concern for every perceived injustice that happens, has happened and might yet happen that is being foisted upon the masses by super-yacht dwelling tech barons who monetise our indignation.”

‘G.A.F.F.’ is offered with a video directed by Oscar O’Shea. Here it is.


Deep States will hit stores on August 20th through Joyful Noise.

Watch Vanishing Twin’s video for ‘Big Moonlight (Ookii Gekkou)’ off upcoming album

09 July 2021

London supergroup Vanishing Twin have recently announced the release of a new album. Entitled Ookii Gekkou, the record arrives on October 15th through Fire Records. The now quartet of songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Cathy Lucas, drummer Valentina Magaletti, bassist Susumu Mukai, and synth/guitar player Phil MFU continues to push their boundaries, drawing influences from afrofunk, outer jazz and avant-garde. They cite various influential references from Sun Ra to Alice Coltrane, Martin Denny to Morricone, Can’s Holger Czukay to meditative Gamelan, or The Free Design, to library music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

The wondrous and otherworldly ‘Big Moonlight (Ookii Gekkou)’ is the first single to emerge from the upcoming album and “tells the chaotic story of rock torn away from the earth’s outer layer and its gradual falling into the patterns that give us moon phases”, as the press release describes. The track has been paired with a clay animated music video made by Daisy Dickinson.  “We asked Daisy to take the being from the cover of our album and make it move, grow, stretch, multiply and merge with other objects”, explained Vanishing Twin. “Hypnotised by the moon, the being plays in a strange landscape populated by other mysterious objects and characters.”

Watch the video below.

Gustavo Costa releases debut album Entropies and Mimetic Patterns

08 July 2021

A stalwart of the Portuguese exploratory music scene, multi-instrumentalist and composer Gustavo Costa is part of a thriving network of musicians. With stints in several bands over the last three decades, Costa has also played and collaborated with individuals such as John Zorn, Damo Suzuki and Jamie Saft, to mention but a few. The talented drummer and percussionist’s most recent venture resulted in his debut solo album, Entropies and Mimetic Patterns, releasing this month through Lovers & Lollypops and Sonoscopia. The album “alternates between percussive minimalism and primitive beats, stripped-down, without any production tricks”, as the press release describes. Throughout its eleven tracks, Costa “uses percussion to achieve the intangible and the drums to provoke pulsion, traveling in the abstract with remarkable physicality.”

As an excellent introduction to Entropies and Mimetic Patterns, lend your ears to the entrancing ‘Circles and time I’. The single is offered with a video accompaniment created by Augusto Lado. Here it is.

Jason Sharp’s third album The Turning Centre Of A Still World out next month

08 July 2021

Montréal composer, improviser and saxophonist Jason Sharp has a new album on the way entitled The Turning Centre Of A Still World. Unlike his two previous albums that saw him collaborate with guest musicians, the upcoming album is a solo effort conceived “as an interplay strictly bounded by his own body, his acoustic instrument, and his evolving bespoke electronic system”, as the press release describes. Sharp offered some insight into it:

“This music was developed and composed with the use of a customised electroacoustic interface in which I wear a heart monitor that sends signal to an array of modular synthesizers. All electronic rhythmic elements stem from my real-time human pulse, establishing a fluctuating centre that continually channels and responds to the physicality of the performance. The entire compositional process is given essential shape and colour through biofeedback; the electronics are humanized. The music is orchestrated with my bass and baritone saxophone playing, along with other methods of intentional breathing and heart-rate manipulation, to influence and interact with my electronic/synthetic materials to fulfill the arc of each composition.

In live performance, tempos and other signal-processed components of the music are different each time, directly conditioned by my visceral and emotional presence. My physicality is inherently patched into all aspects of these electroacoustic séances: concentration, vulnerability, emotion, meditation – all are at work in the performance of the music, including at a formal/structural level through biofeedback of constituent sonic materials. As synthesized sound elements shift according to fluctuations in the signal path sourced from my pulse, the performance accommodates and manipulates these responsive variables, continually re-synthesizing the synthesis. These works are always and fundamentally unique to each performed instantiation, in a connective way that encompasses audience, machine and me.”

The Turning Centre Of A Still World arrives on August 27th through Constellation and ahead of it Sharp has shared the first utterly moving ‘Everything Is Waiting For You’. The track comes with an accompanying video created by experimental filmmaker Guillaume Vallée. Watch it below.

New Herbert album, Musca, out in October

04 July 2021

Matthew Herbert has announced a third instalment in his series of domestic house albums under the name Herbert, following 2001’s Bodily Functions and 1998’s Around The House. The new album is called Musca and saw the British electronic composer collaborate remotely with eight singers, Verushka Grebenar-George, Siân Roseanna, Allie Armstrong, Bianca Rose, Melissa Uye-Parker, Daisy Godfrey, Yakoto Kieck and Joy Morgan. Musca also features six other incredible musicians, Tom Skinner, Nick Ramm, Tom Herbert, Finn Peters, Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian and Leo Taylor.

About the album, Herbert commented:

“Like presumably many other albums made during the last year, Musca reflects on navigating the challenges and joys of our most intimate relationships whilst the world is in turmoil. Not just with Covid, but with the rise in state and political violence, facebook-friendly fascism, white supremacy and a climate in crisis.”

Musca will see the light of day on October 22nd through Accidental Records and Herbert has shared a first taste from it, ‘The Way’, featuring Ghanaian-German singer Y’akoto.  ‘The Way’, describes Herbert, ‘is a surrender to the intimacy we found ourselves face to face with on a daily basis’. Listen to it below.

Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes set to release Music For Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs later this month

04 July 2021

Two prominent names in the Los Angeles’ contemporary jazz scene and in-demand collaborators, Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes released Music For Saxofone & Bass back in 2018. The pair are ready to follow it up with Music For Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs, a record featuring nine tracks from their live performance archives, including new songs and covers. Music For Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs arrives on July 21st through Leaving Records and ahead of it Gendel and Wilkes have shared ‘Cold Pocket’. Take a listen.