We had already heard and loved ‘Diorama’, the first single lifted from Booker Stardrum‘s Crater, his much anticipated third album. As we get closer to the album release on July 2nd through NNA Tapes, the drumming wizard, improviser and composer has let loose another wild cut from the album called ‘Bend’, featuring Jaimie Branch. Speaking about the song, Stardrum said:
“I titled this one ‘Bend’ after my natural relationship to pulse and rhythm, an elastic flow state that I strive to achieve in my playing. I love the feeling of stretching time in and out of groove, stumbling, and snapping back into it. Playing freely is a meditation on listening and awareness, and the embodiment of flexibility. I always attempt to capture these types of moments in my recordings, then enhance them with other gestures in a similar spirit. ‘Bend’ features trumpet bending by the always inspiring Jaimie Branch.”
Hot on the heels of their latest album release, OH NO, Xiu Xiu have shared a new video for the title track. As with all the album tracks, ‘OH NO’, is yet another duet, this time bringing together singer and songwriter Jamie Stewart and Susanne Sachsse. Xiu Xiu directed the video for the song and Stewart had this to say about it:
“While recording bass parts for the song ‘Oh No’ (feat. the venerable Susanne Sachsse) with Greg Saunier and Jherek Bischoff they both kept making jokes about how the perfect video for it would be clips of people slipping on banana peels. Obviously this is a good idea. However, to my surprise there really are not that many. Numerous other fail videos come up instead. Do not drive your truck on a frozen lake, drink from a lake inhabited by crocodiles if you are a cheetah, do not do ANYTHING at all if you are under the age of 3.”
Samuel Hällkvist is no stranger to creative collaborations, having played with many phenomenal musicians and contributed to several albums across various genres, including jazz, progressive rock, country, electronic and metal. We may be a little late picking up his latest offering, ‘Sustain’, but we were clearly missing out. Previously unreleased, the track was originally recorded during the same sessions that yielded Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral, one of our Album Picks of 2020. Left out then, the composer and guitarist extraordinaire has revisited ’Sustain’, this time with Swedish singer/songwriter and producer Julia Ringdahl aka Kavi Kwai as a vocal contributor. Speaking about their collaboration, Hällkvist explained:
“The track was originally instrumental and intended to be on my album Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral but I felt like it was missing something so I had to put it aside until the right time. When I read that Kavi Kwai recommended one of my records on a blog somewhere, I thought it would be interesting to do something together since I really like what she does – that song might come in handy and get a little different direction. It quickly turned out that it was a great idea.For me, Sustain is about contemplation and not taking anything for granted, which feels very relevant for this time on so many levels.”
Ahead of the imminent release of Sunroof’s Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1, the first collection of eight improvised modular pieces from founder of Mute Daniel Miller, and legendary producer, engineer and artist Gareth Jones, who have been friends and collaborators for four decades, the pair shared a new track called ‘1.2 – 30.5.19’. As with the previous single, ‘1.2 – 30.5.19’ also comes with an accompanying video with visual direction by Jeff Courtney. Take a look.
Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 is out on May 21st on the Parallel Series of Mute.
Yann Tiersen has announced the release of a new album, the follow up to 2019’s Portrait. Entitled Kerber, it is reportedly his most electronic effort to date, indicating a further step in the direction taken in previous albums whilst also venturing into a new territory. On the upcoming album, and as the press release describes, “the piano is the source, but electronics are the environment that they exist within. Tiersen explains:
“You may get this intuitive thinking of, ‘oh it’s piano stuff’, but actually it’s not. I worked on piano tracks to begin with but that’s not the core of it, they are not important. The context is the most important thing – the piano was a precursor to create something for the electronics to work around.”
The French composer worked on the album in his studio The Eskal, an abandoned discotheque turned into studio, venue and community centre, in the island of Ushant where he lives. Kerber, as with previous albums, is steeped in the sense of place, taking its name from a chapel in a small village on the island, with each track linked to a place mapping out the immediate landscape that surrounds Ushant.
Kerber will see the light of day on August 27th through Mute and ahead of it, Tiersen will release a book of sheet music on July 20th, featuring the album’s seven pieces presented for Solo Piano, with preface by Tiersen.
‘Ker al Loch’, the first single to be let loose from the upcoming album, serves as a perfect taste for what’s to come. The single is offered with an accompanying video directed by Sam Wiehl, who had this to say about it:
“Using the abstracted geographical imagery created by Katy Ann Gilmore [the artist behind the album’s artwork] as a starting point, and further referencing the coast line of Ushant and the natural world, we created imagery (ranging from fantastical re-imagines of landscape, seas and atmospheric conditions to the processes in micro biology and chemical reaction) to capture the beauty and scale of Tiersen’s composition.”
Liars have been turning our heads for a long time, constantly taking exciting and unexpected turns from album to album. After re-emerging in 2017 as the solo project of singer and guitarist Angus Andrew, Liars released two albums since and there’s no sign of slowing down with the 10th record just announced this week. Entitled The Apple Drop, the album is a collaborative affair that saw him working with longtime favourite drummer Laurence Pike, multi-instrumentalist Cameron Deyell and lyricist Mary Pearson Andrew. “My goal was to create beyond my abilities – something bigger than myself”, commented Angus. “For the first time I embraced collaboration from an early stage, allowing the work of others to influence the work of my own.”
Speaking about the themes that sparked the album, Angus stated that “momentum and revolution were themes I wanted to explore, to give the listener this sense of transformation and to feel like you were being transported through the wormhole.” He adds:
“On each project I’ve essentially abandoned previous methods and attempted to instead learn different ways of writing and producing songs. Where once I perceived this journey as a straight line, I’m increasingly realising my trajectory is more akin to a spiral. As new ideas are generated, older ones take on new meaning and evolve further.”
The Apple Drop is set for release on August 6th through Mute and along with the announcement, Liars have shared the first single ‘Sekwar’. The track come paired with a video directed by Clemens Habicht. Watch it below.
