Category Archives: Blog

Kid Millions and Jan St. Werner announce debut collaborative album Imperium Droop

19 March 2021

We love drummer extraordinaire and all-round genius multi-instrumentalist and composer John Colpitts aka Kid Millions (Man Forever, Oneida) and we love electronic veteran musician and producer Jan St. Werner, a sound innovator known for a plethora of solo compositions and collaborative projects and as one half of German avant-garde electronic duo Mouse On Mars. So we couldn’t be more excited to learn of a collaboration between Kid Millions and Jan St. Werner, who have just announced Imperium Droop, their debut album as a duo. Described as “continuation of an ongoing musical dialogue between the two musicians”, the album picks up from where Millions and Werner left off in 2016 when Werner invited Millions to perform an interpretation of his Felder album in a series of curated live dates. A unique concert took place at Oneida’s practice space with just one person in the audience – songwriter Helado Negro. Millions and Werner planned to follow that concert with an ongoing series of recorded collaborations between them and ended up building an archive of recorded material that led to Imperium Droop.

Featuring guests contributions from Mats Gustafsson, Andrew Barker, and Richard Hoffman, the album is also described as “an incomparable work of gripping and intrepid sonic fluctuations”.

We’ll have to wait until June 25th for Imperium Droop to be out through Thrill Jockey but we can already get an exhilarating first taste from it with closing track ‘Sorrows and Compensations’. Here it is.

Buffet Lunch set to release debut album The Power of Rocks in May

18 March 2021

Photo: Owen Godbert

Scottish band Buffet Lunch have have unveiled the details surrounding their debut album, The Power of Rocks. The quartet of Perry O’Bray (Vocals/Keys/Guitar), Neil Robinson (Bass), John Muir (Lead Guitar) and Luke Moran (Drums) have been active for a few years, firm on their “their mission to craft satisfyingly imperfect pop songs filled with imagery and humour”. The album is anchored by broad and personal themes, as the press release describes, “from irritation with out of touch politicians, to love letters to seaside living, to even the frailty and confusion of old age.”

The Power Of Rocks comes out on May 7th through Upset The Rhythm and the band have already teased it with two quirky, playful and addictive singles, ‘Pebbledash’ and ‘Red Apple Happiness’. Both tracks are offered with a video accompaniment, ‘Pebbledash’ was created by the band’s own Perry O’Bray and the latter was made by Iain McCall.

Lisel and Booker Stardrum team up for debut collaborative album Mycelial Echo

17 March 2021

Photo: Lisel by Gregory Wikstrom / Booker Stardrum by Brian Guido

Drumming wizard, improviser and composer Booker Stardrum and singer, producer, and experimental artist Eliza Bagg aka Lisel⁠ have joined forces for a debut album entitled Mycelial Echo. Crafted remotely over a six week period, the album is closely tied to other artistic projects. Half of the music was written for an opera about trees⁠ set to be presented in a virtual reality installation this year and the other half was composed for The Vanishing Point, a 25-minute music and dance piece commissioned by National Sawdust. The piece was made with dancer/choreographer Gwendolyn Gussman and conceived as video art.

The press release elaborates on Bagg and Stardrum’s collaboration:

“Lisel’s manipulated vocal samples, processed vocal improvisations, and patterns built from extended techniques are combined with Stardrum’s complex sequences, organic percussion, and synths to create a portrayal of our relationship to the natural world that is both tactile, sensorial, and seen from a distance.”

Preceding Mycelial Echo‘s release on April 9th through Luminelle Recordings, the pair shared two riveting and celestial tracks,  ‘In The Dome’ and ‘I Am Not Ready To Go’.  ‘In The Dome’ comes paired a video directed by Bagg herself and featured Gwendolyn Gussman.


Manslaughter 777’s debut album World Vision Perfect Harmony incoming next week

17 March 2021

Photo: Zachary Harrell Jones

Earlier this year we were thrilled to learn about the storming collaboration between two of the most powerhouse drummers out there,  Lee Buford (The Body) and Zac Jones (Braveyoung/MSC).  Under the name Manslaughter 777, the duo are set to release their debut album, World Vision Perfect Harmony, later this month. Sharing an interest in electronic music and soundsystem culture,  on the upcoming record “Buford and Jones blend bracing and imaginative takes on rhythmic-centric forms from dub, breakbeats, hip hop and beyond for a phantasmagoria of bristling drumscapes”, as the press release explains.

Manslaughter 777 had already previewed the album with the fierce and entrancing ‘Do You Know Who Loves You’. The track comes with a video by Alex Lee. Check it out.

World Vision Perfect Harmony is out on March 26th through Thrill Jockey

Fire!’s new full-length album, Defeat, out now

16 March 2021

Photo: Johan Bergmark

Swedish supergroup Fire! released last month their new album Defeat. Despite the fatalistic title, the album finds the core trio of reeds player Mats Gustafsson, bass player Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin “still honoring their 12 year old vow of presenting a fresh approach to improvised music.” Unlike previous efforts where the tenor saxophone and the bass saxophone played a prominent role, on Defeat Gustafsson elected the flute as his primary instrument.

For a taster of what´s on offer, listen to the album track ‘Defeat (Only Further Apart)’ below.

Defeat is out now through Rune Grammofon.

Lea Bertucci announces new album A Visible Length Of Light

16 March 2021

Photo: Colin Conces

Following last year’s Acoustic Shadows, Lea Bertucci is gearing up to release a new album this Spring. Entitled A Visible Length Of Light, the album features field recordings made in places like Rio de Janeiro, the California coast, and Dead Horse Bay and saw the New York-based composer, performer and sound designer use a number of instruments, including bass clarinet, alto sax, manipulated tape, organ and a venu wooden flute.
According to the press release, A Visible Length Of Light “channel[s] temperaments of dislocation and wanderlust, filtered through impressions of distinctly American landscapes – coasts, cities, prairie – and the sonic material of everyday experience, defamiliarized by crisis.”

The album marks the relaunch of Bertucci’s own Cibachrome Editions and it promises to be “one of her most pointedly melodic, harmonically rich, and structurally distinct efforts to date.”

‘On Opposite Sides of Sleep’ serves as the first taste from the album and is offered with an accompanying film by Fern Silva. Here it is.

A Visible Length Of Light is out on April 16th through Cibachrome Editions.