If you haven’t yet lent your ears to AL-‘AN ! الآن (And your night is your shadow — a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams), the new album from Oiseaux-Tempête, you are missing out. Released earlier this month, the record is the third and closing part of a trilogy preceded by 2013’s eponymous album and 2015’s ÜTOPIYA?. In support of the release, the French band are hitting the road today for a tour across France and Belgium.
Coinciding with it, Oiseaux-Tempête have unveiled a video for a new single from the album, the eerily enigmatic and entrancing ‘Bab Sharqi’, directed by Human Pattern. Check it out below.
AL-‘AN ! الآن (And your night is your shadow — a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams) is out now via Sub Rosa.
Toulouse’s Aquaserge are something very special and we simply can’t put down their recently released album Laisse ça être. On the back of it, the quintet have shared a video for the album’s track ‘L’ire est au rendez-vous’. The track takes its name “from one of the first coded messages used by the French Resistance”, explains the press release, “who broadcast them via the BBC as signals for triggering clandestine actions (most famously just prior to the Normandy landings)”. Engaged in a reckoning of the current state of things in France and also worldwide, the lyrics translate these “into obscure, poetical lines, as if they were bottled messages sent to whoever is intent on resisting”. Here’s the video.
We’re getting excitingly close to the release of Halo, the new album from Juana Molina, following her 2013 Wed 21. After sharing a marvellous teaser video and the bewitching first single ‘Cosoco’, the Argentinian artist is offering another taste from the upcoming album, the eerily enchanting ‘Lentísimo Halo’. The song comes paired with a stunning short film directed by Mariano Ramis. Speaking about it, Ramis had this to say:
“I wanted the video to be an experience of beauty which illustrates the song, a portrait of the intimacy of Juana’s mind in that beautiful and strange house in which she lives. We shared several ideas, Juana told me something about the way glowing bones are related to the mythical ¨luz mala¨ in the deep night outside the city, I was quite familiar with those stories as a kid, so I connected a lot with that, it was very stimulating process, Robert Wyatt, Juan José Saer, symbolistic painting, structural cinema, there is a little of all that also.
The video is made with a very complex and laborious animation technique (involving an inkjet printer, laser film paper and soy sauce), which provides random accuracy in the detail of each frame. This randomness extracted from meticulousness allowed me to end up believing that what I was doing may make some sense.”
Watch the video below and make sure you grab Halo when it drops on May 5th via Crammed Discs.
In other related good news, and in support of the album, Molina has announced a string of European live dates in June, including a show in London on June 19th at Moth Club. Head over here for all her stops and more info.
Eight long years after Do Make Say Think released Other Truths, the Canadian post-rockers are back with a new album, Stubborn Persistent Illusions, influenced by a short Bhuddist poem about boundlessness and recurrence.
They’ve first teased the record last month with two magically bonded tracks, ‘Bound’ ‘And Boundless’. In anticipation of the album’s release on May 18th via Constellation, Do Make Say Think are sharing the beautiful, gentle and enthralling ‘Her Eyes On The Horizon’. Give it a listen now.
We’re only a week away from the release of Mercury Fountain, the new mini-album from Brighton’s The Physics House Band. The trio of Sam Organ, Adam Hutchison and Dave Morgan had previously shared the mighty single ‘Calypso’, and now they are offering another taste from Mercury Fountain, the fierce and unrelenting ‘Obidant’. The single “is about taking violent journey into the tumultuous and insane furthest reaches of the mind”, explained the band’s Adam Hutchison. “The rhythms are all over the place, it’s at breakneck speed, and the violin solo (courtesy of Raven Bush) mixed with the drum freakout is probably the craziest thing we’ve ever written.”
Ennanga Vision, the new project from London producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Jesse Hackett, are gearing up to release their self-titled debut album on June 2nd through Soundway Records. Stemming from a trip to Uganda, Ennanga Vision features collaborations, including multi-instrumentalist and singer Albert Ssempeke and singing legend Otim Alpha.
Following on from the infectiously joyful first single ‘Otim’s War’ shared last month, Ennanga Vision are offering another jubilant taste from the album caled ‘Like A Football’. Featuring celebrated Northern Ugandan artist and producer Twongweno, the track “is a surreal hommage to the international football legends Twongweno aspires to write specially commissioned prayer songs for transformed in to a serenade to a girl”, as the album’s accompanying blurb describes. ‘Like A Football’ already put us in the mood for summer. Here it is.
If you haven’t yet lent your ears to AL-‘AN ! الآن (And your night is your shadow — a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams), the new album from Oiseaux-Tempête, you are missing out. Released earlier this month, the record is the third and closing part of a trilogy preceded by 2013’s eponymous album and 2015’s ÜTOPIYA?. In support of the release, the French band are hitting the road today for a tour across France and Belgium. 
