Watch the gorgeous new video for Valery Gore‘s ‘Hummingbird In Reverse’, taken from her recently released third album, Idols In The Dark Heart.
Category Archives: Blog
Troyka’s third album, Ornithophobia, out in January
Guitarist Chris Montague, keyboard player Kit Downes and drummer Josh Blackmore make up the experimental jazz trio Troyka. With two fantastic and ambitious records under their belt, they’ve have announced the release of their third studio album aptly named Ornithophobia, after guitarist Chris’ real fear of birds. Its title track paved the way for the whole album, which is set in a fictionalised London according to the press release, “a post-apocalyptic dystopian nightmare in which people have contracted a form of avian flu that is slowly turning them into human-size birds and gradually making them lose their minds”. Quoting influences like Tim Berne, Aphex Twin, Deerhoof, Albert King and Flying Lotus, Troyka push boundaries creating a unique world of their own that is both accessible yet unpredictable, warm yet dark, subtle yet groovy.
Ornithophobia arrives on January 26th via Naim Jazz. Here’s an album teaser to get you excited for this release.
Last Ex’s eponymous debut album
Montreal-Hull-Ottawa instrumental duo Last Ex are one of the most recent additions to the evermore impressive Constellation roster. Simon Trottier and Olivier Fairfield, the core members of Timber Timbre, are the pair behind the project. Last Ex, seeded from the 2013 horror film The Last Exorcism Part II for which they wrote the score, sees them bring “their obsessions with sound collage, tape-based music concrète and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to bear on the cinematic lyricism of the initial widescreen guitar- and string-based material”, as the press release explains.
Their self-titled debut album, out for three weeks now, combines these elements with other influences and genres within the experimental realm, krautrock, ambience and post-rock, making it “a vivid, concise and expressive instrumental album that sits snugly between fellow label acts Do Make Say Think and Exhaust on the one hand, Hrsta, Tindersticks and Evangelista on the other”.
Here’s the two excellent singles previously released, ‘Hotel Blues’, and ‘Girl Seizure’, the latter in the form of a video animation made by filmmaker Gabriel Mangold. Enjoy.
Last Ex is out now via Constellation.
LoneLady drops new single ‘Groove It Out’
On a grey rainy day like today, LoneLady AKA Julie Campbell’s new single ‘Groove It Out’ is the perfect funky and dancy tune to blow away the gloomy weekday blues. LoneLady hadn’t released any solo material since her 2010 debut album Nerve Up but she’s been busy contributing guitar and vocals to other artists and albums. The new single is set to be released on 12” and digitally on November 17th via Warp. A full-length album, recorded in an industrial region in the US using an 8-track tape recorder, will follow in 2015. Here’s what Campbell said about it:
“I travelled there in October ’13 and again during the ‘Polar Vortex’ freeze that descended on the States in January ’14. Both trips were real adventures, injecting the final phase of album making with a renewed energy.
I found it a totally sympathetic environment to be in and found a shared aesthetic in Bill (Skibbe, co-producer); I knew he’d sensitively aid the finishing of the songs and not impose on or disrupt their character. We’d often dig out Youtube clips for the other to enjoy; these exchanges included ‘Sharevari’ at The Scene, George Clinton’s ‘Loopzilla’, John Carpenter’s ‘Assault On Precinct 13’ and many more.”
Now listen to ‘Groove It Out’.
Zun Zun Egui share first track from upcoming somophore album
Almost five years ago to the day, I was lucky to be at one of the most frantic, mad and incredible live shows I’d ever been to. Playing a support slot at The Luminaire, Bristol based quartet Zun Zun Egui stole the show beginning with lead singer and guitarist Kushal Gaya out of the blue breaking out into a bonkers multilingual tribal chanting right in the middle of the audience. From there, they’ve won everyone over with their fast-paced tropical and funky wall of sound.
We’ve been keeping tabs on what they’ve been up to ever since, and Zun Zun Egui have just announced the release of Shackle’s Gift. which follows their 2011 debut Katang. The album. recorded in London and produced by Fuck Button’s Andrew Hung, drops on January 26th via Bella Union.
Kushal described Shackle’s Gift as a “British rock record made by a British group” and the first track to be unveiled, ‘I Want You to Know’, serves as a taste off it. Here it is.
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey premiere animated video for ‘Bounce’ and ‘Betamax’
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey‘s 26th album, Worker, dropped earlier this month. The now trio have shared an animated video for two tracks from the album, ‘Bounce’ and ‘Betamax’, conceived and animated by Joe Cappa. Watch it below.
Worker is out now via Royal Potato Family.
