Category Archives: Blog

Levitation Orchestra unveil new live video for ‘Spiral (Die, Die, Die)’

28 February 2023

London based jazz collective Levitation Orchestra have shared a live video for ‘Spiral (Die, Die, Die)’ from their performance at the EFG London Jazz Festival in 2021, featuring dancers Caterina Danzico and Moses Ward. The track is lifted from their second album Illusions And Realities, also released in 2021 through Gearbox Records. Of the show and video, trumpeter and musical director Axel Kaner-Lidstrom comments:

““Spiral” is a darker shade of Levitation Orchestra. We revel in its intensity and enjoy the chance to combine precision and discipline, with the absurd. We are so grateful that we found collaborators in the form of movement artists, Moses and Caterina who have captured this perfectly.”

Watch the live video below.

Erik Hall’s new album, Simeon Ten Holt: Canto Ostinato, out today

24 February 2023

Today sees the release of Erik Hall‘s Canto Ostinato, the second album in his trilogy of reinterpretations of classical minimalism. A magnificent and radiant album, it finds the Chicago-born and Michigan-based musician and producer reinterpreting to dazzling effect the iconic minimal composition written for four pianos from 1976 to 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt. Comprising 106 short sections, Canto Ostinato lends itself to repetition as most of the sections can be repeated spontaneously as many times as a performer wants. “There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a long-form piece that’s built on repetition,” Hall explained. “Every stage— from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record— requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I’ve always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive.”

As for instrumentation, Hall chose to perform on a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his 1910 Steinway grand piano. “This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven’t maintained in earnest since I was a teenager”, he said.

Canto Ostinato is out through Western Vinyl and for a bewitching taste of what’s on offer, listen to ‘Sections 74-87’ below.

Watch Aksak Maboul’s video for new single ‘Zone Blanche’

23 February 2023

Following the bewildering ‘Talking with the Birds’, Aksak Maboul are offering a new preview of their album Une aventure de VV (Songspiel) in the form of an enigmatic and magnetic new track called ‘Zone Blanche’. Like an experimental audio play, the album saw the band devising characters and stories over a continuous suite of fifteen pieces. The band shared some insight into the track:

“In ‘Zone Blanche’ the protagonist VV (who, in the previous song, has just shattered an ominous wall with the help of a woman, played by Laetitia Sadier) is entering a ‘dead zone’ which doesn’t appear on the maps. She wanders in the zone, followed by her shadow, played by Don The Tiger. They’re chanting together, until the shadow breaks away and launches into a soulful invocation in Spanish.”

‘Zone Blanche’ comes accompanied by a video filmed by Véronique Vincent and edited by Silva Baldan. Watch it below.

Une aventure de VV (Songspiel) is out on March 3rd though Crammed Discs

Mark Guiliana shares brand new single ‘Mischief’

22 February 2023

A brand new track from brilliant drummer and composer Mark Guiliana has emerged last week. A standalone track titled ‘Mischief’, it comes on the heels of Guiliana’s critically acclaimed the sound of listening and was originally recorded during the same sessions but it’s very much its own thing. Luckily for us, Edition Records decided to put this epic 10-minute long odyssey into the world. ‘Mischief’ features longtime collaborators Jason Rigby, Chris Morrissey and Shai Maestro and is a testament to the ease and spontaneity with which these artists make music. Take a listen below.

Sergio Díaz De Rojas previews upcoming album with fourth single ‘El gato escondido entre las plantas’

21 February 2023

The Muerte en una tarde de verano, the long-awaited new album from Sergio Díaz De Rojas is finally nearing its release date, and he had already enticed us with three sublime singles, ‘Maracuyá / Barranco’, ‘Canción para Otto y Elsa’ and ‘Holding her is where I learned forgiveness’. The Valencia based Peruvian pianist and composer has now shared a fourth single, ‘El gato escondido entre las plantas’, a moving and enchanting track. Sergio explained the inspiration behind it:

“Cats are my favorite animals so it only felt natural to dedicate a small fragment from this album to them. I imagine myself sitting in our garden, falling asleep slowly as I observe our cat playing and hiding behind the plants. Once again, as with the album’s opening track, the outro appears with its sense of aural fading and decay — death is imminent.”

‘El gato escondido entre las plantas’ is offered with a video directed by Tiago Almança and you can watch it below.

The Muerte en una tarde de verano is out on March 10th through Nettwerk.

Listen to Neil Cowley’s new single ‘Arkansas’

19 February 2023

Last month Neil Cowley enticed us with the sublime and striking single called ‘Ticker Tape’, taken from his new full-length album Battery Life. Ahead of its release on March 24th, Cowley is teasing the album again with a gorgeous and poignant new single called ‘Arkansas’. In a statement, he shared some thoughts:

“Much of source material for my new album was centred around my mothers diaries, my reluctance to read them and their potential for changing my recollection of key moments in my early life. I then pondered on the fragility of an archive and our current obsession in recording absolutely everything. I try to enjoy every moment as it happens wherever possible rather than worrying about perpetuity. Archiving everything is a sure way of missing the magic of the moment. This piece is centred around the fragile nature of memory.”

Wrap your ears around ‘Arkansas’ now.