Category Archives: Blog

Jessica Moss announces new album, Galaxy Heart, and shares first single ‘Uncanny Being (Violin Study #2)’

03 September 2022

Brilliant and ingenious violinist, vocalist and composer Jessica Moss has announced details of a new album, Galaxy Heart, due out on Constellation on October 7th. Composed whilst in deep isolation throughout 2020, Moss’s newest long-player is a companion piece to last year’s Phosphenes. Where in Phosphenes Moss deliberately crafted post-classical compositions, on Galaxy Heart she expands her sonic palette, with the album featuring semi-improvised electric guitar and guest contributions from drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Xylouris White) and double bassist Thierry Amar (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt Zion) on some tracks.

Speaking about the album, she comments:

“This album represents me throwing out some old preconceptions of myself and my instrument, and stretching my relationship with solo expression further than I knew I could reach. And consequently, represents what feels like new doors opened, new paths forward.”

The compelling and emotive ‘Uncanny Being (Violin Study #2)’ is the first single to emerge and it features White on drums and Amar on contrabass. Of this collaboration, she says:

“Uncanny Being” is a result of distanced collaboration with two of my all-time favourite players of their instruments; Jim White and Thierry Amar. I sent them my anxious violin tracks which had their own questions, and they sent me parts back with answers I could never have expected, opening doors I could never have dreamed of. Countless hours of meticulous collage work after the fact to bring us together, until I can only hear where we met in the same uncanny space and time and I feel joyfully surrounded.”

The track comes with a video made by Moss herself and Eve Parker Finley. Watch it now.

Horse Lords tease fifth album with first single ‘Mess Mend’

03 September 2022

Baltimore experimental rock quartet Horse Lords are back with a new record entitled Comradely Objects. Two years after their last studio album, The Common Task, Andrew Bernstein, Max Eilbacher, Owen Gardner and Sam Haberman have been working on their fifth full length which will be released through RVNG Intl. this Autumn.

Comradely Objects takes its title from Christina Kiaer’s Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism. The band comments:

“The comradely object should promote collective, egalitarian ideals. They tended toward simple, unadorned forms that emphasized utility and foregrounded the material. Comradely Objects works through what this means for the material of sound, for music, for the album, and for artistic production in the 21st century.”

Described as “an alloy of erudite influences and approaches given frenetic gravity in pursuit of a united musical and political vision”, their upcoming album “presents the most sublime document yet of the band’s ongoing interrogation of aesthetic and social form, purpose, and intent, alongside note, beat, and raw sound.”

Alongside the album news, Horse Lords have shared ‘Mess Mend’, an exciting and delirious introduction to the new album. The single comes with a gorgeous hand drawn animated video directed by Karen Yasinsky.  Watch it below and watch out for the album release on November 4th.

In other related good news, Horse Lords will be presenting their new album across Europe in November. Check out the list of dates here which includes a show at Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht on November 13th, performing as part of both clipping. and Animal Collective’s curated bills.

Collisions share third single, ‘III’, ahead of album release next week

02 September 2022

Collisions‘ eagerly awaited self-titled debut album will be released on September 9th through Naïve / Believe and they have already enticed us with two singles, ‘II’ and ‘Fourth Motion’. In anticipation of the album release next week, the trio of Tom Hodge, Ciaran Morahan and Ollie Howell have shared a striking new single, ‘III’, that perfectly captures their immersive and cinematic sound world. Reportedly the ‘darkest’ track on the album, ‘III’, as the press release describes, “takes delicate piano lines and understated drums, and mixes them with low octave arpeggiated and detuned synthesisers along with harsh ring modulated guitar melodies”. The single is offered with a visualiser and you can watch it below.

Watch Kennebec’s video for new single ‘The Great Divide’ ft. Yazz Ahmed

30 August 2022

October will see the release of Without Star or Compass, the second album from Kennebec following 2020’s Departure. Speaking about the upcoming album, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Eric Phillips, the man behind the project, comments:

“The first primary influence for this record is that, more so than ‘Departure’, I wanted to write this record for my friends and others rather than for myself. Maybe it’s also a product of maturing, but I wanted the music to communicate more clearly to others, and be less of an exercise of some kind for myself.”

Without Star or Compass features Future Islands frontman Samuel T. Herring, Sudan Archives and Yazz Ahmed. Ahead of its release on October 7th through Night Times Stories, Kennebec has recently shared the spellbinding ‘The Great Divide’ feat. Yazz Ahmed. The track comes with a video accompaniment made by Kennebec and Mike Denise. Here it is.

Listen to Lori Goldston’s new single ‘Aloft’ off forthcoming new album High and Low

18 August 2022


(photo courtesy of Lori Goldston)

With her highly anticipated new album High and Low set for release on October 7th via SofaBurn, this week acclaimed and genre-bending cellist and composer Lori Goldston has shared a second single titled ‘Aloft’. It follows the first riveting single ‘The Waves and What’s Under’ and as the press release describes, the track “is Lori is at her earth-shattering strongest, literally channeling the volume-popping drones of her contemporaries Earth for a treatise unlike any other”. Take a listen now.

Sarathy Korwar returns with new album Kalak; shares lead single ‘Utopia Is A Colonial Project’

16 August 2022

There’s a new album on the way from London based, American born and Indian bred percussionist, producer and composer Sarathy Korwar, following 2019’s powerful and politically charged More Arriving. Entitled Kalak, the album is described as “an Indo-futurist manifesto” as Korwar explains:

“The discourse around futurism is often deeply rooted in Eurocentric ideas of the world. Much like Afro-futurism, Indo-futurism is moving the focus to the global south. In South Asia, culturally, we envisage our relationship to the future and the past in ideas of cyclicality. For example, karma as a concept. Time doesn’t have to flow in a line but can be understood to flow in a circle.

In music, there’s an inherent hierarchy when you talk about left to right and top to bottom. I started thinking about a rhythmic notation system that was circular. These patterns started forming over time, and the more I thought about that, and the kind of symbolism that they began to have, I realised that this would be the core of the record.”

Recorded at Real World studios with New York electronic musician, DJ and producer Photay on production duties, Kalak is set for release on November 11th through The Leaf Label. Ahead of it, Korwar has shared the phenomenal and fiery lead single ‘Utopia Is A Colonial Project’. Speaking about the track, Korwar comments:

“Utopia can be seen as a diagram for colonisation,” Korwar says. “Ideas of utopia are intrinsically linked to the mindset of settler colonialism. It comes from seeing the natural world as an inanimate resource rather than a living, sentient being. We need to be anti-utopian, and anti-dystopian. We need to be able to imagine futures drastically different to the kind of ‘utopias’ that are being sold by right-wing populist politicians in South Asia and beyond.”

‘Utopia Is A Colonial Project’ is offered with a video directed, shot and edited by Elliott Gonzo and starring award-winning choreographer/dancer Botis Seva. Watch it below.