Listen to Caixa Cubo’s first single off forthcoming album Agôra

21 January 2023

A mainstay in the Brazilian jazz scene for over 15 years, Caixa Cubo have a new album on the way. Entitled Agôra, which means now, it marks their eighth full-length album and arrives on March 31st through Jazz & Milk. To bring Agôra to life, the trio of Henrique Gomide (keys), João Fideles (drums) and Noa Stroeter (bass) enlisted the help of singers Xenia França and Zé Leônidas, Jembaa Groove’s singer Eric Owusu and South African duo Bongani Givethanks & Mpho Nkuzo. As the press release describes,  Agôra “shines not for its virtuosity rather for its minimalism, it’s depth of space, and for the first time, it’s ability to figure outside the jazz fold, as the trio from São Paulo decided, for the first time, to bring in singers and add a new aesthetic to their sound.”

‘Sábado’, a homage song to the busy city of São Paulo where Caixa Cubo met, is the first exhilarating single to emerge from the album. The trio comments:

“Sabado reflects well the spontaneity that permeated the entire recording of the album. When we got to the studio, we had no idea what we were going to record. We started playing a groove, kind of inspired by Gilberto Gil’s 80s albums, and our drummer João started singing this funny song ‘Sábado Barrigudão’ (Big Belly Saturday) alongside the bass groove and that was that”.

Listen to ‘Sábado’ below.

Dishwasher_ announce self-titled debut album and share first single ‘Blue Bridge’

20 January 2023

Sdban Records has been on a roll in recent years with incredible releases and 2023 already looks to be no different. This week the Belgian label announced the debut album from Ghent trio Dishwasher_, made up of Arno Grootaers, Werend Van Den Bossche and Louise van den Heuvel. A self-titled effort, the album is due out in April and as the press release describes, it “promises to be a unique and diverse collection of groove-driven cuts, showcasing the band’s experimentation with various genres to create a contemporary sound that is truly their own.”

Coinciding with the album’s announcement, Dishwasher_ are previewing the album with first single ‘Blue Bridge’, a track inspired by New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’. Take a listen now.

Watch Nico Paulo’s video for new single ‘Time’

18 January 2023

Photo: Matt Horseman

At the tail end of 2022, Nico Paulo seduced our ears and hearts with ‘Now or Never’, the enchanting and bewildering first single taken from her upcoming self-titled debut album. The album’s release has been set for April 7th through Forward Music Group and ahead of it the St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador based Portuguese songwriter has shared a second gorgeous and bewitching single called ‘Time’. Speaking about the song, Nico comments:

“Time is a song about friendship, admiration and change. It’s a dialogue between two characters that investigates the discrepancies between them — one is more rigid and one is more free. This song is the coming together and the nuance and beauty created by two opposing perspectives. They unite in a dance that forces them to reckon with time. And in this moment of change, they realize that they’re maybe not so different after all.”

‘Time’ is offered with an animated video created by Sing Sing and you can watch it below.

La Tène set to release new album Ecorcha/Taillée next month

15 January 2023

There’s exciting news from La Tène, who have announced the release of a new album. Entitled Ecorcha/Taillée, the album sees the French-Swiss trio expand to a seven-piece, like in their previous record. Founding members Cyril Bondi, Alexis Degrenier and Laurent Peter are joined again by Jacques Puech, Louis Jacques, Guilhem Lacroux and Jérémie Sauvage to augment their entrancing and euphoric musical universe.

“La Tène’s long, hypnotic, wordless pieces are built from traditional folk instrumentation, wild percussion and blurred, subtle electronic embellishments”, as the press release describes, “and feel as ancient and earthy as those millennia-old artefacts – with all the metal, wood, dedication and craftsmanship they entailed.”

Arriving on February 3rd through Bongo Joe Records, Ecorcha/Taillée features two epic tracks recorded live in Le Gamounet near Clermont-Ferrand, in a barn converted into a ballroom and cultural centre.

Ahead of of the album’s release, La Tène have let loose the mesmeric and jubilant ‘La Taillée’. Listen to it and let yourself be carried away.

Neil Cowley announces solo album, Battery Life, and shares new single ‘Ticker Tape’

14 January 2023

Celebrated and incredibly talented pianist and composer Neil Cowley is a true visionary. After dazzling us for more than a decade with his trio, Neil Cowley Trio, in 2019 he embarked on a solo career. Following a few EP releases, an album and a collaboration with Jacana People, he has announced the release of a new full-length album entitled Battery Life. Speaking about it, Cowley offered some insight:

“It is a record of abstract memories and stolen excerpts.
It is my perception of the past before the detail is filled in.
Blurred pictures, strange details, a feeling, a smell and above all the freedom to redefine the past at my whim. In an age where we are able to archive virtually any amount of life experience at the press of a button, it calls into question the value of a memory, both undetailed and detailed.”

Lucky for us, Cowley has let loose a sublime and striking new single called ‘Ticker Tape’. The track takes its title from the earliest electrical communications medium used for financial purposes. He explains:

“During the making of my album ‘Battery Life’ I mused on the various types of communication we use as modern day human beings and how quite often they lead to miscommunication, or at least serve as a poor second to traditional human contact.
Inevitably I cast my mind back to the medium of ticker tape, and how it operated as one of the earliest forms of passing on numerical information worldwide. I found myself asking myself whether there was any tangible difference in efficacy between that and what we use today.
This piece, with its 16th note rhythms and its random repetition of melody aims to communicate in a similar fashion, like a numerical tarantella to skip across the continents.”

Listen to ‘Ticker Tape’ now and keep an eye out for the release of Battery Life.

James Holden returns with fourth album, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities

12 January 2023

Photo: Laura Lewis

Nearly six years on from the release of The Animal Spirits, electronic maverick James Holden is back with his fourth album. Entitled Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities, it arrives on March 31st through his own Border Community. “I wanted this to be my most open record, uncynical, naive, unguarded, the record teenage me wanted to make,” Holden said of the album. “I used to balance my clock-radio on a wardrobe to catch the faint pirate FM signals from the nearest city, dreaming of what raves would be like when I could finally escape and become a New Age traveller.”

Unlike the previous record that saw Holden assemble and perform for the first time accompanied by a full band, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities is described as “more of a continuous sound collage, artfully juxtaposing audio worlds in his own inimitable manner”. Holden uses his own samples taken from recordings of his own performances on the modular synth, keyboard, organ, piano and even his childhood violin. The album also features guest contributions from members of the Animal Spirits live band, including drummer Tom Page, tabla-championing percussionist Camilo Tirado, multi-instrumentalist Marcus Hamblett and saxophonist Christopher Duffin.

Along with the album news, Holden has also shared lead single ‘Contains Multitudes’, a spellbinding and ecstatic track clocking at almost ten minute long . Speaking about it Holden comments:

“I’d been looking at John Stezaker’s collages, where things collide and it feels like it opens a window into them, thinking a lot about musical approaches to that idea, then the end part of this just appeared in my head as I listened to the loops of the beginning part. The two songs are opposite musics but also completely contained inside one another.”

Listen to ‘Contains Multitudes’ below.