Brett Naucke’s new collaborative album Mirror Ensemble out in October

20 August 2021

Chicago based electronic composer Brett Naucke has announced the release of a new album, following last year’s EMS Hallucinations. Entitled Mirror Ensemble, the album is a collaboration with longtime friends Natalie Chami (TALsounds, Good Willsmith, Damiana) and Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana) and arrives on October 1st through American Dreams.
Naucke ventures quite far from his previous works fully based in various synthesizer types, with the upcoming Mirror Ensemble “often boasting melodic vocalization, strings, and lush layered synthesis.” The press release describes the album as “a synthesizer record, an orchestral record, and in some ways even a soundtrack”. Mirror Ensemble saw Naucke using scenes from Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece 1975 film The Mirror, which served as a key element for mood and atmosphere.

Speaking about this collaboration, Chami explains:

“He invited Whitney and I over for wine and cheese, and was like, ‘I have an idea for a record. He showed us clips from The Mirror with the vibe he wanted, and also shared recordings and other ideas. It was straight up like a fucking PowerPoint almost – like an audio-visual presentation for us.”

The striking and ethereal lead single ‘The Glass Shifting’ and the contemplative and gentle ‘Rose Water’ open a window onto what he has in store for us. Listen to both below.


The Heliocentrics’ Jake Ferguson unveils new project, The Brkn Record, and announces debut solo album, The Architecture of Oppression Part 1

19 August 2021

Multi-instrumentalist Jake Ferguson, who is also the bassist and co-founder of The Heliocentrics, has a new solo project called The Brkn Record. His first album under that name as a bandleader and orchestrator, The Architecture of Oppression Part 1, is set for release on November 5th through Mr Bongo.
A longtime activist committed and engaged in racial justice and social equity, Ferguson’s upcoming The Architecture of Oppression Part 1 “manifests as a committed and soulful response to ongoing and systemic anti-black racism, social oppression and state violence both at home in London and across the globe”, as the press release describes, adding that the album “is a singular and urgent chronicle of the black British experience, an upful expression of Pan-African creative unity and community solidarity, and a militant and unbending missive from the frontline.”

Ferguson enlisted the help of bandmate Malcolm Catto on drums and other collaborators hailing from the worlds of community activism, cultural education, politics and music, including singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, soul-jazz vocalist Zara MacFarlane; Chicagoan activist, poet and singer Ugochi Nwaogwugwu; British politician and racial justice activist Lee Jasper; performance poet Dylema; Hackney community leader Janette Collins and British author Leroy Logan, a former Metropolitan police superintendent and founder and former chair of the Black Police Association.

Ahead of the album’s release, The Brkn Record has shared two singles, ‘On the Daily’ featuring Ugochi Nwaogwugwu and ‘Lifeline’ featuring Zara McFarlane.

‘On the Daily’ is described by Nwaogwugwu as an “attempt to express the degree of power, resilience and focus it takes to be black and in this world. So many forces trying to take our peace of heart and mind. Though the battle rages on, those on the frontline win when we keep our poise and expose the perpetrators of racism and white terrorism.”

Speaking about ‘Lifeline’, McFarlane stated it is “an observation of how decisions, made by ourselves and others, affect our circumstances and consequences and thus the pulse of our lives from that moment on.” Ferguson  also offered a few words about their collaboration:

“The clarity and precision of Zara’s vocals offered a real juxtaposition to the ‘roughness’ of the bluesy drone. Also, Zara dug deep to give her own perspective on racism that I hadn’t heard before.”

Both tracks are offered with accompanying videos, the video for ‘Lifeline’ was directed by Mark James and Ruffmercy has animated the video for ‘On the Daily’. Watch them below.

Jerusalem In My Heart announces new album Qalaq

19 August 2021

Photo: Isabelle Stachtchenko

There’s no stopping Jerusalem In My Heart, the performative audio-visual project founded by prodigious and adventurous musician, composer and producer-in-demand Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, exploring and merging traditional Arabic music with electronic influences. Following the outstanding 2018 Daqa’iq Tudaiq, news of a follow-up album have emerged. Jerusalem In My Heart have announced the release of Qalaq, described by Moumneh as a sister album and “mirrored image” to Daqa’iq Tudaiq. Taking its name from an Arabic word with various meanings, for Moumneh “Qalaq” means “deep worry” in a global scale but specifically in reference to Lebanon, a country beset by corruption and destabilization, its social, economic, and political crisis and the aftermath of the catastrophic explosion at the Beirut port in August 2020. Moumneh explains:

“The Side Two tracks are all named ‘Qalaq’ and then numbered, representing the degrees of layered and complex violence that Lebanon and the Levant have reached in the last couple of years, from the complete and utter failure of the Lebanese sectarian state that has driven the economy to a grinding halt, to its disastrous handling of the migrant influx from neighbouring failed states, to the endemic corruption that led to the August 2020 port explosion, to the latest chapter of Palestinian erasure and yet another brutally asymmetrical and disproportionate bombing campaign on Gaza.”

There are numerous guest musicians on Qalaq including Greg Fox, Oiseaux-Tempête, Lucrecia Dalt, Tim Hecker, Moor Mother, Alanis Obomsawin, and more, who collaborated remotely. Moumneh speaks about the process:

“I composed the album as a bare skeleton, giving each artist a section to decompose, edit, re-interpret and recompose as they desired, sending me back their stems which I then mixed into my own, remoulding newfound coherences in the overarching composition.”

Qalaq also introduces the newest member of Jerusalem In My Heart on visual duties, experimental filmmaker Erin Weisgerber. The short film for Qalouli made last year for Constellation’s Corona Borealis Longform Singles Series marked the duo’s first formal new work together.

We’ll have to wait until October 8th for the album to be out through Constellation but Jerusalem In My heart already shared 3 tracks, ‘Qalaq 3 (w​/​Moor Mother)’, ‘Qalaq 4 (w​/​Rabih Beaini)’ and ‘Qalaq 5 (w​/​Oiseaux​-​Tempête)’, serving as a compelling and entrancing taste of the album. Take a listen now.

In other related news, Jerusalem In My Heart have announced a European and Canadian tour this November, where the music-and-film duo will present their new audio-visual show.

Serafim Tsotsonis’ I Am the Sum of my Parts EP out now

18 August 2021

We hadn’t kept up with the latest offering from Serafim Tsotsonis but we were clearly missing out. I Am the Sum of my Parts, a 6-track EP released last May, is the most recent work from the wonderful and prolific Greek composer, electronic musician and producer. A beautifully crafted EP, I Am the Sum of my Parts takes cues from neo-classical, ambient, drone, post-rock and modern electronic sounds and finds Tsotsonis showcasing his songwriting and multi-instrumental talents playing and manipulating nearly all the instruments featured on the EP. The pieces feel intimate and cinematic, enveloped by serenity with eerie undertones. Swaying from light to dark, the EP contains multitudes and is at once daring and fragile, blissful and ominous.

I Am the Sum of My Parts “conveys messages through an idiolect, carrying the gifts of an inner, secret world”, as the EP’s accompanying blurb describes. “Pieces that sound like delicate, precious, colorful tissues fluttering in the wind.. Inspiration, innerness, elegance, artistry. Profound music goes hand in hand with poetry..”

For a taster of the EP, listen to the compelling ‘Vesper’ below and let yourself drift away.

Circuit des Yeux unveils first single from upcoming sixth album -io

17 August 2021

Circuit des Yeux is and has been one of our favourite artists for a long time. Haley Fohr, the immeasurably talented and adventurous vocalist, composer, and producer behind the project, dazzles us time and again with every release she puts out and we’re over the moon to know that October will see the release of her sixth full-length album entitled -io. Slated for a October 22nd release through Matador Records, -io was mostly written, arranged, and produced by her and according to the label it’s her “most ornate and elaborate work to date – a set of compositions that nest Fohr’s otherworldly four-octave voice amid a 24-piece string, brass, and wind ensemble.”

Recording during the pandemic, in the aftermath of personal loss, -io charts a geography of grief, which Fohr describes as a place where “everything is ending all the time.”

Coinciding with the album news, Circuit des Yeux has shared ‘Dogma’, serving as the first outstanding taste from the upcoming album. She remarks:

“Where there is faith there is violence. The story of civilization is complicated and layered with dogmas. At each individual’s incentive lies both a beacon and an instinct. The fool follows the outer while the idiot chases her interior. Society is a necessary subversion of the self. It is through time that our quiet alarms grow with great intensity until emancipation through implosion or explosion become imminent.”

‘Dogma’ comes with an accompanying video, directed by Fohr with Rudy Rubio, and you can watch it below.

Black Dice share new single, ‘Tuned Out’, from upcoming new album Mod Prog Sic

17 August 2021

Nearly ten years after their last studio album, Mr. Impossible, Black Dice are back with a brand new album called Mod Prog Sic. The experimental art noise outfit have announced their return last month with the bonkers and boisterous ‘White Sugar’. Now they are giving us another thrilling taste of their upcoming album with new single ‘Tuned Out’. “Tuned Out was recorded in the valley of LA in 2017, then the session went missing for over 1 year”, Eric Copeland explains. “First song written for Mod Prog Sic and a live favorite”. Listen to it below.

Mod Prog Sic is out on October 1st through FourFour Records