Tanya Tagaq set to release new album, Tongues, in March, shares title track

30 September 2021

With the last stretch of the year upon us, we’re already eagerly looking forward to 2022 with the recent announcement of a new album from Tanya Tagaq. She released an EP, Toothsayer, in 2019, but the new album is her first full-length since 2016’s Retribution, which was one of our 15 Picks of the 2016 and remains an active favourite. Entitled Tongues, Tagaq’s new album arrives on March 11th through Six Shooter Records and was produced by Saul Williams and mixed by Gonjasufi. As with previous efforts, the immensely talented Inuit throat singer and composer taps on environmental and human rights issues, specificialy the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Canada. Featuring excerpts from her book Split Tooth, the album “speaks not to horrors and crisis”, as the label describes, “but directly of these things.” It adds that Tongues “is the soundtrack of righteous taking-back of personhood and power. It is a triumph of strength and intelligence that invites the listener to join her in a personal victory over colonization, over those who take without consent.”

The powerful and poignant title track serves as a phenomenal taste of what Tagaq has in store for us. The track is offered with a video directed by Caitlin Veitch and with 3D Animation by Omar Rivero (Driftnote).

Naytronix announces new album, Other Possibilities, and shares first single ‘Somebody’

28 September 2021

Here’s the thing: we love Naytronix so news of a new record from the phenomenal multi-instrumentalist and producer is something we’re always itching for. He has a new album on the way, Other Possibilities, releasing on October 29th through Overseas Artists Recordings. In the works for four years, Other Possibilities encapsulates and reflects a number of changes and adaptations that occurrred over this period, including a shoulder injury.

“The album started off as a pursuance: a search for the perfect version of whatever it is we’re supposed to be creating”, explains the press release. “But what he found over the course of the four years writing the album, through changes both intentional and circumstantial, was that his strongest work happened when the boundaries came down, the pressure was gone and the process became more enjoyable.”

Along with the album announcement, Naytronix has also revelead the first single, ‘Somebody’, a catchy and feel good song that radiates a breathe of optimism. It comes with an accompanying video directed by Hank + Tank. Watch it below.

Watch the video for Tara Clerkin Trio’s ‘Night Steps’ off upcoming In Spring EP

28 September 2021

This Friday will see the release of In Spring, the new 4-track EP from Bristol based group Tara Clerkin Trio. After sharing the magnificent and mesmerizing title track, the trio of Tara Clerkin and brothers Sunny-Joe Paradiso and Patrick Benjamin have shared another cut from the EP called ‘Night Steps’, and an accompanying video. Speaking about it, the band explains:

“This is a woman, walking through the city at night. She’s thinking deeply about everything, sometimes existing in the present, sometimes in her memories, always set on the same streets. She craves the fleeting feeling when she can so easily mistake herself for anyone else walking by, any of the buildings, a cat in a window. She reaches the beach at the edge of her city as the sun’s coming up. And looks longingly at the horizon as the city wakes up behind her.”

Ron MacRae and Tim Webb animate and direct. Watch the video below.


In Spring is out on October 1st through World of Echo

Manu Delago unveils video for new single ‘Trees For The Wood’; new album Environ Me out now

27 September 2021

Manu Delago‘s much anticipated audio-visual album, Environ Me, came out last week and coinciding with it, the staggeringly talented percussionist and composer has shared a fittingly striking video for new single ‘Trees For The Wood’, depicting deforestation. He comments:

“Imagine a musical forest consisting of 20 double basses, each placed on a tree stump in a felled forest with their players behind them. The piece starts with a chainsaw-esque intro, sonically cutting down a tree. But then the track takes a very calm turn with a soothing handpan pattern accompanied by the double bass forest directly recorded in nature.

All musicians involved donated their fees for the project to plant forests instead. These young Elm trees will store CO2 and protect against storms and erosions as they get bigger, while stabilising surrounding coniferous forests that suffer from global heating.”

Watch the video below and grab Delago’s precious Environ Me now that it’s out through One Little Independent Records.

Watch Poppy Ackroyd’s video for second single ‘Release’

21 September 2021

This November will see the release of Pause, the new album from talented multi-instrumentalist and composer Poppy Ackroyd. After sharing the delicate and delightful first single, ‘Seedling’, she has unveiled ‘Release’, a stunning new track said to be “about the feeling of wanting to run free, and embracing life and love”. ‘Release’ is offered  with a video made by designer, creative technologist and long-time collaborator Tom Newell. Speaking about the visuals, he explained they were “made by melting ice with a hair dryer under a macro lens, then using different light sources and a rotating plate to capture different movement and reflections, this video is an attempt to capture some of the beauty of this natural reaction”. Here’s the video.

Pause is out on November 12th through One Little Independent Records.

Patrick Shiroishi unleashes video for new single ‘To Kill A Wind-Up Bird’

20 September 2021

Patrick Shiroishi has a new solo album on the way, Hidemi, and we were instantly and utterly taken by the first single, the compelling ‘Tule Lake Like Yesterday’, when it emerged last month. A multilayered woodwind record, Hidemi was written and performed in its entirety by Shiroishi and is a tribute to his grandfather and his personal experience after getting out of Japanese-American concentration camps.
With just over a month to go until the album drops, the Japanese American saxophonist and composer is enticing us again with a new single, ‘To Kill A Wind-Up Bird’, a gorgeous and exhilarating track we cannot stop listening to. The song comes with a video made by visual artist Dylan Pecora, who had this to say about it:

“It’s a gentle attempt at a Looney Tunes/Carl Stalling type of thing, where we’re getting a 1-to-1 fraudulent representation on screen of the sounds we hear. A tiptoeing porky pig sounds like a xylophone ascending. A puppet shaking an ancient bowl sounds like this.”

Watch the video for ‘To Kill A Wind-Up Bird’ below and watch out for the release of Hidemi on October 29th through American Dreams.