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

Poppy Ackroyd announces new album, Pause, and shares video for lead single ‘Seedling’

17 August 2021

The tremendously talented multi-instrumentalist and composer Poppy Ackroyd has been a favourite of ours since the release of her debut album, Escapement, in 2012. So we´re excited to know she has a fourth album on the way entitled Pause. A collection of 10 solo piano works, the record came to life during the pandemic, following the birth of her first child. Poppy explains:

“For previous albums almost as much of the creative process was spent editing and manipulating recordings as it was composing at the piano, however after having my son, I struggled to spend time sat in front of a computer. The only thing I wanted to do while he was still small, if I wasn’t with him, was to play the piano. In fact, much of the album was written with him asleep on me in a sling as I used any quiet moment to compose.

It therefore made sense that this album should be a solo piano album. I used extended technique – playing with sounds from inside the instrument – like I do in my multi-tracked recordings, however it was important to me that every track on the album could be entirely performed with just two hands on the piano.”

Along with the album news, Poppy has shared the delicate and delightful first single ‘Seedling’. The track is offered with a fittingly gorgeous video by videographer Jola Kudela who offered some insight into it:

“I was trying to imagine the process of nature waking up, beginning with a seed, that then slowly transforms itself into a seedling. So, we begin with a frozen environment that encapsulates the seed – it seems trapped and immobilised by the icy world. Then gradually it starts to warm up and defrost, fighting with the power that has been holding it frozen.

I collected small pieces of plants and leaves, submerged them in water and put them in my freezer. Then I observed the process of defrosting, filming it in time-lapse. The technical approach has turned into a form of meditation and confrontation with time. Time-lapse by its nature involves recording long periods of time and changes that happen within the period wouldn’t be normally visible to the naked eye. So in a way it transforms the standard perception of time. You need to sit tight and wait, almost meditating for hours in order to see your final shot.

The second part of the video when the music grows was filmed in time-lapse with the infrared camera. By using infrared I wanted to push the idea of a seed perceiving the world around it even further: IR light isn’t visible to our eyes. The IR filter had cut out most of the visible light (400-700nm) and I was left with a fraction of it (720nm), visible only by extending the exposure time to 2 min per frame. As a result I was able to see a very narrow spectrum of light which is close to the infra-red frequency: a different aspect of electromagnetic radiation that surrounds us.

The post-production process was made on Autodesk Flame and I used a shader to project and manipulate images mapped inside a sphere. It completed my idea of simulating a point of view of a little seed.”

Pause will see the light of day on November 12th through One Little Independent Records. Now wrap your ears around ‘Seedling’.

Jason Sharp unveils new video for second single ‘Blossoming Rest’

16 August 2021

The Turning Centre Of A Still World, the third album from Jason Sharp, is nearing its release day. Following the first utterly moving ‘Everything Is Waiting For You’, the Montréal composer, improviser and saxophonist has shared another cut from the album called ‘Blossoming Rest’ and he had this to say about it:

“The synthesizer melodies of this composition are played with my left foot while my right foot plays synth bass, simultaneously with my performance on bass saxophone. My heart monitor is not only responsible for the pulse heard in this piece but is also shaping the modulation of the synth melodies. ‘”Blossoming Rest” is deliberately calm, keeping my heart rate slow, providing space for synthesis to fill the sonic gaps.”

Experimental filmmaker Guillaume Vallée has again created a video to accompany ‘Blossoming Rest’. Here it is.

The Turning Centre Of A Still World is out on August 27th through Constellation

Maurice Louca set to release new album Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour) in September

14 August 2021

There’s wonderful news from gifted and adventurous musician Maurice Louca, who has enthralled us long ago with his solo works and many other projects, including his trio The Dwarfs of East Agouza, multicultural collective Alif and bands like Bikya, Lekhfa and Karkhana. Following his magnificent Elephantine, which was one of our Album Picks of 2019, the composer and producer has announced the release of a new album entitled Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour). Louca explains the significance of the album title:

“‘The Luck Hour’ is a loose translation of ‘Saet El Hazz’ which is a coded saying we have in Egypt to refer to a good time, which usually includes a good deal of debauchery. When you mention that you have had a Saet Hazz, there are no questions asked; it is what it is and there is something about linking luck to decadence that resonates very much within me regarding the music of this record, and even if I can’t fully articulate it in words, the emotional register and drive behind this record and how it came to be, and the energy between us at the studio rehearsing and recording this record, is in a lot of ways to me a Saet Hazz (A Luck Hour).”

Consisting of six movements, Saet El-Hazz (The Luck Hour) draws on Arabic music, psychedelic folk, and free improv. The seed for the album sprouted from Louca’s wish to collaborate with Lebanese improvisational group “A” Trio. “They create a sonic cosmos of their own, and I had the idea and started composing music”, he explains, “the songs that I wanted to exist in this sonic world–at times harmoniously, other times clashing, and all the emotional and sonic ranges in between.”

Also crucial to the album was a commission from Mophradat Art Organization for Louca to compose and perform a music piece using instruments modified to play microtonally in the Arabic Maqam modes (scales), which led him to Istanbul to custom-make a guitar and to Indonesia. “I also ended up in Indonesia with a Gamelan maker, tuning a Serang (they caIl it the Indonesian Xylophone, a part of the family of Gamelan tuned percussion Instruments),” he comments “Since the Arabic Maqams use a lot of notes from the chromatic scale alongside the quarter tones, I ended up tuning it to a full chromatic scale plus certain quarter tones.”

We’ll have to wait until September 24th for the album to be out through Sub Rosa and Northern Spy but we can already hear the transcending lead single ‘Bidayat (Holocene). Take a listen now.