Fly Pan Am share accompanying video for new single ‘Grid / Wall’

30 April 2021

Fly Pan Am are getting ready to unveil Frontera, their new album originally composed as a soundtrack to a contemporary dance piece of the same name. Following the first single ‘Scanner’, the Canadian quartet are enticing us again with the album’s opening track ‘Grid / Wall’, which also opened the dance production. ‘Grid / Wall’ is offered with a video that gives a perfect window into the live multi-media show, with the 10 dancers and Fly Pan Am performing on stage. The video was created by Montréal creative/design duo Huot & Vallentin, and you can watch it below.

Frontera is out on May 21st through Constellation

Booker Stardrum announces third album Crater

28 April 2021

Drumming wizard, improviser and composer Booker Stardrum has been on a roll as of late. Following an exciting collaborative album with Lisel released earlier this month⁠, Stardrum is making a return to his namesake solo project with a much anticipated third album. Entitled Crater, the album arrives on July 2nd through NNA Tapes. As with most of his other works, percussion is at the core of album, yet, as the press release describes, Crater comprises “not just percussive phrases, but melodies, textures, sound, noise, and the cracks and crevices of vacant space between these bodies.”
Along with the announcement, Stardrum has let loose the first single ‘Diorama’. Take a listen below.

STUFF. preview upcoming album with new single ‘Waksi’

26 April 2021

Photo: Alexander Popelier

We first fell in love with STUFF. thanks to their 2017 phenomenal album, Old Dreams, New Planets, and cemented this inclination the following year when they took their irresistible and scorching dance party to Le Guess Who?. And we couldn’t more excited about their upcoming third album, T(h)reats, releasing on May 7th through Sdban Ultra. The Belgian instrumental five-piece had already enticed us with the outlandish and exhilarating ‘Honu’, and there’s a new single now streaming called ‘Waksi’. They commented:

“Waksi was a track edited from a long jam. It was a very spontaneous take. We were listening to one of our musical heroes Betty Davis almost every lunchbreak during our recording sessions. That might have had some influence. And there was a fire-alarm ringing in the studio as the CR2032 9V battery needed to be replaced. If you listen closely you can hear some kids playing outside in the midst of the track.”

Listen to ‘Waksi’ below.

Watch BIG | BRAVE’s video for new single ‘Of This Ilk’

21 April 2021

Photo: Mathieu Ball

BIG | BRAVE are ready to unleash their fifth studio record, VITAL, this Friday, and ahead of it, the trio have just released a brand new single. Titled ‘Of This Ilk’, the new track gives us another glimpse into their upcoming album and is offered with an accompanying video. Speaking about it, vocalist Robin Wattie remarked:

“This video and song is an ode to those that understand this all too well, all too deeply. There is a silent form of suffering that most do not share. It is a private shame that is very public. The percentage of the global population that take these painstaking, costly efforts in whitening, or rather more aptly, bleaching their skin is higher than a lot would understand, let alone, would ever consider. There is a billion dollar industry in injectables and cream-like products containing harsh and even life-threatening chemicals to lighten, clarify, and whiten one’s skin. This video is an ode to my younger self, and to all the other children, teens and adults of the past, present and future that have used bleach in every way possible, that withdrew from the sun, used clothespins on their nose, scraped their skin raw, buying every product available, in trying every means they can think of to achieve this exclusive coveted lightness, whiteness.”

Watch the video below.

VITAL is out on CD and digitally on April 23rd and on vinyl later in the summer through Southern Lord

Portico Quartet set to release new album, Terrain, next month

20 April 2021

Photo: Hannah Collins

Portico Quartet have a new album on the way entitled Terrain. Consisting of a three-part suite, in addition to their own musical language, the album sees them explore a new sonic terrain drawing on American minimalism and ambient. Terrain is reportedly closer to previous works like Line and Shed Song (Isla/2009), Rubidium (Portico Quartet/2012) and Immediately Visible (Memory Streams/2019), as the bands’s saxophonist Jack Wyllie explains:

“We’ve always had this side of the band in some form. The core of it is having a repeated pattern, around which other parts move in and out, and start to form a narrative. We used to do longer improvisations not dissimilar to this around the time of our second record Isla. On ‘Terrain’ we’ve really dug into it and explored that form. I suppose there are obvious influences such as American minimalism, but I was particularly inspired by the work of Japanese composer Midori Takada. Her approach, particularly on ‘Through the Looking Glass’, where she moves through different worlds incorporating elements of minimalism with non-Western instruments and melodies were at the front of my mind when writing this music”.

Speaking about the recording, drummer Duncan Bellamy stated that it “felt a bricolage of conflicting, shifting signs, subtle tension and multiple narratives. Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Mirror’ and British artist John Akomfrah’s incredible ‘Handsworth Songs’ were pivotal points of reference for me.”

Terrain is set for release on May 28th through Gondwana Records and ahead of it they have shared the sublime ‘Terrain II’. Take a listen below.

Sarah Neufeld teases upcoming album with third single ‘The Top’

15 April 2021

With only a month to go until Detritus lands in all its resplendent glory, Sarah Neufeld has shared a third staggering single from her upcoming album called ‘The Top’. The marvellous composer and violinist had already enticed us with the poignant and beautiful lead single ‘Stories’, followed by the enchanting and bewildering ‘With Love and Blindness’. Save for a few ethereal vocal parts at the end of the track,  ‘The Top’ is the only solo violin composition on Detritus, and as she puts it, “it’s a fast, furious, trance like piece to play live.” The single comes paired with a striking video directed by Kaveh Nabatian. Here it is.

Detritus is out on May 14th through Paper Bag Records in North America and One Little Independent Records in the rest of the world.