The Notwist returned this summer with an EP, Ship, marking their first new music since 2014’s album Close To The Glass. Now the German indie band are working on a full-length album, and ahead of it, they have shared a brand new song, ‘Oh Sweet Fire’. It features guest vocals by American multi-instrumentalist Ben LaMar Gay, who also coined the lyrics for the song. Take a listen below.
With a superb jazz scene flourishing in Belgium in recent years, the emergence of Brussels quartet Bandler Ching comes as no surprise. Led by composer and saxophonist Ambroos De Schepper, Bandler Ching sweep the listener away with thrilling compositions blending an array of genres, from contemporary jazz, electronics and hip-hop to noise and global beats, while remaining free of stylistic constraints. Their first offering comes in the form of an EP entitled Sub Surface and will be released on October 23rd through Sdban Ultra. In advance of the release, Bandler Ching are giving us an incredible taster of what to expect with the first single ‘Pousmousse’. They comment:
“’Pousmousse’ originated from the need for space in music. The title has the same name as a laundromat in Saint-Josse (Brussels). The name is pleasant yet uncomfortable at the same time. Likewise, the song flirts with consonance and dissonance.”
‘Pousmousse’ comes with an accompanying video. Check it out below.
2020 kicked off with Debris, the phenomenal debut album from English actress and musician Keeley Forsyth. As we approach the tail end of the year, she is back to dazzle us again with a follow-up EP entitled Photograph. With a striking vocal delivery, Forsyth’s powerful an otherworldly baritone voice remains centre stage, supported again by label mate and composer Matthew Bourne. She has also recruited the help of Trestle Records’ Ross Downes to bring the EP to life.
Photograph EP is set for release on November 20th through The Leaf Label and ahead of it Forsyth has shared the beautiful, haunting and poignant title track. It comes with an accompanying video directed by Ross Downes, with whom she collaborated closely. She commented:
“We discussed the absurdism of Samuel Beckett,Eugène Ionescu and Antonin Artaud and the movements of the Tanztheater tradition, all of which has influenced the music I’ve been writing. We were working towards a place where archetypes, expectations and behaviour are unclear – a woman feeds her family with soil while digging her grave”.
Watch the video for ‘Photograph’ below.
The wonderful multi-talented and multi-faceted artist Juana Molina is releasing ANRMAL, her first-ever live album. Just before lockdown, when much like everything else her European tour was cancelled, Molina performed at Mexico’s NRMAL Festival in early March. Luckily for us, that performance was recorded and arrives as a live album on October 23rd through Crammed Discs. ANRMAL features rearranged renditions of tracks from Molina’s previous albums, Halo, Wed 21 and Un día as well as from the Forfun EP. A staggering live version of ‘Eras’, lifted from 2013’s Wed 21, is now streaming. If you haven’t had a chance to see her live, this song will give an idea of what you’re missing out. Watch the accompanying live video made by Rarara below.
Photo: Leeya Rose Jackson
Dex Wolfe has revealed details of his first solo release under his own name. The Minnesota songwriter and producer will release his debut EP, Lightness, on October 23rd. While Wolfe hasn’t released any solo music, he has been active in the Minneapolis music scene for over a decade now as a bandmate, engineer and sideman.
In the works for three years, the upcoming Lightness EP saw Wolfe revisit some of the songs he’d written in the past while also crafting new compositions. Initiated by darker times, and mirrorring the state of the world today, the EP is also something to celebrate, being described as “a tenebrous maze that exits into a graceful clearing”. The EP title is inspired by the cycles of light and dark, and as Wolfe explained, it refers to the “process of being in a dark part of the cycle, but being rebirthed in light like we are every day.” Featuring four tracks, Lightness is an impressive showcase of his songwriting and multi-instrumental talents, drawing from post rock, jazz, and folk music. Ahead of the EP release, we can already hear the gorgeous and compelling first single ‘Lightning’. He commented on the song:
“I wrote Lightning while sitting on a bridge in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I was awestruck by a massive golden lightning storm that intricately painted the entire horizon in the distance. As I sat in the light drizzle, I watched tens of passers-by walk with their faces angled downwards toward their phones, paying this incredible beauty of nature no mind or reverence. The juxtaposition of these two events felt so acute, as if being offered up as an archetype of western civilization in the 21st century.”
Take a listen to ‘Lightning’ below.
Photo: Rachael Pony Cassells
Mary Lattimore is set to release her new album Silver Ladders next month and she had already enticed us with two sublime singles, ‘Sometimes He’s In My Dreams’ and ‘Pine Trees’. Ahead of the album release October 9th through Ghostly International, the experimental composer and harpist has shared the gorgeous title track. Lattimore offers some insight into it below:
“Silver Ladders was written about this place in Croatia on the island of Hvar, where the sea was deep greeny-blue and you could float with all of the people from the town. There were all of these ladders from the stone path right into the water. I thought it was the most beautiful place on Earth, as a person who loves to swim. I was hired to play a wedding in Big Sur, another breathtaking spot, and the rugged coast reminded me of my time in Croatia, so this melody came to me as I was warming up for the wedding. I recorded it on my phone and that’s where the song came from.
This was one we tried to recreate it in the studio, but the demo sounded better and purer. The ending was smudgy and watercolory already but I tried to describe to Neil what I wanted from it, even more strange and suspended in the air, and he pulled some wizardry and made it sound just how I’d imagined it. The demos I made with the idea that he was the one to fulfill what the song was asking for with techniques I didn’t know how to manifest but could kind of amorphously describe. He really “got it” and that’s why we were a good team, along with his beautiful new ideas (especially adding all the bass synth) that really worked with the vibe.”
Listen to ‘Silver Ladders’ below.
