Josiah Steinbrick announces second album Liquid / Devotion & Tongue Street Blue

19 August 2020

LA based composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Josiah Steinbrick conquered our ears in 2017, with the debut album of his ensemble Banana and later that year with his first solo album.  Three years on, Steinbrick is back with his second solo offering entitled Liquid / Devotion & Tongue Street Blue, due out on September 18th through Hands In The Dark and his Full Bloom imprint. The album “unfolds like a rapturous dream”, describes the press release, continuing: “Hushed laments, ecstatic rhythms, and hypnotic arrangements induce a state of reverie, where boundaries dissolve between fading memories, illusions, and the hyper-real.”

‘Full Bloom’ serves as the first magnificient taste from Liquid / Devotion & Tongue Street Blue and you can hear it below.

Manu Delago set to release new album Circadian Live in September

18 August 2020

Photo: James Styler

News of a new album from Manu Delago fills us with excitement. Following the release of Circadian, which was one of our 15 Albums Picks of 2019, the staggeringly talented Austrian percussionist and composer has announced the release of a live version of the record. Entitled Circadian Live, and slated for a September 18th release through One Little Independent Records, the upcoming album was recorded last year while touring Circadian in Europe with his ensemble. Speaking about the live album, Delago stated:

“Out of over 1000 gigs that I’ve played, this is the one programme that I wanted to make a live album of. Since being a student 10 years ago, I’ve dreamt of having my own ensemble that’s big enough to have an orchestral sound quality, but small enough to give space to individual characters and to be a tight rhythmic union. After a long journey the 9-piece Circadian Ensemble evolved, consisting of three percussionists, three wind players and three strings.

I handpicked some of my favourite musicians and tried to feature their unique style in the compositions and arrangements. On the Circadian Tour we performed 18 concerts within 21 days which were all recorded. The intense schedule gave us the opportunity to develop and improve the music on a daily basis, unlike most big orchestral productions where usually there aren’t many performances. The ensemble grew together day by day and the album to me is a symbol of togetherness.”

Circadian was inspired and informed by the concept of the body’s internal clock known as Circadian rhythms, in particular Delago’s disruption of his own sleep cycles as a busy musician collaborating and touring with the likes of Bjork, Anoushka Shankar, Poppy Ackroyd, the London Symphony Orchestra and Olafur Arnalds, amongst many others. On Circadian Live, and as the press release explains, this theme is fully explored, evolving into “an honest retelling as well as something completely of itself.”

The majestic live version of ‘Uranus’ is the first single to be unveiled from Circadian Live and it invites you to hit the play button again as soon as it concludes.

Brett Naucke unveils ‘Hallucinations II’ ahead of new album release

17 August 2020

Last month, Chicago electronic composer Brett Naucke teased his upcoming album, EMS Hallucinations, with the deeply immersive and mesmerizing ‘Hallucinations IV’. EMS Hallucinations is the fruit of a recent residency at the Elektronmusikstudion aka EMS, the paramount electronic studio created in Sweden in 1964, where Naucke composed two side-long pieces, recorded on two rare synthesizer systems. With release day less than a month away, he has shared a second excerpt off the album, ‘Hallucinations II’, offered with an accompanying video, courtesy of Cinema.av’s Evan Henry. Here it is.

EMS Hallucinations is out on September 11th through American Dreams Records.

Listen to Mammal Hands’ new single ‘Ithaca’

11 August 2020

 

We’re only a month away from the release of Captured Spirits, the fourth album from instrumental outfit Mammal Hands. After sharing the magnificent first single ‘Chaser’, the drums/sax/piano trio of Jesse Barrett and brothers Jordan and Nick Smart and  are enticing us again with new single ‘Ithaca’. Wrap your ears around it now.

Captured Spirits is out on September 11th through Gondwana Records.

Matthew Herbert shares Absence Dub Remix of Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela’s ‘We’ve Landed’

03 August 2020

Photo: Brett Rubin & Bernard Benant

Fela Kuti drummer and Afrobeat founder Tony Allen and South African legendary trumpeter and political activist Hugh Masekela wanted to make an album together for a long time. In 2010 they toured the UK at the same time and producer Nick Gold (Buena Vista Social Club) seized the opportunity to record their original compositions. The recording sessions were unfinished when Masekela passed away in 2018 but intent on bringing this collaboration to life, Allen and Gold finished recording the album last summer with the help of Tom Herbert (Acoustic Ladyland, The Invisible), Joe Armon-Jones (Ezra Collective), Mutale Chashi (Kokoroko) and Steve Williamson. Finally earlier this year year, Allen and Masekela’s collaborative album, Rejoice, was released before Allen’s passing last April. British electronic composer Matthew Herbert, as a tribute to Allen, has given the remix treatment to the closing track ‘We’ve Landed’. He comments:

“It was already a tough brief to remix two such important and wonderful musicians. Before Tony died I was trying my best to make it upbeat and celebratory. But after his sudden passing, all I could hear was his absence. I started on the night I heard the sad news. The mix is in memory of Tony, an inspiring and generous musician.”

Take a listen below.


Rejoice is out now via World Circuit Records

Suuns announce ‘2020’ Remixes, first contributions unveiled

29 July 2020

A longtime favourite of ours, Suuns boast excellent musicianship reflected and augmented on live shows. The Montreal based quartet have to date released four excellent albums, including one of our Album Picks of 2016, and a collaborative one with Jerusalem In My Heart which made it to our Album Picks of 2015. Suuns’ second album, Images Du Futur, released in 2013, featured a song called ‘2020’, which according to them, “was a prediction that in the year 2020 we would discover alien life.” The band have further stated:

“Today, living in 2020, the idea of discovering life outside our planet, as huge and as awe-inspiring as that would be, seems almost quaint. There is a sentiment that if we were to discover other life, then it would somehow unify humanity. Witnessing the disparities in our own backyard begs the question as to what we would be unifying around.

This year has not been about looking into outer space, but rather, looking into oneself. This year has further underscored to us the enormous privilege that we enjoy as a band of four white guys—the freedom we enjoy touring around the world with relative ease and security, in stark contrast to the way some of our neighbors live day in and day out, just a few doors down the street. This year, having your head in the stars isn’t going to cut it.

Like it or not, in the future, ‘2020’ will be the song that people remember Suuns by. And the year 2020 will be the year that we didn’t discover aliens, but instead discovered another part of our humanity.”

Suuns have invited other musicians they admire to remix ‘2020’, and will release these digitally on Bandcamp over the next few weeks on a Pay What You Can basis, with all proceeds going to the NAACP. A first instalment has been unveiled and features stellar remix contributions from producer and multidisciplinary artist Kelman Duran; Vive La Void, the solo project of Sanae Yamada (co-founder and keyboard player of Moon Duo); Deerhoof’s drummer and composer Greg Saunier; post-punk musician, producer and Shimmy Disc founder KRAMER, and singer/guitarist Brian Case of FACS and Disappears. For a taste of what’s on offer, here’s the first remix to enjoy, courtesy of Kelman Duran.