J. Zunz shares video for new single ‘Four Women And Darkness’

21 July 2020

Photo: Sofía Ruesga

Lorena Quintanilla, of Mexican duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, has announced the release of her second album under the moniker J. Zunz. Entitled Hibiscus, the album follows a period of “personal crisis inside and political crisis outside” and sees her taking a more minimal approach, partly influenced by a John Cage biography. “I remember I was reading a biography of John Cage and that book detonated something in me,” explained Quintanilla, adding: “The author was referring to the influence of Buddhism and meditation, and modern artists like Sonia Delaunay, Lucio Fontana, Julio Le Parc, Duchamp, futurism. I was very charged with ideas.”

Following the lead single ‘Y’, J. Zunz has shared an entrancing new track, ‘Four Women And Darkness’, and it comes with an accompanying video. She described the inspiration behind it:

“‘Four Women And Darkness’ is a story from my grandmother’s childhood. She told me that once during wartime in México in the late 1920’s, she and her sisters were hidden by her grandmother in a little, cold secret room. She hid them there because the militia wanted to search the house. Soldiers used to look for women or girls to rape them or to kidnap them. My grandmother and her sisters stayed there in the dark room for hours until the soldiers left.

I asked four close friends of mine to express their own darkness. They all come from different cities and backgrounds. I instructed them with some movements remarking and reassuring the limits of our bodies, which for years have belonged to everyone but us.”

With a dark and dramatic feeling to it, the haunting and hypnotic ‘Four Women And Darkness’ incites a trance-like state. Quintanilla co-directed the video with John O’Carroll. Here it is.


Hibiscus is out on August 21st through Rocket Recordings

Listen to Liturgy & LEYA’s collaborative single ‘Antigone’

18 July 2020

Brooklyn’s black metal band Liturgy and experimental violin and harp duo LEYA were due to tour together last April before the pandemic hit. In support of that tour, the two outfits had teamed up for a collaborative single, ‘Antigone’, which they unveiled earlier this month. Mighty and otherwordly, ‘Antigone’ is named after the heroine in the Greek tragedy of the same name by Sophocles. As Liturgy put it, “it’s sort of a LEYA song inside a Liturgy song”. Take a listen below.

Mary Lattimore announces new album, Silver Ladders, and shares first single

17 July 2020

There’s a new album on the way from LA-based experimental composer and harpist Mary Lattimore. Entitled Silver Ladders, it is set for release on October 9th through Ghostly International and follows her acclaimed 2018 Hundreds of Days, which she toured extensively internationally. In one of her shows at a festival, Lattimore met Slowdive’s Neil Halstead, and invited him to produce the upcoming album. “A friend introduced us because she knew how big of a fan I was and Neil and I had a little chat… The next day, I just thought maybe he’d be into producing my next record, ” Lattimore explained. “I flew on a little plane to Newquay in Cornwall where he lives with his lovely partner Ingrid and their baby. I didn’t know what his studio was like, he’d never recorded a harp, but somehow it really worked.”

‘Sometimes He’s In My Dreams´, a track she wrote collaboratively with Halstead, is the first sublime single to be let loose and Lattimore had this to say about it:

“It’s a song borne from a long improvisation – it was a section we both liked out of a longer piece. After I finished playing, Neil shaped it and looped part of it and then added his dreamy guitar line. What started out as simple meandering solo harp with a ricocheting delay got a little deeper and more fully formed with Neil’s help. It’s probably my favorite part of the record because it’s nothing I would’ve thought to do, having made a lot of music on my own on the past. Plus, that guitar!”

Listen to ‘Sometimes He’s In My Dreams’ below.

Mammal Hands’ fourth album, Captured Spirits, out in September; listen to first single ‘Chaser’

16 July 2020

Formed in Norwich in 2012, instrumental trio Mammal Hands caught our attention in 2018 when they played a mesmerizing live show at London’s Field Day. Brothers Nick and Jordan Smart and Jesse Barrett tantalise the senses with their contemporary jazz compositions, flirting with a lot of genres from electronica and classical to folk, ambient and world music and cite influences such as Pharoah Sanders, Gétachèw Mekurya, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Sirishkumar Manji. The trio have announced the release of their fourth album, Captured Spirits, touching on themes of existence and displacement. Jesse commented on the making of the album:

“I think with this record, there was a strong and renewed sense of collective enjoyment and appreciation for the process and each other’s contributions. After a long period of touring and a slow build up to the actual recording sessions we were able to mull over ideas for long periods, build on lessons from the past and pull our playing connection to an even deeper place. Realising each other’s visions for the whole and clearly understanding how they intersect”.

We´ll have to wait until September 11th for Captured Spirits to be out through Gondwana Records but we can already hear the magnificent first single ‘Chaser’. Here it is.

Laurence Pike shares new single from upcoming album Prophecy

15 July 2020

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we love Laurence Pike. And we are absolutely thrilled with his third solo album, Prophecy, arriving next week. The incredibly inventive percussionist and composer recorded the album as a reaction to the catastrophic wild fires in his native Australia.

Following the first single ‘Nero’, Pike is enticing us again with a new track called ‘Death of Science’, described as “an abstract rumination on politics trying to deny the nature of the universe, in which broken voices and muted drums attempt to spin around the certainty of the physical world.” Take a listen below and grab Prophecy when it’s out on July 24th through The Leaf Label.

Less Bells announces second album, Mourning Jewelry, and shares lead single ‘Fiery Wings’

15 July 2020

Photo: Baha H. Danesh

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Julie Carpenter has worked and recorded with various artists including Brian Jonestown Massacre, Eels and The Autumns. Less Bells, her ambient orchestral project, was ignited by her move from LA to Joshua Tree, and in 2018 she released her debut album Solifuge. Two years on, Carpenter presents her somophore album entitled Mourning Jewelry. Set for release on August 21st through Kranky, Mourning Jewelry circles around the feelings of loss and grief and the resulting change. As the press release describes, the album “stir[s] ornamental laments born from a need to “create beauty out of grief.” Weaving together strings, synthesisers, and choirs, the pieces on Mourning Jewelry “ascend and descend in grand, glimmering arcs,” delivering an emotive and haunting palette of beautiful and delicate orchestral textures.

Lead single ‘Fiery Wings’ is now available to stream and it serves as a sublime introduction to the album. Take a listen now.