Helen Money set to release new album, Atomic, in March; shares opening track ‘Midnight’

27 January 2020

Performing under the moniker Helen Money, Alison Chesley is an incredibly prolific, versatile and visionary cellist, with projects and collaborations aplenty under her sleeve. Having composed for film, theatre and dance, Chesley has also played, toured and worked in albums from artists like Mono, Anthrax, Broken Social Scene, Russian Circles, Chris Connelly, Shellac, Neurosis, Earth and many more. She has announce the release of a new album as Helen Money, entitled Atomic. Classically trained on the cello, Chesley has been manipulating and exploring her instrument for years, displaying an ability to draw deep emotion from her bow and strings. On her upcoming record, and as the press release explains, she “pushes even further out towards the extremes of her output with a daring leap forward in her songwriting through minimalist arrangements that stand as her most intimate, direct, and emotionally bare work to date.” Speaking about the period when she wrote Atomic, Chesley remarked:

“After my parents passed away, we had to find new ways to be – with ourselves and each other. The whole process brought us closer together, strengthening the bonds between the three of us; between us and our friends; between us and my extended family. My sister and brother and I would often get together at my brother’s house in the Redwoods of Northern California. Being there with them, looking up at these giant trees that were there long before we were, looking up at the Milky Way, looking out at the Pacific Ocean – it just gave me a sense of perspective and how connected we all are to everything.”

We’ll have to wait until March 20th for the album release through Thrill Jockey but we can already immerse ourselves in ethereal and poignant  opening track ‘Midnight’.

Haley Fohr announces new album as Jackie Lynn in collaboration with Bitchin Bajas

24 January 2020

New music from Haley Fohr is always good news. The immeasurably talented and adventurous vocalist, composer, and producer behind Circuit Des Yeux is bringing Jackie Lynn back to life. The project emerged in 2016 with a self-titled documentary album portraying her outlaw cowboy alter ego and now, as a “lady of the road”, she moves the project forward. There is a new album on the way called Jacqueline, which also saw the project turn into a quartet with the addition of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Dan Quinlivan of Bitchin Bajas.

The news comes paired with the the first single, ‘Casino Queen’, a killer song with a disco feel, accompanied by a video co-directed by Haley and Krzys Piotrowski. She commented on it:

“‘Casino Queen’ showcases a night in the life of Jacqueline. The song and video follow the letting go of an individual’s underdog mentality, realigning it with the winner’s place. What does it take to refocus one’s internal mirror and become a Casino Queen? All in due time shall we each define ourselves prosperous by way of intuition, self belief, nearby shoulders, a bit of luck, and maybe a wig.”

Here´s the video for ‘Casino Queen’.

Jacqueline is out on April 10th through Drag City

In other related good news, Jackie Lynn have announced a string of live dates in the UK and Europe, including a London show on May 18th at Moth Club.

LEYA unveil video for new single ‘Wave’

22 January 2020

After sharing the beautifully dark, haunting and intriguing ‘Weight‘, LEYA are enticing us again with ‘Wave’,  the new single taken from their upcoming second  album, Flood Dream. The duo of Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz are offering the track with a self-directed video featuring two friends “disciples of 34th generation Shaolin warrior monk and activist Shi Yan Ming, founder of the luminous USA Shaolin Temple in Manhattan, where RZA, Rosie Perez, Wesley Snipes, Jim Jarmusch, and Tricky have all trained”, explained LEYA. “They are part of the wave.”

Watch the video below and watch out for the release of Flood Dream on March 6th through NNA Tapes.

In other related news, LEYA have announced a North American tour, including dates with Liturgy and the album launch on March 6th in New York City with Eartheater.

Collectress share second single, ‘In the Streets, In the Fields’, off upcoming album, Different Geographies

20 January 2020

At the tail end of 2019, Collectress returned with their first new music in nearly six years, and announced a new album following their wonderful 2014 debut Mondegreen. Entitled Different Geographies, the new album arrives on March 6th and they had already shared the magical and gorgeous ‘Landing’ as the first single, which left us eager to hear more new music. Now the quartet have shared a beautiful and beguiling new single called ‘In the Streets, In the Fields’, reportedly “with nods to both psychedelia (particularly 13th Floor Elevators), and the 1937 recording of Virginia Woolf’s “Words””. They explained:

“We liked the sense of the transience of language as evoked by the crackly Woolf recordings, of time passing and of spaces shifting, of being in one place yet another at the same time, in “Different Geographies”. In this technological world of ours, Woolf’s “Words” speaks to us from the past, visionary in suggesting we are mere vessels for language to occur, adapt and move around in. “In the Streets, In the Fields” melodically ‘sets off’ and in some way is doing this too, its simple structure unfolding, shifting and developing over the course of the song.”

Collectress are offering ‘In the Streets, In the Fields’ with an accompanying video, which “include[s] dance as a means to explore and express the nature of the music”, they added. “We each gave our interpretation and filmed ourselves dancing at our own respective ‘different geography’. What you see in the film is a layering of those interpretations to the rhythm and layers of the individual parts of the music, to create an indefinable space that we hope has something recognisable and grounded but that also allows for an element of getting lost.”

Watch the video below.

Different Geographies is out on March 6th through their own imprint Peeler Records.

Sunny Jain shares video for title track ‘Wild Wild East’, album out next month

16 January 2020

Photo: Ebru Yildiz

Talented and acclaimed Indian-American composer and dhol player Sunny Jain, also known as the founder and bandleader of Red Baraat, has announced the release of a new album. Entitled Wild Wild East and set for release on February 21st through Smithsonian Folkways, it marks his first solo album in a decade and will also be his first for the label. The album incorporates influences aplenty as the press release describes, “from the scores of Bollywood classics to Spaghetti Westerns, Indian folk to jazz improvisation, and South Asian languages to English prose to express the immigrant experience as one navigates the terrain of what it means to be “American.””

Following the mighty first single, ‘Immigrant Warrior’, Jain has now shared the title track, a song about migration, as he explains:

“A story that everyone has in their family, whether it be 100 years old or in recent times. This song is about my lineage from Osian, Rajasthan to Sialkot, Punjab to the 1947 partition of India, and then the eventual move to America. The courageousness of all immigrants to leave their family and home in search of opportunity in a foreign land is a wild and bold move. One that truly embodies the romanticized ideas the cowboy has always professed to be.”

‘Wild Wild East’ comes with an accompanying video directed by Adeel Ahmed and filmed in Manhattan, Queens, Hawaii, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Old Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. Watch it below and listen to ‘Immigrant Warrior’ straight after.


Alabaster DePlume announces new album To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1

15 January 2020

2020 is off to a tremendous start with the news of a new album from thought-provoking and unpredictable musician and poet Alabaster DePlume. Entitled To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1, the album features instrumental pieces recorded over the past eight years, both new compositions and older ones collected from his albums Copernicus, The Jester and Peach. For the new compositions, the London based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator,  enlisted the help of a stellar cast of London musicians including Dan ‘Danalogue’ Leavers and Sarathy Korwar.

On the origin of To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 is DePlume´s work for Ordinary Lifestyles, a Manchester based charity that helps adults with disabilities to live independently in their own homes, where he worked with the titular Cy and Lee. DePlume helped them socialize by making music together in different situations, which he recorded in his phone and then then used as a foundation to create songs in his studio. Additionaly, DePlume also ran music sessions for Cy, Lee and their friends, and he said this about it:

“People would focus on a central point, tuning in to one another. There are things we can’t put into words, which can be expressed with sound and music. These guys have fewer words than us, some of them have none. When we put some feelings into a music expression – that’s liberation.”

Much like in his live shows, DePlume mixes and connects people up and as the press release describes, “brings together players of different skill levels and different backgrounds so they have to interact differently, placing them in unusual situations in which to record.” This, in his own words, led them to have “a very magical time playing the tunes”.

We´ll have to wait until February 28th for the album to arrive through International Anthem, but we can already delight our ears and hearts with the first single ‘Whisky Story Time’. Here it is.