Mary Lattimore shares new single ‘Pine Trees’

02 September 2020

Photo: Rachael Pony Cassells

Earlier this summer, Mary Lattimore announced the release of a new album entitled Silver Ladders, following her acclaimed 2018 Hundreds of Days. The record came to life with the help of Slowdive’s Neil Halstead, whom she met at one of her festival appearances. The LA-based experimental composer and harpist had previously shared the sublime ‘Sometimes He’s In My Dreams’, and she is enticing us again with new single ‘Pine Trees’. Lattimore had this to say about it:

“Pine Trees is named after a quiet cluster of trees by the sea on the island of Hvar in Croatia. This song was created in Los Angeles at home, but crystallized in the studio with Neil’s help, where he took away layers of the demo that felt unnecessary, bringing out other layers to the front that had been hidden. This song feels like a testament to his producing in that, through more objective listening, a subtler light could shine through that I hadn’t seen in it before.”

Listen to ‘Pine Trees’ below an grab the album when it’s out on October 9th through Ghostly International.

Samuel Hällkvist releases new album Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral

28 August 2020

Photo; Mike H

Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral, the brand new album from composer and guitarist extraordinaire Samuel Hällkvist, is one of the most thrilling surprises of this summer. Released last week through BoogiePost / Burning Shed, the album is a wild and wondrous ride, filled with exciting and unexpected shifts throughout its ten original compositions, and flirting with a variety of genres and influences, from jazz and country to metal and electronic. Fluent in both composition and improvisation, Hällkvist displays his staggering inventiveness, offering a bold and refreshing contemporary album, bursting with sound colours and grooves.

To bring Epik, Didaktik, Pastoral to life, Hällkvist enlisted the help of a slew of talented players, including trumpeters Yazz Ahmed, Noel Langle and Luca Calabrese, bass players Dick Lövgren and Anne Marte Eggen, Knut Finsrud on drums and Katrine Amsler on sound design and programming.

For an exhilarating taste of the album, here’s one of the album tracks, ‘100 Takter med Piano’.

Jack Wyllie announces new collaborative project, Paradise Cinema, and self-titled debut album

25 August 2020

Known for his membership in Portico Quartet and Szun Waves, and a range of other collaborations, multi-instrumentalist Jack Wyllie has unleashed a new collaborative project called Paradise Cinema, featuring Khadim Mbaye (saba drums) and Tons Sambe (tama drums). Paradise Cinema is also the title of their debut album, recorded in Dakar, Senegal. “I had a lot of nights in Dakar when the music around the city would go on until 6am”, described Wyllie about his experience. “I could hear this from my bed at night and it all blended together, in what felt like an early version of the record.”

Paradise Cinema will see the light of day on October 9th through Gondwana Records but we can already hear the wondrous title track. Wyllie explains the inspiration behind it:

“There are a handful of old cinemas in Dakar – these big modernist buildings dotted around the city built around independence. They’re old and derelict now, but feel to me like monuments to that period, when the city was flooded with utopian ideas about its potential futures.”

Take a listen to ‘Paradise Cinema’ below.

Suuns unveil five new contributions from ‘2020’ Remixes

25 August 2020

Last month Suuns unveiled a remix project that saw them invite other musicians they admire to remix ‘2020’, lifted from their 2013 album Images Du Futur. The Montreal based quartet are releasing these remixes digitally on Bandcamp on a Pay What You Can basis, with all proceeds going to the NAACP. Sharing the project in instalments, the first one featured remixes from Kelman Duran; Vive La Void; Greg Saunier; KRAMER, and Brian Case.

Now they have unveiled five new versions of ‘2020’ remixed by Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon; Chicago-based clarinetist, vocalist and composer Angel Bat Dawid; ethereal experimental artist Julianna Barwick; drummer Kristopher Bowering, and Los Angeles songwriter and multi-instrumentalist SASAMI. Take a listen to Cate Le Bon’s remix below and head over to bandcamp to hear the other remixes.

Laurence Pike shares new video for ‘Ember’

20 August 2020

Following the recent release of his third solo album, Prophecy, Laurence Pike keeps the surprises coming by rolling out a new video for new single ‘Ember’. The video was directed again by visual artist Clemens Habicht, who explained it “is an evolution of the methodology established in previous collaborations on ‘Drum Chant’ and ‘Nero’. He added:

“The shapes in motion again resemble print making abstractions of form that visually parallel Laurence’s exploratory music. This video departs from a direct musical synchronicity of image and sound and captures another type of internal notation, using motion from an activity outside of performance that for Laurence brings a similar type of concentration without the same mastery, a meditative practice that is most likely quite addictive, possibly frustrating, and has him go into a special headspace, trusting in instinct and the process to give forth an outcome”

Check out the video below.


Prophecy is out now through The Leaf Label.

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.