Jackie Lynn previews upcoming album with new single ‘Dream St.’

26 March 2020

Haley Fohr has embraced again her fictional alter ego Jackie Lynn, now reincarnated as a “lady of the road”, and announced a new album, Jacqueline. After sharing two exciting previews with singles, ‘Casino Queen’ and ‘Shugar Water’, and with the album now nearing release, Jackie Lynn entices us again a new single, ‘Dream St.’. The track has been paired with a video, shot by Tim Breene, who explained that “Jackie Lynn taxis through her past on the corridor of dreams. A vortex rippling on the windshield. A memory sparked in a cloud of smoke. Driven by unseen forces with an armload of flowers. This was shot on a screen and drawn on paper. Flat surfaces in deep space.”

Speaking about the track, Haley Fohr had this to say :

“I first wrote “Dream St.” as an ode to my favorite street in Chicago, Ogden Drive. It is one of the few streets in the city that runs on a diagonal. On a good day you can catch a nice steady flow and shave minutes off of your commute. It also used to be a part of Route 66. I can’t help but wonder if my very distinct attraction to the flow of Ogden isn’t correlated to the deep historic stream that has been going down on that specific stretch of land for decades.

‘In transit’ means to pass through, and often times it’s a situation where my body has no choice but to remain stationary, so my mind picks up the slack. In this moment of in-between-ness is where I am able to find my deepest imagination, my most intimate secrets, and my longest narrative. Everything about the making of ‘Dream St.’ was easy. I wrote it in a breeze, and we tracked it all live in an evening. Julie Pomerleau and Bobby Conn did a fantastic job with the strings, and the session was such a dream in itself…

Right now everything seems hard. In a time when we are all in our own cabins tucked away (yet in transit), I hope that this song can help alleviate any inner concerns one may have in isolation.”

Watch the video for ‘Dream St.’ below.

Jacqueline is out on April 10th through Drag City

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith announces release of new album The Mosaic of Transformation

25 March 2020

Synth wizard and composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has kept herself busy in recent years, with various projects. Following her 2017 wonderful and kaleidoscopic record The Kid, she founded multidisciplinary imprint Touchtheplants, through which she released Tides: Music for Meditation and Yoga, and the first volumes in her instrumental Electronic Series and pocket-sized poetry books. Smith also continued her sonic exploration of electronic instruments and the link between the physical body and sound and colour. Nurtured by these interests and ventures, Smith has a new album on the way, releasing on May 15th through Ghostly International. Titled The Mosaic of Transformation, Smith describes it as her “expression of love and appreciation for electricity”. The press release notes that “she embraced a daily practice of physical movement, passing electricity through her body and into motion, in ways reflecting her audio practice, which sends currents through modular synthesizers and into the air through speakers.” Smith also described her experience:

“The inspiration came to me in a sudden bubble of joy. It was accompanied by a multitude of shapes that were moving seamlessly from one into the other…My movement practice has been a constant transformation piece by piece. I made this album in the same way. Every day I would transform what I did yesterday…into something else. This album has gone through about 12 different versions of itself.”

In anticipation of the album release, Smith has shared the celestial closing track, ‘Expanding Electricity’, clocking in at 10 minutes. Take a listen.

NZCA LINES shares new single ‘Pure Luxury’

25 March 2020

Photo: Aleksandra Kingo

Get ready to dance to the brand new single from NZCA LINES, the project of producer and multi-instrumentalist Michael Lovett. Entitled ‘Pure Luxury’, the track marks his first single in four years and is inspired by the environmental crisis, in particular his experience of a Manhattan heatwave in February. He had this to say about it:

“It’s a sadistic joyride set in penthouse suites where the gold trim hides a rotting plywood facade, muscle cars are bought with credit cards and barbed wire fences separate luxury resorts from the slums beyond their walls. The fantasy of attainment in a world that has no future.”

‘Pure Luxury’ is an insanely infectious, high-energy track guaranteed to rock the dance floor. The single is out now through Memphis Industries and you can listen to it below.

Jacaszek’s new album, Music For Film, out this Friday

24 March 2020

Photo: Pawel Grzes

We’re just a few days away from the release of Music For Film, the new album from Polish contemporary classical composer Michal Jacaszek. For nearly two decades, Jacaszek has composed and contributed to numerous albums and projects, including film music. The forthcoming Music For Film is a collection of tracks spanning a decade and varied films and commissions, including the 2019 documentary He Dreams of Giants, the 2008 project Golgota wrocławska and Rainer Sarnet’s 2017 film November.

Ahead of the album release this Friday March 27th through Ghostly International, Jacaszek has shared a fittingly gorgeous and arresting video featuring excerpts from November. Watch it below.

Juana Molina offers surprise rendition of ‘Cara de Espejo’

21 March 2020

Juana Molina‘s wonderful album Halo, released in 2017, still has a total and timeless hold on us. Now that her upcoming European tour is sadly unlikely to go ahead for obvious reasons, the multi-talented and inventive artist is spreading a little joy with a surprise rendition of ‘Cara de Espejo’, lifted from Halo. The new version was recorded and filmed at her home studio near Buenos Aires, and directed by Alejo Moguillansky. Watch it below.

Chip Wickham announces new album, Blue to Red, and shares title track

21 March 2020

At a time where music is like a salvation, Chip Wickham is treating us with a new splendid release. The immensely talented British flautist and saxophonist has announced the release of Blue to Red, arriving on May 8th through Lovemonk Records. Blue to Red is Wickham’s third album but he has been making music for the last few decades. Wickham initially emerged from Manchester’s modal-jazz scene in the late 90s, and has played and collaborated with the likes of Matthew Halsall, Nat Birchall, 808 State, Nightmares On Wax, Badly Drawn Boy, The New Mastersounds and Grand Central Records, to name but a few.

The upcoming Blue to Red is “his most absorbing and cosmically-charged offering to date”, as the press release describes. “Soaring flute melodies, lush harp arpeggios and glistening Rhodes keys interact across six journeying, spiritual jazz compositions, leaning on a rich palette of sounds beyond borders, space and time.”
The album’s title alludes to Earth’s possible Mars-like future. As Wickham puts it, “it’s a culture crisis rather than a climate crisis, one that can only be solved if we go right to the core of how we live as human beings”.

Blue to Red saw Wickham enlist a stellar cast of musicians from the UK’s thriving jazz scene, including Sons of Kemet and Mulatu Astatke drummer, Jon Scott, Simon Houghton aka Sneaky of Fingathing (double bass/cello), Nightmares On Wax affiliate Dan Goldman aka JD 73 (keys) and pioneering jazz harpist Amanda Whiting.

Ahead of the album’s release, we can already hear the celestially sublime title track. Here it is.