Holland Andrews announces new ambient drone series Aromatherapy: Vol. 1

14 May 2025

Photo: Clifford Kiing

Following last year’s Answers EP and their inclusion in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, vocalist, composer, producer, and performer Holland Andrews has announced a new ongoing series of ambient drone works titled Aromatherapy: Vol. 1. Created over the past five years for personal use, Andrews is now sharing these extended compositions. This series, as the press release explains, “is composed to stimulate your home or your headspace with uplifted peace, flow, self-realization, and relaxation, akin to how one uses aromatherapy.”

Each volume in the series takes on a different mood or intention, from meditation and grounding to creative focus, and tracks run 20–30 minutes, roughly the length of time it takes for incense to burn, an intentional design element.

Aromatherapy: Vol. 1 will see the light of day this Friday May 16th through Good Cloud Day, and ahead of it, they have shared the first track, ‘The Raft’. “The Raft was crafted to soothe the mind,” Andrews says. “Its delicate chord cluster floats beneath a blanket of breathful oceanic tides, perpetually shifting. It represents an interior lighthouse, an eternal beacon that remains lit and shines a compassionate presence throughout change.” ‘The Raft’ is offered with accompanying visuals. Check it out below and let yourself drift away.

Juri Seo shares new single ‘Cantus Firmus’, second preview from upcoming album Obsolete Music

14 May 2025

Korean-American composer and pianist Juri Seo has a new album on the way. Obsolete Music, performed by chamber sextet Latitude 49, is a collection of six works that reimagine traditional classical forms through a contemporary lens, blending old forms like fugues and cantus firmus with unusual rhythms and sharp contrasts. “It’s impossible to call anything obsolete, since when you say something is obsolete, you’re bringing it back to relevance,” she says. “I’m always thinking about this kind of cyclicity, of things always coming back—I think this is a very modern phenomenon—since now we can access whatever, whenever we want. Now everything in human history is available to us, and I like being able to be inspired by all of those things, all at once..”

Seo, who teaches at Princeton University, draws from a wide musical language that spans centuries, but always with her own distinct logic. “I fell in love with music through counterpoint. For a lot of contemporary composers, this is a kind of exercise that they do in class, but for me, it’s how I started music, you know, playing Bach fugues”, she explains, continuing:

“I came to think of counterpoint as a musical device that enables the unlikely interaction between complexity and warmth. It’s difficult to play or compose a fugue—they’re very complex—but once you embody it, with your fingers and ears, it becomes a simple, playful, and warm experience. I’m always looking for that combination of warmth, of this simple, radiant feeling, and intricacy. That’s something I strive for no matter what styles I write.”

‘Ostinato’ which served as the first single from the album, opens the record with relentless energy and spiraling tempo shifts. Seo’s approach to form is loose but intentional, as she puts it:

“As a composer, you can control the form to some extent, but you always have to let it grow in its own unexpected ways.”

The newly released ‘Cantus Firmus’ takes a more meditative and immersive route, built around Hildegard von Bingen’s ‘O rubor sanguinis’, and the cantus firmus technique. Speaking about it, Seo comments:

“It is built on the popular Medieval-Renaissance formal device of the same name—counterpoint unfolding along with a greatly elongated melody. Quarter tones feature prominently, initially as cadential embellishments and later as the harmonic foundation, taking the contrapuntal universe to a microscopic scale.”

Obsolete Music arrives on June 13th through New Amsterdam Records. Now listen to both ‘Ostinato’ and ‘Cantus Firmus’ below.


James Weir unveils new Blue Earth Sound project; debut album Cicero Nights out in September

13 May 2025

Based in Chicago, James Weir is a multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and composer best known for his work in NE-HI and Spun Out. He has unearthed his new project, Blue Earth Sound, marking a shift from the post-punk and synth-driven energy of his earlier bands toward something more reflective and expansive. The project came out of a period of soul-searching, as Weir sought a musical outlet that reflected where he is in life today, while also pushing his songwriting skills forward. Rather than drawing from the music that inspired him in his teens, he was compelled to create something that reflected his experiences in his 20s and 30s.

He shares:

“My earlier bands were inspired by what I fell in love with between 16–21. Subconsciously, a lot of the writing was about energy, angst, and partying. I wanted to make music inspired by life experiences and the music I fell in love with in my late 20s and early 30s—70s Chicago jazz and soul, Talk Talk, Japanese jazz, and Italian soundtrack composers like Stefano Torossi.”

The result is Cicero Nights, the debut album from Blue Earth Sound, out on September 12th through Root Records. Cicero Nights began when Weir bought a piano and started writing in his basement in Humboldt Park. “After I bought a piano and put it in my basement in Humboldt Park, it turned out my neighbour Patch Romanowski was a drummer,” he explains. “We developed this chemistry and would play in the basement together. That gave me a big step forward with my relationship to writing on the piano.”

Recorded at the International Anthem studio space in Chicago, with in-house engineer Dave Vettraino, Cicero Nights features a group of collaborators including drummer Patch Romanowski, Resavoir’s Will Miller on trumpet, flautist Eamonn Pritzy, and longtime collaborator Michael Wells.

Alongside the album announcement, Blue Earth Sound has shared the opening track ‘Mariposa’, which serves as a sublime introduction to the album. Speaking about the track, Weir says:

“The song was inspired by my hometown in Minnesota and dedicated to my wife, Morgan. I pictured a colorful butterfly floating over a beige cornfield—like how the flute and trumpet float over the arrangement. The moment Will came in and improvised trumpet over it, I knew we had a beautiful, melancholic track that felt like the most important on the album to me.”

Listen to ‘Mariposa’ now.

Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer set to release new album, Different Rooms

10 May 2025

Photo: Colin Patrick Smith

Modular synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer return with Different Rooms, a follow-up to their 2022 duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands. The album was pieced together between late 2024 and early 2025, with material developed onstage during their Autumn EU tour and later shaped in their neighboring home studios in LA. The title is both literal and figurative as most of the pieces were composed in parallel, each artist working in their own space, and a few others came from live sessions with Josh Johnson and Jeff Parker. Speaking about it, Chiu and Honer say:

“This record marks an evolution in our approach to studio production. Our studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.”

Unlike the dreamlike landscapes of their previous album, which was captured in an archipelago in the Baltic Sea, the upcoming Different Rooms stays grounded. “We want this music to meet you where you are”, they explained. Described as an “urban album”, on the record field recordings are still present, but they come from train platforms, city streets, and everyday domestic scenes.

The full album lands on June 20th through International Anthem and ahead of it they have shared the enveloping and hazy ‘Mean Solar Time’ as the first single. Take a listen now.

Herbert & Momoko share second single, ‘Need To Run’, from forthcoming album Clay

10 May 2025

Photo: Manuel Vazquez

Following the gorgeous lead single ‘Babystar‘ released last month, artist, producer, composer and experimentalist Matthew Herbert and drummer, composer and vocalist Momoko Gill have shared a new glimpse into their forthcoming debut album Clay with a second single, ‘Need To Run’. A beautifully restrained piece, ‘Need To Run’ blends soulful textures and a haunting sense of introspection. In describing the track, Herbert shares:

“We often think of states as binary—awake/asleep etc—but much of life is spent in a state of not knowing quite where you are or where you fit. Need To Run takes place somewhere within one of those moments.”

Listen to ‘Need To Run’ below and grab Clay when it drops on June 27th through Strut / Accidental.

Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke release final single ‘The Spirit’ as Tall Tales album and film arrive

09 May 2025

Coinciding with the release of their debut collaborative album Tall Tales, out today through Warp, Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke shared yesterday a final single titled ‘The Spirit’. The track arrives with a surreal new video from longtime visual collaborator Jonathan Zawada, marking the fourth video glimpse into the cinematic world of Tall Tales, following ‘Back In The Game’, ‘This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice’, and ‘Gangsters’.

Tall Tales is accompanied by a full-length feature film, also out today, screening in select cinemas globally. Developed over several years alongside the music, the film blends dystopian imagery with natural beauty, questioning our collective ideas of progress. Some screenings include a limited-edition zine, designed by Zawada, that expands on the film’s themes and visual language.

Now check out the video for ‘The Spirit’.