Earlier this month, Manu Delago announced the release of a new album, Circadian, and gifted us with the bewitching lead single ‘The Silent Flight of the Owl’. Now he has unveiled a gorgeous live video for the song, featuring his new ensemble. The video was directed by Jeb Hardwick. Watch it below.
Circadian is out on September 13th through One Little Indian Records.
We’re avid fans of electronic contemporary composer Anna Meredith, and ever since her debut EP, 2012’s Black Prince Fury, her music has stuck with us. Her incredible debut album, Varmints, came out in 2016 and now she has announced details of a long-awaited follow-up. Entitled FIBS, the album arrives on October 25th through Moshi Moshi. Speaking about the title of the record, Meredith described it as “lies — but nice friendly lies, little stories and constructions and daydreams and narratives that you make for yourself or you tell yourself.”
The news comes paired with the first single, the brilliant and boisterous ‘Paramour’, a song that as the press release describes, “sweeps, jerks and wrong turns pinning your ears to the speakers whilst heading for warp speed at a blistering 176 BPM before rounding the journey out with an (utterly unexpected) tuba-led half-time rock-out”. What’s more, Meredith has also unveiled an astonishing single-take video for it, featuring 1200 pieces of LEGO track. Ewan Jones Morris directs.
In other related news, Anna Meredith has announced a string of UK dates for February 2020. Check all her stops below:
Feb 3rd – LEEDS, Belgrave Music Hall
Feb 4th – MANCHESTER, Gorilla
Feb 5th – LONDON, EartH
Feb 6th – BRISTOL, Trinity
Feb 8th – GLASGOW, Art School
Feb 9th – COVENTRY, Arts Centre
Feb 10th – BRIGHTON, Old Market
This is the moment we have been waiting for! Oakland based outfit Mwahaha have long promised a follow-up to their 2011’s self-titled debut album, and they’ve hinted at new music in 2014 with ‘Wine Cooler’. Finally they will return this year with a new album called Lovers arriving on September 6th.
Life took unexpected turns for Mwhahaha with the tragic passing of band member Cyrus Tilton, who lost his battle to cancer in early 2017. Before passing, Cyrus recorded several passages of guitar and sampler, which became vital to the album. Lovers is also titled as a tribute to Cyrus, taking its name from one of his sculptures of the same name.
Mwahaha have let loose ‘Sundown’ as the first taste from Lovers, unfolding a masterful and mesmeric blend of vintage synths and genres like krautrock and pop. Take a listen now.
Earlier this year, London based composer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan unfurled his wonderful new album called Folly. Now he is sharing a new single off it, ‘The Diamond Vehicle’, which he explained “was fired into my mind via the vast active living intelligence system. I was making a pot of earl grey and then zap!”. The single comes backed with an unreleased track, ‘No Fate In Sound’, which features a guest contribution from Jessica Moss on violin and backing vocals. ‘The Diamond Vehicle’ is also being offered with an accompanying video directed by Daisy Dickinson.
In other related news, Daniel O’Sullivan has announced a handful of Autumn dates, including a show at The Lexington in London on September 13th. Take a look at all the live dates below:
13 Sep – London, The Lexington, (w/ Dream Lyon Ensemble* and Brigid Mae Power)
14 Sep – Dublin, The Sound House
16 Sep – Aarhus DK, Tape (w/ Dream Lyon Ensemble*)
18 Sep – Copenhagen DK, Alice (w/ Dream Lyon Ensemble*)
26 Sep – Rotterdam NL, Worm
Last month Thirty Three Thirty Three relaunched as a record label and put out three very special releases, including Keiji Haino and Charles Hayward’s A Loss Permitted, to open one’s eyes…, and Oren Amabarchi, Mark Fell, Sam Shalabi and Will Guthrie’s Oglon Day. The other stunning release comes from the hands of British saxophonist, improviser and producer Ben Vince. Following last year´s widely acclaimed Assimilation, Vince has released his new album Don’t Give Your Life, described by the label as “the strongest work yet from an artist whose work demonstrates a risk-taking, omnivorous appetite for the new while also digging deeper and deeper into a unique sonic sensibility.”
Here´s a striking track from the album, ‘Makeshift Paradigm’, to get you enticed.
A pioneer of the hang and one of the most interesting contemporary musicians, Manu Delago‘s technical ability and creativity knows no bounds. His album and film Parasol Peak, a giant sonic venture recorded with an ensemble of seven musicians on a mountaineering expedition in the Alps, was one of our 15 Albums Picks of 2018 and remains an absolute favourite. So we´re thrilled to know the Austrian percussionist and composer is ready to follow it up with a new album called Circadian. The album takes its name and inspiration from the concept of the body’s internal clock known as Circadian rhythms. A busy musician, collaborating and touring with the likes of Bjork, Anoushka Shankar, Poppy Ackroyd, the London Symphony Orchestra and Olafur Arnalds, amongst many more, the disruption of his own sleep cycles inform the album. “Before I made this album I had a phase of very intense touring with multiple trips to five different continents, without a break for several months”, explained Delago. “It literally felt like touring with four bands simultaneously and in my dreams the music and crews started to commingle. I found it interesting how my brain was trying to digest all these experiences during sleep hours. In fact, during REM sleep the brain is very creative. In that stressful touring period, I started to consciously appreciate sleep and how much it contributes to mastering any challenge.”
Circadian will see the light of day on September 13th through One Little Indian Records. Ahead of it, Delago is enticing us with the bewitching lead single ‘The Silent Flight of the Owl’. The track, written to emulate the sound of an owl’s wings, is an ode to an experience he had had: “I had an encounter with an owl while I was brushing my teeth late at night. The owl landed a metre away from me just outside the window on the ledge. It is very unusual for owls to come that close. When I told the story to the people who lived there, they didn’t believe me.” Wrap your ears around ‘The Silent Flight of the Owl’ now.
