FOUDRE! to release new album, Voltæ (Chthulucene), in October

12 July 2024

Photo: Marie Mauve

October 25th will see the release of FOUDRE!‘s sixth album, Voltæ (Chthulucene), through Nahal Recordings and ZamZam Rec. The trio of Frédéric D. Oberland (Oiseaux-Tempête), Romain Barbot (Saåad), and Paul Régimbeau (Mondkopf) crafted a wistful and powerful “tribute to electricity and telluric forces”, as the press release describes, “a complete celebration of life, a symbiosis for an epistemic shift.” On the new album, FOUDRE!’s sound takes a post-techno turn, blending English rave, punk urgency, and electronica with traditional sounds.

Recorded in the studio for the first time, Voltæ (Chthulucene) is an electronic feat produced by sound engineer Camille Jamain. The album’s richly layered and evocative 8 tracks lead us through soundscapes that explore themes of coexistence and renewal, painting a psychedelic futuristic vision “where hybrid characters of  human / machine / vegetable could start to dance, mutate, and merge within everything around them.”

The fierce and mesmeric  ‘Visions from Zūrūtetsu’ is the first track to emerge from the album and you can listen to it below.

Colin Stetson shares second single, ‘The Six’, from upcoming The love it took to leave you LP

10 July 2024

Back in May, sax superhero Colin Stetson announced the release of his new solo album, The love it took to leave you, and enticed us with its magnificent title track. The Canadian-American saxophonist, multireedist, and composer is teasing the upcoming album again with an absolute beast of a new track called ‘The Six’. “One of the first songs I wrote for this record, ‘The Six’ is a vengeful strut”, Stetson comments. “Played on solo bass saxophone, this one’s big and mean with long arms and a toothy grin.”

‘The Six’ is offered with an accompanying video directed by Derrick Belcham and you can watch it now.

The love it took to leave you is out on September 13th through Invada Records and Envision Records.

Photay announces new solo album, Windswept, and shares lead single ‘Derecho’

09 July 2024

Photo: Carson Davis Brown

Photay, the alias of Los Angeles based composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and producer Evan Shornstein, has announced the release of his fifth solo album. Entitled Windswept, it follows a string of collaborative projects, including improvisation albums with Niño and friends; More Arriving, the album he produced for London-based percussionist, producer and composer Sarathy Korwar, and WEMA, a supergroup of musicians from Tanzania and London. Slated for a September 20th release through Mexican Summer, the upcoming Windswept is an album about wind, sprouted from Photay’s intention to “mimic the ‘wind’”. As the press release describes, “the natural world had always been one of Photay’s calling cards, and now it had invaded the machine, and his writing.”

Alongside the album announcement, Photay has shared the first wondrous single, ‘Derecho’, named after a kind of severe wind storm. Speaking about it, he comments:

 “There are many types of wind. Some ebb and flow while others are so large that if you listen, you may hear a low howling drone that stretches for miles in all directions. A few years ago I started recording music during a period of high springtime winds. I found myself falling under the spell of this deep, unpredictable and often overwhelming force. “Derecho” was the first of many pieces created under the direct influence of these atmospheric conditions. After several gusty seasons, a whole album was created by listening to and reckoning with these larger spirits at play.”

‘Derecho’ comes with a visual accompaniment, watch it now.

Laurence Pike unveils first single from upcoming new album, The Undreamt-Of Centre

05 July 2024

Photo: Traianos Pakioufakis

We’re thrilled to know that Laurence Pike is back with a new album entitled The Undreamt-of Centre. A relentless drummer, phenomenal improviser and inventive composer, he has been dazzling us for the last two decades, both with his solo projects and various bands and collaborations, and the upcoming album is no exception. We are actually totally blown away by this one. Described as his most ambitious project to date, The Undreamt-of Centre is a contemporary reimagining of the requiem mass and features the VOX Sydney Philharmonia Choir, a 12-piece chamber choir conducted by Pike’s childhood friend, composer Sam Lipman. Recorded in a 19th century Gothic church in Sydney, the album draws influences spanning from the sounds of modern classical music, Japanese environmental ambient music, fourth world electronics and free jazz through to the choral traditions of Estonia, particularly from Tallinn-based composer Tonu Korvits.

On the forthcoming The Undreamt-of Centre, Pike noted:

“I first had the thought of working with voices a number of years ago. I had the strange notion of making a requiem mass for drums, electronics and choir. It sat with me since then, until it felt the time was right to realise the idea.

Why a requiem? Initially I simply liked the idea of a structural format that had existed and been reimagined again and again over hundreds of years. Ultimately, it’s a ritual set to music. The processes and ecstatic outcomes of rituals, were something I had explored in making the Holy Spring album in 2019. I became interested in subverting the religious musical construct of a requiem into something far more contemporary, using language and sounds not readily associated with it. It also seemed a ready-made vehicle to explore the sound of a choir with my electro-acoustic drum kit performances.”

We´ll have to wait untl September 6th for the album to be out through The Leaf Label but we can already hear the moving and majestic first single, ‘Introit’.

Why The Eye return with new album, Inspirex, share first single ‘La machine’

26 June 2024

We were lucky to come across the tribal, propulsive and hypnotic sounds of Why The Eye in 2017, just after they released their eponymous debut album, and immediately became avid fans. Based in Brussels, the mysteriously masked quartet, who describe their music as “Prehistoric Techno”, play home-made instruments made out of random objects. The good news is they are finally back with a new album. Entitled Inspirex, the record arrives on October 4th through Exag Records and they are giving us a first taste of  what to expect from the album with ‘La Machine’. Of the track, the band says:

“La Machine was composed at rue de la Senne, a legendary spot on the Brussels underground scene. The song was written in a flash, in a single day. The overall shape emerged instantly. The text became clearer during the covid crisis. The song speaks of the confinement generated by our capitalist society. Live, this song sets the audience free! When we recorded the album in the midst of the covid crisis, the song became more vindictive. The crowd noises, it’s the band screaming. Initially, “les boules dans la machine” was a bit abstract. But then it took on a different meaning.”

A daredevil of a single, ‘La Machine’ comes with an accompanying video directed by DjP and Marco Zagaglia and you can watch it below.

Masayoshi Fujita announces new album, Migratory, and shares first single ‘Tower of Cloud’

25 June 2024

Photo: Ryo Noda

We love vibraphone wizard, multi-percussionist, and composer Masayoshi Fujita, whose beautiful and beguiling Bird Ambience, was one of our Album Picks of 2021. So we’re over the moon to know he is ready to follow it up with a new full-length album. Entitled Migratory, the new record will see the light of day on September 6th through Erased Tapes. Fujita’s previous album saw him merge influences he’d kept separate til then, and turn the spotlight on the marimba alongside drums, percussion, synths, effects and tape recorder. On the upcoming Migratory, he continues to display his incredible creativity and technical virtuosity, both on his signature instrument, the vibraphone, and also on the marimba and synthezisers.

After living in Berlin for 13 years, Fujita moved to his native Japan with his wife and three kids in 2020, specifically to the mountain hills along the coast of Kami-cho, Hyōgo, “fulfilling his life-long dream of living and composing music in the midst of nature”, as the press release describes. In Fujita’s own words, “nature is there as the image to be evoked by the listener from the music.”

As the album’s title suggests, birds are once again the inspiration behind the new album, with Fujita having an image of migratory birds travelling somewhere between Africa, Southeast Asia and Japan, and “imagining them hearing the music from the land underneath, and how their point of view of the world from above blurs the boundaries of music and land”. He comments:

“These ideas and images were inspired by my experiences of living abroad and returning to my homeland, as well as by the artists featured on this album who also somehow travelled or lived in other countries across the boundaries, and being influenced by the music of other lands but at the same time somehow led to their roots.”

In his Kebi Bird Studio, an old kindergarten turned into music studio, Fujita brough his Migratory to life with the help of some collaborators, including composer, poet, vocalist and educator Moor Mother,  London based Japanese vocal performer Hatis Noit, Swedish shō player Mattias Hållsten and also his father.

The wonderful news comes paired with the first single, the beautiful and reverie-inducing ‘Tower of Cloud’. Speaking about the track, Fujita says:

 “‘Tower of Cloud’ took form when I was preparing a live set for a tour a few years ago, and it evolved as I played in Europe and Thailand. The synth riff gives me a late summer feel and reminds me of cumulonimbus clouds, and I can see a swallow drawing a circle in the sky to the marimba melody.”

Listen to ‘Tower of Cloud’ below.