Penguin Cafe announce new album Handfuls Of Night

01 August 2019

Two years on from the release of the wonderful The Imperfect Sea, Penguin Cafe have a new album on the way. Entitled Handfuls Of Night, the record is inspired by the Antarctic and its penguin residents, and the idea first sprouted when Arthur Jeffes was commissioned by Greenpeace to write four pieces of music, each for a different breed of penguins. He explains:

“This record started with a core of pieces I wrote specifically about penguins in the Antarctic for a project with Greenpeace in autumn 2018. There are four native Antarctic penguin species – each with their own individual characteristics and natures. I carried on from there to envisage a whole anthropomorphised world, where these penguins had narratives and adventures that we soundtracked.”

But Handfuls Of Night and Penguin Cafe as a project go back more than a decade before that, as Jeffes carries on explaining:

“In 2005 I was asked to join an expedition re-creating Scott’s last Antarctic trip in 1911 for the BBC, using the same Edwardian equipment. I’m no explorer but I was keen, especially as there’s a family link – Scott was married to my great grandmother before she married my great grandfather.
Antarctica by this stage being a protected environment, we swapped to the Arctic circle where we spent 3 months on the Greenland ice sheet, first dog-sledding and then man-hauling just short of 1000 km at 10,000 feet, across ice fields and glaciers.

I had lots of time to ponder my life back home. It was then that I decided to get my Master of Music degree and focus on composing music, and also then that I realised that even in the most remote silent places, music can still be a huge part of one’s internal world and imagination. Whilst on the expedition. I spent days playing things back in my head and also writing new things, which I would then try and write down at the end of the day.”

We’ll have to wait until October 4th for the release of the album through Erased Tapes but we can already hear the first magnificent taste from it, ‘At The Top of The Hill, They Stood…’.

Laurie Anderson, Tenzin Choegyal and Jesse Paris Smith team up for new collaboration Songs from the Bardo

01 August 2019

Photo: Steven Sebring

Pioneering avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, Tibetan singer and multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and activist and composer Jesse Paris Smith have teamed up for a collaborative long-form composition called Songs from the Bardo. Based on the text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and first performed at New York’s Rubin Museum of Art, Songs from the Bardo will be released on September 27th through Smithsonian Folkways. Choegyal, who was forced out of his homeland into exile in India, explains in the album’s liner notes, “I have tried to channel the wisdom and traditions of my ancestors through my music in a very contemporary way while holding the depth of my lineage.”

To celebrate the album announcement, they have shared the immersive and contemplative “Lotus Born, No Need to Fear”. Take a listen now.

Anenon and Chantal Chadwick announce collaborative project Pétra

29 July 2019

Anenon, the moniker of Los Angeles based saxophonist, producer and artist Brian Allen Simon, has joined forces with musician and dancer Chantal Chadwick for a new project called Pétra, which means ‘stone, rock’. The pair picked the name inspired by the photographic work of Daniel Boudinet and also the geological formations of the volcanic island of Nisyros in Greece, where they wrote, performed, produced and recorded together. Aunis is the fruit of that collaboration, their first full-length album, and will come out on September 20th via Injazero Records. Other than Nisyros,  work in the album was also done in Loire in France and Mexico City, and as the press release explains, “the music is a site-specific reaction to all locales and was arranged in a free-form variety of methods with an improvisational energy being the driving force.”

The title track serves as the first delicate and soothing taste from the upcoming Aunis. Take a listen now.

Sarah Pagé unveils video for new single ‘Stasis’

26 July 2019

In the works for a longtime, Dose Curves, the debut album from Montreal based experimental harpist Sarah Pagé, will see the light of day later this year. Best known as a founding member of The Barr Brothers, Pagé is a busy and versatile musician who in the last decade has been playing, touring, collaborating and recording with an array of artists, including Lhasa de Sela, Esmerine, Patrick Watson, Jerusalem In My Heart, Nadah El Shazly, and Joni Void, among many others.

The upcoming Dose Curves is described by Pagé as a ‘tribute to the many moods and colours of the harp’, and was “created with pedals and homemade pickups all in one take”.

Preceding the album release on October 11th though Backward Music, Pagé has already shared two grippingly beautiful singles, ‘Ephemeris Data’ and ‘Stasis’. The latter, unveiled this week, is inspired by the playing of Freddy Koella. She explains:

“Stasis is a song I wrote for comfort. It’s about finding a gentle way to settle in to immobility when you have no other choice. I was inspired by a great slide guitar player I’d played with named Freddy Koella whose music is always so tender and nostalgic in a strangely hopeful way.”

‘Stasis’ also comes with an accompanying video directed by experimental filmmaker Kyoka Tsukamoto. Now wrap your ears around both tracks.


The Newcomer shares new single off upcoming album Inner Being

25 July 2019

Producer Jonathan Pritchard, who previously released under the Young Montana? alias, has reemerged with a new moniker, The Newcomer, and a new album, Inner Being. Slated for a August 30th release through Astro Nautico, the record reportedly “attempts to reimagine a “fugue state” experience a few years back”. The Newcomer exlains:

“I seemed to forget completely who I was, my music became alien and no longer meant anything to me, and I could only follow the urge to relearn everything, loosing my itunes library and all previous work, I was forced to learn how to make music from scratch. The songs on the album were created in this period.”

“Engraved Tooth” is the latest cut to be lifted from the album, and you can listen to it below. And watch the video for previously released single “Loving In The End Times” straight after.

Matana Roberts announces new COIN COIN instalment Chapter Four: Memphis

24 July 2019

Extraordinary alto saxophonist, composer, improviser and sound experimentalist Matana Roberts has to date released three instalments from her ongoing experimental project Coin Coin, 2011’s Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres, 2013’s Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile and lastly Coin Coin Chapter Three: river run thee, released in 2015. But she had previously said that the project was far from finished, promising another 10 chapters. Four years on from the last Coin Coin release, a new instalment is on the way, Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, releasing on October 18th through Constellation. “Roberts deftly weaves a sonic tapestry of African-American ethnography and history with strands of jazz, blues, free improv, afro-futurism, traditionals, spoken word and avant-garde composition”, describes the label, “always guided by her powerfully personal/universal narratives and wholehearted, singular artistic spirit.”

It’s still a long wait until the album is out but we can already hear a magnificent taste from it, “Raise Yourself Up” / “Backbone Once More” / “How Bright They Shine”. Here it is.