New album from Chris Child out in February

10 January 2019

Brooklyn based composer Chris Child aka Kodomo has announced the follow-up to his 2017’s Divider EP. Marking his fourth full-length release, the upcoming Pieces For Piano Vol. 1 arrives on February 1st through his own imprint FOIL. The album is a collection of solo piano works, composed “with the intention of creating something simple, intimate and quiet”, as the press release describes.

After sharing ‘Prelude 2’, Child is giving us another beautiful taste from Pieces For Piano with ‘Impetus’. Listen to both below.

Theon Cross announces debut album Fyah and shares new single ‘Activate’

07 January 2019

At the tail end of 2018, tuba player and composer Theon Cross, a big player in London’s vibrant contemporary jazz scene, teased his debut album with ‘Panda Village‘. News of the album have now been confirmed and we’ll only have to wait till February 15th for Fyah to be out through Gearbox Records. The album “encapsulates the culture and influences that have surrounded Cross growing up in the city, incorporating elements of Caribbean music, hip-hop, grime, jazz, club and electronic music”, describes the press release. “The new album perfectly exemplifies the future-facing magnetism of the current scene in London. Full of powerful tuba-driven basslines, fervent jazz soloing, raw yet precise rhythm sections and the introduction of synths, the album is all at once danceable and masterful.”

And there’s more reasons to get excited, with ‘Activate’, the explosive new track Cross has just unveiled, featuring fellow adventurous jazz musicians, saxophonist Nubya Garcia and drummer Moses Boyd. Take a listen now.

Theon Cross unveils new single ‘Panda Village’

23 December 2018

Photo: Andy Earl

Coming out of the vibrant London jazz scene that flourished in recent years, tuba player and composer Theon Cross has lent his talents to a multitude of stellar artists. Busy performing with the likes of Moses Boyd, Makaya McCraven, Kano, Jon Baptiste, Pharoe Monch and Emile Sande, Cross is also a member of Sons of Kemet and a permanent fixture in South London based collective Steam Down. He has also been busy with his own trio featuring Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd, and ‘Panda Village’ is one of the fruits we can now get a taste of. There’s plans for more to come in 2019 and if ‘Panda Village’ is anything to go by, we just can’t wait!

Yann Tiersen teases upcoming album ALL with new song ‘Koad’ featuring Anna Von Hausswolff

13 December 2018

Photo: Christopher Fernandez

French composer Yann Tiersen has a new album on the way, titled ALL and due in February. The forthcoming record is the first recorded in Tiersen’s The Eskal, an abandoned discotheque in the island of Ushant turned into studio, venue and community centre. As with previous efforts, ALL is mostly sung in Breton, and it features vocal contributions from guests Ólavur Jákupsson, Denez Prigent, Emilie Tiersen and Gaëlle Kerrien. Swedish artist Anna Von Hausswolff also collaborated with Tiersen on one of the album’s tracks, ‘Koad’, now available to stream with an accompanying video. ‘Koad’ features field recording of a redwood forest in Devon, near the Schumacher College, an institution cited as an important influence on the album which “helped to shape ALL’s overriding theme: ecology, environment and our connection to nature.”. Tiersen has described the institution as “a concentration of hope in a small place”. Watch the video below.

ALL is out on February 15th 2019 through Mute.

AMOR release debut album Sinking Into A Miracle

10 December 2018

Last week, and following two 12” single releases, Glasgow’s AMOR unleashed their wonderful and jubilant debut album, Sinking Into A Miracle, through Night School Records. A stellar collaborative disco project, AMOR is made up of multi-instrumentalist and improviser Richard Youngs, Turner nominated artist Luke Fowler, drummer Paul Thomson (Franz Ferdinand) and Norwegian composer and double-bassist Michael Francis Duch (LEMUR).

The album “retains the elastic grooves of Paradise and Higher Moment, the group’s previous single releases, but relinquishes the classic Philadelphia International tinged sound in favour of more looser rhythmic patterns”, describes the press release. “There are new depths to the compositions; a more free-flowing approach to percussion and deft experiments in hybridity, making for a full and rounded, emotionally tinged record.”

‘Glimpses Across Thunder’ serves as a marvellous taste from Sinking Into A Miracle. Take a listen now.