Nearly five years removed from the release of Architecture Of Loss, Icelandic composer and musician Valgeir Sigurdsson is ready to unveil his new full-length album, Dissonance. Recorded between 2015 and 2016 at Sigurdsson’s renowned Greenhouse Studios, the record arrives on April 21st via Bedroom Community.
Dissonance “treads elegantly along a fine line between traditional symphonic organicism and the fissures of the faltering structures of reality”, explains the press release. “It takes forward Sigurdsson’s typically expansive, panoramic writing, and elevates it to a perpetual construction and deconstruction of time and space.”
‘Infamy Sings’ is the first monumental composition to emerge from the album. Wrap your ears around it.
Last month we heard ‘Kale Me‘, the first single lifted from Daniel Brandt‘s upcoming debut album Eternal Something. Brandt, who normally dazzles us as one third of Brandt Brauer Frick on drumming duties, is teasing the album again with a new single, ‘Chaparral Mesa’ where he shines playing and building layers of guitars. Named after his time recording in California between Joshua Tree and Malibu, the track builds slowly before turning “into a sea of organized electronic chaos”, as the press release describes. Brandt himself explains:
“I recorded Chaparral Mesa a year ago while I was involved in a recording session for another album in Malibu. We had rented a very beautiful place overlooking hills and the sea and we had a nice basic setup to record in there with a few guitars and a moog synth. I started recording a lot of guitars on top of each other and somehow the song arranged itself. I didn’t really touch it and just went along with naturally had to happen within the song. Later I added the second part, the drum-heavy one. This one was based on a session I once had with my friend Bryan Philips from Chile when I was visiting him in La Serena. I took the basics from that session and added a lot of new drums later on when I was at a proper studio and then added that part to the new song. In the end Chaparral Mesa was the quickest made song on the album but has also become the longest.”
Watch out for the release of Eternal Something on March 24th via Erased Tapes. Now listen to ‘Chaparral Mesa’.
Last week we heard the poignant and compelling ‘Carnaval feat Mondkopf’, the first single lifted from Oiseaux-Tempête‘s upcoming album AL-‘AN ! الآن (And your night is your shadow — a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams). The French outfit are enticing us further with another single, the wonderful and ethereal ‘I Don’t Know, What Or Why (Mish Aaref Eish W Leish)’ featuring Palestinian musician Tamer Abu Ghazaleh (Alif). Take a listen below and watch out for the album’s release on March 31st April 14th via Sub Rosa.
You’ll know by now that we’re huge fans of sax super-hero Colin Stetson. Last year he released a dream of an album, SORROW: A reimagining of Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony, based on the Polish composer’s 1997 classic piece, featuring an incredible cast of musicians including Sarah Neufeld, Rebecca Foon, Greg Fox and Gyda Valtisdottir amongst many more. In 2015, Stetson released a marvellous collaborative album with Sarah Neufeld following his 2013’s outstanding New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light, which was one of our Album Picks of the Year, and remains an absolute favourite. So we couldn’t be happier to know that four years on from this solo record, the Montreal based composer and multi-instrumentalist is ready to unveil its follow-up, All This I Do For Glory. Drawing influences from early nineties electronica of artists like Aphex Twin and Autechre, the album’s sounds and imagery are described as being “more tangible and immersive than previous offerings”. As the press release explains, the album “is a reasoning and exploration of the machinations of ambition and legacy, an examination of the concepts of afterlife, and the first half of a doomed love story in the model of the greek tragedies”. All This I Do For Glory was also engineered and mixed by Stetson and it will see the light of day on April 28th through his own 52Hz label via Kartel Music Group.
The wonderful news comes paired with the album’s first single, the sublime and breathtaking ‘Spindrift’ and an accompanying video shot and edited by Derrick Belcham.
This Friday will see the release of PVT‘s fifth album New Spirit. The trio had already offered two singles from the album, ‘Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend’ and ‘Another Life’. To get us even more excited ahead of the album’s release, PVT have shared the title track, ‘New Spirit’. “Lyrically, it references all the regressive politicking over the past 5 years”, said the band’s Dave Miller. “The Spirit of Australia. We need to work on a better one”. Take a listen below.
New Spirit is out on February 17th via their own Felte.
The ever wonderful and incredibly talented Argentinian artist Juana Molina has lifted the curtain on her next full-length record. Entitled Halo, it follows 2013’s Wed 21 which was one of our 15 Album Picks of the Year and it’s due out on May 5th via Crammed Discs. To get us enticed, she has shared a marvellous teaser video which leaves us waiting for the album with heightened anticipation.
Nearly five years removed from the release of Architecture Of Loss, Icelandic composer and musician Valgeir Sigurdsson is ready to unveil his new full-length album, Dissonance. Recorded between 2015 and 2016 at Sigurdsson’s renowned Greenhouse Studios, the record arrives on April 21st via Bedroom Community.
