Adam Betts announces debut solo album Colossal Squid

16 August 2016

Adam Betts - Colossol SquidThere’s exciting news from drumming powerhouse Adam Betts, who’s also one third of long time favourite band Three Trapped Tigers. Comes November 25th, the ingenious London based drummer will release his debut solo album, Colossal Squid, via Blood & Biscuits.
Betts plays challenging electronic rhythms with astonishing precision, having for years explored “the boundaries between electronic and live music, and celebrating the flaws thrown up when one tries to replicate the other”, as the press release describes. Some of his influences include Aphex Twin, Autechre, Arca and Oneohtrix Point Never.
Colossal Squid was originally written, developed and recorded over the course of a few months, but its actual final recording resulted from one live session. “It clicked that this was the way to represent the material in the best way possible – performed entirely live, as it happened. Any “mistakes”, any looseness, felt like a step away from the feeling of material being written with the click of a mouse at a computer.” explained Betts. “It’s really a punk album with tape delays instead of guitar chords.”

November may seem a long way away but we can already get a first taste of what Betts will be throwing at us with the insane opening track ‘Drumbones’.

Sankt Otten announce collaborative album with N, share first cut ‘Heile Welt’

13 August 2016

Sankt Otten N - Männerfreundschaften und MetaphysikEarlier this week, Denovali Records teased a new album from German instrumental electronic duo Sankt Otten. Entitled Männerfreundschaften und Metaphysik, which translates to Male Friendships and Metaphysics, the album sees Stephan Otten and Oliver Klemm joining forces with experimental guitarist and labelmate N aka Hellmut Neidhardt. Known for his work exploring noise, ambient and drone sounds, N “add[ed] a grave and menacing mood to Sankt Otten’s electronica and kraut Rock”, described the label. “The aim of this collaboration was to combine the perspectives of the genres of both partners.”
Männerfreundschaften und Metaphysik will see the light of day on September 23rd and we can already get the first taste from it with the dreamy and ethereal ‘Heile Welt’. Take a listen now.

Ex-Easter Island Head’s new album Twenty​-​Two Strings out today

05 August 2016

Ex-Easter Island Head - Twenty​-​Two StringsToday sees the much anticipated release of Twenty​-​Two Strings, the new album from experimental mallet-guitar trio Ex-Easter Island Head. With an ever evolving line-up, and currently comprising Benjamin Duvall, Benjamin Fair and Jonathan Hering. Ex-Easter Island Head started as the solo project of Benjamin Duvall in 2009, existing with different line ups including large ensembles. With two incredible albums under their belt, the Liverpool based collective also count a number of stellar collaborations, including with the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Arnold Dreyblatt, experimental instrument builder Yuri Landman and avant-garde artist / choreographer Kei Miyata.

Described as “their most complex and focused release yet”, the new album “finds the group refining their overtone-rich string explorations around a skeleton of tuned bells and drums, bringing a new propulsive momentum to the group’s goal of “an ever changing surface over an unmoving centre”. The press release adds that “Ex-Easter Island Head push the boundaries of their intentionally restrained set-up, balancing austere physicality with luminescent abstraction to create a bold summation of the group’s work to date”.

Ex-Easter Island Head are celebrating the album’s release with two launch shows later this month. They are performing in Liverpool on August 18th at the Philharmonic Music Room, and in London the following day at Iklectik.

To get you enticed, here’s the album’s heavenly ‘Sixteen Snares’. Listen to it below and grab the album from Low Point.

Adult Jazz unveil accompanying video for ‘Ooh Ah Eh’

03 August 2016

Adult Jazz - Ooh Ah EhFollowing the outstanding 2014 debut album Gist Is, Adult Jazz released Earrings Off, a 7-track EP, earlier in May via TriAngle. Lead singer Harry Burgess explained the themes behind the record:

“The record is about masculinity. Embodiment, lust, idealisation, privilege, legitimacy and limitation. It’s about acknowledging the weight, with a view to liberation from its past clout. It’s about picking your ideal body, and playing with body language to achieve authenticity. It’s about the possibility of authenticity.”

The quartet have been pairing the EP’s songs with videos and the latest to emerge accompanies the sublime ‘Ooh Ah Eh’. The video was directed by Sam Travis, and as the band puts it “it’s iffy, not for dinnertime”.

Luo drop new single ‘In The Dark’

01 August 2016

Luo - In The DarkBrighton’s Luo have recently shared a new version of ‘In The Dark’, originally released in the 2013 Imprints EP.
Initially birthed as the solo project of electronic musician and producer Josh Trinaman, the band’s live line-up has incorporated a number of different guests. Now a quartet with the addition of Jake Keeble, Rik Coe and Sam Hughes, Luo are gearing up to release their debut album. If the staggering and explosive ‘In The Dark’ is anything to go by, we are in for a treat. Listen to it now.

‘In The Dark’ is out now via Small Pond Recordings.