Evan Chapman shares live video for ‘Breaks’; debut album Reveries out now

30 October 2024

Evan Chapman‘s highly anticipated debut solo album, Reveries, came out earlier this month through Better Company Records and you might have noticed I am all over it. In the lead up ot it, the incredibly talented percussionist, composer, and filmmaker released a couple of singles, the beautiful, triumphant and fiercely rhythmic ‘Fractions’, and more recently the utterly gorgeous and exhilarating ‘Bodies’.

Chapman unveiled yesterday a self-directed live video for another track from the album, ‘Breaks’, “a song punctuated by the hiss and crackle of a cassette deck, gentle murmurings on piano, and the warped, processed sounds of bowed vibes”, as the press release describes. Introspective and affecting, ‘Breaks’ is enveloped in overwhelming emotion. Watch the video below.

Listen to Tomin’s singles ‘Love’ and ‘Life’; new album A Willed and Conscious Balance out in November

23 October 2024

Last month, New York born and based multi-instrumentalist, composer, poet and bioinformatician Tomin announced the release of A Willed and Conscious Balance. Set for release on November 1st through International Anthem, it’s his first album arranged for an ensemble, including members of Irreversible Entanglements and jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE.

Ahead of the release, Tomin has let two staggering singles loose, ‘Love’ and more recently ‘Life’. About the latter, he comments:

“Life is my ode to black women and all the joy and wonder they have brought to my life; written for my sister Caramina, featuring solos from Teiana Davis on Wurlitzer and Clérida Eltimé on cello.”

Listen to both tracks below.

Jean-Claude Vannier announces new album Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines

20 October 2024

Photo: Léo Alestro

French musician, composer and arranger Jean-Claude Vannier is something of a restless creative soul with a very long and fascinating résumé. Over his six-decade wide-ranging career, he has worked on myriad film scores, released solo studio albums, collaborated with the likes of Beck, Sean Lennon and Mike Patton, and produced and arranged for everyone including Brigitte Fontaine, Françoise Hardy, Claude François, Johnny Hallyday and Astor Piazzolla, to name but a few. He is most known for his arranging and composing credits on Serge Gainsbourg’s cult record Histoire de Melody Nelson.

Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines (Jean Claude Vannier and his mandolin orchestra) is Vannier’s latest venture, a gorgeous album created as the soundtrack to a non-existent silent film. The record was composed on mandolin and accordion and features mandolin virtuoso Vincent Beer-Demander and accordionist Grégory Daltin.

We’ll have to wait until February 14th for Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines to be out through Ipecac but we can already hear the tender and heartfelt first single ‘Perdue dans la cité (Lost in the city)’.

Alabaster DePlume unveils Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade EP

15 October 2024

Photo: Sofia Lambrou

There’s wonderful news from ingenious and thought-provoking spoken word artist, bandleader, composer, saxophonist and activist Alabaster DePlume, who has just unveiled a new digital EP titled Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade, part of an upcoming larger project, Prologue To A Blade, which will also be ccompanied by his debut poetry book, Looking For My Value: Prologue To A Blade. The EP features two tracks recorded in Bethlehem, Palestine with local musicians, pianist Sami El Enani and Qanoun player Laith Albandak, and a third track, ‘Gifts Of Olive’, which references Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die”. DePlume comments:

“To set you up for what’s coming I’ve layered up these compositions in private, and with friends. It’s a prologue to what we’re bringing next. It ushers it in. I went towards things I feared, to be in the places where this music has come from. Places in the world and in myself, where dignity and sovereignty has its role in the work of healing.”

Head over to DePlume’s bandcamp to grab Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade EP, and for a taster of it, here’s the utterly compelling and beguiling opening track ‘Honeycomb’ featuring Sami El Enani.

Plantfood’s debut album, Carnivores, out now

10 October 2024

Emerging out of the jazz scene of Leeds, Plantfood are a fierce musical force. A 6-piece comprising JJ Petrie (percussion), Ruben Maric (keyboards), Joe van der Meulen (tenor saxophone), Woolley (baritone saxophone), Finn Hamilton (drums) and Woody Hayden (bass), Plantfood released last week their debut album, Carnivores. The six tracks on the album mix elements of jazz, punk, and Afro-Latin, West and North African grooves, all colliding ferociously to capture the explosive energy they are known for. The circle of life, and cycles within nature serve as Carnivores’s thematic focus, with the band “envision[ing] an apocalyptic future where the plants rise to power, taking over and consuming all around them”, as the press release describes. “The music paints these chaotic and contrasting scenes with a heavy and cataclysmic sound palette.” Carnivores also offers “moments of vulnerability, hope and spirituality as the balance of earth’s natural order is restored.”

For a taste of what’s on offer, here’s ‘Executive Decision’, one of the intoxicating tracks on the album.

Carnivores is out now through Bridge The Gap

Listen to Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp’s new single ‘Color’

10 October 2024

Following the phenomenal fist single ‘Breath‘, Swiss-based multi-national collective Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp have shared a new single called ‘Color’. The track is taken from their upcoming sixth album, Ventre Unique, and you can listen to it now.