We’re only a couple of weeks away from the release of Never were the way she was, Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld’s much anticipated collaborative album. The effort will see the light of day on April 28th via Constellation. To keep us excited, the pair have just unveiled a video for a glorious new track off the album, ‘The rest of us’. Watch the video below, directed by Dan Huiting.
Kuwaitian electronic multimedia artist Zahed Sultan is getting ready to release his second album, eyeamsound, next month. In support of the album, Sultan is taking the album’s live audio-visual experience to several places around the world for nine months. The journey is being documented and in partnership with PledgeMusic, Sultan is also sharing it and offering other treats.
The groovy ‘Hakatha’ is the first of three singles to be shared that has now emerged. The track is a rework from an original release of his 2012 Reuse Me EP. Known for his entrepreneurial projects and commitment to the environment and social causes, ‘Hakatha’ is also inspired by social events. It “pays tribute to the social frustrations that have plagued the Middle East region prior to the Arab Spring and thereafter”, as the press release says. “In classical spoken-word Arabic, the narrator calls upon Arab people to stand in unity, against tyranny, with a sense of civic pride.” Listen to ‘Hakatha’ below.
We’re greatly excited about this new electro-acoustic quartet on the block, High Risk, spearheaded by legendary jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas. The project sees Douglas join forces with a stellar cast of musicians – bassist Jonathan Maron, drummer Mark Guiliana and producer/beat maker Shigeto. Exploring and experimenting with jazz and electronic elements, High Risk is a new departure for Douglas as he explained, “a new vision of where improvisation and electronics can go”. Here’s how he described the project:
“The biggest element is this meeting of the worlds; an openness and willingness to put everything at risk. I wanted to create a situation where we really were at risk, we were on a high wire, where the exigencies of being in the moment and creating with your wits from one second to the next was what it was about.”
Comes June 23rd, the quartet will release a full-length album entitled High Risk via Douglas’ own imprint Greenleaf Music. They have already shared two tremendous tracks from the album, ‘Molten Sunset’ and ‘Cardinals’, and if they are anything to go by, High Risk is definitely an album to wait for with hunger. Listen to both tracks below.
Whilst we impatiently wait for The Weather Station‘s third album to arrive, the project’s mastermind Tamara Lindeman is enticing us further with ‘Shy Woman’, another new utterly beautiful track taken from Loyalty. Listen to it below and make sure you grab the album when it drops on May 12th via Paradise of Bachelors in the US and Europe and via Outside Music in Canada.
Photo: Danilo Giungato
Italian avant–garde jazz metal band ZU have just unleashed a video for the excellent and galvanizing ‘Conflict Acceleration’. The track is extracted from their album Cortar Todo, released recently via Ipecac. Sara D’Uva directs. Here it is.
In other related good news, Zu have also announced a string European tour dates. Check all their stops and other info here.
Acclaimed ambient composer and multi-instrumentalist William Basinski has announced the release of a pair of albums featuring brand new material. Known for his eerie and majestic compositions using obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, with the upcoming Cascade and The Deluge Basinski creates and explores further tape loop-based soundscapes.
Cascade will be out in digital and CD formats whilst The Deluge, which features a different mix of ‘Cascade’, will be available as a special vinyl release only.
“A single ancient lilting piano tape loop repeats endlessly carrying one along in its tessellating current” in Cascade, explains the press release. It adds that in The Deluge, “the same loop is processed through a series of feedback loops of different lengths, creating a spiraling crescendo of overtones that eventually fades away to silence.”
Cascade will see the light of day on April 28th via Basinski’s own label 2062 Records and The Deluge arrives later on May 26th via Temporary Residence.
To get you enticed, float away in this wonderful excerpt from ‘Cascade’.
