To Rococo Rot’s eighth album, Instrument, out on Monday

16 July 2014

To Rococo Rot - Classify feat. Arto Lindsay

We’re only a few days away from the release of Instrument, the brand new album from Berlin based trio To Rococo Rot. The album will see the light of day on July 21st via City Slang.
Founded in the 90’s by brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok and Stefan Schneide, and with eight albums under their belt, To Rococo Rot are adding vocals to an album for the first time. “I don’t know how it came but it came quite naturally. A lot of our music people say is longing for vocals,” said Robert Lippok. “We never felt like that but when we were in the rehearsal room and played the stuff we could hear these voices. Maybe because there were about 40 old pianos and when we played, all the strings of the pianos resonated. That made us feel that there should be a new and another element in this music. There was no discussion about it”. And also very naturally for them, To Rococo Rot recruited No Wave pioneer Arto Lindsay, who was himself a fan of the band. “He was totally into the idea from the first second on,” said Lippok “I really like the combination of the way he plays the guitar and the beauty of his voice. It’s magic how these two worlds come together”.
Lindsay guests on three tracks, ‘Many Descriptions’, ‘Classify’ and ‘The Longest Escalator in the World’. To Rococo Rot have premiered a befittingly beautiful video for the track ‘Classify’, made by Orson Sieverding & Pola Sieverding. Watch it below.


Coinciding with the release of Instrument, To Rococo Rot are playing a show on July 21st in London at Cafe Oto.

Helado Negro’s fourth album, Double Youth, arrives in September

15 July 2014

Helado Negro - Double Youth

We’re fond of pretty much all of the many solo and collaborative musical projects of Roberto Carlos Lange. Under the moniker Helado Negro, his experimental electronic project, Roberto has released three full-length albums. He has recently announced the release of his fourth album, Double Youth. An old childhood poster which Roberto had randomly found when clearing his closet gave the album a “telepathic input”, as the album blurb describes, and also serves as the artwork.

“Seeing the poster after cleaning out a closet evoked a sudden rush of memories, but also a sense of isolation and separation. Who was this person in the photo? And what else had Lange forgotten? The poster’s impact was so significant it framed a new recording process for Helado Negro and now serves as cover art, title, and the conceptual framework for the lyrics and song structures.”

Double Youth will be released on September 2nd via Asthmatic Kitty. To get us excited, Helado Negro has shared the first single ‘I Krill You’. Listen to it now.

Orlando Julius and The Heliocentrics team up for collaborative album

10 July 2014

Orlando Julius and The Heliocentrics - Jaiyede Afro

The Heliocentrics‘ outstanding 13 Degrees of Reality was one of our Album Picks of 2013. So we couldn’t be more excited to know that the London based psychedelic funk jazz collective have been busy working on a collaborative album with Nigerian saxophone legend Orlando Julius. Jaiyede Afro, recorded at The Heliocentrics’ fully analogue studio in London, arrives on September 8th via Strut.
According to the label, “on Jaiyede Afro, Julius takes us back to his roots, revisiting several compositions from his early years which have never previously been recorded”, whilst “the band takes Orlando’s sound into new, progressive directions, retaining the raw grit of his early work and adding psychedelic touches and adventurous new arrangements”.

To get us excited for this release, they’ve shared the first taste off Jaiyede Afro, ‘Buje Buje’. Here’s what Orlando Julius said about the track:

“My parents used to tell us stories, folk tales and there were a lot of different stories involving tortoises – they often made tortoises sound like human beings. There was one about a tortoise who had a farm and I always thought, ‘how could a tortoise have a farm?!’ This tortoise is working on his farm and a pretty lady is passing by. So, he cuts his foot with his cutlass and pretends that he is injured so that he can get her attention. The lady comes over and tries to help him and he says, ‘I can’t work with this cut. Could I climb on your back to go to get help?’ She agrees, he climbs on her back and she starts to walk. He says, ‘I’m too far up, could you push me further down your back?’ Finally, the lady realises that he is up to no good, she is very unhappy and tells him to find his own way. Once she has left, the tortoise continues to play this trick on other women.
I made the story into a song and brought human nature into it — good people and bad people. The song teaches us not to copy something that is bad, fake or deceptive.”

Take a listen to ”Buje Buje’ now.