Yazz Ahmed announces fourth studio album, A Paradise In The Hold, and shares title track

15 November 2024

Yazz Ahmed is one of the most remarkable jazz trumpet player and composer of her generation and new music from her is always great news. Following 2019’s Polyhymnia, the British-Bahraini celebrated musician has announced its much anticipated follow-up, A Paradise In The Hold. On it, Ahmed draws inspiration from traditional music and childhood memories of Bahrain, and her compositions are even more deeply entwined with her dual heritage than before. “A thread in my work has been searching for, establishing and, now, finally embracing and celebrating my cultural identity,” Ahmed says. “If my first album, 2011’s Finding My Way Home, represents the first steps on this path then with A Paradise In The Hold, I’ve arrived at a deeper understanding of how my British and Bahraini heritage can co-exist, in personal as well as musical terms.”

Writing for voice for the first time, she found inspiration in Bahraini wedding poems and the yearning songs of the pearl divers to write lyrics, and collaborated with a brilliant cast of singers including Brigitte Beraha, Natacha Atlas, Randolph Matthews and Alba Nacinovich.

Through this exploration into her heritage, and employing a rich tapestry of musical influences, the forthcoming A Paradise In The Hold stands as a powerful tribute to the beauty of Bahraini culture. “It’s another step in my evolution of making music,” says Ahmed. “There’s so much beauty in Bahraini music. I hope this album gives people a flavour of how vibrant its culture is.”

A Paradise In The Hold will see the light of day on February 28th through Night Time Stories and ahead of it Ahmed is enticing us with the magnificent and spellbinding title track, clocking in at 10 minutes. The single comes with an accompanying video made by Charlie Campion and Iman Ahmed. Watch it below.

Matt McBane teases upcoming solo album, Buoy, with lead single ‘Eleven Eleven’

14 November 2024

Composer, electronic musician, and violinist Matt McBane has announced the release of a new album. Entitled Buoy, it follows his widely acclaimed Bathymetry, released in 2022, and is both his first electronic album and first solo album. A record of patterns and ambience for synthesizers and violin that sees him play an array of analog synthesizers (modular and fixed), violin, piano and bass guitar, Buoy sprouted from a 2020 performance at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust curated by Laurie Anderson and Arto Lindsay. While Buoy reveals a new facet of McBane’s work, it expands the foundation laid by his previous music, “the patterns and processes of classical minimalism, the sonic manipulation of electronic music, the elemental qualities of fiddle music, emotional nuance, cinematic space, counterpoint, atmosphere”, as the press release describes, “all filtered through the voltages of his synthesizers.”

We’ll have to wait until February 28th for Buoy to be out through Gradient Music but we can already hear the immersively gorgeous and engrossing ‘Eleven Eleven’, which serves as a perfect introduction to the album.

Jean-Claude Vannier shares new track ‘Comme les enfants savent aimer’

13 November 2024

Following the tender and heartfelt ‘Perdue dans la cité (Lost in the city)’, phenomenal French musician, composer and arranger Jean-Claude Vannier has shared a second charming single called ‘Comme les enfants savent aimer’. The track is lifted from his upcoming Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines (Jean Claude Vannier and his mandolin orchestra), an album created as the soundtrack to a non-existent silent film. Speaking about the track, Vannier said:

“When I was a child, my parents often took us to dinner at the restaurant in Parc Montsouris. There was a bandstand by the lake, with a few mandolins playing fashionable tunes, and the moon was shimmering on the surface of the water, where an enigmatic boat was moored.
I would have loved to have gone with the waves, with the mandolines.
Later, I spent many a night lying in the boat, dreaming of this music of love.
All these memories led me to record this album with my mandolinist friend, Vincent Beer Demande.”

Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines is out on February 14th through Ipecac. Now listen to ‘Comme les enfants savent aimer (How children know to love)’.

Don Kapot to release new Remedy EP this Friday; UK tour dates approaching

13 November 2024

Don Kapot blew our minds last year with I Love Tempo, an intoxicating opus of an album that made it to our Album Picks of the Year. We’re excited to know that Giotis Damianidis (bass), Viktor Perdieus (baritone saxophone) and Jakob Warmenbol (drums), who make up the Brussels trio, are rolling out new music this Friday, in the form of an EP titled Remedy. Featuring three tracks, Remedy “showcase[s] Don Kapot’s love of using a wide range of instruments including bass, drums and tenor saxophone, evolving their sound into a solid complex rhythmic wave against a Death Grips-style hip-hop backdrop and demented samples”. The upcoming EP is also the first in a series of three EPs they will be releasing over the coming months.

For a taste of what’s on offer, listen to the entrancing and galvanizing opening track ‘Bascule’, and nab the EP when it drops on November 15th through W.E.R.F. Records.

In other related good news, Don Kapot are hitting the road next week for a string of UK shows. Check all their stops below:

19.11 – Bristol – The Elmer’s Arms
20.11 – Birmingham – Pan Pan
21.11 – Newcastle – Cobalt Studios
23.11 – Falmouth – The Cornish Bank
25.11 – London – New Cross Inn
26.11 – Hull – The New Adelphi Club

TUKAN announce new album, Human Drift; share lead single ‘Roda’

12 November 2024

Photo: Joris Ngowembona

After a meteoric rise in their home country, Belgium’s TUKAN are gearing up to release a new record, following their 2022 exhilarating and groove-heavy debut Atoll. Entitled Human Drift, the upcoming album is set for release on January 24th through Magma. Described as “an album about connection and letting go”, Human Drift “embodies the spirit of community, celebration, and sharing in a world leaning towards isolation and individualism”. On the new album, the quartet continues to corral a broad diversity of sound, blending electronic grooves with instrumental melodies.

Ahead of the album’s release, TUKAN have shared the radiant and energized ‘Roda’ which serves as the first enticing taste of what’s to come and you can listen to it below.

Listen to Bibio’s new single ‘PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII’

10 November 2024

A longtime favourite of ours, Bibio announced last month the release of PHANTOM BRICKWORKS (LP II). Arriving on November 22nd through Warp, it marks the second release from his ongoing project Phantom Brickworks, which draws inspiration from certain places around Britain and the charge they carry. Following two marvellous singles, ‘DINORWIC’ and ‘LLYN PERIS’, Bibio shared this week the third sublime single ‘PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII’ . Of the new track, he says:

“‘PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII’ is a single-take improvised piano piece using two digital delay pedals and the same antique upright piano I’ve been using for over 25 years. The equipment and techniques are more or less the same as those used on the very first PHANTOM BRICKWORKS track recorded some 18 or so years ago. This piece has a more rhythmical approach, using one pedal as a kind of timekeeper/divider and the other as the looper, the result is a more structured overall sound, rather than being more free and floaty. All of these improvised pieces are unrepeatable, as the way the notes decay and crumble is a crucial component of the music, which is a characteristic of the specific pedals I use. ‘PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII’ is one of my favourite piano improvisations I’ve ever recorded, the way it builds into something that sounds structured and composed wasn’t so obvious to me while I was recording it as I was concentrating on every note being added to the gradually evolving loop. This one-take improvisation has no additional layers, but the original piece was over 18 minutes long – I cut it down by starting the track at a midway point, so it starts more fully formed, but the history of how the melodies were built up is embedded within the crumbling layers like layers of sediment, the older the notes – the more distant and ghostly they become.”

Ethereal and beautiful, ‘PHANTOM BRICKWORKS VII’ is after your ears.