Patrick Cowley’s retrospective double LP due out in October

30 September 2013

Next month, Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem will release a retrospective double LP of disco pioneer Patrick Cowley entitled School Daze.
After moving to San Francisco in the early 70’s, Cowley enrolled in the City College of San Francisco where he founded the Electronic Music Lab and created what became known as The San Francisco Sound, his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music.
In 1981, after gaining notoriety as a composer, producer and remixer, Cowley founded Megatone Records and released his debut album. In the same year, he was invited to write music for the films of famed gay porn company Fox Studio in Los Angeles. Cowley accepted and sent reels of his college compositions. Also at this time, Cowley had been hospitalized and diagnosed with a then-unknown illness, of which he passed away the following year. Only later did his illness become known as AIDS.
The upcoming release features a collection of Cowley’s instrumental songs recorded between 1973 and 1981 that were found in the Fox Studio. As the press release describes, “the songs on School Daze range from sparse proto- techno to high octane funk to somber post-punk to musique concrete, revealing the depth of Cowley’s unique talent.”
School Daze will be release on October 19th, when Cowley would have been 63 years old. All proceeds will be donated to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
The cosmic, hypnotic and groovy “Nightcrawler”, one of the gems off School Daze, is being offered as a first taste. Here it is.

Piano Interrupted announce somophore album and share first cut

27 September 2013

In April of this past year, Piano Interrupted saw their debut album Two By Four being re-released. Back then, the London based duo promised to follow it up with a new album later this year and their new effort has just been announced. The Unified Field will see the light of day on October 25th via Denovali.
Taking its name from David Lynch’s book Catching The Big Fish, Piano Interrupted’s upcoming album “draws upon multiple, varied styles and influences”, as the press release describes, “and bring them into one coherent unifying whole with dense arrangements of fragile piano, colourful cinematic soundscapes, organic rhythmic textures and rich, warm strings provoking a diverse range of emotions”.
To whet our appetite further, Piano Interrupted have unveiled The Unified Field‘s first sublime song called ‘Cross Hands’. Listen to it below.

Efterklang celebrate Piramida anniversary with video for closing track

26 September 2013

A year on from the release of Efterklang‘s fourth full-length album Piramida, the Danish trio are celebrating the anniversary with a befittingly gorgeous video for album’s closing track ‘Monument’ by Andreas Koefoed and Hvass&Hannibal. The video also makes reference to The Piramida Concert, a live album by Efterklang & Copenhagen Phil, released earlier this year. The album version of ‘Monument’ is used in the first part of the video, whilst the second half uses the live version. Here it is.

Imbogodom conclude BBC Bush House trilogy with upcoming album Metafather

25 September 2013

Imbogodom’s BBC Bush House trilogy will be completed in less than a month. Following The Metallic Year released in 2010 and last year’s And They Turned Not When They Went, the duo of Alexander Tucker and Daniel Beban have announced the release of the third and final instalment entitled Metafather.

Tucker and Beban recorded Metafather in the summer of 2011 whilst the Bush House, which was the BBC World Service hub for over 70 years, was being decommissioned. The pair had been using one of the building studios, Studio 6, for five years, to create and invoke “the spirit of radiophonic and library music from the past”, as the label explains. “Beban and Tucker put the neglected studio equipment to work, creating phantom-like transmissions and sound pieces out of tape machine loops, foley sound effects and vintage mixing desks.”

Metafather arrives on October 15th via Thrill Jockey and it will be available exclusively on limited edition vinyl.
Imbogodom have unveiled ‘Voices of Lists’, the first magical taste off the album. Listen to it beneath.

TaughtMe releases fifth album Am I Old?

24 September 2013

Sometimes, music conquers your heart as soon as it reaches your ears. That’s exactly what happened when we were introduced to Am I Old?, the recently released fifth full-length album from TaughtMe. Utah native, San Francisco resident Blake Henderson, the man behind the project, spent the last five years crafting this exquisite, beautiful and heartfelt album. Here’s a brief statement from Henderson about Am I Old?:

“I didn’t intend to build a collection of brooding monologues. I had even planned to avoid first-person pronouns altogether, imagining instead sonorous landscapes that flirt mindlessly beyond the ego. So I was quite troubled when “Am I Old?” and “The Kids” arrived: clearly human, undeniably egocentric. But they felt right! Gradually, as other tunes surfaced, I accepted that I was composing soliloquies and chose to own the fact rather than temper it. I then named the collection “Am I Old?” and decided to decorate the album with a single person toppling over. “Am I Old?” is my rawest album and my best try so far to get real deep.”

You can stream and/or buy Am I Old? via TaughtMe’s bandcamp. To entice you further, here’s two stunning songs off the album, ‘Into The Thicket’ and ‘Well Maybe’, the latter in the form of a video.

Meshell Ndegeocello shares video for ‘Suzanne’

23 September 2013

Last year Meshell Ndegeocello released her tenth studio album, Pour une Âme Souveraine: A Dedication to Nina Simone, where Meshell reworks some of the songs written by and for Nina Simone.
‘Suzanne’ is one of the songs lifted from this album, originally written by Leonard Cohen and covered by Nina Simone. Inspired by the song’s lyrics – Suzanne’s “place by the river” – Meshell invited her fans to submit photos of their own place by the river to make a video for the song. Watch it below.

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