London based producer Dean Blunt, who is also one half of Hype Williams, is set to release his debut solo album this Spring. The Redeemer will see the light of day on May 1st via his own imprint World Music and Hippos In Tanks.
The first cut to emerge from The Redeemer is the heartfelt ‘Papi’, a track where Blunt sampled Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’. Listen to it below.
New York septet Superhuman Happiness will release their much anticipated debut album Hands on March 5th via The Royal Potato Family. We were already won over with the excellent first single ‘See Me On My Way’ and now they have spiced things up with a smashing live video for another song off Hands, ‘I Can Hear You Calling’. The track will also be featured in the forthcoming documentary film I Can Hear You Calling: A Musical Community in New York City.
There’s more treats from Superhuman Happiness. They have also shared The Juan MacLean remix of theirs and Cults’ collaborative rendition of Caetano Veloso’s ‘Um Canto De Afoxé Para O Bloco De Ilê (Ilê Ayê)’. The original recording was first released on the 2011’s AIDS benefit Red Hot + Rio 2, which pays tribute to the Tropicália movement. Listen to the original cover and The Juan Maclean remix straight after their infectious video for ‘I Can Hear You Calling’. Enjoy.
Montréal based sax virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist Colin Stetson has set the release date for the third and last of a triptych of solo albums entitled New History Warfare. The upcoming New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light follows Stetson’s previously released albums from the same series, the widely acclaimed New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges released in 2011 and his 2008 New History Warfare Vol. 1.
The composer and performer’s new effort, due out on April 30th via Constellation, was co-produced and mixed by Ben Frost and recorded live in single takes.
New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light features guest vocal contributions from Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon on four songs. There’s no overdubbing on the whole album except for on these songs with Vernon’s voice. Stetson “doesn’t rely on looping/layering or multi-track/overdubs technologies”, as the label said. Instead, Stetson mastered the technique of circular breathing, which allows him to play continuously by breathing through his nose at the same time he plays with his mouth.
“Anyone who has seen Stetson in solo performance can attest to the stunning physicality of his circular-breathing technique and capacity to produce a seemingly impossible palate of multiple voicings simultaneously in real time – making his already beautiful and evocative compositions all the more enrapturing and viscerally human.”
Ahead of the release, Stetson has unveiled the first breathtaking single, ‘High Above A Grey Green Sea’. Listen to it now.
The Flaming Lips announced a few days ago the release of their thirteenth studio album, entitled The Terror, and slated for a April 1st release in Europe and April 2nd in North America. To enthuse us all, they dropped ‘Sun Blows Up Today’, a catchy and bonkers new track, which will actually not be part of their forthcoming album, but comes as a bonus for anyone who orders the album now.
‘Sun Blows Up Today’ gets crazier with the kaleidoscopic video that accompanies it, with animation by George Salisbury. Check it out below.
Akron/Family have announced the release of a new album, called Sub Verses. The record arrives on April 29th in the UK and a day later in the US via Dead Oceans.
“The album started with visions of large monumental sounds inspired by Heizer and Turrell; American works on a grand scale, monuments, dirty hands and an epic American masculinity. Dust, Stone, Sky, Earth.”, said guitarist Seth Olinsky in a statement about the forthcoming Sub Verses.
Bassist Miles Seaton also made a statement, and said that “as with other Akron/Family records the Idiomatic perspective shifts restlessly. From Shamanic hypno-mantras to Noise-damaged Soul anthems to North african street frenzy, from Droning Microtonal Balladry to modular synthesizer destruction to Lynchian Doo-Wop and back again.” Read their whole statements here.
Akron/Family have unveiled the album’s excellent opening track, ‘No-Room’. Here it is.
We have been highly anticipating Helado Negro‘s upcoming full length album Invisible Life, since the first taste ‘Dance Ghost’ emerged back in November. The cut has now been complimented with a video, directed by David W. Merten. Check it out below and watch out for the album release on March 5th via Asthmatic Kitty.
