Marla Hansen announces second album, Salt, and shares first single ‘Chains’

17 January 2024

Berlin based violist, violinist and singer-songwriter Marla Hansen may not be a household name but chances are most people have already heard some of her work in some form. She has credits as a performing and recording musician on various albums and has worked with everyone from Sufjan Stevens, The National and Jens Lekman to Mocky, Oneida, Jay-Z, and Alice and Ravi Coltrane among many others.

Hansen has announced the release of Salt, her second album following 2020’s Dust. Set for release on March 15th through Karaoke Kalk, Salt is a wonderful collision of acoustic instruments such as viola, violin, piano and guitar with electronics. “I started to explore synthesizers and electronic production myself,” she comments. “I am proud that I accomplished many of the electronic elements of the new album by myself, and otherwise laid the groundwork for the final electronic structures through my own experiments. I always wanted to record a ‘big’ record, one that has a lot of power and sound, and this one is ‘bigger’ than anything I have done so far.”

Salt saw Hansen enlist the help of like-minded musicians and friends including singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist DM Stith, producer and composer Simon Goff, Alice Dixon (Oriel Quartett) on cello, Kyle Resnick (The National, Beirut) on trumpet, Benjamin Lanz (The National, Beirut) on trombone and tuba, Miles Perkin on bass and The Notwist’s drummer Andi Haberl who “crafted perfect drum and percussion parts to move the songs wherever they needed to go, either into their driving grooves, slow-build explosions or gentle swells of feeling”, as Hansen puts it herself. Simon Goff has also taken on production and engineering duties.

Speaking on the themes behind the album, Hansen says:

“The themes revolve around a feeling of being trapped. Having to stay inside during the pandemic, with all the silence and stillness coming with it. Simultaneously, I was caught up in a professional situation that was not working for me, yet it required a lot of energy and time. I was thinking a lot about how to break old habits and patterns. Patterns in my life, patterns I saw my friends and loved-ones stuck in. There are a lot of ways that people can be trapped, and breaking out of that requires a lot of courage and energy – on all levels. The title ‘Salt’ seemed to fit, ocean themes showed up naturally in some of the songs, and I thought often about the quote: ‘The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.’ Maybe I was just dreaming of the ocean, since it was inaccessible for the first time! But I wanted a cure for this feeling of being trapped, in a time of uncertainty and anxiety, salt as a remedy seemed to have some truth in it: sweat, tears or the sea.”

First single and opening track ‘Chains’, brimming with absolute magic, serves as an exhilarating taste of what she’ll be throwing at us. Here it is.

Dorian Dumont teases second album, to the APhEX, with new single ‘Windowlicker’

16 January 2024

Emerging out of the vibrant Belgian jazz scene, Brussels based French pianist Dorian Dumont has been sharpening his piano skills and versatility in various projects, his talent most notably on full display in one of our favourite acts, ECHT!. In 2021 he began his solo journey releasing APHEXionS, and he’s ready to follow it up with a second LP titled to the APhEX. Like in the previous effort, and as the name suggests, the upcoming to the APhEX “continues that fascination with his musical hero and acts as a musical love letter of sorts – a groundbreaking experience, where the enchanting world of classical piano collides with the electronic brilliance of Aphex Twin.”

To bring the album to life, Dumont transcribed a selection of Aphex Twin’s music to grand piano, improvising upon them and transforming them into a whole new universe of his own. He explains:

“Aphex Twin is a fascinating artist and character. At first, I started transcribing his pieces just to understand them. I then sat on my acoustic piano for the pleasure of hearing these pieces that I loved so much only to realize that in the end I was improvising, I was playing. In short: I was having fun. That’s how this project was born: through pleasure and games. The challenge then was to develop the concept of this project to find my own playground and my own responses around the musical principles of Mr. justify James, in order to make this project a celebration on my own terms.”

to the APhEX is out on February 23rd through W.E.R.F. Records and ahead of it Dumont has let loose the utterly stunning lead single ‘Windowlicker’. Take a listen now.

Manu Delago and Mad About Lemon share new single, ‘Slow-Mo Moving River’, off forthcoming album

11 January 2024

Photo: reithofer media

A longtime favourite of ours here at CTD, Manu Delago is gearing to release his new album, Snow From Yesterday. A collaborative effort, it saw the staggeringly talented Austrian percussionist and composer teamed up with vocal ensemble Mad About Lemon, the trio of Tyrolean singers Heidi Erler, Mimi Schmid and Anna Widauer, to bring the album life.
With release date just three weeks away, Delago is enticing us again with new single ‘Slow-Mo Moving River’, a song about glaciers with crystalline harps and cracking vocal effects. Speaking about it, Manu comments:

“A lot of people maybe don’t know that they’re actually rivers moving incredibly slowly. So most people think of a glacier as like a steady thing on the mountain that’s fixed or solid, but actually it’s moving but just at an incredibly slow pace. If you look at photos from places or yearly time lapses, they look different every year and they move a few inches. And I tried to do that in the music, the girls from Mad About Lemon were doing a lot of icy vocal sounds using cold sounding words. We also sampled real breaking ice.”

‘Slow-Mo Moving River’ is offered with a visualiser made by Shrey Kathuria. Watch it below and watch out for the album release on February 2nd through One Little Independent Records.

MIZU to release new album, Forest Scenes, in March

10 January 2024

Photo: Dan Silver

Nearly a year on from the release of Distant Intervals, Brooklyn based cellist and composer Issei Herr is back with a new album under her new moniker MIZU. Entitled Forest Scenes, the new album sees MIZU “evok[ing] a sense of depth by interrogating systems and exploring unknown territories both physical and cerebral”. The eight sublime songs comprising MIZU’s second release started germinating immediately after the first album, inspired by Robert Schumann’s Waldszenen, both in name and in concept. The album was conceived and written in São Paulo, Brazil last Summer, and later completed in New York. Forest Scenes “is in no small way an acknowledgement of transcendent experiences and the thrills of self-discovery”, as the press release describes, “whether in the vast urbanity of São Paulo, in community among New York City’s queer spaces and dancefloors, or in the more abstract place of a self in transition”.

We’ll have to wait until March 22nd for the album to be out through NNA Tapes but we can already hear the heavenly lead single ‘Pavane’. The track is offered with a video directed by Dan Silver and you can watch it now.

Hannah Frances announces new album, ‘Keeper of The Shepherd’, shares first single ‘Bronwyn’

09 January 2024

A stunning vocalist with incredible songwriting skills, Hannah Frances has announced the release of a new album. Entitled Keeper of The Shepherd, it will see the light of day on March 1st through Ruination Record Co.. “At times raucous and toiling, and at times hypnotizing in its softness”, as the press release describes, the upcoming record “is a careful excavation through the ruins of Frances’ past as she carves out what’s been lost and buried, praising the possibility of a life more whole”.

Frances is offering a marvelous glimpse into her new album with the first single, ‘Bronwyn’. Upon first listen, we became instantly captivated by the poignant and powerful beauty of this song. ‘Bronwyn’ comes with an accompanying video directed by Quinn Gundersen and you can watch it below.

Watch Sedibus’ video for new single ‘Purgatory’ off upcoming album SETI

29 December 2023

Here we are in 2023, unearthing some 2024 releases that shouldn’t be overlooked like the upcoming second album from Sedibus, the collaborative project of Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer of The Orb.  Entitled SETI, Sedibus’s new album will see the light of day on February 23rd through Orbscure Recordings. Speaking about the new album and their collaboration, Paterson comments:

“The first LP had a great reception and sold so well I couldn’t even get a copy myself. Andy is brilliant at making ambient music, and working with him is always rewarding. We understand each other’s brains – it’s easy and organic – so doing another made total sense.

SETI stands for Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, but it’s also something you sit on, to chill out, which is why the album contains a Three-Piece Suite. This record is musical ambience, which is what we like to make, rather than drone ambience, which there’s a lot of these days.”

Falconer also had this to add:

“The first album ‘The Heavens’ was very much a reflection of our shared roots, and in many ways saw Alex and I simply picking up where we’d left off 30 years ago with Ultraworld. For ‘SETI’, we still wanted to keep a connection to the sound of The Heavens, but to also crack open that musical mould and explore new ground. Part of that aspect was to further expand the use of acoustic instruments in both recognisable and processed form.

We’ve always been very much on the same page creatively and one of the great things with working with Alex is that nothing is out of bounds, and we’ve just continued to build on that solid relationship of trust and shared curiosity.”

Sedibus had previously shared the beautiful and creamy lead single ‘Purgatory’ along with an accompanying video directed by Fast Mouse. Here it is.