Earlier this month, experimental composer and producer Louis Carnell launched a curated series of 15 collaborative works with artists from across the globe called 111. The first piece, ‘one‘, saw him join forces with English actress, composer and musician Keeley Forsyth. Yesterday Carnell unveiled ‘two’, an enigmatic and dark collaborative piece with musician, composer, visual artist, writer and producer Lee Ranaldo. As with the first piece, ‘two’ also comes with a visual accompaniment directed by Carnell & Arcin Sagdic.
Chicago based Daniel Villarreal has announced the release of Lados B, the follow-up to last year’s acclaimed debut Panamá 77. Back in 2020, Villarreal spent a couple of afternoons recording in LA with guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss, and these sessions yielded Panama 77, as well as more material unreleased until now. Lados B, which means B sides, is also the fruit of those sessions but despite its name, the record is “more a zoomed-in view of one particular session”, as the press release describes, “a detail from a larger painting in which you can see all kind of new things”.
Lados B arrives on October 6th through International Anthem and ahead of it Villarreal has shared the beaming and groovy ‘Sunset Cliffs’ as the lead single. The track comes with an accompanying video made by Burkie and you can watch it below.
We’ve been tingling with excitement for There is only love and fear, the debut album from gifted composer, percussionist, producer and instrument maker Bex Burch, which is set for release on October 20th through International Anthem. Following the elevating and delightfully enchanting ‘Don’t go back to sleep’ featuring Dan Bitney, and the stunningly deep and beautiful ‘Dawn blessings’, Burch has shared the tender and moving ‘On falling’ featuring Diego Gaeta on piano. She comments:
“On falling was a phrase from a friend Emilyn Claid, and this came to me in a moment in Scottie and Chess’s home in LA, a real domestic moment: They had given me a bird bath to hold water so I could play a water drum as part of my setup. While we were playing that day, the bath started leaking, and I turned the microphone down to focus where my ears were focused: the water drops. I love how sounds and rhythm and noises can affect music, I feel like we continuously interact even if it’s unconscious – our unknown participation in my duet with the water drops.”
Gaeta also had this say about it:
“On Falling is a recording that arrived in the moment, drenched in sunlight, at a point where the peaceful entities within the group improv fell into place such that a special jazzy lullaby was created. Listening back, after it was created, the three of us: Ben, Bex and myself felt such a giddy, safe, warm feeling similar to that of a tender moment at a house party of deep communal acceptance and love felt in a close conversation. A feeling that I think was heightened due to the studio setting of the day being Scottie’s lovely living room.”
Along with the single, International Anthem has also unveiled today a new mini documentary about Bex Burch and the making of the album. Listen to ‘On falling’ below and check out the mini doc straight after.
corto.alto’s much anticipated debut album Bad With Names is coming October 6th through New Soil x Bridge The Gap, and yesterday he has released ‘EJS’, the fourth and final single from it. Speaking about the track, Liam Shortall, the prodigious multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer behind corto.alto, had this to say:
“I made this track originally as a beat when my girlfriend Esme moved into my house last year. I was in full album mode at the time and probably not being the most attentive partner to her. I originally had this track titled as ‘interlude’, but decided to retitled it to my partner’s initials after she left for south east asia for 2 months, whilst I sat in my freezing cold flat in Glasgow feeling sorry for myself, missing her. Exposing my feelings of loneliness, guilt from not being very attentive when she was around, codependency etc.”
‘EJS’ is offered with a video created by Esme Stewart. Watch it below.
Following last year’s self-titled debut album, Cloud Management return for their second excursion into the realms of percussive and immersive kraut dub, with a new album entitled »V.A.« arriving in November. The upcoming record saw the Hamburg trio of Thomas Korf, Sebastian Kokus and Ulf Schütte collaborate with Peaking Lights’ Aaron Coyes and also enlist the help of Leipzig-based Canadian producer No UFO’s, Canada’s Seekers International, and Kenyan multi-disciplinary artist Coco Em to rework some tracks. As a truly collaborative record, Cloud Management chose its title as a way of honouring and giving full creative licence to the various artists involved.
»V.A.« is set for release on November 10th through Altin Village & Mine but the band has already let loose the groovy and entrancing ‘PST’ featuring Aaron Coyes, as well the Seekers International version. Listen to both below.
There’s wonderful news from Patrick Shiroishi who has announced the release of a new solo album. Entitled I Was Too Young To Hear Silence, it follows Hidemi, which was one of our 15 Album Picks of 2021, and arrives on November 10th through American Dreams. For his upcoming album, the Los Angeles-based saxophonist and composer explored Japanese free improvised, solo saxophone records. “There’s this one I found by Masayoshi Urabe, he recorded this fifty-minute or hour-long solo saxophone thing. I downloaded it, and I was skipping through it to see what it was like, and every time I clicked, it was just nothing. It was silence. And I was like…did I download the wrong thing? And then, eventually, I had time to sit and listen to it. And that really opened things up.”
An album of free improvised solo saxophone, I Was Too Young To Hear Silence was recorded in a reverberant space in a single take, allowing for the sax and silence to collude. Speaking about it, Shiroishi mentions Ma, the Japanese concept of space or negative space. “The title [I was too young to hear silence] kind of refers to when I was younger…I would fill all the space with as many notes and as loud of volume as I could,” Shiroishi explained. “Not saying that there’s any wrong way to play, but for me, after a while, I was confused with what I was trying to say.”
Shiroishi has unveiled the album’s gripping lead single, “how will we get back to life again?”, along with a music video by Nancy Kwon. Here it is.
