De Beren Gieren announce seventh album, What Eludes Us, and share first single ‘The Houses’

26 January 2024

Photo: Francis Vanhee

2024 has only just started but it is already shaping up to be a fantastic year for music, all the more as Dutch-Belgian acoustic-electronic piano trio De Beren Gieren have today announced a new album. Entitled What Eludes Us, it follows 2021’s Less Is Endless and is set for release on March 29th through Sdban Ultra. Described as “an ode to what escapes us and what we consciously want to look away from”, the upcoming album saw the trio of Fulco Ottervanger (piano, synths & effects), Lieven Van Pée (double bass) and Simon Segers (drums & effects) work together with Norwegian producer Jørgen Træen in his studio in Bergen.

Alongside the announcement, De Beren Gieren also shared today ‘The Houses’, the first intoxicating taste of what to expect from their seventh long player, clearly pointing towards transcendence. “It’s the soundtrack to a wandering tribe traveling through Europe, their minds filled with expectations and nostalgia, marveling at beautiful landscapes and cities gliding past their trailers”, as the press release describes. “What happens behind the facades of all those houses and in those people’s minds?”.
‘The Houses’ comes with an accompanying video, featuring snippets from the 1932 film Le sang d’un poète by Jean Cocteau, and you can watch it now.


Watch Hatis Noit’s animated video for ‘Jomon’

25 January 2024

Originally released in 2022, Hatis Noit‘s striking debut album, Aura, will be physically re-released in the US this Spring through Erased Tapes. The Japanese vocal performer has also announced her first live dates in the US, including stops in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Knoxville for the 2024 edition of Big Ears Festival.

To celebrate the news, Hatis Noit has shared an animated video for album track ‘Jomon’, directed by Berlin-based Taiwanese-Japanese director NAOWAO. Watch it below.

Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble releases second single ‘Return of the Lost Tribe’

24 January 2024

The monumental feat that is Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble‘s 50th anniversary is something worth celebrating and they´re doing that with a special new album titled Open Me, A Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit. The record arrives on March 8th through Spiritmuse Records and they had already teased it with lead single ‘Compared To What’. As if we needed more reasons to be excited, Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble  have shared a second exhilarating single called ‘Return of the Lost Tribe’, composed by El’Zabar in the 90s and originally recorded in the 2000s by a group of Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians leaders, including El’Zabar, Malachi Favors, Joseph Jarman, Kalaparusha Maurice Mcyntyer, and Adegoke Steve Colson. El’Zabar comments:

“The music intends to convey that something powerful and inspired is returning, or coming around again with inspired vigor and wisdom. I feel deep inside me that we are all connected with energies of refined frequency. Each of us possesses the ability to tap into ageless energy which can restore and make us fresh. ‘Return of The Lost Tribe’ speaks to the remembrance of glory that will come again in the present, once we acquire the knowledge to tap into it.”

‘Return of the Lost Tribe’ is offered with a video and you watch it below.

Elena Setién’s new album, Moonlit Reveries, out this Friday

24 January 2024

Photo: Pablo Axpe

This Friday will see the release of Elena Setién‘s new album, Moonlit Reveries, through Thrill Jockey. The upcoming album features drummer / percussionist Glenn Kotche, who she met when he was touring Spain with his band Wilco. The pair went on to join forces, inspiring one another. “Funnily enough, I, being a Spanish artist, sought inspiration in the rhythms of a Chicago drummer to reach something with a Latin feel to it,” Setién explained. “A somehow surrealistic way to get there.”

The album also features guitar more prominently than before, which the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist pins down to Steve Gunn introducing her to the music of Bridget St. John. “What fascinated me right from the beginning, was the calmness in her voice and her low register. Her music inspired me to try to write songs with a guitar rather than a keyboard: there’s more space for the voice and the sound qualities of both voice and guitar kind of melt into each other.”

To get us enticed, Setién has shared two gorgeous cuts from the album, the title track and ‘Surfacing’. Listen to both below.


Adult Jazz return with their first new music in 8 years

24 January 2024

Photo: Tash Cutts & Samuel Travis

All hail the return of Adult Jazz, who are back after a too-lengthy hiatus from making music. We fell for the Leeds-based experimental quartet back in 2013, the year before they released their incredible and widely acclaimed debut Gist Is, which remains a timeless favourite album of ours. Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe, who make up Adult Jazz, have teased their come back a few times and we’re so pleased they have finally shared ‘Dusk Song’, their first new music in 8 years. “It’s loosely about slowness and panic coexisting,” explains Burgess, “and not really being able to comprehend those paces alongside each other when it comes to how to respond to the climate crisis.”

‘Dusk Song’ comes with accompanying visuals directed by Harry Burgess. Speaking about it, Burgess comments:

“I shot the video with my cousin in a river on boxing day 2022, after a day of festive comfort. It was freezing. We were both in the river and there had been a lot of rain. We had the alarm/flash setting on a camping light and we filmed in slow mo in one take. He is wearing these lorry inner tubes across him like a tunic – something Tim came up with on a stag do no less, and has stuck visually – and a cowl I got from Etsy.”

Full of brooding beauty, ‘Dusk Song’ is after your ears.

Moor Mother announces new LP, The Great Bailout, and shares ‘Guilty’

22 January 2024

Photo: Ebru Yildiz

There’s exciting news from Moor Mother, aka Camae Ayewa, who has announced the release of her ninth studio album titled The Great Bailout. Releasing on March 8th through ANTI-, it saw the composer, poet, vocalist and educator invite an impressive list of artists to contribute to the album, including Lonnie Holley, Mary Lattimore, Vijay Ayer, Angel Bat Dawid, Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty and Aaron Dilloway, amongs others.

The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act and the 1835 Slavery Abolition Act acted as the backdrop for the album. “Research is a major part of my work, and researching history – particularly African history, philosophy and time – is a major interest,” Ayewa commented. “Europe and Africa have a very intimate and brutal relationship throughout time. I’m interested in exploring that relationship of colonialism and liberation, in this case in Great Britain.”

The delicate, spectral, and sublime opening track ‘Guilty’, shared alongside the album announcement, masterfully sets the tone for the album. “Displacement and its effects are not discussed enough,” Ayewa says. “The PTSD of displacement should be a focus, and as we have the opportunity to learn about things happening in the world, we also have the opportunity to learn about ourselves. We’ve been through so many different acts of systematic violence.”

‘Guilty’ features Lonnie Holley, Mary Lattimore and Raia Was, and is offered with an accompanying video by Scott Kiernan. Watch it below.