Ursa Major Moving Group to release eponymous debut album in June

21 March 2023

Photo: Wasil Schauseil

Ursa Major Moving Group is the solo project of London based multi-instrumentalist, composer and writer Ursula Russell, who’s been around for a while drumming with the likes of Snapped Ankles, Alabaster Deplume, Yama Warashi, Bas Jan and Clementine March. She has announced the release of her self-titled debut album, arriving on June 9th through Faith & Industry Records. On the new record, Russell plays all instruments herself, showcasing her instrumental virtuosity and unbridled inventiveness in a range of divergent styles. The forthcoming Ursa Major Moving Group is described as “an intense, dynamic and intimate musical journal that shifts between delicate folk, stirring indie rock, flamboyant chamber pop and angular post-punk styles.”

‘Welcome To The Noosphere’ is the first stunning single to emerge from the album. Inspired by José Argüelles’ book Time and the Technosphere, the track “is a modern-day protest song about a ravaged planet, induced by countless hours of listening to Bob Dylan and watching Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire”. Listen to it now.

Mats Gustafsson & Joachim Nordwall preview upcoming album with new single ‘THERE ARE SOME WORLDS WHERE ALL DREAMS DIE (en glad stund)’

19 March 2023

Photo: Mariam Wallentin

We’re less than a week away from the release of Their Power Reached Across Space and Time-to Defy Them Was Death-or Worse, the new duo album from Mats Gustafsson and Joachim Nordwall. Following the first single ‘HER EYES​…​WERE LIKE COLD FIRES (slut)’, the pair have shared a new track called ‘THERE ARE SOME WORLDS WHERE ALL DREAMS DIE (en glad stund)’ and you can listen to it below. Their Power Reached Across Space and Time-to Defy Them Was Death-or Worse is out on March 24th through Thrill Jockey.

EDI POU unleashes video for brand new track ‘LO + NUEVO’

17 March 2023

Hell yes! Trailblazing multi-instrumentalist and drummer extraordinaire Edi Pou is set to release the first music under his own name. As one half of high-energy duo ZA! and one half of Los Sara Fontan, Edi Pou needs no introduction. Next month he’s putting out ‘LO + NUEVO’, his first solo track, as part of a split vinyl with Hassan K titled MINIMAXIMALISM, releasing through October Tone, Cheap Satanism, Extranormal and Gandula.

Blistering and hugely energising, ‘LO + NUEVO’ is bursting with Pou’s polyrhythmic energy and trademark charisma. The track is now streaming with an insane video accompaniment made by Simon Lebon. Check it out below.

Egyptian duo Baskot Lel Baltageyya announce eponymous debut album

17 March 2023

Today Egyptian duo Baskot Lel Baltageyya, the project of musician Adham Zidan and poet Anwar Dabbour, have announced the release of their self-titled debut album. A lauded musician, producer, recordist and mixer, Zidan is no stranger to creative collaborations. Other than playing keyboards and singing in The Invisible Hands alongside Sublime Frequencies/Sun City Girls co-founder Alan Bishop, he is known for his standout contribution to stellar projects like Youssra El Hawary’s No’oum Nasyeen (2017), Tarkamt’s Live at the Necropolis (2018), Maurice Louca’s Elephantine (2019), Natik Awayez’s Manbarani (2020), and Nancy Mounir’s Nozhet El Nofous (2022) and his collaborations with the likes of Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Nadah El Shazly, Raed Yassin and Sam Shalabi.

Sprouted from an audio-visual project, Baskot Lel Baltageyya, which translates as something like Cookies for Thugs, is not just a band or a record. “You can think of Baskot as a genre of music, a name of a group, or as something to consume,” Zidan explained. On the upcoming album, Dabbour’s colloquial Arabic lyrics depict the dark absurdist humour present in Egyptian popular culture in the 90s.

Baskot Lel Baltageyya is set for release on May 5th through Wall of Sound (digital) / Akuphone (vinyl) and ahead of it we can hear the first thrilling single ‘Esh 3arrafak? (You Know Nothing)’. It comes with an accompanying video made by Super7amdy and you can watch it below.

 

Matthew Herbert previews upcoming album, The Horse, with lead single ‘The Horse Has A Voice’

15 March 2023

Photo: Eva Vermandel

Behold! British artist, producer, composer and experimentalist Matthew Herbert has announced the release of a new album. Entitled The Horse, the record is a collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra and saw Herbert enlist an incredible cast of guest contributors, including Sons of Kemet’s Shabaka Hutchings and Theon Cross, Evan Parker, regular Wayne Shorter collaborator Danilo Pérez, Polar Bear’s Seb Rochford and Kokoroko’s Edward Wakili-Hick. A search for the largest possible animal skeleton that could be explored sonically served as the origin for the album, which is based around a full-size horse skeleton. “One of the major narrative arcs through the album”, describes the press release, “is its representation of the evolution of human music itself, opening in a compelling, primitive flurry of custom-made flutes from the horse’s thigh bones and bows crafted from ribs and horse hair”.

The importance of the horse in human history became crucial for the album, and Herbert undertook recordings from various sources including 6900 horse sounds culled from the internet, reverb impulses in front of ancient cave paintings of horses in Northern Spain and sounds recorded at the corner of Epsom race course where women’s suffrage activist Emily Davison was trampled by King George V’s racehorse in 1913. Herbert has also used horse skin drums and a shaker shaped from a mixture of cement and polo horse semen. To help with creating or carving the instruments out of the skeleton, Herbert commissioned instrument makers Sam Underwood, Graham Dunning, Henry Dagg and Lee Patterson.

The Horse arrives on May 26th through Modern Recordings / BMG and to celebrate the release, Herbert has shared the triumphant and propulsive lead track, ‘The Horse Has A Voice’, featuring Theon Cross. We can’t control the impulse to play it again and again. Check it out below.

Nightports set to release new album, Minster; listen to lead single ‘Trinity’

15 March 2023

There’s exciting news from Nightports, who have announced the release of a new album entitled Minster. As in previous records, the ingenious pair approach their projects with sets of pre-defined rules, be it only using sounds produced by a featured musician, as they did with previous collaborative albums with Matthew Bourne, Betamax, and Tom Herbert, or by creating music only with sounds recorded in a specific place on one day  like in their 2020 On Wat Chedi Luang EP. The 14th century Hull Minster is the sole source of sounds on the upcoming Minster, and we find the pair exploring and reworking the recordings they undertook of the bells and of its clock mechanism in varied ways.

Minster is set for release on April 7th through The Leaf Label but we can already hear the first immersive and hauntingly beautiful single, ’Trinity’.

In other related news, Nightports are set to perform their new work at Hull Minster this Friday, March 17th at 6pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm. The performance will be part of The Awakening, the prelude to this year’s Hull Freedom Festival and it will be free.