Photo: Rendy Mahardhika

A longtime favourite artist of ours, drumming wizard, improviser and composer Booker Stardrum released yesterday his new solo album Close-up On The Outside, his first release for We Jazz Records. Even though it’s a solo record, the album feels collaborative and full of life, and it saw Stardrum join forces with a circle of trusted friends, including Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Chris Williams, Lester St. Louis, Logan Hone, and Michael Coleman, to build something alive together. Stardrum “creates textures through midi controllers, samples, and loops”, as the press release describes, “wherein acoustic sequences are altered to fit plugged-in concepts or acoustic instrumentalists are brought in to humanize what he’s already mapped out electronically”. At its heart, Close-up On The Outside reflects on our connection to the world around us.

‘Dusk’ was the latest single to be let loose from the album. Of the track, Stardrum says:

“The original, working title for this piece was ‘Coyote at Dusk,’ named for a mangey coyote I used to see around my old neighborhood in LA. I dedicate this piece to all coyotes, especially the mangey ones. Thank you to my collaborator on this piece, Chris Williams, who approaches all music with such sensitivity, even mine ; )”

Listen to it below and be sure to grab the album straight after.

With less than a month to go until the release of Crater, Booker Stardrum‘s much anticipated third album, he is enticing us again with a new single called ‘Walking Through Still Air’. “This was one of the last songs I wrote for the album” explained Stardrum. “For me, it’s a somber love letter to the early days of the pandemic. I spent a lot of time walking around Los Angeles, exploring the neighborhoods around my apartment, finding new dirt paths and canyon hikes. I repeatedly ran into a coyote with mange. I was in a conflicted head space– occupied by thoughts of death, unemployment, climate change, and capitalism, but also an inescapable, out of body sensation of stillness. LA is already steeped in a deranged kind of beauty and there was an unfamiliar quiet and calm in the city.”

The single is offered with a video accompaniment, animated by Miranda Javid and featuring additional video footage by Booker Stardrum, Ize Green Diebboll and Jaimie Branch. Watch it below and grab Crater when it drops on July 2nd through NNA Tapes.

Drumming wizard, improviser and composer Booker Stardrum has been on a roll as of late. Following an exciting collaborative album with Lisel released earlier this month⁠, Stardrum is making a return to his namesake solo project with a much anticipated third album. Entitled Crater, the album arrives on July 2nd through NNA Tapes. As with most of his other works, percussion is at the core of album, yet, as the press release describes, Crater comprises “not just percussive phrases, but melodies, textures, sound, noise, and the cracks and crevices of vacant space between these bodies.”
Along with the announcement, Stardrum has let loose the first single ‘Diorama’. Take a listen below.