Tag Archives: Booker Stardrum

Watch the new video for Booker Stardrum’s third single ‘Walking Through Still Air’

11 June 2021

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.

Booker Stardrum unveils new single, ‘Bend’, featuring Jaimie Branch

19 May 2021

We had already heard and loved ‘Diorama’, the first single lifted from Booker Stardrum‘s Crater, his much anticipated third album. As we get closer to the album release on July 2nd through NNA Tapes, the drumming wizard, improviser and composer has let loose another wild cut from the album called ‘Bend’, featuring Jaimie Branch. Speaking about the song, Stardrum said:

“I titled this one ‘Bend’ after my natural relationship to pulse and rhythm, an elastic flow state that I strive to achieve in my playing. I love the feeling of stretching time in and out of groove, stumbling, and snapping back into it. Playing freely is a meditation on listening and awareness, and the embodiment of flexibility. I always attempt to capture these types of moments in my recordings, then enhance them with other gestures in a similar spirit. ‘Bend’ features trumpet bending by the always inspiring Jaimie Branch.”

Listen to ‘Bend’ below.

Booker Stardrum announces third album Crater

28 April 2021

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.

Lisel and Booker Stardrum team up for debut collaborative album Mycelial Echo

17 March 2021

Photo: Lisel by Gregory Wikstrom / Booker Stardrum by Brian Guido

Drumming wizard, improviser and composer Booker Stardrum and singer, producer, and experimental artist Eliza Bagg aka Lisel⁠ have joined forces for a debut album entitled Mycelial Echo. Crafted remotely over a six week period, the album is closely tied to other artistic projects. Half of the music was written for an opera about trees⁠ set to be presented in a virtual reality installation this year and the other half was composed for The Vanishing Point, a 25-minute music and dance piece commissioned by National Sawdust. The piece was made with dancer/choreographer Gwendolyn Gussman and conceived as video art.

The press release elaborates on Bagg and Stardrum’s collaboration:

“Lisel’s manipulated vocal samples, processed vocal improvisations, and patterns built from extended techniques are combined with Stardrum’s complex sequences, organic percussion, and synths to create a portrayal of our relationship to the natural world that is both tactile, sensorial, and seen from a distance.”

Preceding Mycelial Echo‘s release on April 9th through Luminelle Recordings, the pair shared two riveting and celestial tracks,  ‘In The Dome’ and ‘I Am Not Ready To Go’.  ‘In The Dome’ comes paired a video directed by Bagg herself and featured Gwendolyn Gussman.


Mixtape #102

04 February 2019

A restless drummer extraordinaire, improviser and composer, Booker Stardrum musical involvements include performing and recording with an array of bands and projects. We have been hooked on his staggering sounds ever since we came across Booker’s 2015 debut album, Dance And, which was one of our picks of the year, as was last year’s follow-up, Temporary etc. So we can’t wait to hear what he comes up with next, and are over the moon he put together this month’s enthralling mixtape.

  1. Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea (Ragnar Johnson assisted by Jessica Mayer) – Mo-Mo [Ideologic Organ]
  2. Carl Stone – Jitlada [In Tone Music]
  3. Laurel Halo – Mercury [Latency]
  4. Jon Hassell – Solaire [ECM Records]
  5. Ahnnu – Ne-Ne [NNA Tapes]
  6. Weather Report – Milkyway [Selles]
  7. Motohiko Hamase – Lung [Shi Zen]
  8. Paul DeMarinis – Kokole [Music & Arts]
  9. Jlin – Kyanite [Planet Mu]
  10. $3.33 – + [Leaving Records]
  11. Susumo Yokota – Red Swan [Leaf]
  12. Midori Takada – Trompe-l’oeil [RCA Red Seal]