Photo: Emma Rae Norton

The drumming wizard that is Booker Stardrum is back with a new album, three years on from the release of his phenomenal debut solo album, Dance And, which was one of our Picks of 2015. Entitled Temporary etc., the new record was engineered, produced and mixed by Deerhoof’s John Dieterich. Much in demand as a percussionist, Stardrum has recorded and performed with several other bands and projects, including Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Landlady, Lee Ranaldo, Weyes Blood, Nels Cline, Arian Shafiee, VaVatican, and many more. This multitude of experiences and influences has helped shaped his music and define the “wide range of techniques and ideas into his compositions, yielding a highly personal amalgamation of electro-acoustics, minimalism, ambient, jazz, and contemporary experimental electronic music”, as the press release explains.

Temporary etc. is out this Friday 26th through NNA Tapes and if you don’t know why you need this record in your life, check out two album tracks below, ‘Drim Dram II’ and ‘Swimming’. ‘Drim Dram II’ is a sequel to the original piece from 2015’s Dance And and it comes with a video by Miranda Javid.

You may recognize Booker Stardrum from his stints in several bands – he plays with Landlady, Cloud Becomes Your Hand, VaVatican, People Get Ready and Future Wife, amongst many others. The talented drummer and percussionist’s most recent venture resulted in his debut solo album, Dance And, slated for a November 13th release via NNA Tapes.

“Approached from the mindset of sound art and modern composition as opposed to that of traditional rock and pop music”, describes the press release, “Dance And retains an atmosphere of intense experimentation where the multitude of sounds from the drum set are juxtaposed against each other in inventive and puzzling combinations.”

Dance And was recorded using an array of unorthodox techniques “to extract every ounce of texture and detail” from his full arsenal of prepared drum kits, cymbals, gongs, bells, resonant metals, and more.

Ahead of the album’s release, Booker Stardrum is making us salivate with the staggering trance-inducing single ‘Drim Dram’. The song comes with an accompanying kaleidoscopic video made by Jeremy Wiles-Young. Watch it now.