Tag Archives: Laurence Pike

Laurence Pike unveils first single from upcoming new album, The Undreamt-Of Centre

05 July 2024

Photo: Traianos Pakioufakis

We’re thrilled to know that Laurence Pike is back with a new album entitled The Undreamt-of Centre. A relentless drummer, phenomenal improviser and inventive composer, he has been dazzling us for the last two decades, both with his solo projects and various bands and collaborations, and the upcoming album is no exception. We are actually totally blown away by this one. Described as his most ambitious project to date, The Undreamt-of Centre is a contemporary reimagining of the requiem mass and features the VOX Sydney Philharmonia Choir, a 12-piece chamber choir conducted by Pike’s childhood friend, composer Sam Lipman. Recorded in a 19th century Gothic church in Sydney, the album draws influences spanning from the sounds of modern classical music, Japanese environmental ambient music, fourth world electronics and free jazz through to the choral traditions of Estonia, particularly from Tallinn-based composer Tonu Korvits.

On the forthcoming The Undreamt-of Centre, Pike noted:

“I first had the thought of working with voices a number of years ago. I had the strange notion of making a requiem mass for drums, electronics and choir. It sat with me since then, until it felt the time was right to realise the idea.

Why a requiem? Initially I simply liked the idea of a structural format that had existed and been reimagined again and again over hundreds of years. Ultimately, it’s a ritual set to music. The processes and ecstatic outcomes of rituals, were something I had explored in making the Holy Spring album in 2019. I became interested in subverting the religious musical construct of a requiem into something far more contemporary, using language and sounds not readily associated with it. It also seemed a ready-made vehicle to explore the sound of a choir with my electro-acoustic drum kit performances.”

We´ll have to wait untl September 6th for the album to be out through The Leaf Label but we can already hear the moving and majestic first single, ‘Introit’.

Mixtape #143

01 December 2022


This year saw the birth of Collisions, a supergroup comprising neo-classical composer Tom Hodge, post-rock composer Ciaran Morahan and jazz composer and drummer Ollie Howell, all three accomplished and exceptional musicians and composers in their own right, with an already expansive experimental practice. Their joint musical venture yielded its first fruits in September with the release of a majestic, immersive, and cinematic self-titled debut album that hooked us at first listen. So we're over the moon to unfold the absolutely amazing and awe-inspiring mixtape they assembled for us reflecting some of their extraordinary influences.

  1. Brambles – In The Androgynous Dark [Serein]
  2. Laurence Pike – Daughter of Mars [The Leaf Label]
  3. Neil Cowley Trio – Death Of Amygdala (Christian Löffler Remix) [Phases]
  4. Kodomo – Orange Ocean (Loscil Remix)
  5. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Less Likely [The Null Corporation]
  6. Rival Consoles – Memory Arc [Erased Tapes]
  7. Jonny Greenwood – Tree Strings [Invada / Lakeshore]
  8. Bersarin Quartett – Staub und Sterne [Denovali]
  9. Fredric Robinson – Vamp Till Ready [BMTM]
  10. Max Cooper – Symmetry (Hidden Orchestra Remix) [Mesh]
  11. Boards of Canada – Reach For The Dead [Warp]
  12. The Dead Texan – Aegina Airlines [Kranky]
  13. Ben Lukas Boyson – Nocturne 4 [Erased Tapes]

Mixtape #123

01 February 2021

We love Nightports’ sublime music. The inventive duo of British musicians and producers Adam Martin and Mark Slater approach their different projects with sets of pre-defined rules. Their recent EP, Wat Chedi Luang, was created using recordings from a unique day and place. Similarly, for their two previous albums, they only used sounds produced by a featured musician, discovering varied ways to explore and rework the artist’s music. Following their 2018 collaboration with Matthew Bourne, last year’s dazzling sonic collaboration, Nightports w/ Betamax, made it to our favourite Albums of 2020 and we simply can’t put it down. So we’re delighted they stitched together this phenomenal mix for us. Dig in!

  1. Anna Meredith – Calion [Moshi Moshi] 0:00
  2. Eli Keszler – Measurement Doesn’t Change the System At All [Shelter Press] 4:30
  3. Floating Points – Anasickmodular [Ninja Tune] 8:03
  4. Beatrice Dillon – Workaround One [Pan (3)] 11:10
  5. Laurence Pike – Rapture [The Leaf Label] 14:29
  6. TOMAGA – Squeek and Chatter [Negative Days] 18:06
  7. Leafcutter John – Pillar [Border Community] 22:35
  8. Sebastian Rochford & Pamelia Kurstin – Ouch [i] [Slowfoot] 27:28
  9. MRR-ADM – 2wo 31:35
  10. Autechre – esc desc [Warp] 33:46
  11. A Winged Victory for the Sullen – The Rhythm Of A Dividing Pair [Ninja Tune] 38:27
  12. No. 3 – No. 3 42:34
  13. Ametsub – Snowy Lava [Progressive Form / Third Ear] 50:30
  14. Domenique Dumont – People on Sunday [The Leaf Label] 54:42

Mixtape #121

02 December 2020

It’s no secret we love Laurence Pike. A relentless drummer, phenomenal improviser and inventive composer, for the last two decades he has recorded and played with an array of bands, setting up his drumkit at the junction of electronic, jazz and post-rock. His 2018 debut solo album, Distant Early Warning, and its follow up, Holy Spring, both blew us away and made it to our Album Picks of the Year. Reacting to the catastrophic wild fires in his native Australia, Pike released his powerful third album, Prophecy, this summer. We asked him to put together this month’s mixtape and he wrapped up his “Pandemic Favourites” for us. An hour made up of the tracks he has found himself delving into as of late, this is the soundtrack we needed to end the year beautifully!

  1. Takashi Kokubo – 回廊の音楽 [Glossy Mistakes]
  2. Haji K – A White-Tinted Sky [Daisart]
  3. Paradise Cinema – It Will Be Summer Soon [Gondwana Records]
  4. Hiroshi Yoshimura – Surround [Misawa Home]
  5. Finis Africae – Hybla [EM Records]
  6. Phillip Wilkerson – The Way Of Heaven [Stereoscenic]
  7. Luke Abbott – Ames Window [Border Community]
  8. Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza – Polynomial Voices [Asura Revolver]
  9. Kit Downes – Circinus [ECM Records]
  10. H.Takahashi – Pollen [Where To Now?]

Laurence Pike shares new video for ‘Ember’

20 August 2020

Following the recent release of his third solo album, Prophecy, Laurence Pike keeps the surprises coming by rolling out a new video for new single ‘Ember’. The video was directed again by visual artist Clemens Habicht, who explained it “is an evolution of the methodology established in previous collaborations on ‘Drum Chant’ and ‘Nero’. He added:

“The shapes in motion again resemble print making abstractions of form that visually parallel Laurence’s exploratory music. This video departs from a direct musical synchronicity of image and sound and captures another type of internal notation, using motion from an activity outside of performance that for Laurence brings a similar type of concentration without the same mastery, a meditative practice that is most likely quite addictive, possibly frustrating, and has him go into a special headspace, trusting in instinct and the process to give forth an outcome”

Check out the video below.


Prophecy is out now through The Leaf Label.

Laurence Pike shares new single from upcoming album Prophecy

15 July 2020

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we love Laurence Pike. And we are absolutely thrilled with his third solo album, Prophecy, arriving next week. The incredibly inventive percussionist and composer recorded the album as a reaction to the catastrophic wild fires in his native Australia.

Following the first single ‘Nero’, Pike is enticing us again with a new track called ‘Death of Science’, described as “an abstract rumination on politics trying to deny the nature of the universe, in which broken voices and muted drums attempt to spin around the certainty of the physical world.” Take a listen below and grab Prophecy when it’s out on July 24th through The Leaf Label.