Nightports announce new collaborative album with Matthew Bourne, Dulcitone 1804

We love Nightports, the inventive duo of British musicians and producers Adam Martin and Mark Slater, who have been dazzling us over the years with collaborative projects with other musicians exploring and reworking their music with the single remit of only using sounds produced by the featured musician. Starting in 2018 with Nightports w/ Matthew Bourne, they have also released albums with drummer and percussionist Betamax in 2020 and with double bassist Tom Herbert in 2022.

Dulcitone 1804 is their  latest sonic adventure, which saw them team up again with pianist and composer Matthew Bourne, and it will see the light of day on May 24th through The Leaf Label. As the name suggests, the upcoming album is centred around recordings of Bourne playing a Dulcitone, a 19th century rare keyboard instrument, and in this specific case the instrument is number 1804. The idea arose after Martin and Slater saw the small instrument at Bourne’s studio while working on another project. “As Matthew does with all instruments he plays, the first sounds he made with the Dulcitone were immediately beautiful,” Martin explained. “Somewhere between a celeste and a piano, it has a clear, bell-like quality that’s evocative of a strange other world. Something old and distant.”

 ‘Machell’ is the first heavenly gorgeous single to be let loose and you can listen to it below.

Matthew Bourne shares second single ‘Asaf’

With the impending release of the new album from Matthew Bourne, titled Irrealis, quickly approaching through The Leaf Label, the imaginative pianist and composer has shared new track ‘Asaf’, following the beguiling lead single, ‘Alice’. Speaking about the new track, Bourne explains:

“’Asaf’ is gifted to musician Asaf Sirkis. Along with Shri Siram and Dušan Petrović, we played together at the Garana Jazz Festival in August 2020. I’m sure most of us can remember exactly what we were doing around that time, and there was a sense of the intrepid, or an auspicious quality to the whole exercise of making this meeting happen, and its imprint was considerable.”

Lend your ears to ‘Asaf’ below.

Irrealis is out on May 27th and is available to pre-order now as a limited edition black vinyl edition through bandcamp.

Matthew Bourne to release new album, Irrealis, in May

What better way to celebrate Piano Day than with the newly announced album from incredibly imaginative pianist and composer Matthew Bourne. Entitled Irrealis, the upcoming album follows his 2017 Isotach album, and recent collaborations with Keeley Forsyth and Nightports.

The fruit of a single session, Irrealis was recorded with no overdubs. A sonic explorer, on his new album Bourne “explore[s] the possibilities of his instrument with a box of nuts, bolts and Blu-Tak, and a sense of playfulness and spontaneity”, as the press release explains.

We’ll have to wait until May 27th for the album to arrive through The Leaf Label but we can already hear the beguiling lead single, ‘Alice’. It comes with a video directed by Ross Downes and you can watch it below.

Keeley Forsyth announces Photograph EP and shares title track

2020 kicked off with Debris, the phenomenal debut album from English actress and musician Keeley Forsyth. As we approach the tail end of the year, she is back to dazzle us again with a follow-up EP entitled Photograph. With a striking vocal delivery, Forsyth’s powerful an otherworldly baritone voice remains centre stage, supported again by label mate and composer Matthew Bourne. She has also recruited the help of Trestle Records’ Ross Downes to bring the EP to life.

Photograph EP is set for release on November 20th through The Leaf Label and ahead of it Forsyth has shared the beautiful, haunting and poignant title track. It comes with an accompanying video directed by Ross Downes, with whom she collaborated closely. She commented:

“We discussed the absurdism of Samuel Beckett,Eugène Ionescu and Antonin Artaud and the movements of the Tanztheater tradition, all of which has influenced the music I’ve been writing. We were working towards a place where archetypes, expectations and behaviour are unclear – a woman feeds her family with soil while digging her grave”.

Watch the video for ‘Photograph’ below.


Nightports and Matthew Bourne’s collaborative album out in March

Nightports is the project of Adam Martin and Mark Slater who collaborate with other musicians exploring and reworking their music in varied ways. With their only remit to use “only sounds produced by the featured musician”, as the press release describes, “these sounds can be transformed, distorted, translated, processed and reprocessed, stretched, cut, ordered and reordered without limitation”. Their latest sonic adventure brought them together with pianist and composer Matthew Bourne, and the fruit of this collaboration is a full length album, Nightports w/Matthew Bourne, set for release on March 2nd through Leaf Label. Nightports and Matthew Bourne used a variety of pianos, old and singular, to explore and produce different sounds and textures. To get you enticed, here’s the album’s first stunning single ‘Exit’.