Photo: Victoria Nazarova

Austrian seven-piece Shake Stew are celebrating a decade together with a new double album, TEN ONE TWO, arriving on February 13th through Traumton Records. Known for their unusual lineup — two drummers, two bassists, three horns — and often associated with the “Krautjazz” label, the band uses this milestone moment to continue pushing forward with brand new music. Bandleader and bassist Lukas Kranzelbinder describes the project as both a culmination and a reset. After years of weaving between tight studio recordings and wide-open live improvisations, the band wanted to capture the full stretch of their musical world. “I feel like we’ve only just started,” Kranzelbinder says. “This year and the process of TEN has given us a creative boost that feels like we are beginning a completely new chapter.”

The release is split into two parts, TEN ONE, which focuses on Kranzelbinder’s composed material, and TEN TWO, reflecting their live instincts. With TEN TWO, Shake Stew lean into long-form improvisation, electric textures, and even field recordings, drawing on the intuition they have built after years of playing together. Kranzelbinder sums up the process:

“When you play so many concerts and record so many albums, you develop an intuitive sense of what defines the band’s sound — there’s often no need for me to give compositional directions anymore.”

Alongside the album announcement, Shake Stew are sharing the first single from TEN ONE, ‘Ascendance’, a fearless and fiery track. “Nearly all of the music that triggers something physically within me is music that goes upwards…”, says Kranzelbinder of the track. Take a listen now.