Listen to Tomin’s singles ‘Love’ and ‘Life’; new album A Willed and Conscious Balance out in November

23 October 2024

Last month, New York born and based multi-instrumentalist, composer, poet and bioinformatician Tomin announced the release of A Willed and Conscious Balance. Set for release on November 1st through International Anthem, it’s his first album arranged for an ensemble, including members of Irreversible Entanglements and jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE.

Ahead of the release, Tomin has let two staggering singles loose, ‘Love’ and more recently ‘Life’. About the latter, he comments:

“Life is my ode to black women and all the joy and wonder they have brought to my life; written for my sister Caramina, featuring solos from Teiana Davis on Wurlitzer and Clérida Eltimé on cello.”

Listen to both tracks below.

Jean-Claude Vannier announces new album Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines

20 October 2024

Photo: Léo Alestro

French musician, composer and arranger Jean-Claude Vannier is something of a restless creative soul with a very long and fascinating résumé. Over his six-decade wide-ranging career, he has worked on myriad film scores, released solo studio albums, collaborated with the likes of Beck, Sean Lennon and Mike Patton, and produced and arranged for everyone including Brigitte Fontaine, Françoise Hardy, Claude François, Johnny Hallyday and Astor Piazzolla, to name but a few. He is most known for his arranging and composing credits on Serge Gainsbourg’s cult record Histoire de Melody Nelson.

Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines (Jean Claude Vannier and his mandolin orchestra) is Vannier’s latest venture, a gorgeous album created as the soundtrack to a non-existent silent film. The record was composed on mandolin and accordion and features mandolin virtuoso Vincent Beer-Demander and accordionist Grégory Daltin.

We’ll have to wait until February 14th for Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines to be out through Ipecac but we can already hear the tender and heartfelt first single ‘Perdue dans la cité (Lost in the city)’.

Alabaster DePlume unveils Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade EP

15 October 2024

Photo: Sofia Lambrou

There’s wonderful news from ingenious and thought-provoking spoken word artist, bandleader, composer, saxophonist and activist Alabaster DePlume, who has just unveiled a new digital EP titled Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade, part of an upcoming larger project, Prologue To A Blade, which will also be ccompanied by his debut poetry book, Looking For My Value: Prologue To A Blade. The EP features two tracks recorded in Bethlehem, Palestine with local musicians, pianist Sami El Enani and Qanoun player Laith Albandak, and a third track, ‘Gifts Of Olive’, which references Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die”. DePlume comments:

“To set you up for what’s coming I’ve layered up these compositions in private, and with friends. It’s a prologue to what we’re bringing next. It ushers it in. I went towards things I feared, to be in the places where this music has come from. Places in the world and in myself, where dignity and sovereignty has its role in the work of healing.”

Head over to DePlume’s bandcamp to grab Cremisan: Prologue To A Blade EP, and for a taster of it, here’s the utterly compelling and beguiling opening track ‘Honeycomb’ featuring Sami El Enani.

Plantfood’s debut album, Carnivores, out now

10 October 2024

Emerging out of the jazz scene of Leeds, Plantfood are a fierce musical force. A 6-piece comprising JJ Petrie (percussion), Ruben Maric (keyboards), Joe van der Meulen (tenor saxophone), Woolley (baritone saxophone), Finn Hamilton (drums) and Woody Hayden (bass), Plantfood released last week their debut album, Carnivores. The six tracks on the album mix elements of jazz, punk, and Afro-Latin, West and North African grooves, all colliding ferociously to capture the explosive energy they are known for. The circle of life, and cycles within nature serve as Carnivores’s thematic focus, with the band “envision[ing] an apocalyptic future where the plants rise to power, taking over and consuming all around them”, as the press release describes. “The music paints these chaotic and contrasting scenes with a heavy and cataclysmic sound palette.” Carnivores also offers “moments of vulnerability, hope and spirituality as the balance of earth’s natural order is restored.”

For a taste of what’s on offer, here’s ‘Executive Decision’, one of the intoxicating tracks on the album.

Carnivores is out now through Bridge The Gap

Listen to Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp’s new single ‘Color’

10 October 2024

Following the phenomenal fist single ‘Breath‘, Swiss-based multi-national collective Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp have shared a new single called ‘Color’. The track is taken from their upcoming sixth album, Ventre Unique, and you can listen to it now.

Bibio announces new album, PHANTOM BRICKWORKS (LPII), and shares lead single ‘DINORWIC’

09 October 2024

We love Bibio and new music from him is always a very exciting and special treat. Back in 2017, the English musician and producer released Phantom Brickworks, realizing later it had became an ongoing project. Bibio is now continuing it and has announced the release of PHANTOM BRICKWORKS (LPII), arriving on November 22nd through Warp. As with the first album, it features mostly improvised music and is inspired by certain places around Britain and the charge they carry. Bibio comments:

“Human beings are highly sensitive to the atmospheres of places, which can be enhanced or dramatically altered when you learn the context of their history… echoes and voices can sometimes be heard, in some way or another. Places sometimes have things to say.”

He continues:

“When I announced the first ‘PHANTOM BRICKWORKS’ album, I discussed how places can be charged with meaning, depending on what they’d been through. That observation continues with the new album. It consists of mostly improvised music, using some of the same techniques as before as well as developing new ones that are unique to this album. Some familiar territory is revisited, both musically and in terms of the types of locations that interest me. North Wales plays a significant role, but this album reaches beyond – extending into the realms of legends, as stories passed down through generations can sometimes haunt a place more vividly.”

The eerie and atmospheric ‘DINORWIC’ is the first single to emerge from his upcoming album. The track is named after a well known former slate mine in Llanberis, Wales, and Bibio has made a video to accompany it. Watch it now.