Sarah Neufeld / Richard Reed Parry / Rebecca Foon share video for new single ‘Circular’

09 October 2024

We’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of First Sounds, the debut collaborative album that pairs three of Montreal’s finest musicians, composer and violinist Sarah Neufeld, multi-instrumentalist and musical polymath Richard Reed Parry and cellist and composer Rebecca Foon. The album will see the light of day on November 1st through Envision Records in North America and One Little Independent in the UK and the rest of the world, and the trio had already shared the utterly engrossing and otherworldly ‘Maria’ and ‘Slow New Year’, the spellbinding piece that sprouted the album. They are enticing us again with new single ‘Circular’, a track about “plaintive ghosts”, as Neufeld describes. She continues, “Three rivers of subconscious thought weaving through one another, picking up and leaving off, through a dense fog and the long reeds. We search for hidden answers in the muck and the morning air. Bows gently scrape strings, round and round and round”.

‘Circular’ is offered with a video made by Jason Last and you can watch it now.

Resavoir releases new single ‘Life Before’

08 October 2024

Last week, and in anticipation of their European tour in November/December, Resavoir released a new single called ‘Life Before’. Composed by bandleader Will Miller in collaboration with graphic designer and illustrator Crystal Zapata, ‘Life Before’ was originally commissioned by Chicago’s Public Media Institute for their publication Quarantine Times. The track is offered with a visual accompaniment made by Crystal Zapata and you can watch it below.

Listen to Flock’s new single ‘Meet Your Shadow’

02 October 2024

UK supergroup Flock are gearing up to release their much anticipated second album, Flock II. Bex Burch, Danalogue, Sarathy Korwar, Al MacSween and Tamar Osborn, who make up the project, had previously teased the record with lead single ‘Capillary Waves’. With the album arriving at the tail end of the month, Flock have let loose a second taste from it, the intoxicating and beguiling ‘Meet Your Shadow’. Speaking about it, Danalogue explains:

“Meet your own shadow is about delving into parts of yourself that you don’t necessarily want to look at, parts we don’t want to accept about ourselves, the darker aspects. Personally this was one of my favourite improvisations from our recording session, born from a series of compositional games, where we each got to lead a section. It has a sort of raw urgency and darkness that I tend to lean towards, so I took back to my studio later to give it some extra synths and production, to try and take it all the way, very happy the rest of Flock were okay with how it ended up!”

Listen to ‘Meet Your Shadow’ below. You’ll be hitting the play button the second it ends.

Flock II is out on October 25th through Strut Records

New group LEDJ set to release debut EP, Circuit Breaker, later this month

01 October 2024

There’s an exciting new band emerging from London’s musical melting pot – LEDJ. Made up of saxophonist James Arben (Musical Director for Mulatu Astatke), keyboardist Danny Keane (Heliocentrics, Nitin Sawhney), along with drummer Luke Christie and tuba player Ed Ashby, both founding members of the Hackney Colliery Band, their sound merges experimental jazz with infectious rhythms and a love for the dancefloor, drawing on influences including New Orleans Brass with Ethiopian influences, Nu-Jazz, hi-life, electronica and pop.

Circuit Breaker marks LEDJ’s debut EP, referencing the lockdowns of 2020-2021 when the group began writing. The EP arrives on October 24th through Bridge The Gap, and last week they’ve dropped the title track as a lead single. A perfect introduction to their music, ‘Circuit Breaker’ combines folk-like melodies, afro-punk, and dancehall grooves with electronic soundscapes, and you can listen to it below.

Alex E. Chávez premieres video for new single ‘catalina’

29 September 2024

We’re less than three weeks away from the release of Alex E. Chávez‘s debut solo album Sonorous Present. Following ‘cómplices de luto’ and ‘The Shadow’, the talented multi-instrumentalist, producer, educator, and scholar is previewing the album with new single ‘catalina’. Of the track, Chávez comments:

“Delicate, brief, “catalina” is dedicated to my older sister—Catalina—who was the fatal victim of domestic violence at the age of 18. A song of grief and regret, I lament not being able to say goodbye to her: “inside of me, everything falls apart without you; rather than my own reflection, I see you in the mirror.” I was eleven at the time, and this act of violence and loss deeply shaped my family history and my path as a writer.”

‘catalina’ is offered with an animated video directed by Estudio Pneuma in collaboration with Celestial Brizuela, and you can watch it below.

Sonorous Present is out on October 18th through Artivist Entertainment.

Elias releases soundtrack for multimedia project The End

27 September 2024

An outstandingly talented drummer and composer, and a longtime favourite of ours here at CTD, Elias Devoldere is one of Belgium’s most cutting-edge and visionary artists. Involved in wide range of projects and collaborations including Nordmann, John Ghost, Robbing Millions, SUWI and Hypochristmutreefuzz, among others, Elias, as he is plainly known, has also composed for dance productions and theatre.  Last year he released his debut solo album,  Bloomed > Exploded, a dreamy and shimmering record composed, played, recorded and produced entirely by him, and which we were lucky to see performed live in Porto.

Elias has teamed up with fashion designer Dorien De Kesel and film duo Wannes Vanspauwen & Pol De Plecker, for a multimedia project called The End, which was born “from the desire for more collectivity in the crafts and collaboration between the arts”, as the press release describes. “The collaboration stems from the belief that an equal collaboration between different makers leads to a more powerful, sustainable result.”

The End is offered in the shape of a stunning short film portraying a group of people travelling by horse and cart through an apocaliptic landscape, towards a better world. Watch it now.