Back in February, we heard and loved the soul-stirring and soul-soothing ‘Members Don’t Get Weary’, the first single from Joy Guidry‘s upcoming album AMEN. Now the gifted bassoonist and composer has shared another poignant and transcendent single called ‘I Will Always Miss You’. Described as “a heartbreaking ode to Joy’s family”, ‘I Will Always Miss You’ “explores the album’s themes of deep rest by layering pads of lush ambient synthesizers beneath some of Joy’s most inner-reaching and expressive bassoon playing to date.”
Listen to it below and watch out for the release of AMEN on May 10th through Whited Sepulchre Records.
We’re eagerly looking forward to the release of Adult Jazz’s So Sorry So Slow, their first album in nearly a decade. The London-based four-piece had already enticed us with a couple of tracks, ‘Suffer One’ and ‘Dusk Song’ and as release date draws closer, they are dazzling us again with new single ‘Marquee’. “I think this is essentially a wedding song – written after a spate of going to lots of weddings, feeling happy, lonely, and after 2014, ostensibly welcomed into that institution,” said the quartet’s Harry Burgess. “I was thinking about ceremonies that involve staking out ground, beating the bounds, and hoping for an idea of community broader than a series of sealed family units.”
The track comes with an accompanying video made by Peter Eason Daniels. Watch it below.
So Sorry So Slow is out on April 26th through Spare Thought
Porto based ensemble HHY & The Macumbas have announced the release of a new album titled Bom Sangue Mau, which translates from Portuguese as “good bad blood”. Due out on May 31st, their forthcoming album will also mark the inaugural release on new label Horror Vector.
Multidisciplinary artist Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, who’s at the helm of the project, and his collaborators Brendan Hemsworth, Filipe Silva, Frankão, João Pais Filipe, André Rocha and Francisco Antão, recorded the album in an empty theatre, where they set up a full arsenal of sound-systems, lighting rigs, and smoke machines to capture the raw essence of their kinetic live performances. As the press release describes, “they immersed the stage in a deep red glow, using crumpled rhythms, eerie synthesisers, wild-eyed horn sounds and serious bass pressure to build a place of dread and ascension.”
The album news comes paired with the first transcendent single, ‘Lago de Puro Êxtase’ and you can listen to it below.
Drummer, composer, and producer Jake Long, best known as the founder and bandleader of Maisha, is gearing up to release his debut solo album. Entitled City Swamp, it is the fruit of a collaborative effort, which started in September 2019 with Long inviting former Maisha collaborators Amané Suganami, Tim Doyle Twm Dylan, Nubya Garcia, Binker Golding, Tamar Osborn, Shirley Tetteh, Artie Zaitz, and Al MacSween to record some tracks at Lightship 95 Recording Studios in London. Depicting dystopian themes and with influences ranging from Funkadelic and Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew to dub pioneers like King Tubby, the album “rises out of the rubble to stake its claim to the future of London’s musical landscape”, as the press release describes.
City Swamp is set for release on May 17th through New Soil and ahead of it, Long has shared the first single, ‘Silhouette’. Expansive, intricate, and pulsing with vibrancy, ‘Silhouette’ is after your ears.
For huge fans like us of experimental guitar virtuoso and singer-songwriter Eric Chenaux, news of new music from him fills us with joy and anticipation. He has consistently captivated us with his striking voice of gold and unique blend of majestic songcraft and improvisation. So we’re thrilled to know he has a new album on the way, now as Eric Chenaux Trio, also featuring fellow Canadian musicians Phillipe Melanson (Bernice, Joseph Shabason, U.S Girls) on electronic percussion, and longtime collaborator Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ.
Entitled Delights Of My Life, the upcoming album was recorded at Chenaux’s home studio in rural France, and arrives on May 31st through Constellation and Murailles Music. As the press release describes, Delights Of My Life is somewhat of a follow-up to his previous album Say Laura, “in its subversions of a classic, timeless jazz-inflected balladry, with the interplay of the trio formation indeed unfurling many new delights.” As always, Chenaux’s music is marked by its subtlety and nuance, allowing us to engage with its intricacies in different ways. He comments:
“I like to make music that continues in such a way that one does not feel the pressure to listen all the time, that does not petition for your attention but welcomes it, and if you drift out and think about whatever it is one can think about in this day and age, when you come back, well it is there, and you have not necessarily missed anything that will hinder your re-engagement: a fidelity to duration in an unearthly sense.”
Clocking in at a sprawling 10 minutes, album opener ‘This Ain’t Life’ is the first sonic delight from Eric Chenaux Trio’s new album to be unveiled. The single comes with an accompanying video, offering a visual exploration of the trio’s creative process and interplay. Experimental filmmaker and longtime collaborator Eric Cazdyn directs.
Aquaserge have been turning our heads for a long time, enthralling us with every single album they release. A wonderful and thrilling supergroup, featuring a revolving lineup of incredible musicians, they draw on their collective musical background and improvisational sensibilities to create kaleidoscopic and bold compositions which effortlessly transcend genres.
We’re over the moon to know they are gracing us with a new album, following 2021’s The Possibility Of A New Work For Aquaserge, which was one of our Album Picks of the Year. Entitled La Fin de l’Économie, the new album will see the light of day on May 24th through Crammed Discs. Described as an ecological poem where present and past collide, the album draws inspiration from sources aplenty. “Listeners will encounter traces of Oulipo (the famous experimental French literary movement founded in the ’60s), Dada and free jazz”, as the press release says. “They will cross paths with the ghosts of Ennio Morricone, Walter Benjamin and Marguerite Duras, with the shadows of Kim Gordon and Brigitte Fontaine”.
Audrey Ginestet, Benjamin Glibert, Olivier Kelchtermans, Manon Glibert, and Julien Chamla, who make up the current lineup of Aquaserge, were all involved in the recording, each bringing their unique talents to the table.
May seems like a long while away but lucky for us they have today shared the opening track, ‘Le saut du tigre’, which means “The Tiger’s Leap” and refers to a famous text by cult thinker Walter Benjamin. ‘Le saut du tigre’ is an exhilarating and infectious guitar-driven track, with the band’s “trademark touches of jazz, ’70s film music, and poetry reflecting their radical views on the state of the world.” Aquaserge are offering the track with an accompanying video directed by their own Audrey Ginestet. Here it is.
