Basher’s new album, May Day, out later this month

19 May 2024

Photo: Camille Lenain

One of New Orleans’ most electrifying free jazz party band, Basher, spearheaded by renowned saxophonist and composer Byron Asher, is back with a thrilling new album titled May Day, following 2022’s Doubles. The upcoming album features six original compositions and two extended improvisations, recorded in one take to preserve the spontaneous, joyous and raw energy they’re known for. Producer Jeff Albert helped shape these sessions into the cohesive and exhilarating soundscape heard on the album.

Whereas on Doubles Basher ask “what might a band called Basher sound like?”, as the press release describes, on the forthcoming May Day they provide a clear response, “This is what Basher sounds like.”

Complementing the music, the album artwork is a striking blend of socialist realist photography taken by Asher on the streets of Prague, CZ and hand-painted tropical flora and fauna painted by friend and experimental pop singer Jess Joy, symbolizing a fusion of struggle and beauty.

The title track, ‘May Day’, was the first single to be let loose and serves as a powerful tribute to workers and organized labour, with powerful saxophone solos by Asher and Aurora Nealand. As the title suggests, its urgency reflects the tumultuous times during which it was conceived. Basher shared a second single earlier this month, ‘Thanks, Trey’, and are offering it with a video made by Noé Cugny. Check out both singles below ahead of the album’s release on May 31st through Sinking City Records.


Elori Saxl announces mini-album, Drifts and Surfaces, and shares final piece ‘Surfaces’

19 May 2024

Photo: Max Basch

Elori Saxl has announced a mini-album titled Drifts and Surfaces, releasing on July 19th through Western Vinyl. The follow-up to her acclaimed 2021 debut, The Blue of Distance, features three-pieces which emerged from various commissions, including commissions from Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion (‘Drifts I’) and Brooklyn’s Tigue (‘Drifts II’), and delves into themes of transient beauty and mundane existence, reflecting Saxl’s experiences on Madeline Island in Lake Superior. She comments:

 “I was trying to capture the sense of disappearing horizon, lostness, awe, and dark power that feels really innate to Lake Superior. It is also constantly changing – drifts change directions, water becomes ice, ice breaks apart and becomes waves. There is constant movement from drifts to surfaces, surfaces to drifts.”

A profound exploration of the ephemeral and the everyday, the upcoming Drifts and Surfaces blends live percussion and collaborative instrumentation, processed through digital manipulation to mirror the fragmented experience of modern life.

The American experimental electronic composer has shared the third and final piece, ‘Surfaces’, a gorgeous track imbued with an ethereal and meditative ambiance. This piece was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum linked to an Alex Katz retrospective, and captures the subtle shifts in perception and the sense of collective identity among artists. “The ways in which our perception of things change not because they change but because we change,” explains Saxl. “I wanted to have these really minor changes feel dramatic, to mirror the imagined movement in his paintings.” She continues:

“Katz’s depiction of multiple generations of New York City artists inspired me to think about how there is no individual ‘me’ as an artist without both the artists who came before me and the community of artists I’ve grown alongside. The delineation between us blurs, and I feel as though I am carried on an interwoven surface formed by the community around me.”

Saxl has made a video to accompany ‘Surfaces’ and you can watch it below.

Watch the video for Eric Chenaux Trio’s new single ‘These Things’

19 May 2024

Photo: Sylvestre Nonique-Desvergnes

Back in March experimental guitar virtuoso and singer-songwriter Eric Chenaux announced the release of Delights Of My Life. Joined by fellow Canadian musicians Phillipe Melanson (Bernice, Joseph Shabason, U.S Girls) on electronic percussion, and longtime collaborator Ryan Driver on Wurlitzer organ, this is his first release as Eric Chenaux Trio. Following the delightful album opener ‘This Ain’t Life’, the sweet and intimate ‘These Tings’ has emerged as a second single. The track is offered with a video directed as usual by experimental filmmaker and longtime collaborator Eric Cazdyn and featuring dancer and choreographer Angela Schubot. Watch it below.

Delights Of My Life is out on May 31st through Constellation and Murailles Music.

Colin Stetson teases upcoming solo album with title track, ‘The love it took to leave you’

17 May 2024

A sax superhero like no other, Colin Stetson has dazzled us time and again throughout the years with his absolutely staggering and powerful compositions. So we’re ecstatic to know he is gearing up to release a new album, his first solo recording since 2017’s All This I Do For Glory, which was one of Album Picks of the Year then. Entitled The love it took to leave you, the record arrives on September 13th through Invada Records and Envision Records.
The Canadian-American saxophonist, multireedist, and composer recorded the album last year at Montreal’s The Darling Foundry, a nineteenth-century metalworks factory converted into a contemporary art complex, with a giant main room still keeping its raw architecture of brick, concrete and steel. Speaking about recording the album there, Stetson says:

“We were using the same live setup as I normally would to amplify – a full PA in the building’s spaces – so we were really able to move the kind of air that I can move, really saturating the room, hitting the walls hard. And then we further fleshed it out.”

Speaking further about the upcoming album, he adds:

“The essence of it is me. It’s the most personal thing that I do – and can do. There’s an evolution of my body and technical capabilities that keeps on, so every time I make another record, there are things that I could only have played now.”

September is a long way away but Stetson has already shared the magnificent title track as the first single, a track that despite being written some years ago, was always intended as a pillar of an album. ‘The love it took to leave you’, in Stetson’s own words, “is a love letter to self and to solitude and to tall old trees that sway and creak in the wind and rain.” The singles comes with an accompanying video directed by Derrick Belcham. Watch it below.

Efterklang to release new album, Things We Have In Common, in September; share video for lead single ‘Plant’ ft. Mabe Fratti

16 May 2024

Photo: Søren Lynggaard.

Following a stand-alone single, ‘Getting Reminders’, featuring Beirut’s Zach Condon on trumpet, Efterklang are back with exciting news. The Danish trio have officially announced their upcoming album, Things We Have In Common, set for release on September 27th through City Slang.

With Things We Have In Common, Efterklang brings to a close a trilogy that includes 2019’s Altid Sammen and 2021’s Windflowers, which saw them delve into themes of human connection, the relationship between humans and nature, and collective spirituality. The new album sees the return of pianist and composer Rune Mølgaard, who co-wrote seven of the nine songs on the record. Rune’s personal journey, including his experience and departure from the Mormon Church, has deeply influenced the album’s themes and direction. “Towards the end of the album process we talked about belonging, in relation to Rune’s journey – how he no longer found that feeling in the church,” Rasmus said of the album’s title. “We talked about how Casper’s sense of belonging is tied to something nomadic, and about how Mads and I associate this with our families.”

To bring the album to life, Efterklang enlisted other collaborators, including Finnish drummer Tatu Rönkkö, Venezuelan guitarist Hector Tosta and Guatemalan cellist and singer Mabe Fratti.

Accompanying the album announcement is a new beautiful and compelling single, ‘Plant’, featuring Mabe Fratti on cello and vocals. Vocalist Casper Clausen describes it as “a song dedicated to the act of reaching out, beyond ourselves, daring to go beyond our inner world and share ourselves with others, putting our vulnerability on display, like a plant reaching for the light.” He adds:

“This is one of the first songs we wrote for the new album, and it’s been a long journey, starting from a sketch by our longtime friend, collaborator, and co-founder of Efterklang, pianist Rune Mølgaard.”

Mabe Fratti has also said that recording ‘Plant’ with Efterklang “was extremely joyful as I remember witnessing the song developing when I went with Efterklang to Sommertræf two years ago. It’s a breeze, this song. I felt that Casper’s tone and mine are super friendly with each other!”

The band are offering ‘Plant’ with a video directed and created by Søren Lynggaard and Niels Buhl Hendriksen. Watch it below.

HHY & The Macumbas preview upcoming album with second single ‘Topo Do Crânio’

09 May 2024

Photo: Rui Pina

With the impending release of Bom Sangue Mau, and following the transcendent first single ‘Lago de Puro Êxtase’, Porto based ensemble HHY & The Macumbas have shared a second preview of the album with a new pounding and ritualistic single titled ‘Topo Do Crânio’. Listen to it below and watch out for the album release on May 31st through Horror Vector.