The Vinyl Factory's 50 Favorite Albums of 2020

Released on Juneteenth 2020, the third album by the enigmatic-slash-anonymous band Sault is an unapologetic dive into Black identity. Tapping into ’90s-style R&B (“Sorry Ain’t Enough”), West African funk (“Bow”), early ’70s soul (“Miracles”), churchy chants (“Out the Lies”), and slam-poetic interludes (“Us”), the flow here is more mixtape or DJ set than album, a compendium of the culture rather than a distillation of it. What’s remarkable is how effortless they make revolution sound.

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The earliest releases of Yves Tumor—the producer born Sean Bowie in Florida, raised in Tennessee, and based in Turin—arrived from a land beyond genre. They intermingled ambient synths and disembodied Kylie samples with free jazz, soul, and the crunch of experimental club beats. By 2018’s *Safe in the Hands of Love*, Tumor had effectively become a genre of one, molding funk and indie into an uncanny strain of post-everything art music. *Heaven to a Tortured Mind*, Tumor’s fourth LP, is their most remarkable transformation yet. They have sharpened their focus, sanded down the rough edges, and stepped boldly forward with an avant-pop opus that puts equal weight on both halves of that equation. “Gospel for a New Century” opens the album like a shot across the bow, the kind of high-intensity funk geared more to filling stadiums than clubs. Its blazing horns and electric bass are a reminder of Tumor’s Southern roots, but just as we’ve gotten used to the idea of them as spiritual kin to Outkast, they follow up with “Medicine Burn,” a swirling fusion of shoegaze and grunge. The album just keeps shape-shifting like that, drawing from classic soul and diverse strains of alternative rock, and Tumor is an equally mercurial presence—sometimes bellowing, other times whispering in a falsetto croon. But despite the throwback inspirations, the record never sounds retro. Its powerful rhythm section anchors the music in a future we never saw coming. These are not the sullen rhythmic abstractions of Tumor\'s early years; they’re larger-than-life anthems that sound like the product of some strange alchemical process. Confirming the magnitude of Tumor’s creative vision, this is the new sound that a new decade deserves.

Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and Sam Karugu emerge from Nairobi's flourishing underground metal scene as former members of the bands Lust of a Dying Breed and Seeds of Datura. Together in 2019 they formed Duma (Darkness in Kikuyu) with Sam abandoning bass for production and guitars and Lord Spike Heart providing extreme vocals to the project. Recorded at Nyege Nyege Studios in Kampala over three months in mid 2019 their self-titled debut album fuses the frenetic euphoria, unrelenting physicality and rebellious attitude of hardcore punk and trash metal with bone-crunching breakcore and raw, nihilist industrial noise through a claustrophobic vortex of visceral screams. The savant mix of brutally adrenalized drums, caustic industrial trap, shredding grindcore inspired guitars and abrupt speed changes create a darkly atmospheric menace and is lethal on tracks like the opener "Angels and Abysses" , "Omni" or "Uganda with Sam". The gruelling slow techno dirges and monolithic vocals on "Pembe 666" or "Sin Nature" add a pinch of dramatic inevitability bringing a new sense of theatricality and terrifying fate awaiting into the record's progression. A sinister sonic aggression of feral intensity with disregard for styles, Duma promises to impact the burgeoning African metal scene moving it into totally new, boundary-challenging experimental territories. VIDEO FOR LIONS BLOOD HERE: youtu.be/zd35MhHqjhc VIDEO FOR OMNI HERE: youtu.be/ffxLsl8MWXE

Nídia shines in her new, more meditative album, showcasing a breadth of dance genres with a keen eye for emotion and turmoil THE GUARDIAN (4/5) Nídia's productions have become more polished over the years, and on the brief but beautiful Não Fales Nela Que A Mentes, every instrument feels gilded and glowing. RESIDENT ADVISOR Nídia’s approach to sound is efficient and elemental, taking recognizable material—hand claps, crash cymbals, plasticky brass—and creating complexity through arrangement rather than signal manipulation. She paints in bold, black lines before filling in the gaps with heavy pigments. PITCHFORK In just twenty-nine minutes, Nídia sustains, and effortlessly nods at, a wide range of sounds, creating a sensational album along the way. THE VINYL FACTORY + In typical Nídia fashion, we come in touch with a moody, unsettling tone over the first couple of minutes, successful in conveying an automatic sense of respect for the remainder of the album. And you might call it mature, reflective, contained, slow-paced. And we might call it individual, rich in songwriting ability (we call them songs), 2 steps forward or sideways from Nídia's body of work, Any way we approach it, it's a rich and emotive take on much loved afro styles, blended with Life guiding the producer's hand and a resolute sense of direction in a career already full of high points. Check the late acid on "Tarraxo Do Guetto" and the trilogy of "Rap"-titled songs, sounding like intimate moments in the bedroom, details maybe lost in the fog of memory but retaining all the passion. Fittingly, the last song is titled "Emotions", featuring an epic progression that makes it hard to decide if it's uplifting or profoundly melancholic.

Nazar is a 26-year-old Angolan producer who grew up in Belgium until his late teens, when he returned after the civil war and is now based in Manchester. Nazar coined the term Rough Kuduro on his Soundcloud page, as an interpretation of the Angolan music and dance style, ‘weaponising’ it on his first EP 'Enclave' released in late 2018, translating the normally upbeat style to expose the uglier side of what he saw in Angola. On Guerrilla Nazar uses Rough Kuduro to sensitively examine and digitalise his family’s collective memory and country's past, threading together oral histories, political realities and most significantly re-imaginings of direct horrors. Every track on Guerrilla documents his personal story of the war and its aftermath in countless people's lives in a detailed and episodic manner. Nazar’s father's rank as a Rebel General led to prolonged separation of his family across continents, with continued effect.  “A couple of years ago, on one of many road trips I had with my father, we talked extensively about the conflict driving through Huambo and Luanda in Angola' where some of the events of the album took place. These, along with his father’s published wartime journal Memorias de Um Guerrilheiro (2006) planted the ideas for the themes of this album, and it began to take shape over trips back and forth, from Angola to his Manchester studio. Nazar tells his story both impressionistically, evoking atmospheres and dramatic themes and at times with stark directness.

A couple of months after releasing 2019’s *ZUU*, MC Denzel Curry joined the hardcore band Bad Brains for a rerecording of their 1986 classic “I Against I.” The point was clear: For as steeped as Curry is in the regional vernacular of southeastern rap, he also understood rap’s spiritual link to punk—music that channels the raw, noisy energy of youth. At eight tracks in 18 minutes, *UNLOCKED* is even shaped like a hardcore record, with tracks that mutate, Hulk-like, from sturdy weight-room rap to tangles of warped vocals and dissonant samples that play like experiments frothing over in real time (“Take\_it\_Back\_v2,” “DIET\_”). As exciting as Curry is—to paraphrase an old chestnut about great singers, one could listen to him yell the phone book—the anchor here is producer Kenny Beats, whose tracks mix the feel of classic boom-bap with a sample-splattered approach that captures the tabs-open fever of now.

The music of Darren Cunningham, the British electronic musician known as Actress, is notoriously difficult to categorize. Over the past 15 years, he has evaded the confines of more familiar dance music with avant-garde, abstract compositions that gaze inward. Although he references house, techno, dubstep, and R&B, he deconstructs, twists, and stretches them into practically unrecognizable forms. But make no mistake, his records are still intensely emotional—vivid soundscapes so full of depth and light that they can feel overwhelming. And *Karma & Desire*, his seventh LP, feels, in many ways, like mourning. Guided by meandering piano arpeggios and hushed vocals about heaven and prayer, it evokes funereal images of death and rebirth (“I’m thinking/Sinking/Down/In Heaven,” Zsela sings on “Angels Pharmacy”). A glitchy, fuzzy texture permeates the album, as if the tracks had been passed through an old-fashioned Instagram filter, and it builds a general sense of uneasiness. Actual beats are scarce, but those that do appear feel almost meditative (“Leaves Against the Sky,” “XRAY”), as if to provide relief from the amorphous expanse. It’s easy to see the metaphor for getting lost in dark corners of your own mind, and the solace that you feel when reality returns.

After recent mixtape “88”, Actress reveals new album "Karma & Desire". ‘Walking Flames’ featuring Sampha is out now. “Karma & Desire” includes guest collaborations from Sampha, Zsela and Aura T-09 and more. It’s “a romantic tragedy set between the heavens and the underworld” says Actress (Darren J. Cunningham) “the same sort of things that I like to talk about – love, death, technology, the questioning of one's being”. The presence of human voices take the questing artist into new territory. ‘Walking Flames’: “These are like graphics that I’ve never seen / My face on another human being / The highest resolution / Don't breathe the birth of a new day.” Flute-like melodies contributed by Canadian organist and instrument builder Kara-Lis Coverdale.

“I had a lot to write about,” beabadoobee tells Apple Music of her debut album *Fake It Flowers*. “I’m just a girl with girl problems, and I feel like there are a lot of girls who have the same problems.” Over 12 songs, Beatrice Laus explores those issues in what she calls “diary entries,” written in her bedroom over just a couple of months in late 2019. Here, she shakes off what people think of her (“Further Away,” the hook-laden “Care”), screams out her sadness (“Charlie Brown”), and gives way to the abandon of young love (the woozy, self-aware “Horen Sarrison”). “I made sure that there was a song for every mood and for every Bea that exists,” says the Philippines-born, London-raised singer. “This is a very personal album. It was everything I was supposed to tell someone but couldn’t, or just, like, never did.” The songs here are an unabashed love letter to the \'90s artists—and movies—she was devoted to growing up. (“Everyone glorifies the past,” says Laus of her obsession with a decade that ended a year before her birth.) Only three years after the first song she ever wrote, the hushed, ultra-lo-fi “Coffee,” earmarked beabadoobee as a name to know, the singer wants *Fake It Flowers* to do for other young women what those artists—from The Cardigans to Oasis, via Elliott Smith and Alanis Morissette—did for her. “When I’m really sad, I like to dance in my underpants in front of my mirror,” she says. “I always pick a good album to dance to. And I want *Fake It Flowers* to be that album for someone.” Hairbrushes at the ready: Let beabadoobee take you through her raw debut, track by track. **Care** “As soon as this came to life, I was like, ‘This is the first song.’ It describes the whole sound of *Fake It Flowers*—the big guitars, that nostalgic feeling. And lyrically the song talks about the fact that no one is ever going to get me. But it’s the idea that I\'m going to sing my heart out and not give a fuck if you don\'t like it. I just wanted a really good radio pop song, something that could end \[1999 rom-com\] *10 Things I Hate About You*.” **Worth It** “This song is about the temptations you get when you\'re on tour and when you\'re away—the stupid things you can do when you\'re alone in a hotel room. It was hard to get through it, but I\'m glad I wrote it because it was like an ending of that bit of my life. But sonically, it’s something good out of a bad situation. I wanted to make an album for people to dance to in their bedrooms, despite how depressing the songs are.” **Dye It Red** “This song isn’t actually about me. It\'s stories I\'ve heard from other people, and it’s about stupid boys. I have no filter with the lyrics. It’s also about being comfortable with who you are. At times, I feel like a hypocrite for singing this song, because I always care about what my boyfriend thinks. But I shouldn\'t, right? I wanted ‘Dye It Red’ to fizzle out into a beautiful mess at the end, especially around the lyrics where I\'m like, ‘You\'re not even that cute, that cute.’ I thought it was funny and sassy.” **Back to Mars** “I feel like this is where the album takes a shift into a darker-sounding side. ‘Care’ and ‘Worth It’ are the surface level of my problems. This is where it gets really deep into, like, ‘This is why I\'m fucked up.’ This song pays homage to the space theme of my EP *Space Cadet*, which this song was originally supposed to be for. This was the second take I did—it was just me and my guitar, and then Pete \[Robertson\] put all these amazing atmospheric sounds around it. It was meant to be a really fast-paced track with loads of drums, but it’s a very innocent song.” **Charlie Brown** “This is very heavy! And screaming on this song was probably the funnest moment of recording this album. They asked, ‘Are you sure you can scream?’ But I scream so much in my bedroom when I’m alone, so I was like: ‘I was born ready.’ I wanted to talk about a situation in my life as if I was just taking it out of my system. And what better way to do that than scream? I have a Charlie Brown strip tattooed on my arm—I was obsessed with Snoopy when I was a kid.” **Emo Song** “Originally, this was going to be another heavy one, but Pete suggested making it a super sad and slow one. The songs at this point all bleed into one another. And I did that on purpose, because they were all made together. The song talks about my childhood and how it affected me during my teenage life and what I did to kind of just drag myself of everything that happened to me.” **Sorry** “If my voice sounds vulnerable in this song, it’s because I was half crying while I was singing it. And it was a hard one to sing, because it is just so honest. It speaks about a really sad situation with someone I know and someone I really love. I had a pretty wild teenage life. I think me and my friendship group did what college kids did when we were 15. Anything in excess is bad. And we just did a bit too many drugs, really. And for some, \[it was\] too much—to the point they had to get \[involuntarily hospitalized\]. It\'s just sad to watch someone\'s life kind of wither away, especially knowing that they could have had an amazing life ahead of them. I wish I was more involved. But when something\'s too hard to watch, you just kind of separate yourself from it. Getting all of that off my chest was so relieving. And I said sorry. At least, in my head, I apologized.” **Further Away** “I\'ve always wanted to be a Disney princess. The strings come into play and I wanted to feel like a princess. This is where the positivity comes in the album—there’s a feeling of hope. This song is about all the people who were really mean to me growing up, and I’m just saying how dumb they were. But really, nothing’s real. They were going through the same shit.” **Horen Sarrison** “Literally a six-minute love song of me saying, ‘I\'m in love.’ It\'s supposed to be ridiculous. It\'s supposed to be very outwardly Disney Princess vibes. I was playing it to Pete and I was like, ‘And then the strings go like this,’ humming how I wanted it to sound. And he really brought it to life, and I owe it to him. It definitely is the most grand song on the album. And it’s really fun to play as well, because it just is me talking about how in love I am. I wanted a song for every mood, and this is definitely for that happy mood. And it\'s about Soren Harrison. I thought it was kind of funny to switch the two letters and call it ‘Horen Sarrison.’ It’s just so stupid.” **How Was Your Day?** “I recorded it in my boyfriend’s garden. Lyrically, it talks about my journey and about how hard it was being away from home and missing people. And I feel like it only made sense to go back to my roots on the way I recorded it, on a really shitty four-track, just me and my guitar with a missing string. It was really refreshing. There was always talk about doing a ‘Coffee’ moment on this album. Like, ‘Let\'s strip it back to just you and your guitar.’ And I really wanted it, but we didn\'t know how we were going to do it. Then lockdown happened and I was like, ‘I\'m going to do it, Daniel Johnston style.’” **Together** “This is paying homage to chicks who rock onstage. Like Veruca Salt and Hole. Writing this song made me realize a lot of things—for example, that I have this dependency thing as a person. But ‘Together’ made me realize that sometimes it\'s okay to be by yourself. Togetherness is cool, but being together all the time is kind of unhealthy. Again, I guess it was taking a sad situation and pouring my heart out into a song, and screaming it. And that felt pretty empowering.” **Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene** “The name of this song is simply the names I want to call my children. I\'m literally saying in the song, ‘You\'ll never leave me because you think I\'m pretty, so we\'ll have lots of babies called Yoshimi, Forest, Magdalene.’ And it\'s supposed to be really stupid and fun to finish the album off on a positive note. I wanted it to be very messy—like so disgustingly distorted that you can\'t even hear a sound. We recorded it live in Wandsworth in a studio. There were two drum kits and we were just bashing the drums. It was fun, and very Flaming Lips-inspired. The last mood of this album is the really strange, weird Bea. And I think that’s my favorite one.”

‘Workaround’ is the lucidly playful and ambitious solo debut album by rhythm-obsessive musician and DJ, Beatrice Dillon for PAN. It combines her love of UK club music’s syncopated suss and Afro-Caribbean influences with a gamely experimental approach to modern composition and stylistic fusion, using inventive sampling and luminous mixing techniques adapted from modern pop to express fresh ideas about groove-driven music and perpetuate its form with timeless, future-proofed clarity. Recorded over 2017-19 between studios in London, Berlin and New York, ‘Workaround’ renders a hypnotic series of polymetric permutations at a fixed 150bpm tempo. Mixing meticulous FM synthesis and harmonics with crisply edited acoustic samples from a wide range of guests including UK Bhangra pioneer Kuljit Bhamra (tabla); Pharoah Sanders Band’s Jonny Lam (pedal steel guitar); techno innovators Laurel Halo (synth/vocal) and Batu (samples); Senegalese Griot Kadialy Kouyaté (Kora), Hemlock’s Untold and new music specialist Lucy Railton (cello); amongst others, Dillon deftly absorbs their distinct instrumental colours and melody into 14 bright and spacious computerised frameworks that suggest immersive, nuanced options for dancers, DJs and domestic play. ‘Workaround’ evolves Dillon’s notions in a coolly unfolding manner that speaks directly to the album’s literary and visual inspirations, ranging from James P. Carse’s book ‘Finite And Infinite Games’ to the abstract drawings of Tomma Abts or Jorinde Voigt as well as painter Bridget Riley’s essays on grids and colour. Operating inside this rooted but mutable theoretical wireframe, Dillon’s ideas come to life as interrelated, efficient patterns in a self-sufficient system. With a naturally fractal-not-fractional logic, Dillon’s rhythms unfold between unresolved 5/4 tresillo patterns, complex tabla strokes and spark-jumping tics in a fluid, tactile dance of dynamic contrasts between strong/light, sudden/restrained, and bound/free made in reference to the notational instructions of choreographer Rudolf Laban. Working in and around the beat and philosophy, the album’s freehand physics contract and expand between the lissom rolls of Bhamra’s tabla in the first, to a harmonious balance of hard drum angles and swooping FM synth cadence featuring additional synth and vocal from Laurel Halo in ‘Workaround Two’, while the extruded strings of Lucy Railton create a sublime tension at the album’s palatecleansing denouement, triggering a scintillating run of technoid pieces that riff on the kind of swung physics found in Artwork’s seminal ‘Basic G’, or Rian Treanor’s disruptive flux with a singularly tight yet loose motion and infectious joy. Crucially, the album sees Dillon focus on dub music’s pliable emptiness, rather than the moody dematerialisation of reverb and echo. The substance of her music is rematerialised in supple, concise emotional curves and soberly freed to enact its ideas in balletic plies, rugged parries and sweeping, capoeira-like floor action. Applying deeply canny insight drawn from her years of practice as sound designer, musician and hugely knowledgable/intuitive DJ, ‘Workaround’ can be heard as Dillon’s ingenious solution or key to unlocking to perceptions of stiffness, darkness or grid-locked rigidity in electronic music. And as such it speaks to an ideal of rhythm-based and experimental music ranging from the hypnotic senegalese mbalax of Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force, through SND and, more currently, the hard drum torque of DJ Plead; to adroitly exert the sensation of weightlessness and freedom in the dance and personal headspace.

one long song recorded nowhere between May 2019 and May 2020 released Aug. 7th, 2020 as a 2xLP by P.W. Elverum & Sun box 1561 Anacortes, Wash. U.S.A. 98221

Midwestern by birth and temperament, Freddie Gibbs has always seemed a little wary of talking himself up—he’s more show than tell. But between 2019’s Madlib collaboration (*Bandana*) and the Alchemist-led *Alfredo*, what wasn’t clear 10 years ago is crystal now: Gibbs is in his own class. The wild, shape-shifting flow of “God Is Perfect,” the chilling lament of “Skinny Suge” (“Man, my uncle died off a overdose/And the fucked-up part of that is I know I supplied the n\*\*\*a that sold it”), a mind that flickers with street violence and half-remembered Arabic, and beats that don’t bang so much as twinkle, glide, and go up like smoke. *Alfredo* is seamless, seductive, but effortless, the work of two guys who don’t run to catch planes. On “Something to Rap About,” Gibbs claims, “God made me sell crack so I had something to rap about.” But the way he flows now, you get the sense he would’ve found his way to the mic one way or the other.

Invisible Island is a fitting title for an album that seems to exist in a place quietly removed from the problems of the world. It's playful and imaginative, living in a soundscape filled with exotic fruits that fall from invisible trees. The record feels like a continuance from her album Minor Planet (2016) that shines through as an ethereal fog. Although the pieces on the album mostly centre around the piano - played in a soft, minimal way - it's the way they are presented that creates the personality that defines Invisible Island. The keys are coated in sound experimentations, perfectly accompanied by layers of synthesizers. It's a dreamy album that seems to emanate from a fantasy full of warmth, channeling both classic Japanese ambient music and a more modern electro-acoustic sound. Midori has a special sense of creating touching, melancholic pieces that float on the borders. As someone who grew up in the outskirts of Kyoto for then to later move to Berlin, one can sense the influences of both places - without ever settling down on either. Midori's Invisible Island is a safe place. Though it's one full of life and colours : birds, animals, wind and waves, fond memories of lost or unknown places and people that exist only in the hidden edges of this album. This especially comes to light for the albums centrepiece, the beautiful Belong, featuring Christoph Berg on violin. It's as if the protagonist - after roaming around the island for a long period, lost in its intrigue - finally finds what he/she has been searching for. A few tracks later the album ends on the title track, an uplifting ending that seems somehow unreal once the album stops and we ́re back to reality. Though the piano seems to keep performing in ones head with its repeating chorus and slowly drowning theme. An album of true visible beauty.

“I was fresh from a war but it was internal/Every day I encounter another hurdle,” J Hus spits as he closes *Big Conspiracy* on the piano-led “Deeper Than Rap”. That war, and the highs and lows of Momodou Jallow’s life, make for a mesmerising second album. Lyrics address his incarceration, street life, God, violence, his African roots and colonialism. From others those themes would feel heavy, but delivered in J Hus’ effortless voice, with a flow that switches frequently, they stun. The references are playful, too—Mick Jagger and Woody Woodpecker are mentioned on “Fortune Teller” and Destiny’s Child get a recurrent role in the standout “Fight for Your Right”. Hus is backed by inventive instrumentation encompassing delicate strings, Afrobeats, reggae and hip-hop and nods to garage and Dr. Dre’s work with 50 Cent, while Koffee and Burna Boy contribute to the celebratory feel on “Repeat” and “Play Play”. This is a record as diverse, smart and vibrant as anything coming from the UK right now.

“I want to get to that point where I can just write one lyric and people understand what I’m about,” IDLES singer Joe Talbot tells Apple Music. “Maybe it’s ‘Fuck you, I’m a lover.’” Those words, from the song ‘The Lover,’ certainly form an effective tagline for the band’s third album. The Bristol band explored trauma and vulnerability on second album *Joy as an Act of Resistance.*, and here they’re finding ways to heal, galvanize, and move forward—partly informed by mindfulness and being in the present. “I thought about the idea that you only ever have now,” Talbot says. “\[*Ultra Mono*\] is about getting to the crux of who you are and accepting who you are in that moment—which is really about a unification of self.” Those thoughts inspired a solidarity and concision in the way Talbot, guitarists Mark Bowen and Lee Kiernan, bassist Adam Devonshire, and drummer Jon Beavis wrote music. Each song began with a small riff or idea, and everything that was added had to be in the service of that nugget. “That’s where the idea of an orchestra comes in—that you try and sound, from as little as possible, as big as you can,” Talbot says. “Everyone hitting the thing at the same time to sound huge. It might also be as simple as one person playing and everyone else shutting the fuck up. Don’t create noise where it’s not needed.” The music’s visceral force and social awareness will keep the “punk” tag pinned to IDLES, but *Ultra Mono* forges a much broader sound. The self-confidence of hip-hop, the communal spirit of jungle, and the kindness of jazz-pop maestro Jamie Cullum all feed into these 12 songs. Let Talbot explain how in this track-by-track guide. **War** “It was the quickest thing we ever wrote. We got in a room together, I explained the concept, and we just wrote it. We played it—it wasn’t even a writing thing. And that is about as ultra mono as it gets. It had to be the first track because it is the explosion of not overthinking anything and *being*. The big bang of the album is the inner turmoil of trying to get rid of the noise and just be present—so it was perfect. The title’s ‘War’ because it sounded so violent, ballistic. I was really disenfranchised with the internet, like, ‘Why am I listening to assholes? You’ve got to be kind to yourself.’ ‘War’ was like, ‘Yeah, do it, actually learn to love yourself.’ That was the start of a big chapter in my life. It was like the war of self that I had to win.” **Grounds** “We wanted to write a song that was like AC/DC meets Dizzee Rascal, but a bit darker. It’s the march song, the start of the journey: ‘We won the first battle, let’s fucking do this. What do you need to stop apologizing for?’ That’s a conversation you need to have when all these horrible people come to the forefront. I was being criticized for speaking of civil rights–whether that be trans rights or gay rights or Black rights, the war on the working classes. I believe in socialism. Go fuck yourselves. I want to sleep at night knowing that my platform is the voice of reason and an egalitarian want for something beautiful—not the murder of Black people, homophobia at the workplace, racist front lines. We were recording in Paris and Warren Ellis \[of The Bad Seeds and Grinderman\] popped in. He sat with us just chatting about life. I was like, ‘It would be insane if I didn’t ask you to be on this record, man.’ I just wanted him to do a ‘Hey!’ like on a grime record.” **Mr. Motivator** “\[TV fitness guru\] Mr Motivator, that’s my spirit animal. We wrote that song and it felt like a train. I wanted to put a beautiful and joyous face to something rampantly, violently powerful-sounding. ‘Mr. Motivator’ is 90% lethal machine, 10% beautiful, smiley man that brings you joy. The lyrics are all cliches because I think *The Guardian* or someone leaned towards the idea that my sloganeering was something to be scoffed at. So I thought I’d do a whole song of it. We’re trying to rally people together, and if you go around using flowery language or muddying the waters with your insecurities, you’re not going to get your point across. So, I wanted to write nursery rhymes for open-minded people.” **Anxiety** “This was the first song where the lyrics came as we were writing the music. It sounded anxiety-inducing because it was so bombastic and back-and-forth. Then we had the idea of speeding the song up as you go along and becoming more cacophonous. That just seemed like a beautiful thing, because when you start meditating, the first thing that happens is you try to meditate–which isn’t what you’re supposed to do. The noise starts coming in. One of the things they teach you in therapy is that if you feel anxious or scared or sad or angry, don’t just internally try to fight that. Accept that you become anxious and allow yourself the anxiety. Feel angry and accept that, and then think about why, and what triggered it. And obviously 40-cigarettes-a-day Dev \[Adam Devonshire\] can’t really sing that well anymore, so we had to get David Yow of Jesus Lizard in. He’s got an amazing voice. It’s a much better version of what Dev used to be like.” **Kill Them With Kindness** “That’s Jamie Cullum \[on the piano\]. We met him at the Mercury Prize and he said, ‘If you need any piano on your album, just let us know.’ I was like, ‘We don’t, but we definitely do now.’ I like that idea of pushing people’s idea of what cool is. Jamie Cullum is fucking cooler than any of those apathetic nihilists. He believes in something and he works hard at it—and I like that. When I was working in a kitchen, we listened to Radio 2 all the time, and I loved his show. And he’s a beautiful human being. It’s a perfect example of what we’re about: inclusivity and showing what you love. I didn’t write the lyrics until after meeting him. It was just that idea that he seemed kindhearted. Kindness is a massive thing: It’s what empathy derives from, and kindness and empathy is what’ll kill fascism. It should be the spirit of punk and soul music and grime and every other music.” **Model Village** “The part that we wrote around was something that I used to play onstage whenever Bowen was offstage and I stole his guitar. So it had this playfulness, and I wanted to write a kind of take-the-piss song. I’m not antagonistic at all, but I do find things funny, like people who get so angry. I wanted this song to be taking yourself out of your own town and looking at it like it’s a model village. Just to be like, ‘Look how small and insignificant this place is. Don’t be so aggressive and defensive about something you don’t really understand.’ It’s a call for empathy—but to the assholes in a non-apologetic way.” **Ne Touche Pas Moi** “I was getting really down on tours because I felt a bit like an animal in a cage. Dudes are aggressive, and it’s boring when you see it in a crowd. Someone’s being a prick in the crowd and people aren’t comfortable—it’s not a nice feeling. So I wanted to create that idea of a safe arena with an anthem. It’s a violent, cutting anthem. It’s like, ‘I am full of love, but that doesn’t mean you can elbow me in the face or touch my breasts.’ We can play it in sets to give people the confidence that there is a platform here to be safe. I said to Bowen, ‘I really wish there was a woman singing the chorus, because it’s not just about my voice, it’s more often women that get groped.’ A couple of days later, we were in Paris recording Jehnny Beth’s TV show and I told her about this song. It was a nice relief to have someone French backing up my shit French.” **Carcinogenic** “Jungle was a movement based around unity—very different kinds of people getting together under the love of music. It was one of the most forward-thinking, beautiful things to happen to our country, \[and it\] was shut down by police and people who couldn’t make money from it. I wanted to write a song that was part garage rock, part jungle, because both movements have their part to play in building IDLES and also building amazing communities of people and great musicians. Then I thought about jungle and grime and garage and how something positive gets turned into something negative with the media. Basically, any Black music that creates a positive network of people and communities, building something out of love, is dangerous because it’s people thinking outside the box and not relying on the government for reassurance and entertainment and distraction. So then it got me thinking about ‘carcinogenic’ and how everything gives you cancer, when really the most cancerous thing about our society isn’t anything like that, it’s the class war that we’re going through and depriving people of a decent education, decent welfare, decent housing. That’s fucking cancer.” **Reigns** “This was written around the bass, obviously. Again, another movement—techno—and that idea of togetherness and the love in the room is always apparent. Techno is motorik, it’s mesmeric, it is just a singularity—minimal techno, especially. It’s just the beat or the bassline and that carries you through, that’s all you need. Obviously, we’re a chorus band, so we thought we’d throw in something huge to cut through it. But we didn’t want to overcomplicate it. That sinister pound just reminds me of my continual disdain for the Royal Family and everything they represent in our country, from the fascism that it comes from to the smiley-face racism that it perpetuates nowadays.” **The Lover** “I wanted to write a soul song with that wall-of-noise, Phil Spector vibe—but also an IDLES song. What could be more IDLES than writing a song about being a lover but making it really sweary? When I love someone, I swear a lot around them because I trust them, and I want them to feel comfortable and trust me. So I just wrote the most honest love song. It’s like a defiant smile in the face of assholes who can’t just accept that your love is real. It’s like, ‘I’m not lying. I am full of love and you’re a prick.’ That’s it. That song was the answer to the call of ‘Grounds.’ That huge, stabby, all-together orchestra.” **A Hymn** “Bowen and I were trying to write a song together. I had a part and he had a part. Then my part just got kicked out and we wrote the song around the guitar line. We wanted to write a song that was like a hymn, because a hymn is a Christian, or gospel, vision of togetherness and rejoicing at once for something they love. I wanted to write the lyrics around the idea that a hymn nowadays is just about suburban want, material fear. So it’s like a really subdued, sad hymn about materialism, suburban pedestrianism. And it came out really well.” **Danke** “It was going to be an instrumental, a song that made you feel elated and ready for war—and not muddy it with words. A song that embodies the whole album, that just builds and pounds but all the parts change. Each bit changes, but it feels like one part of one thing. And I always finish on a thank you because it’s important to be grateful for what people have given us—so I wanted to call the song ‘Danke.’ Then, on the day of recording it, Daniel Johnston died. So I put in his lyrics \[from ‘True Love Will Find You in the End’\] because they’re some of the most beautiful ever written. It fits the song, fits the album. He could have only written that one lyric and it’d be enough to understand him. I added \[my\] lyrics \[‘I’ll be your hammer, I’ll be your nail/I’ll be the house that allows you to fail’\] at the end because I felt like it was an offering to leave with—like, ‘I’ve got you.’ It’s what I would have said to him, or any friend that needed love.”

A surprise release by Speaker Music in response to recent events. A twelve track album with 60 page PDF booklet designed by Make Techno Black Again, powered by HECHA / 做. Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry is an album of street-level fire music exploring poet Tsitsi Ella JajiI’s concept of “stereomodernism,” or as she describes: “dubbing in stereo for solidarity.” Rhythmanalyst DeForrest Brown Jr.’s second release for Planet Mu as Speaker Music channels the modernist Black tradition of rhythm and soul music as an intellectual site and sound of generational trauma, bursting through the frames of Western music and thought. A PDF booklet of collected writings by Black theorists and poets provides further context featuring “Amerikkka’s Bay” written and spoken by Maia Sanaa, and remixed by Brown, Jr. As Amiri Baraka saw it and Tsitsi Ella JajiI expanded, a Black music explores different perspectives and approaches to living in trauma within a prescribed future. The systematic displacement of Black communities in conversation with a linear consideration of Black music (from blues to rock to jazz to soul to funk to techno) shows a kind of communication emerging from a people learning to speak the way they would like to within a set of societal confines. The scope of JajiI’s “stereomodernism” evokes writer Amiri Baraka’s call for a Black “unity music” towards an “imagined community” for a newly constructed ethnicity. As Black people engage with White technologies powered by fractured European ideologies, the meaning and sound of “soul” for African Americans extends beyond genre classification and encapsulates a perennial situation of being considered categorically inhuman in the eyes of American governing bodies and people. Techno and its romantic qualities of Hi-Tech Soul come from a long history of endurance and adaptation to a future that is designed to systematically exploit and oppress Black bodies and lives. Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry arrives as a mobilization beyond the savage free market capitalist industrial system, and towards a future that isn’t indebted to the fictive and failing socio-economic “progress” imagined within the frames of White American techno-utopianism.

Of the many meanings behind *Dark Matter*—London jazz drummer Moses Boyd’s debut LP—the most vital comes from above. “It’s astronomy,” Boyd tells Apple Music, “this invisible fabric that brings us all together. *Dark Matter* isn’t meant to be a negative record; it\'s meant to unify, to make people think.” It’s also the rare political record that doesn’t lean entirely on lyrics. As both a producer and bandleader—contributors include Poppy Ajudha, Obongjayar, Joe Armon-Jones, and Nonku Phiri—Boyd wanted to capture the gravity of our current moment in both rhythm and atmosphere, by combining elements of Bjork’s *Vespertine* and Aphex Twin’s *Selected Ambient Works* with the funk of James Brown and Tony Allen. “I wanted nuance,” he says of the album\'s many textures. “That air and earth feeling. Floaty bits that are kind of beautiful, but thickness and weight, where it\'s like, if I put this on, it\'s going to hit me right in my stomach, and it\'s going to move me. I don\'t see myself as overtly political, but I guess I am. I\'m just responding to what\'s going on around, which maybe all art should do.” Here, he walks us through his debut, track by track. **Stranger Than Fiction** “I had just come back from holiday in Sri Lanka with my family to what was going on in the UK—so from palm trees and beaches to Brexit. At the moment, in the world, you can pick a country and look at what’s happening and just be like, ‘Is this actually real?’ I wanted to mirror what\'s going on around me musically. When you listen to it, it’s like, ‘What is real, what\'s not? Is that a real drum kit? Is that not a real drum kit?’ I wanted to really blur the lines and make people have to really listen carefully to decipher what\'s real and what\'s not. That was my musical metaphor for something stranger than fiction, which is also just referencing what\'s going on in politics, in nature, in life—full stop.” **Hard Food (Interlude)** “Amongst all of this craziness, you realize there\'s so much you have in common with the person next to you. Hard food is a Jamaican term—it\'s a type of dish that might consist of boiled dumplings, boiled plantains, a really hearty meal that brings people together. I’d reached out to \[jazz composer/bassist\] Gary Crosby, one of my mentors. That recording is our conversation. He\'s grown up with his own struggles and challenges in the UK. He used this analogy of ‘I’m from West Indian background and I defy anyone, from anywhere in the world, whether they know about my food or not: If they\'re hungry they\'re going to eat it, and they\'re going to enjoy it, and it will fill them up.’ He was trying to say, ‘Look, we\'re all similar. We all want the same things in life. We\'re not different to each other. There\'s far more that unites us than separates us.’” **BTB** “‘BTB’ is one of only two tracks that are complete live takes. BTB stands for ‘blacker than black,’ another play on dark matter. Just being me, and my experience being a young black person in England—it’s a celebration of culture. I\'m from the West Indies, and I really wanted to have my sort of take on those sounds and those rhythms. So it\'s very sort of soca, calypso-driven. Also quite dark—you couldn\'t play that at carnival, but it makes sense to me, as somebody that\'s grown up in that culture, but not necessarily born in it and from it. It might be like being born in New York, but your family is from Puerto Rico. You have a very different reference in the way you visualize and present your culture.“ **Y.O.Y.O** “‘Y.O.Y.O’ stands for ‘you\'re on your own,’ and ‘yo-yo’ in the sense of just like a yo-yo goes up and down and round and round, and if you listen to the drum beat, it\'s like a cycle of a loop. But when I was making this music, I was thinking like, \'Man, all of this is going on. You really are on your own in this world.\' And I don\'t necessarily think that\'s a bad thing. When it sort of hit me, it was like, ‘That at first is very sad, but it\'s also very liberating.’ You are in control. You go as far, or as close, as you want to go. You can\'t rely on anyone but your own brain and yourself, and in that there is power. It was influenced by sad things I was seeing around me, but out of that came positivity.\" **Shades of You** “I had the bassline and the drum beat, but I felt I’d given as much as I could to the song and it wasn\'t done yet. I was thinking about vocalists, and I\'m quite good at kind of hearing somebody\'s voice on it. That was it—I heard Poppy’s voice. I just knew she\'d understand it musically. And as I sort of explained it to her, she went away and came back without any direction from me. I’ve known her for a long time, I’m a big fan of what she does, and I wanted to try and push to see if she could try something different to maybe what you\'ve heard from her, because I\'ve seen her do loads of interesting things that aren\'t recorded or aren\'t on YouTube, and I just wanted to kind of get somebody that would get it, and I think she did.” **Dancing in the Dark** “What\'s the word when someone can read your mind? Telepathic. I had this loop, and even before I exhausted my part on it, I just heard Steven Obongjayar. He’s got this kind of raspy tone that could just cut through and make it kind of feel almost like Afrobeat and punk rock. We got in a studio together, and I played it to him, and then after two seconds he was like, ‘Man, can I have this for my album?’ After about an hour arguing: ‘No, you can\'t have it.’ What was crazy was that I had not explained anything to do with *Dark Matter*, or the subjects. He just got it. I was like, ‘Man, look at that. There\'s something going on. There\'s something in the air.’” **Only You** “I was talking to Theon Cross, who\'s a tuba player, and I remember playing him some sketches. He’s like, ‘Moses, man, why do you never feature on your music?’ And I think because I write it, because I produce it, because I help mix it, because I\'m putting it together, to me, it just feels a bit weird to then have solo stuff. And also, I don\'t want it to sound like a drummer\'s record. I don\'t want it to sound like you can tell who I am on the record. But he managed to convince me. I was in the club and I had an idea: I love listening to techno and garage, but why do I never hear a drum? I know it sounds weird, a drum solo through a sound system. But I didn\'t want it to be like a typical feature—here’s the song and it\'s framed just for me. I wanted it to kind of exist in its own sort of texture, to take you on this journey. Like you could close your eyes and sort of vibe to in a club. Maybe I got it, maybe I didn\'t. But that was the vibe.” **2 Far Gone** “There\'s an album by Herbie Hancock called *Inventions & Dimensions*, and Herbie doesn\'t need help, but it just showcases him so well. It\'s got these incredible grooves, and he\'s just going at it on the piano. I was like, ‘How do I do that with my thing?’ I remember going around to \[composer/producer\] Joe \[Armon-Jones’\] house and he had recently got a little upright piano in his front room. Typically, if you go to a studio and you record piano, they\'ll have really good stereo mics, and it\'s really pristine, and everything\'s got to be good. What was great about this one was he just had this one microphone and it wasn\'t the best microphone. He just put it somewhere and did one take at this upright. People were walking around the house—it was so rough and ready. But it worked so perfectly. Even when I was trying to mix it, the rawness of it sounded so great.” **Nommos Descent** “A lot of this stuff started as me really experimenting with loops. That one wanted a vocal. On a trip to South Africa last year, I was working with a friend of mine, Nonku Phiri. She\'s from Cape Town, but she lives in Jo’burg, and her father was a musician on *Graceland*, back with Paul Simon, so she knows everybody. While I was hanging out with her, a lot of the music she was showing me, people like Beverly Glenn-Copeland, a lot of folk music, vocal music, really fit the sound I was going for when I was experimenting. So when I got back to England, I sent her the track. Even if I took all the music away—I might do that one day—and just release her vocals, it would be so beautiful. It’s referencing the Nommos people, really talking on the element, the metaphor. \'Dark matter\' is a reference for the plight of the diaspora, black people, and sort of how we\'ve come from greatness and whether you choose to do with that what you will. What was cool: We\'re never actually in the same room. I sent the music to her and she did her thing, and it just worked.” **What Now?** “It\'s easy to feel helpless, but I\'m not really like that—I’m very solution-based. There\'s no point in sort of posing the statement without thinking about a solution. \[\'What Now\'\] was a nice summary for me, because I wanted it to be very meditative. It’s that real strong mix of trying to have the acoustic and the electronic worlds coexist without battling each other. You’ve got this 808 sort of vibe going, as well as horns that sound like they\'re almost suffocated. I was messing a lot with modular synths, and I think I sampled a note on a piano and sort of held it and saturated it a bit. I remember just listening to it in my home setup, and it just put me in this real trance. I think music has that power to cleanse and make you recollect, think, hope—all that stuff. Across the whole album, I could\'ve just recorded things in a very normal, clean fashion, but it was more about how do I get that vibration? How do I get that texture, that tone? And I wanted to end the record on that sort of note: ‘Well, where are we going from here?’”

Not long after Kamohelo Khoaripe moved to Stockholm from his nascent Johannesburg he met Adrian Lux, Carli Löf and Måns Glaeser, three local DJ-producers, all veterans of the small, tightly-knit, constantly evolving Swedish club scene. At that point in 2013, Adrian, Carli and Måns were already longtime studio partners, shifting in and out of varying constellations, turning out everything from stone-cold Scandi-grime to straight-up Eurovision goodness in the process. Adrian had followed his 2010 proto-EDM monster Teenage Crime with years of febrile activity, constantly developing his songwriting skills together with an ever-shifting cast of vocal talent and production partners, on a mission to prove that the melancholy heart of Swedish pop can be felt in any amount of beats per minute. Meanwhile, Savage Skulls – the bass-squelchin', blog-housin' duo of Carli and Måns – were busy churning out a string of rapid-fire singles, one more gloriously bonkers than the other, providing festival-blitzing DJs like A-Trak and Diplo with their heaviest ammunition at the time. Even with all this going on you'd still regularly find Adrian mixing a fresh batch of acid wax at some Stockholm warehouse rave, or Måns getting caught up in the inner workings of Sweden's rap scene, or Carli providing labels like Born Free with charming little rave-disco oddities every now and then. What really brought these music makers together was their mutual state of constant searching – working on everything with everyone but never truly belonging anywhere – that is until Kamo showed up in town. Although a life-long music aficionado, Kamo never thought about making music before arriving in Sweden, expressing himself instead through work in photography, taking pictures of the lively Johannesburg club scene he found himself embedded into. In Stockholm he kept similar surroundings, and one late night student flat after party situation involving a microphone led to a recording of Kamo's voice (a freestyle he doesn't recollect performing) being played in a studio where Adrian, Carli and Måns happened to be. Kamo was soon invited to a joint session, resulting in the first proper Off The Meds recording: Low-slung, Ethio-jazz sampling hip-house gem Currency Low, one of the standouts on Axel Boman, Kornél Kovács and Petter Nordkvist's 2018 label compilation Studio Barnhus Volym 1. These things were clear from the start: Kamo had been quietly nurturing an exceptional lyrical talent for who knows how long – his focused, strangely melodic Zulu-Tsotsitaal-English flow delivering the same kind of wry but warm-hearted observations his photography had brought about – and also, that in Kamo and his voice, our elusive trio of producers had found the pièce de résistance that enabled them to start a Real Band and finally belong somewhere. The band's Studio Barnhus Volym 1 appearance was followed by a 2019 solo release on the label – the ravey smash single Belter, which came paired with a much-lauded remix by London top selector Joy Orbison. Their self-titled debut album arrives on Studio Barnhus in late 2020. First album single Karlaplan was recently played by Four Tet on Benji B's show on BBC Radio 1, while second single Wena got included in hotly tipped UK garage reformist Conducta's Resident Advisor podcast. Off The Meds have also proven to be an exceptionally entertaining live act – the members' diverse musical talents fully displayed on stage, Kamo half-naked and beaming with energy – shouting, whispering and whistling from on top of a bass speaker, perhaps his favourite of all those places he calls home. Off The Meds - Karlaplan / Karlaplan (Remix) release September 4. Off The Meds - Wena / Wena (Ciel Remix) release October 2. Off The Meds – Off The Meds release November 20. --- Album credits: All tracks written and produced by Adrian Hynne, Carli Löf, Kamohelo Khoaripe & Måns Glaeser. All vocals written and performed by Kamohelo Khoaripe. Karlaplan co-written by Krister Linder & Samir Kedidi. Factory Workers and Dr. Silencer co-written and co-produced by Cari Lekebusch. Hiccups co-written by Marcus Price. Wanting co-performed by Jelly Crystal. Mastered by Beau at Ten Eight Seven. Design by Laurenz Brunner.

Siti Muharam has the 'Golden Voice' of Zanzibar. Following in the pioneering footsteps of her Great Grand-Mother, Siti Binti Saad was no easy choice for Muharam. With the guidance of this album's Music Director, Matona’s and a tip-off from Andy Jones (film maker that documented and positively influenced the life and death of Bi Kidude ) Muharam's golden timbre has been allowed to soar for the world to hear. On her song is carried the legacy, lyricism and odyssey of the 'Mother of Taarab', her Great Grand-mother, Siti Binti Saad. The production of this album was able to reference Siti Binti Saad’s times and bring in the percussive Kidumbak: style and strip away Taarab’s formal layering to give a feel of the eclecticism of Zanzibar’s swahili street culture that influenced Siti Binti Saad. Sam Jones’ production, and studio overdubs have let Siti Muharam’s golden voice ensure the legacy of swahili romance and music of her Great Grandmother live on. 'Siti' is an arabic prefix meaning 'lady' and this record reignites the passions of the trailblazing Siti Binti Saad and the golden timbre of Muharam, her descendant and heir apparent to a singular, artistic legacy. This 'Siti's of Unguja' story begins with Siti Binti Saad's birth in 1890 in the small fishing village of Fumba (on Unguja, the main island of the Zanzibar archipelago) to parents who had been freed from slavery. "Siti Binti Saad is like a holy text for Zanzibari Taarab. Over the last fifty years the music shifted back to more formal times. More recently, Bi Kidude worked to keep Siti Binti Saad’s legacy alive and, although musically different, she used some of her distinct scales. Bi Kidude connected with me because of the shared love for these scales. The mood and times have changed and once again this essence is alive and with the young people. The groove of the original with the mood of today. From meeting in a rehearsal studio in Dhow Countries Music Academy to the completion of a recording in ten days, it has been hard but now we’re in a new place. A band and a sound have come to life. When teaching traditional music, it’s difficult to prepare students for recording and performance, as the facilities and opportunities are rare. I know that all the musicians, even myself, have grown and risen. Siti Muharam especially. For me, she was a lost artist. I have tried to help her keep the name of her great-grandmother alive but was often alone. This project gave her an opportunity to embrace her Great Grand-mother’s legacy and to see how important Siti Binti Saad is. It also allowed her to see that her own golden voice is a blessing in itself. Fadhil, Gora and Nema all gained from this project and together we’ve grown. This record is deeply personal and yet tells a history. Take ‘Nyuki’, which was my father’s song, who himself was a student of Siti Binti Saad, learnt her scales and her way with melody. On ‘Siti’s of Unguja’ we found the original feeling, the melodies, the ways that she innovated and connected Taarab to the people. The past has helped us find a future sound, so a new generation can go with the groove whilst carrying the method. The sound is new, although, in a way, it’s awoken something real that had been forgotten from the time of Siti Binti Saad. A new taste, a beautiful taste of the people of Zanzibar. It’s what my people will like and this record will reach them and audiences overseas. This makes me happy. Zanzibari ears will hear how fantastic this record is. It’s a rare thing in Zanzibar to have such quality in lyrics and melody; some of the sounds on this record were dying. Siti Muharam’s golden voice carries the essence of Siti Binti Saad and her connection with Zanzibari culture. The project came about with the assistance of Fumba Town Development, a groundbreaking project that is providing sustainable homes to a new generation on Zanzibar built in line with the principles of permaculture. The Dhow Countries Music Academy (DCMA), OntheCorner Records, Soundthread and The British Council.

Taking reference from the rave energy that has passed through decades of UK dance music and combining influences from harder, noisy, industrial tropes that carry a similar raw approach, Ploy (Timedance, Hessle) delivers his debut LP "Unlit Signals" for L.I.E.S. Records. Across these eight tracks we move through contained intensity and stifling darkness met with flashes of light and space, reflective of the darker pockets of the grubby dance floors of which this record is aimed at. This body of work represents the space Ploy has found himself occupying over the past couple of years, an injection of dishevelled closing hours delirium, applied across a spectrum of bpm. Rhythmically taking influence from elements of broken beats, soundsystem music and organic percussion as opposed to a straighter Techno template, 'Unlit Signals' captures the visceral energy that is much needed and often missing in genres at the forefront of the dance music world. Moreso this LP is reflective of the grim state of current social climates, and the artist's experiences looking for the darker, introspective ends when hitting the nightclubs. Heads down as opposed to hands up, Unlit Signals puts forth an ominous sonic dread that works the system with texture, low end and militant drum play. Similar to previous Ploy releases it's nomadic in terms of styles and never really slots into one category easily, which ends up being the true beauty of "Unlit Signals".

“My language for producing music is way more diverse now and allows me to create different-sounding music,” Yaeji tells Apple Music. With her mesmerizing voice and chill vibe, the New York (by way of South Korea) DJ, producer, and multimedia artist Kathy Yaeji Lee is a unique presence in dance music. Her songs are celebratory yet meditative—influenced by house, R&B, and hip-hop. They’re reflective of her dual heritage and intercontinental mindset, ranging from stunt anthems (“raingurl,” “drink i’m sippin on”) to her lowercased cover of Drake’s “Passionfruit.” Recorded before inking a deal with XL (the home to Tyler, The Creator and other sonic misfits), *WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던* is a personal and intimate mixtape she likens to a musical diary. Sung-spoken in whispery tones in English and Korean, Yaeji’s observations are sharp, whether yearning for stillness (“IN PLACE 그 자리 그대로”), indulging in simple pleasures (“WAKING UP DOWN,” “MONEY CAN’T BUY”), or getting in her feelings (“WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던,” “IN THE MIRROR 거울”). It also represents a time when she soaked up new production techniques and was inspired by 2000s bossanova-influenced electronica, ’80s-’90s Korean music (curated by her parents, who live outside of Seoul), R&B, and soul. Below Yaeji walks through each song on her mixtape. “Every track is a bit different,” she says “I really hope it brings a little bit of positivity.” **MY IMAGINATION 상상** “I wrote it with the intention of warming people up to what I do. I repeat a lot in this song in Korean: ‘If you follow me in this moment I chose, right in this moment.’ And I repeat ‘my imagination’ over and over in Korean. I wanted it to feel really smooth and continuous, almost cyclical, but in a way that felt relaxing. It’s a way to ease you into the next song, which is quite emotional for me.” **WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던** “It’s one of the older songs on the mixtape. It was written at a very emotional time, when I was going through a lot of transitions and growing pains. In the midst of all that darkness, I was able to stay positive because of family around me. I think that notion of family and unconditional love is so Korean to me. Thinking of Korea gets me very emotional. My dad messaged \[himself scatting\] to me on KakaoTalk \[a Korean messaging app\] a year and a half ago. He said, ‘I have a song idea for you. Use it if it helps you in any way.’ When I finished up the mixtape, I realized it would be so perfect and meaningful for the track, so I added it in.” **IN PLACE 그 자리 그대로** “It was written around the time me and my friends were watching a video of Stevie Wonder performing live with a talk box \[a cover of The Carpenters’ ‘Close to You’ on *The David Frost Show* in 1972\]. We were listening to that a lot and it was stuck in my head. I loved how the talk box sounded; it’s so warm and fuzzy, his performance is so playful. It also has such a robotic quality. I wanted to create this feeling but using a completely different technique. I layered nine different vocal tracks to create that harmony you hear in the intro. It affected each layer differently and holds a similar feeling that I received when I heard Stevie Wonder. Emotionally, it was written when I didn’t want things to change. Just for a moment, I wanted things to stay still. It’s about yearning for stillness.” **WHEN I GROW UP** “It’s an idea I’ve been settling and meditating on for a long time. It’s the concept of a younger me, or a younger person, imagining what it’s like to become an adult. There’s another perspective in the song where it’s me, the adult version of myself, telling my younger self: ‘Unfortunately, when you grow older, you’re fearful for a lot of things. You don’t want to get hurt. You suppress your emotions and pretend like everything is OK.’ All these things I had no idea would happen when I was younger; it’s my reality, our reality, as adults. It’s a kind of back and forth about that.” **MONEY CAN’T BUY (feat. Nappy Nina)** “It’s the really playful one. It’s purely about friendship and being goofy and positive. The thing I repeat in Korean: ‘What I want to do is eat rice and soup.’ It’s pretty common for me. I’ll put the rice in the soup and mix it up, so it becomes like a porridge. I’m repeating that and it’s followed by ‘What I want, money can’t buy.’ Friendship isn’t something that’s quantifiable or measurable with materialism. It’s completely magical and far more special than what can be described. It’s like an appreciation song for friendship. It’s kind of perfect that Nappy Nina was featured on it. I had met her last minute. She’s a friend of my mixing engineer. She came in and recorded immediately; we realized we had mutual friends, so now we keep in touch. That lends itself well to the message of the song.” **FREE INTERLUDE (feat. Lil Fayo, Trenchcoat & Sweet Pea)** “It felt really liberating to include this in the mixtape. It was a completely natural, goofy hang with my friends. We were having fun making music together, kind of first takes of freestyles. The spirit of our hang and our friendship is really in that track. It’s a very meaningful one for me.” **SPELL 주문 (feat. YonYon & G.L.A.M.)** “It was a joy to put together. It started as a bare-bones demo that I had lyrics to. When I was writing it, I was thinking of the experience of performing onstage to a sea of people that you’ve never met before and sharing your most intimate thoughts and experiences. It’s casting a spell; you’re sharing something that only you know, and then they’re applying it in whatever way it means for themselves. I thought of YonYon because we went to the same middle school in Japan when I was living there for one year. We’ve stayed in touch since, and she’s doing great with music in Japan, so she’s always on my mind to collaborate, and this felt perfect. G.L.A.M. is a close friend of a friend. I had also played shows with her a long time ago when I moved to New York, so I thought she was also another perfect collaborator.” **WAKING UP DOWN** “Purely a feel-good song. There’s a moment of questioning and hesitation. The Korean verses embody that side of it. The parts in English are about the feeling I had when I had all of these basic life routines down and felt healthy, mentally and physically. It’s a song to groove to and hopefully feel inspired by. And also, not to get too wrapped up in the literal things: cooking, waking up, hydrating. Yes, it’s important, but the Korean lyrics remind you: Don’t forget, there are these bigger themes in life you have to think about.” **IN THE MIRROR 거울** “It’s the dramatic one. I really wanted to try singing in a way that feels like I’m unleashing pent-up energy. It was written after a difficult tour that mentally and physically stretched me quite thin. It came from a thought I had while I was looking in the mirror in the airplane bathroom. I think being up in the air makes you more emotional. I don’t know how true that is, but I definitely feel that way. I was really in my feelings and really upset.” **THE TH1NG (feat. Victoria Sin & Shy One)** “I want to credit Vic and Shy because I knew I wanted to work with them. I sent them a pretty bare-bones demo, just synth and samples. They’re partners and based in London. Vic is an incredible performing artist and Shy is an incredible DJ. Vic came up with all of the lyrics and vocals. They wrote it on their birthday, stayed at home alone in their bedroom, surrounded themselves with plants, meditated, and had an introspective stream of consciousness of what is this ‘TH1NG.’ It sounds really abstract, but they explore the concept. Shy did a lot of the production on it and built on the little things I sent them.” **THESE DAYS 요즘** “Do you know the \[anime\] genre Slice of Life? It feels like a Slice of Life song, which is, the way I understand it, it’s mundane day-to-day lifestyle about meditating on time. I would visually describe it as feeling like sitting on a stoop with your friends on a nice fall afternoon sharing stories with each other about how you’re doing. That kind of feeling. It’s not overly dramatic or purposeful; it’s a mood.” **NEVER SETTLING DOWN** “It’s a song about making a determined promise to myself to never settle. I should always stay open-minded, to continue unlearning and learning things, to shed things that felt toxic to me in the past. I say things like ‘I’m never shooting the shit,’ which is a balance of not taking myself too seriously but also that I’m not playing, I’m working every day. It’s a confident track, and I hope it brings confidence to other people that hear it. At the end, the breaks come in, and it feels like a big release, like a moment where you’re taking flight or dancing like crazy, alone in your room. That’s how I wanted to end the mixtape.”

“My music is not as collaborative as it’s been in the past,” Jeff Parker tells Apple Music. “I’m not inviting other people to write with me. I’m more interested in how people\'s instrumental voices can fit into the ideas I’m working on.” As his career has evolved, the jazz guitarist and member of post-rock band Tortoise has become more comfortable writing compositions as a solitary exercise. While 2016\'s *The New Breed* featured a host of contributors, *Suite for Max Brown* finds the Los Angeles-based player eager to move away from the delirious funk-jazz of earlier works and towards something more unified and focused on repetition and droning harmonies. “I used to ask my collaborators to bring as much of the songwriting to the compositions as I do. Now, I’m just trying to prove to myself that I can do it on my own.” Parker handles most of the instruments on *Max Brown*, but familiar faces pop up throughout. The opening track, “Build a Nest,” features vocals from Parker’s daughter, Ruby, and “Gnarciss” includes performances from Makaya McCraven on the drums, Rob Mazurek on trumpet, and Josh Johnson on alto saxophone. Other frequenters of Parker’s orbit, like drummer Jamire Williams, appear throughout. But *Max Brown* is Parker’s record first and foremost, and the LP finds him less willing to give in to jazz’s typical demands of dynamic improvisation and community-oriented song-building. Here, Parker asserts himself as an ecstatic solo voice, where on earlier albums the soft-spoken musician may have been more willing to give way to his fellow bandmates. *Suite for Max Brown* is an ambitious sonic experiment that succeeds in its moves both big and small. “I like when music is able to enhance the environment of everyday life,” Parker says. “I would like people to be able to find themselves within the music.” Above all, *Suite for Max Brown* pays homage to the most important figures in Parker’s life. *The New Breed*, which was finished shortly after Parker’s father passed away, took its title from a store his father owned; *Max Brown* is derived from his mother’s nickname, and Parker felt an urgent desire to honor her while she was still able to hear it. “My mother has always been really supportive and super proud of the work I’ve done,” he says. “I wanted to dedicate an album to her while she’s still alive to see the results. She loves it, which means so much.” It’s an ode to his mother’s ambition, and a record that stands in awe of her achievements, even though they’re quite different from Jeff’s. “She had a stable job and collected a 401(k). My career as a musician is 180 degrees the opposite of that, but I’m still inspired by her work ethic.”

“I’m always looking for ways to be surprised,” says composer and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Parker as he explains the process, and the thinking, behind his new album, Suite for Max Brown, released via a new partnership between the Chicago–based label International Anthem and Nonesuch Records. “If I sit down at the piano or with my guitar, with staff paper and a pencil, I’m eventually going to fall into writing patterns, into things I already know. So, when I make music, that’s what I’m trying to get away from—the things that I know.” Parker himself is known to many fans as the longtime guitarist for the Chicago–based quintet Tortoise, one of the most critically revered, sonically adventurous groups to emerge from the American indie scene of the early nineties. The band’s often hypnotic, largely instrumental sound eludes easy definition, drawing freely from rock, jazz, electronic, and avant-garde music, and it has garnered a large following over the course of nearly thirty years. Aside from recording and touring with Tortoise, Parker has worked as a side man with many jazz greats, including Nonesuch labelmate Joshua Redman on his 2005 Momentum album; as a studio collaborator with other composer-musicians, including Makaya McCraven, Brian Blade, Meshell N’Degeocello, his longtime friend (and Chicago Underground ensemble co-founder) Rob Mazurek; and as a solo artist. Suite for Max Brown is informally a companion piece to The New Breed, Parker’s 2016 album on International Anthem, which London’s Observer honored as the best jazz album of the year, declaring that “no other musician in the modern era has moved so seamlessly between rock and jazz like Jeff Parker. As guitarist for Chicago post-rock icons Tortoise, he’s taken the group in new and challenging directions that have kept them at the forefront of pop creativity for the last twenty years. As of late, however, Parker has established himself as one of the most formidable solo talents in modern jazz.” Though Parker collaborates with a coterie of musicians under the group name The New Breed, theirs is by no means a conventional “band” relationship. Parker is very much a solo artist on Suite for Max Brown. He constructs a digital bed of beats and samples; lays down tracks of his own on guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion, and occasionally voice; then invites his musician friends to play and improvise over his melodies. But unlike a traditional jazz session, Parker doesn’t assemble a full combo in the studio for a day or two of live takes. His accompanists are often working alone with Parker, reacting to what Parker has provided them, and then Parker uses those individual parts to layer and assemble into his final tracks. The process may be relatively solitary and cerebral, but the results feel like in-the-moment jams—warm-hearted, human, alive. Suite for Max Brown brims with personality, boasting the rhythmic flow of hip hop and the soulful swing of jazz. “In my own music I’ve always sought to deal with the intersection of improvisation and the digital era of making music, trying to merge these disparate elements into something cohesive,” Parker explains. “I became obsessed maybe ten or fifteen years ago with making music from samples. At first it was more an exercise in learning how to sample and edit audio. I was a big hip-hop fan all my life, but I never delved into the technical aspects of making that music. To keep myself busy, I started to sample music from my own library of recordings, to chop them up, make loops and beats. I would do it in my spare time. I could do it when I was on tour—in the van or on an airplane, at a soundcheck, whenever I had spare time I was working on this stuff. After a while, as you can imagine, I had hours and hours of samples I had made and I hadn’t really done anything with them “So I made The New Breed based off these old sample-based compositions and mixed them with improvising,” he continues. “There was a lot of editing, a lot of post-production work that went into that. That’s in a nutshell how I make a lot of my music; it’s a combination of sampling, editing, retriggering audio, and recording it, moving it around and trying to make it into something cohesive—and make it music that someone would enjoy listening to. With Max Brown, it’s evolved. I played a lot of the music myself. It’s me playing as many of the instruments as I could. I engineered most it myself at home or during a residency I did at the Headlands Center for the Arts [in Sausalito, California] about a year ago.” His New Breed band-mates and fellow travelers on Max Brown include pianist-saxophonist Josh Johnson; bassist Paul Bryan, who co-produced and mixed the album with Parker; piccolo trumpet player Rob Mazurek, his frequent duo partner; trumpeter Nate Walcott, a veteran of Conor Oberst’s Bright Eyes; drummers Jamire Williams, Makaya McCraven, and Jay Bellerose, Parker’s Berklee School of Music classmate; cellist Katinka Klejin of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and even his seventeen-year-old daughter Ruby Parker, a student at the Chicago High School of the Arts, who contributes vocals to opening track, “Build A Nest.” Ruby’s presence at the start is fitting, since Suite for Max Brown is a kind of family affair: “That’s my mother’s maiden name. Maxine Brown. Everybody calls her Max. I decided to call it Suite for Max Brown. The New Breed became a kind of tribute to my father because he passed away while I was making the album. The New Breed was a clothing store he owned when I was a kid, a store in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where I was born. I thought it would be nice this time to dedicate something to my mom while she’s still here to see it. I wish that my father could have been around to hear the tribute that I made for him. The picture on the cover of Max Brown is of my mom when she was nineteen.” There is a multi-generational vibe to the music too, as Parker balances his contemporary digital explorations with excursions into older jazz. Along with original compositions, Parker includes “Gnarciss,” an interpretation of Joe Henderson’s “Black Narcissus” and John Coltrane’s “After the Rain” (from his 1963 Impressions album). Parker recalls, “I was drawn to jazz music as a kid. That was the first music that really resonated with me once I got heavily into music. When I was nine or ten years old, I immediately gravitated to jazz because there were so many unexpected things. Jazz led me into improvising, which led me into experimenting in a general way, into an experimental process of making music.” Coltrane is a touchstone in Parker’s musical evolution. In fact, Parker recalls, he inadvertently found himself on a new musical path one night about fifteen years ago when he was deejaying at a Chicago bar and playing ‘Trane: “I used to deejay a lot when I lived in Chicago. This was before Serrato and people deejaying with computers. I had two records on two turntables and a mixer. I was spinning records one night and for about ten minutes I was able to perfectly synch up a Nobukazu Takemura record with the first movement of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and it had this free jazz, abstract jazz thing going on with a sequenced beat underneath. It sounded so good. That’s what I’m trying to do with Max Brown. It’s got a sequenced beat and there are musicians improvising on top or beneath the sequenced drum pattern. That’s what I was going for. Man vs machine. “It’s a lot of experimenting, a lot of trial and error,” he admits. “I like to pursue situations that take me outside myself, where the things I come up with are things I didn’t really know I could do. I always look at this process as patchwork quilting. You take this stuff and stitch it together until a tapestry forms.” —Michael Hill

“I don’t care what you got, you want the best!” cries a voice at the outset of Omar S’s *You Want* (and in the introduction of almost every song that follows). The implication is clear: Why settle for average house music when you could be listening to Omar S? That kind of swagger has marked the Detroit producer’s work since the beginning; his cantankerous pride is a fundamental part of his persona. (His 2016 album is even titled *The Best!*) But on 2020’s *You Want*, his first full-length in four years, he once again proves that he’s earned his bragging rights. Across 13 songs and one bonus instrumental, Omar S delves deep into the kind of stripped-down yet sentimental deep house that he’s famous for. The production is decidedly no-frills, featuring unadorned drum machines swathed in drowsy synths and samples of vintage R&B, yet the music is uncommonly expressive. That’s not only true of vocal house jams like “Second Life” and “Hear Me Out,” where the Detroit singer John FM channels classic club belters of the \'80s; the soul is just as deep on cuts like “Mandela Gold,” a toe-scuffing drum track, and “Ambiance,” whose wriggly bassline tips its feathered cap to P-Funk. He even finds the time to take a detour into what’s essentially trance music on the linear “1993.” Not many contemporary dance producers have that kind of range, but then, Omar S himself told us as much with the title of a 2011 album: *It Can Be Done but Only I Can Do It*.

Uniting cosmic tones and lovely notes, unique sound collages and electronic noises, Muzak pour ascenseurs en panne ("Muzak for Broken Lifts"), Brigitte Barbu's first album, explores a dreamy universe, at the crossroads of electronica and the 70s’ post-tune-in/drop-out, echoing shadows of the peculiar doppelgänger; Pépé Bradock. Ça Plane pour Brigitte Barbu… Resonant guitar notes, odd sounds, electronic hallucinations, and unexpected warm synth layers all gather together in Brigitte Barbu's first enigmatic album. Recorded and mixed during a reclusive one-week residency in a very special studio, under the benevolent cubic radiation of "Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant,” using a computer, synthesizers, and various string instruments, giving birth to this resolutely unique album. The guitars were sharply disciplined, propelling strings into strange and hypnotic limbos, somewhere between a weightless journey through time and a fresh science lab experiment. A perky cosmic album running away from rules and gravity. "I wanted to compose an ethereal abstract Hip-Hop LP" says Brigitte, "with guitar as a brainwashed instrument, mirroring machines and computers, even if surely far from being unplugged". So much for that… With a real introspective dimension, the record stands out for its pure whimsical mood. The artist had strict rules for composing: “Each track is based on the association between a title chosen for its consonances, an open tuning, a random tempo and frequencies chosen for their supposed effects, real or imagined, on the mind, body & soul.” For example: Taro Patch -> Whale -> 93,75 BPM or Dobro -> Bear-> 118,125 BPM, Air Resistance -> Open Em -> Panther-> 480 BPM etc. Brigitte surgically framed an electro-acoustic compendium, finding its atmospheric mothership… Brigitte Barbu, referring to a special interlude from a vintage release "Escalope de Dingue” (Fool’s Cutlet), explains that Muzak pour Ascenseurs en Panne is in fact a custom tribute to family, friends, triggered cosmonauts, René Clément and the card game where the winner is the bearded monarch nonchalantly stabbing himself in the head. It’s a lot!

Lyra Pramuk’s debut Fountain explores a post-human, non-binary understanding of life Lyra Pramuk fuses classical training, pop sensibilities, performance practices and contemporary club culture in what may best be described as futurist folk music. While the American operatically-trained vocalist and electronic musician is perhaps previously best known for her work with musical collaborators such as Holly Herndon and Colin Self, she is set to release her debut album, Fountain, via Iceland’s Bedroom Community label in March 2020. Created entirely from her own voice, although often shaped and structured by electronics, Fountain is an emotional, sensual, and devotional journey. The title is derived from her family name, Pramuk, which translates from Czech as ‘well spring’ or ‘fountain.’ Often wordless, these songs evoke a new wholeness sustained by the ritual force of drowning, immersion, cleansing, and bathing – also referred to in the album artwork by acclaimed visual artist Donna Huanca. Fountain plays with the perception of music, rhythms, speech, body, and the relation between technology and humanity, exploring a post-human, non-binary understanding of life and the fragile ecosystems it depends on. The work documents a healing that is still in process, and a full circle-moment that reunited Lyra with her sound engineer twin brother, Ben, for the final mix, which they completed in tandem. As a vocal activist and member of the queer community, Fountain’s creation also coincided with a personal rejuvenation for its author. Its completion culminated in the live premiere of the album material at Unsound Festival in Krakow in 2019, where she performed through a multi-channel array designed by Ben Frost, opening for Sunn O))) and Roly Porter. A closer collaboration with Frost on a soundtrack for a new film project will be announced later in 2020. Her performance at Berghain on 30 January for CTM Festival in her hometown of Berlin promises an even more confident and joyous realization of the album’s song cycle. Lyra moved to Berlin in 2013 as a DAAD postgraduate study scholarship recipient, following her degree at the Eastman School of Music in New York. Since then, she has also been awarded residencies at Elektronmusikstudion EMS Stockholm, Open Port Club Residency in Tokyo and Sapporo, and Future Music Lab of the Atlantic Music Festival in Maine. Her interests also encompass writing, poetry, and fashion, where she is sometimes called upon as a model. As a performance artist, she has collaborated extensively with Donna Huanca and at events such as Glasgow International and the Rochester Fringe Festival.

Watch Video for Lithium Blast here: youtu.be/aCjGb9Zuosc Incendiary debut album on Nyege Nyege Tapes by HHY & The Kampala Unit. Initiated by musician and artist Jonathan Saldanha (HHY & The Macumbas) during his Nyege Nyege residency, HHY & The Kampala Unit is a futuristic exploration of a fresh, yet submerse territory in music mixing up dub, techno, traditional drumming and elements of trance over ghostly and unnerving cinematic passages. A collaborative venture featuring visionary Saldanha on electronics and production, fierce trumpet player and ghetto activist Florence Lugemwa joined by percussionist Omutaba on hybrid drums plus the special appearance of the Kampala Prison Brass Band. Properly a feast for the ear, Lithium Blast lures us into a layered synesthetic cosmogony soaked in oneiric sci-fi atmosphere. Physical in its tactility and effect and highly evocative, all tracks are a gorgeous blending of cerebral virtuosity, cosmic creativity, raw energy and visceral sensuality that is majestically sculpted with haunting marching sounds, mutating percussive rhythms, variations and reprises against cascading electronics and rich, technicolor textures. A dramatic intensity builds up over time generating tension between rupture and stability, subtext and hyper-realism. Mesmerizing and infectious.

If bioluminescence could assume a musical form, it might sound like Ana Roxanne’s *Because of a Flower*. On the Los Angeles-based electronic musician’s second album, dream pop and ambient swirl together, glowing as they drift; in “Venus,” the gentle sound of lapping waves even accompanies her spoken-word ruminations on the nature of liquids, keyboards twinkling like a galaxy reflected in the tide. She has a minimalist’s sense of economy: Most of her music is made of little more than synthesizer and her own multi-tracked and harmonized voice. But her influences are vast, taking in medieval European choral music (“A Study in Vastness”), slowcore (“Suite Pour L’invisible”), new age (“- - -”), trip-hop (“Camille”), and even Hindustani singing (“Venus”). And though the mood is often melancholy, it is never despondent; grief and hope exist in equal measure. As she sings in the spare, searching “Suite Pour L’invisible,” “Endless sorrow, endless joy, endless sorrow/I’ll hold your joy/I’ll hold your pain.”

The sublime songs comprising New York-based musician Ana Roxanne's second record, Because Of A Flower, germinated gradually across five years, inspired by interwoven notions of gender identity, beauty, and cruelty. She describes her process as beginning with “a drone element and a mood,” then intuiting melody, syllables, and lyrics incrementally, like sacred shapes materializing from mist. The experience of identifying as intersex informs the album on levels both sonic and thematic, from spoken word texts borrowed from tonal harmony textbooks to cinematic dialogue samples and castrati aria allusions. It's an appropriately interstitial vision of ambient songcraft, a chemistry of wisps and whispers, sanctuary and sorrow, conjured through a fragile balance of voice, bass, space, and texture. Despite a background studying at the prestigious Mills College in Oakland, Roxanne's music rarely feels conceptual, instead radiating an immediate and emotive aura, rooted in the present tense of her personal journey. She speaks of the flower in the title as a body, singular and sunlit, as many petals as thorns, an enigma beholden only to itself. But whether taken as surface or subtext, Because is a transfixing document of a rare artist in the spring of their ascension.

(ENGLISH TEXT BELOW) "Oh femme, femme africaine Oh femme, femme béninoise Femme noir, lève toi, ne dort pas Oh femme noir, lève toi ne dort pas Tu peu devenir, président de la république Tu peu devenir, premier ministre du pays Lève-toi, il faut faire, quelque chose Femme africaine, soit indépendante Le pays a besoin de nous, allons à l’école L’Afrique a besoin de toi, il faut travailler Le monde a besoin de nous, levons nous allons défendre Femme africaine, soit indépendante » Star Feminine Band Sans crier gare, une formation de jeunes filles originaires d’une région reculée du Bénin, bouscule l’idiome rock garage avec une fraîcheur, une inventivité et une énergie stupéfiantes, jouant juste, haut et fort. Au cours de la première partie du vingtième siècle, le découpage de la majorité de l’Afrique par les puissances européennes introduit une modernité forcée un peu partout sur le continent. Dans les villes et les ports, le continent bruisse d’une agitation nouvelle alors que l’électricité commence sa timide apparition. A la faveur de transports maritimes en plein essor, les 78 tours ramenés par les marins latino-américains, en particulier cubains, mais aussi par les soldats ou les colons européens, influencent durablement de nouvelles orientations musicales le long des côtes africaines. On assiste ainsi progressivement à une réinterprétation de ces musiques cubaines, mais aussi caribéennes, jazz ou rhythm’n’blues. Originaires en grande partie d’Afrique, ces musiques revenues des Amériques font office de vérité naturelle sur le continent. Certains orchestres décident ainsi de « réafricaniser » ces musiques afro-cubaines et noires américaines écoutées sur dans les ports, sur la place publique ou diffusées sur les ondes. Les bars et dancings, ainsi que les associations de jeunesse jouent également un rôle important dans la diffusion et le développement de ces musiques. A l’image de ce qui se passe dans la plupart des villes d’Afrique, de nombreux orchestres voient le jour au cours des années 1950 et 1960. Ils incarnent des symboles de modernité, au même titre que l’électricité, les automobiles et le cinéma. L’euphorie des années qui suivent l’indépendance est donc mise en musique par ces orchestres. Ceux-ci sont en partie influencés par les formations de danse ghanéennes qui sillonnent alors toutes les grandes villes du Golfe du Bénin, du Nigeria jusqu’au Liberia. Les échanges culturels sont fertiles. Au début des années 1960, les riches traditions locales du Bénin, à commencer par les musiques de transe et de cérémonie vaudou commencent à fusionner avec l’afro-cubain, la rumba congolaise et le high-life. Des dizaines d’orchestres, d’artistes et de labels participent à ce mouvement sans précédent. Par rapport à sa population, le Bénin est le pays d’Afrique le plus prolifique en terme de production discographique, notamment au cours d’une effervescence extraordinaire durant les années 1970. A la manière de ce qu’il se passe alors en Guinée, en Côte d’Ivoire ou au Mali, chaque grande ville ou préfecture possède au moins un orchestre moderne, que ce soit à Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Parakou, Ouidah, Natitingou, Abomey ou Bohicon. Des formations comme les Black Santiagos, le National Jazz du Dahomey, le Super Star de Ouidah, le Picoby Band et le Renova Band d’Abomey ou encore les Black Dragons de Porto Novo se font une réputation au niveau national. Au milieu des années 1960, la chanteuse Sophie Edia devient la première voix féminine à diffuser la musique béninoise en dehors des frontières du pays, à commencer par le Nigeria. En 1975, l’Unesco promeut l’Année Internationale de la Femme, un événement destiné à faire prendre conscience du rôle des femmes dans de nombreux pays, là où leur rôle est trop souvent minimisé ou bafoué. Cette initiative a un impact considérable sur le continent africain. Que ce soit au Mali avec Fanta Damba, en Côte d’Ivoire avec Mamadou Doumbia, au Cameroun avec Anne-Marie Nzie, au Congo Brazzaville avec Les Bantous de la Capitale ou au Burkina Faso avec Echo del Africa, tous rendent hommage à cette initiative. Partout en Afrique francophone, les consciences s’éveillent quand aux droits des femmes. En 1976, le poète camerounais Francis Bebey publie l’éloquent La Condition Masculine. Sous ses airs humoristiques, cette merveille interpelle elle aussi les consciences, sans pour autant sombrer dans une moralisation outrancière. "Tu ne connais pas Sizana Sizana, c'est ma femme C'est ma femme puisque nous sommes mariés depuis plus de dix-sept ans maintenant Elle était très gentille auparavant Je lui disais "Sizana, donne-moi de l'eau" Et elle m'apportait de l'eau à boire De l'eau claire, hein, très bonne! Je luis disais, "Sizana, fais-ceci" "Fais-cela" et elle obéissait Et moi j'étais content, je regardais tout ça avec bonheur Ah, je te dis que Sizana, Sizana, elle était une très bonne épouse auparavant Seulement, depuis quelques jours, les gens, là Ils ont apporté ici la condition féminine Il paraît que là-bas, chez eux, ils ont installé une femme dans un bureau Pour qu'elle donne des ordres aux hommes Aïe, tu m'entends des choses pareilles?" Francis Bebey "La condition masculine" Son compatriote Ali Baba creuse le même sillon avec La Condition Féminine, on ne tape pas la femme. En Côte d’Ivoire, Sidiki Bakaba déclame un poème de Léopold Sédar Senghor sur l’éloquent 45 tours Femme noire, mis en musique en mode spiritual jazz. Au Bénin, en 1977, le batteur Danialou Sagbohan enregistre l’éloquent Viva, femme africaine, un single fondateur pour la prise de conscience féminine dans ce pays. L’enthousiasme de ces années d’émancipation retombe toutefois au cours des années 1980, avec son lot d’unions imposées, de grossesses précoces, de violences diverses et d’excisions, notamment en Afrique sahélienne. En 1989, Oumou Sangaré, une jeune chanteuse malienne originaire du Wassoulou, enregistre l’historique Moussoulou (« Femmes »), aux sonorités claires et acoustiques. Puissant et percutant, son chant influence de nombreuses chanteuses du continent au cours des décennies suivantes. Ce premier opus offre un instantané saisissant de la condition des femmes d’Afrique de l’Ouest à la fin des années 1980. A ses débuts, elle chante dans les rues de Bamako, pour gagner de quoi manger. Oumou Sangaré modernise radicalement la tradition des cantatrices locales. Elle séduit immédiatement grâce à sa voix féline, mais aussi en raison de ses textes qui dénoncent la polygamie, les mariages forcés ou l’excision, prônant une sensualité, une fierté et une féminité sans ambages. Son succès est immédiat, avec des millions de cassettes vendues dans tous les marchés d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Oumou Sangaré accède au statut de superstar de la pop africaine. Femme malienne inscrite dans son époque, elle incarne le triomphe de l’amour et des émotions féminines en toutes circonstances. Si la musique sur laquelle elle chante est séduisante, audacieuse et pleine de vie, ses paroles imposent une nouvelle manière de voir. Celles-ci sont plus importantes que la musique. Elle est inspirée par les évènements sociaux et par son environnement immédiat. Femme libre, elle dit ce qu’elle veut et ce qu’elle pense. Sa musique, apolitique mais féministe, a un large impact. Son message à propos de la femme africaine rencontre un très large écho, sur le continent comme dans le reste du monde. Au cours des années 1990, la béninoise Angélique Kidjo s’impose également comme l’une des grandes voix féminines africaines. Elle porte haut l’héritage musical béninois. Née en 1960 à Ouidah, le berceau du vaudouisme, elle est bercée enfant par le théâtre et les sonorités afro-américaines. Encore adolescente, elle se fait un nom dans tout le pays grâce à ses apparitions radiophoniques. A ses débuts, elle est accompagnée par le Poly Rythmo de Cotonou, formé en 1969. Cet orchestre est le plus légendaire du pays, au gré d’une discographie pléthorique, de centaines de singles, d’albums et d’innombrables tournées partout dans le monde. En 1980, Angélique Kidjo enregistre son premier album Pretty à Paris sous la houlette du Camerounais Ekambi Brillant. Son succès en Afrique de l’Ouest est immédiat. Elle s’installe en France en 1983, en pleine explosion des musiques venues d’Afrique. Elle participe à divers groupes, avant de se lancer en solo et de s’imposer comme la grande voix féminine du Bénin. Quarante ans plus tard, ses héritières et compatriotes sont en passe de rayonner au grand jour. Dernière grande ville étape sur la route nationale qui sillonne le Nord Ouest du Bénin, la paisible Natitingou s’étale en longueur de part et d’autre d’un ruban d’asphalte. Après une quinzaine d’heures de route depuis la capitale économique Cotonou, cette ville offre une étape appréciable avant de poursuivre vers le Burkina Faso, le Togo ou l’immense réserve de la Pendjari, via Tanguiéta, là où commencent les vastes plaines sahéliennes et se réfugient les derniers grands animaux sauvages ayant échappé à la folie des hommes. Ville de croisement dans cette région située au carrefour de quatre pays, Natitingou contrôle l’accès de la région des collines de l’Atakora, qui ceignent la ville. Enclavée, la commune de Natitingou est largement isolée du reste du Bénin, tributaire du ravitaillement routier, des coupures d’électricité et des éléments naturels, parfois hostiles. Longtemps rétive à toute forme de domination, cette région a pour héros Kaba. Au début de la première guerre mondiale, il refusa la conscription militaire obligatoire et mena une guérilla farouche contre l’oppression coloniale. Cette guerre perdue se termina dans un bain de sang en 1917. A la sortie de la ville, le musée Kaba raconte cette résistance du peuple somba, notamment par son évocation de sa culture, de ses cérémonies, du travail du fer ou encore des cases circulaires, au toit conique, souvent surélevées et fortifiées, appelées tatas que l’on retrouve dans une bonne partie du Sahel. Kaba donna son nom à l’un des premiers orchestres de Natitingou, Kaba Diya, actif entre 1979 et 1983. Celui-ci publia un unique album de musiques modernes en 1980, représentatif de la culture de cette région, à commencer par sa pochette. Si Kaba Diya a eu l’occasion de publier un 33 tours, d’autres formations locales ont également marqué les esprits. Formation historique créée dès 1960, l’orchestre Bopeci a publié deux 45 tours. En revanche, Nati Fiesta, le Tchankpa Jazz ou L’Echo de l’Atakora n’ont a priori jamais publié leurs morceaux au format vinyle. Plus récemment, depuis le milieu des années 1990, Gay Stone, Cool Star, Ata Echo, les 3 Couleurs, le groupe Tchingas, Zénith Temple, Excelsior mais aussi depuis 2017 la formation FMG animent les nuits de Natitingou et de l’Atakora. Culturellement et musicalement, cette région du Nord-Ouest du Bénin est plus proche de l’aire d’influence sahélienne que de celle du Sud du pays, du sato, du vaudou et du folklore modernisé développé par des formations comme l’orchestre Black Santiagos qui donna ainsi naissance à l’afrobeat dès le milieu des années 1960, avant d’être repris et développé par Fela Kuti. C’est dans cette région de contraste, de paysages à la fois verts et rocailleux qu’ont grandies les sept vedettes juvéniles du Star Feminine Band. Souvent déscolarisées et promises à vendre des arachides, des bananes, du gari ou du tchoucoutou, une boisson locale à base de mil au bord du goudron, la plupart des jeunes filles de la région n’ont guère d’avenir. Les mariages forcés et les grossesses précoces sont légion. Conscient de cette précarité, le musicien André Baleguemon décide de former un groupe exclusivement féminin ancré dans les préoccupations de son époque. Il laisse la part belle à la guitare, à la batterie et au clavier, instruments admirés depuis son enfance, symboles de modernité dans cette région reculée. Son constat est simple : « Dans le Nord, les filles n’évoluent pas beaucoup et les femmes sont mises de côté. J’ai simplement voulu montrer la valeur de la femme dans les sociétés du Nord Bénin en formant un orchestre féminin ». Originaire de Tchaourou, une vaste commune située au centre Est du Bénin, André Balaguemon se passionne très jeune pour la musique. Il intègre l’orchestre Sam 11 de Parakou, au Nord Est du pays, au cours des années 1990, où il est successivement trompettiste puis guitariste. En 1999, il descend à Cotonou avant de se fixer dans le Nord-Ouest du pays, afin de renouer avec ses racines et ses passions musicales. Le 25 juillet 2016, avec le soutien de la municipalité de Natitingou, André lance un communiqué sur les ondes de Nanto FM afin de former des filles bénévolement à la musique. Quelques jours plus tard, des dizaines d’aspirantes musiciennes se présentent à la Maison des Jeunes. « Les filles qui sont venues ne connaissaient rien à la musique. Les sept sélectionnées sont de jeunes filles d’ethnie waama et nabo. Venues des villages alentour, certaines n’avaient même jamais vu ce genre d’instruments ». Depuis l’époque des indépendances, posséder ses propres instruments a toujours été l’une des conditions premières pour tout orchestre africain qui se respecte. Avec les instruments achetés par ses soins, batterie, deux guitares et des claviers, ajoutés à quelques percussions, André effectue ses premiers essais musicaux avec ses nouvelles recrues, une poignée de jeunes filles parmi les plus motivées. Rapidement, les filles se passionnent pour leurs nouvelles activités musicales, apprenant la batterie, la guitare, les harmonies vocales, le piano. Leurs progrès sont stupéfiants. Un intense travail de formation musicale se met en place, à commencer par des ateliers de batterie, l’instrument fétiche de la formation. Angélique et Urrice sont à la batterie et au chant, secondées par Marguerite, la troisième batteuse. Sandrine est aux claviers, tout comme Grace, qui œuvre également au chant. Julienne est à la basse et Anne à la guitare. Comme influence fondatrice de leur démarche, André cite volontiers Angélique Kidjo, « notre inspiration principale. C’est une femme que l’on ne peut pas ignorer. Miriam Makeba est aussi une source de fierté, comme Sagbohan Danialou, Stanislas Tohon. Kaba Diya, le grand orchestre régional nous a aussi beaucoup inspiré ». La pugnacité d’André est l’un des éléments clé de cette réussite humaine et artistique. Les filles ont déjà donné des dizaines de concerts dans la région, forgeant et étoffant un répertoire déjà solide, tout en séduisant un public local toujours plus nombreux. Outre les progrès musicaux, il s’implique personnellement auprès de chaque famille pour leur faire comprendre l’importance de son projet, à la fois sur le plan musical et humain, notamment sur le fait que chaque fille reste scolarisée et ne soit pas entrainée dans un mariage forcé. Dans l’histoire des musiques populaires africaines, peu nombreuses sont les formations féminines. Si les Amazones de Guinée, la Famille Bassavé et les Colombes de la Révolution au Burkina, les Sœurs Comoë en Côte d’Ivoire ou les Lijadu Sisters au Nigeria viennent notamment à l’esprit, Star Feminine Band n’a certainement pas d’équivalent au Bénin. La fraicheur, l’insouciance et la liberté, mais surtout le talent de ces jeunes filles est sans appel. A la fin de l’année 2018, la rencontre avec le jeune ingénieur français Jérémie Verdier accélère le cours des choses. En mission dans la région, il fait appel à ses amis espagnols Juan Toran et Juan Serra. Ceux-ci débarquent avec leur matériel d’enregistrement afin de graver les premiers morceaux de la jeune formation dans l’annexe du Musée local. Au hasard des rencontres et mû par un instinct sûr, Jean-Baptiste Guillot entend ces bandes. Il décide alors de partir à leur rencontre à la fin de l’année 2019. Ce voyage mémorable de quelques jours scelle le destin de l’album que vous tenez entre vos mains. Aujourd’hui âgées de neuf à quinze ans, les sept jeunes filles du Star Feminine Band continuent d’aller à l’école. Dans une annexe du Musée Départemental de Natitingou, André a installé le local de répétition de la formation. Plusieurs fois par semaine, les sept jeunes filles se retrouvent dans cet endroit, habitées par les plus nobles aspirations, celles de chanter leur culture, leur condition féminine et leur possible émancipation. Leurs répétitions ont lieu trois fois par semaine, de 16h à 19h. En période de vacances scolaires, elles répètent tous les jours du lundi au vendredi de 9h à 17h. En 2020, dans nombre de zones rurales du continent africain, mais aussi parfois dans les grandes métropoles, la situation des femmes n’a guère évolué depuis les années 1960, l’époque des indépendances où l’on pensait que tout aller changer à travers un continent en quête de modernité, de culture et d’émancipation. S’il a fait des émules en Afrique, le mouvement Me Too n’a guère touché les parties les plus reculées du continent. Prenant son essor, le Star Feminine Band donne plusieurs concerts à Natitingou mais aussi dans les villages alentour. A chaque fois qu’elles jouent en public, elles rassemblent un public local toujours plus nombreux et curieux quand à la démarche de cette formation iconoclaste. Les femmes viennent en masse, mais plus généralement les parents avec leurs enfants, mais aussi beaucoup de personnes âgées, dans une région où les activités culturelles se limitent souvent aux cérémonies agraires ou funéraires. André Baleguemon et ses talentueuses protégées adaptent des chansons d’inspiration traditionnelle, dans une veine de folklore modernisé. « Nous jouons les danses de rythme waama, nous voulons les mettre à l’honneur. Nous avons composé des chansons en français, en waama et ditamari, deux ethnies méconnues du Nord. Nous chantons aussi des morceaux en langue bariba, ainsi qu’en langue fon, langue majoritaire au Bénin, dans le nouveau répertoire, afin de se faire comprendre du plus grand nombre ». Peba est chanté en waama. Il y est dit que les filles vont à l’école pour être elles mêmes. Chantées en français les paroles de La musique et de Femme africaine sont éloquentes quant aux messages énoncés. Timtilu est chantée en ditamari. Les filles conseillent ici de ne pas délaisser leur culture, mais plutôt de la mettre à l’honneur. Chant d’émancipation en langue peule, Rew Be Me Light, est une ode à la femme, un encouragement pour réussir sa propre carrière et réussir en tant que femme. Fédérateur, Iseo est chanté en bariba. « Hommes et femmes, levons nous, du sud, du centre, du nord, unissons-nous et soyons un pour que le pays évolue ». Il s’agit ici de rassembler les régions et la diversité des cultures du Bénin. Louange à Dieu en peul, Montealla est d’inspiration mandingue dans son interprétation. Chanté en bariba, Idesouse indique que les filles doivent être scolarisées et aller au bout de leurs études pour défendre les valeurs de la femme. Elles doivent se battre d’autant plus afin de gagner cette reconnaissance. Au gré de chacun ces morceaux, chacune des filles de Star Feminine Band apporte sa propre inspiration. André compose tous leurs morceaux. Comme il le concède : « Elles amènent leurs idées. Le rêve de ces filles c’est de devenir des stars au niveau international. Elles doivent montrer la valeur de la femme dans le monde entier. Parler de l’Afrique, accomplir de grandes missions autour des valeurs de la femme. Elles parlent de l’excision, de la maltraitance et des violences faites aux filles. Nous voulons inscrire ces sujets dans le débat politique au Bénin, puis ailleurs en Afrique si cela nous est un jour possible ». Avec beaucoup d’aplomb, un œcuménisme et un charisme indéniables, Star Feminine Band s’impose aujourd’hui comme l’une des fiertés de la région de l’Atakora. Le groupe commence même à susciter des vocations, tout en semant les graines pour la prochaine génération de jeunes filles provinciales, mues par une volonté de fer, forgée du même minerai que les armes de Kaba, héros oublié de l’Atakora. Véritables héroïnes du quotidien, les sept filles du Star Feminine Band incarne le futur et la relève d’une génération en quête de reconnaissance. « Dans les années 1960, Dieu était une jeune fille noire qui chantait » avait coutume de dire le duo de compositeur new-yorkais Carole King et Gerry Coffin. Soixante années plus tard, dans une des provinces oubliées du continent africain, cet adage revêt toute sa valeur. Florent Mazzoleni ////////////////////ENGLISH/////////////////////////////// "Oh woman, African woman Oh woman, Beninese woman Black woman, get up, don't sleep Oh black woman, get up don't sleep You can become president of the republic Lead You can become the country’s Prime Minister Get up, something has to be done African woman, be independent The country needs us, let's go to school Africa needs you, you have to work The world needs us, stand up, let's stand up African woman, be independent" Star Feminine Band "Femme Africaine" Without warning, a group of young girls from a remote region of Benin is shaking up the world of garage rock with breathtaking freshness, ingenuity and energy, playing spot-on, loud and clear. During the first half of the twentieth century, the division of the majority of Africa by European powers introduced a forced modernity throughout most of the continent. In cities and ports, the continent buzzed with new energy as electricity began its timid appearance. Thanks to booming maritime transport, the 78 rpm records brought in by Latin American sailors, in particular Cubans, but also by European soldiers or settlers, had a durable influence on the new musical interests along the African coasts. Gradually, the reinterpretation of Cuban, but also Caribbean, jazz or rhythm’n’ blues music began. For the most part originally from Africa, this music from the Americas acted as a natural truth on the continent. Some orchestras thus decided to "re-Africanize" this Afro-Cuban and black American music heard in ports, public places or broadcasted on the radio. Bars and dance halls, as well as youth associations also played an important role in the dissemination and development of this music. In most African cities, many orchestras were born during the 1950s and 1960s. They became symbols of modernity, like electricity, cars and cinema. The euphoria of the years following independence was therefore set to music by these orchestras. These were partly influenced by Ghanaian dance formations that toured through all the major cities of the Gulf of Benin, from Nigeria to Liberia. The cultural exchanges were fertile. In the early 1960s, the rich local traditions of Benin, starting with trance and voodoo ceremonial music, began to merge with Afro-Cuban, Congolese rumba and high-life. Dozens of orchestras, artists and labels participated in this unprecedented movement. Unlike its population count, Benin is the most prolific African country in terms of record production, especially during the extraordinary exhilaration of the 1970s. In Guinea, Ivory Coast or Mali, each major city or prefecture had at least one modern orchestra, whether in Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Parakou, Ouidah, Natitingou, Abomey or Bohicon. Bands such as the Black Santiagos, the National Jazz of Dahomey, the Super Star of Ouidah, the Picoby Band, the Renova Band of Abomey and the Black Dragons of Porto Novo gained in popularity at the national level. In the mid-1960s, singer Sophie Edia became the first female singer to distribute Beninese music outside of the country's borders, starting with Nigeria. In 1975, Unesco promoted the International Women’s Year, an event designed to raise awareness of the role of women in many countries, where their role is too often downplayed or flouted. This initiative had a considerable impact on the African continent. Whether in Mali with Fanta Damba, in Côte d'Ivoire with Mamadou Doumbia, in Cameroon with Anne-Marie Nzie, in Congo Brazzaville with Les Bantous de la Capitale or in Burkina Faso with Echo del Africa, they all paid tribute to this initiative. All over French-speaking Africa, people were awakening to women's rights. In 1976, the Cameroonian poet Francis Bebey published the eloquent La Condition Masculine. Under its humorous airs, this gem challenged morals with lightness and tact. "You don't know Sizana Sizana is my wife She's my wife since we've been married for over seventeen years now She used to be very nice I would say to her "Sizana, give me water" And she would bring me water to drink Clear water, huh, very good! I would say, "Sizana, do this" "Do that" and she would obey And I was happy Ah, I tell you that Sizana, Sizana, she used to be a very good wife But, these past few days, these people They brought the female condition here Apparently over there, where they live, they put a woman in an office So that she can give orders to men Ouch, have you ever heard such a thing? " His fellow countryman Ali Baba ploughed the same furrow with La Condition Féminine, on ne tape pas la femme (The Feminine Condition, you don't hit a woman). In Ivory Coast, Sidiki Bakaba recited a poem by Léopold Sédar Senghor on the eloquent Femme noir (Black Woman) 45 rpm, set to spiritual jazz. In Benin, in 1977, drummer Danialou Sagbohan recorded the eloquent Viva, femme africaine (Viva, African woman), a founding song for women’s rights in his country. However, the enthusiasm of these years of emancipation dropped during the 1980s, with its share of forced unions, early pregnancies, various forms of violence and female genital mutilation, particularly in Sahelian Africa. In 1989, Oumou Sangaré, a young Malian singer from Wassoulou, recorded the historic Moussoulou ("Women"), with clear and acoustic tones. Powerful and impactful, her song influenced many female singers on the continent during the following decades. This first opus offered a striking snapshot of the condition of West African women in the late 1980s. When she started out, she sang in the streets of Bamako in order to earn enough to eat. Oumou Sangaré radically modernized the tradition of local singers. She immediately seduces the listener with her feline voice, but also with her lyrics which denounce polygamy, forced marriages or female genital mutilation, advocating sensuality, pride and unambiguous femininity. Her success was immediate, with millions of cassettes sold throughout all West African markets. Oumou Sangaré reached the status of African popstar. A Malian woman of her time, she embodied the triumph of love and female emotions in all circumstances. If the music on which she sings is attractive, daring and full of life, her words impose a new way of seeing things. These words weighed more than the music. Inspired by social events and her immediate environment, a free woman, she spoke her truth. Her music, apolitical but feminist, had a wide impact. Her message about African women was widely heard, both on the continent and throughout the rest of the world. During the 1990s, the Beninese Angélique Kidjo also established herself as one of the great African female singers. She proudly promoted Beninese musical heritage. Born in 1960 in Ouidah, the cradle of voodooism, she was raised in the world of theater and African-American sounds. As a teenager, she made a name for herself throughout the country thanks to her radio appearances. At the start of her career, she was accompanied by the Poly Rythmo of Cotonou, formed in 1969. The most legendary orchestra of the country, according to an enormous discography that includes hundreds of singles, albums as well as countless tours around the world. In 1980, Angélique Kidjo recorded her first album Pretty in Paris under the leadership of the Cameroonian Ekambi Brillant. Its success in West Africa was immediate. She moved to France in 1983 when music from Africa was all the hype. She joined different bands, before going solo and establishing herself as the greatest female voice of Benin. Forty years later, her successors and compatriots are about to shine bright. The last big city on the main road that criss-crosses northwestern Benin, peaceful Natitingou stretches out on either side of a strip of asphalt. After a fifteen hour drive from the business capital of Cotonou, this city offers a valuable stopover before heading to Burkina Faso, Togo or the huge Pendjari reserve, via Tanguiéta, where the vast Sahelian plains begin and where the last great wild animals to have escaped the madness of mankind take refuge. One of the region’s main crossover cities located at the crossroads of four countries, Natitingou controls the access to the Atakora hills region, which surrounds the city. Landlocked, the city of Natitingou is largely isolated from the rest of Benin, dependent on road deliveries and subject to power cuts and sometimes hostile natural elements. Steadily reluctant to any form of domination, this region’s hero is named Kaba. At the start of the First World War, he refused compulsory military service and led a fierce guerrilla war against colonial oppression. This lost war ended in a bloodbath in 1917. Upon leaving the city, the Kaba museum tells the story of the resistance of the Somba people, in particular through its evocation of its culture, its ceremonies, its iron work and even its circular huts with conical roofs, often raised and fortified, called tatas that are found in a good part of the Sahel. Kaba gave his name to one of Natitingou's first orchestras, Kaba Diya. Active between 1979 and 1983, it released a unique record of modern music in 1980, representative of the culture of its region, starting with the artwork. If Kaba Diya had the opportunity of releasing an LP, so did other local bands. A historical group formed in 1960, the Bopeci orchestra, released two 45 rpm records. On the other hand, Nati Fiesta, Tchankpa Jazz or L’Echo de l'Atakora never had a chance to release their songs on vinyl. More recently, since the mid 90s, Gay Stone, Cool Star, Ata Echo, Les 3 Couleurs, the Tchingas band, Zénith Temple, Excelsior and also since 2017 the FMG formation have been livening up the nights of Natitingou and Atakora. Culturally and musically, this region of North-West Benin is more ​​influenced by the Sahel than by the South of the country, by sato, voodoo and modernized folklore developed by groups like the Black Santiagos orchestra which gave birth to Afrobeat in the mid-1960s, before being adopted and developed by Fela Kuti. It is in this region full of contrast, of both green and rocky landscapes, that the seven young stars of the Star Feminine Band grew up. Often taken out of school and sent to sell peanuts, bananas, gari or tchoucoutou, a local millet drink on the side of the road, most young girls in the region have little future to look forward to. Forced marriages and early pregnancies in the majority of cases. Aware of this insecurity, a musician named André Baleguemon decided to form an exclusively female band rooted in the concerns of its time. He puts the spotlight on the guitar, drums and keyboard, instruments he has admired since his childhood, symbols of modernity in this remote region. His observation is simple: "In the North, girls have no room to advance and women are put aside. I simply wanted to show the importance of women in the societies of North Benin by forming a female orchestra ". Originally from Tchaourou, a vast commune located in central eastern Benin, André Balaguemon developed a passion for music at a very young age. During the 1990s, he joined the Sam 11 orchestra in Parakou, in the northeastern part of the country, where he successively played trumpet and guitar. In 1999, he spent some time in Cotonou before settling in the northwest, in order to reconnect with his roots and musical passions. On July 25th, 2016, with the support of the city of Natitingou, André launched a press release on Nanto FM offering to help train girls in music for free. A few days later, dozens of aspiring musicians showed up at the Youth Center. “The girls who came didn't know anything about music. We selected seven girls of the Waama and Nabo ethnic groups from the surrounding villages, some had never even seen these types of instruments before. " Since the independence era, having your own instruments has always been the prerequisite of any self-respected African orchestra. With drums, two guitars, keyboards and some added percussion purchased by André, the first musical tests began with his new recruits, a handful of young girls among the most motivated. The girls quickly became passionate about their new musical activities, learning how to play drums, guitar, piano and sing vocal harmonies. Their progress was astounding. An intense work of musical training took place, starting with drum workshops, their favorite instrument. Angelique and Urrice on drums and vocals, assisted by Marguerite, the third drummer. Sandrine is on keyboards, as is Grace, who also sings vocals. Julienne is on bass and Anne on guitar. As the founding influence of their approach, André readily quotes Angélique Kidjo, “our main inspiration. She is a woman you cannot ignore. Miriam Makeba is also a source of pride, as is Sagbohan Danialou, Stanislas Tohon. Kaba Diya, the great regional orchestra, also inspired us a lot. ” André's determination is one of the key elements of this human and artistic success. The girls have already performed dozens of concerts in the region, forging and expanding an already solid repertoire, while attracting an ever-increasing local audience. In addition to musical progress, he has been personally involved with each family, showing them the importance of his project, both musically and humanly and in particular the fact that each girl must remain in school and not be forced into marriage. There are very few female bands in the history of popular African music. If the Amazones de Guinée, la Famille Bassavé and les Colombes de la Révolution in Burkina, the Sœurs Comoë in Ivory Coast or the Lijadu Sisters in Nigeria notably come to mind, Star Feminine Band has no equivalent in Benin. The originality, carefree attitude, freedom, and above all the talent of these young girls is undeniable. At the end of 2018, their encounter with the young French sound engineer Jérémie Verdier accelerated the course of things. On a mission in the region, he called on his Spanish friends Juan Toran and Juan Serra who showed up with their recording equipment in order to record the band’s first songs in the annex of the local museum. Random encounters and fate led Jean-Baptiste Guillot to hear the tapes. He decided to go meet them at the end of 2019. This short but memorable journey sealed the fate of the record you are now holding in your hands. Now aged nine to fifteen, the seven girls of the Star Feminine Band continue to go to school. André installed a rehearsal room in an annex of the Departmental Museum of Natitingou. Several times a week, the seven young girls get together, inhabited by the noblest aspirations, those of singing their culture, their feminine condition and their possible emancipation. They rehearse three times a week, from 4 to 7 p.m. During school holidays, they rehearse daily from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s 2020 but the situation of women in many rural areas of the African continent and also sometimes in large metropolises, has hardly changed since the 1960s, the era of independence when it was believed that everything would change in this continent that was searching for modernity, culture and emancipation. Although there were some followers of the Me Too movement in Africa, it hardly touched the most remote parts of the continent. The Star Feminine Band is taking off. Performing several concerts in Natitingou but also in the surrounding villages. Each time they play in public, they bring together an ever-increasing and curious local audience when it comes to this one of a kind training. Women come en masse, as well as parents with their children, but also many elderly people, in a region where cultural activities are often limited to agricultural or funeral ceremonies. André Baleguemon and his talented protégés adapt songs of traditional inspiration, in a vein of modernized folklore. “We play waama rhythm dances, we want to honor them. We compose songs in French, waama and ditamari, two unknown ethnic groups from the North. We also sing songs in the Bariba language, as well as the Fon language, the main language in Benin, in the new repertoire, in order to be understood by as many people as possible.” Peba is sung in waama. It’s about girls going to school in order to be themselves. Sung in French, the lyrics of La Musique and Femme africaine speak for themselves. Timtilu is sung in ditamari. In this song, the girls give the advice to not abandon your culture, but rather to honor it. A song of emancipation in the peul language, Rew Be Me Light, is an ode to women, an encouragement to succeed in your own career and succeed as a woman. A unifying song, Iseo is sung in bariba. “Men and women, let us rise, from the south, from the center, from the north, let us unite and be one so that the country can evolve”. This song is about bringing together the regions and the diversity of cultures in Benin. Praise be to God in peul, Montealla’s interpretation was inspired by mandingo. Sung in bariba, Idesouse indicates that girls must go to school until the end of their studies in order to defend the values ​​of women. They have to fight all the more in order to gain this recognition. Through all of these songs, each of the Star Feminine Band members brings their own inspiration. André composes all their songs. He admits: “They bring their ideas. The dream of these girls is to become international stars. They must show the importance of women throughout the world. Speak of Africa, accomplish great missions around the values ​​of women. They talk about female genital mutilation, abuse and violence against girls. We want to include these subjects in the political debate in Benin, then elsewhere in Africa if this is ever possible ”. With much confidence, an undeniable ecumenism and charisma, Star Feminine Band is one of the prides of the Atakora region. The band is even starting to instigate vocations, while sowing the seeds for the next generation of provincial girls, driven by an iron will, forged of the same mineral as the weapons of Kaba, forgotten hero of the Atakora. True heroines of everyday life, the seven girls of the Star Feminine Band embody the future and the next generation in search of recognition. “In the 1960s, God was a black girl who sang” used to say New York composer duo Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Sixty years later, in one of the forgotten provinces of the African continent, this adage takes on its full value. Florent Mazzoleni

"Albums to look out for in September" - The Vinyl Factory DJ support by Tom Ravenscroft (BBC 6 Music), Lena Willikens, Sue Zuki, Moxie, Gabi (Do You), Ivan Smagghe & Nathan Gregory Wilkins. TVII SON's self-titled album is a glorious concoction of local and global, and combines rich immersion in music history and in-the-moment immediacy with uncanny ease. The trio of Florian, Mika Shkurat and vocalist / writer Lucy Zoria make, essentially, a kind of stripped-to-the-bone industrial dub, fizzing with white noise and quivering with soundsystem bass – but given a glorious pop infectiousness, thanks to the earworm phrases and phrasing of Lucy's vocals. The name was chosen purely for how cool the letters look on the page but conceals intriguing lyricism (it means "your dream" in Ukrainian), and likewise their sound's simplicity hides deep intellect and emotion. Their roots are deep in both Kyiv and Berlin, with a sprinkling of extra cosmopolitanism from Lucy's part-American upbringing. Beneath the surface simplicity lies an intellectual and musical richness that belies all three members' backgrounds in punk / alternative scenes, and their immersion in everything from 90s WARP records to anime soundtracks. And there's both a vivid expression of Berlin's deep rooted electronic music culture and a proud sense of increasingly confident Ukrainian identity, still carrying the energy of the 2014 revolution even as its optimism has mutated into something darker and perhaps more determined. The trio's history is tangled – seeds were sown when Mika worked on some visuals for Florian's modular synth band Driftmachine and a lasting friendship was forged. Mika and Lucy didn't meet till much later, despite having many friends in common – but when they did formed the trio Nisantashi Primary School. Florian fell for Lucy's unique style and when Nisantashi played Berlin in 2018, a new collaboration was forged. Over 18 months, they built their frameworks of abstract sounds made into immediate rhythms, with Lucy's style adapting to the grooves until the total sound you hear now had coalesced. You might detect hints of King Midas Sound in the dub spaces, a little Pan Sonic in the crackle and hiss, some classic electroclash in the sass of the songs, even a bit of cheeky dancehall and grime in the sprung rhythms of “Simple Ends” and “Kilang” – but most of all you'll naturally focus on the totality of those songs. It only takes one listen for Lucy's memorable phrases like “clinging to what we love as it slips out of vogue”, and “give me your chastest kiss” to fix in your mind, and a second listen for the songs to become old favourites. The roots of this record might be tangled but its effect is brilliantly, beautifully direct. Words: Joe Muggs

On the heels of her celebrated one-woman debut, *The Oracle*, Angel Bat Dawid is heard at JazzFest Berlin with her band Tha Brothahood on *Live*. The spell she casts on vocals, clarinet, and keyboards is rooted in the legacy of Chicago free jazz, with an approach to song that’s reminiscent of Sun Ra’s and Nina Simone’s. In fact, Sun Ra’s “Enlightenment,” reworked as a doleful out-of-tempo ballad, leads off the set, and already the emotion in Bat Dawid’s voice is palpable. The circumstances at this festival were not altogether happy—a story that rises to the surface on “VIKTORious Return,” which is simply Bat Dawid tearfully greeting bandmate and fellow vocalist Viktor Le Givens, whose arrival in Berlin was delayed by a frightening hospitalization. Working through these and other adversities, she and the group take a strong anti-racist stand from the stage, imploring audience members to join in the grooving communal chant of “Black Family” (“the Black family is the strongest institution in the world”). Bat Dawid offers several other compelling elaborations on material from *The Oracle*, including “London” and “We Are Starzz,” in the company of bassist Dr. Adam Zanolini, drummers Isaiah Collier and Asher Gamedze, and the rest of a deeply simpatico octet. But she also unveils a generous amount of new material, including “Melo Deez From Heab’N,” the rhythmic lilt and phrasing of which capture her funky songcraft at its best.

Reissue press release by Lobster Theremin: Elsa Hewitt’s stunning Citrus Paradisi is receiving the reissue treatment from one of the UK’s most important record labels. The reissue marks Lobster Theremin’s first dip into the indie-electronica sphere; a dreamy, heart-string tugging cut of left-field leaning pop, early Actress influence and Elsa’s distinct psychedelic minimalism. Every track on the record exists within a flexible genre of their own; each one lending itself it’s former as we meander our way through abstract, subtle math rock influence (‘Blood Orange’), down-tempo ambient (‘Drone Babe’) and twinkling high-velocity dreamscapes (‘Rolling In Your Wall’) to mesmerising effect. One of Lobster Theremin label head Asquith’s favourite records of 2019, Jimmy reached out to Elsa to inquire about a potential reissue, following the path he has built for himself in bigging up those he believes in. It’s a stunning and unique blend of moods, textures and thoughts that make for one of the prettiest and most captivating records of last year and now, as it receives the reissue treatment, we get to enjoy it all over again. lobstertheremin.com/album/citrus-paradisi-lp

★★★★ -- Financial Times "A very special album"  -- BBC "A little gift" -- NPR "Groundbreaking" -- Radio France Internationale "An absolute knockout" -- The Vinyl District Financial Times review: on.ft.com/2N6ktCb BBC feature: bbc.in/2BnoYpx RFI feature: bit.ly/3ec97so ------------- The first ever international album from Djibouti and Ostinato's first studio recorded album. This ain't a compilation or reissue! A stunning collision of Indian Bollywood, Jamaican dub and reggae, sleek horns inspired by Harlem’s jazz era, Somali funk, and the haunting and joyous synthesizer melodies of the Red Sea by Groupe RTD, one of East Africa’s best kept secrets. Recorded in three days with a state-of-the-art mobile recording studio replete with the very best audio interfaces and carefully positioned microphones around a less than soundproof room to achieve a vibrant, professional sound while maintaining the analog warmth of decades prior. A portion of Bandcamp sales will be donated in equal parts to: • The Djiboutian Embassy in Germany to purchase masks and other essential supplies for Djibouti. • Amref Health Africa Covid-19 Fund (amref.org/donations/covid19/) ------------- More than one news report refers to Djibouti as “a place where nothing ever happened” that “would not register significantly in the global consciousness except for its strategic location in East Africa." These deeply ill-informed observations could not be further from the truth. While the music of Somalia is widely celebrated, its neighbor, the Republic of Djibouti, formerly known as French Somaliland, is home to an equally deep reservoir of its own unique Somali music. The small but culturally grand country on the mouth of Red Sea remains one of the few places in the world where music is still entirely the domain of the state. Since independence in 1977, one-party rule brought most music under its wing, with almost every band a national enterprise. No foreign entities have been permitted to work with Djibouti’s rich roster of music — until now. In 2016, Ostinato Records met with senior officials of Radiodiffusion-Télévision Djibouti (RTD), a.k.a. the national radio, to discuss a vision for lifting the shroud on Djiboutian music as the young country of less than a million people increasingly opens up to the world. Three years later, in 2019, Ostinato became the first label granted full authorization to access the national radio’s archives, one of the largest and best preserved in Africa, home to thousands of reels of Somali and Afar music. But just next door, in RTD’s recording studio, a world class band entirely unknown outside the country, whose songs are a living embodiment of the archives, lay in waiting. Composed of sensational new, young talent backed by old masters, the band — Groupe RTD — is the national ceremony outfit. By day, they perform for presidential and national events and welcome foreign dignitaries. By night, when no longer on official duty, Groupe RTD is clearly one of East Africa’s best kept secrets. Helmed by Mohamed Abdi Alto, possibly the most unheralded saxophone virtuoso in all of Africa, a Djiboutian national treasure, and the horn maestro on track 8 of our Grammy-nominated Sweet As Broken Dates compilation, and mentored by Abdirazak Hagi Sufi, originally from Mogadishu and composer of track 9 on the same compilation, Groupe RTD is the finest expression of Djibouti’s cosmopolitan music style. Situated on the Bab El Mandeb (Gate of Tears) strait, a historic corridor of global trade connecting the Suez Canal and the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean, Djibouti is blessed with influences from East Asia, the Arabian peninsula, India, and even more distant sounds. Djiboutian music, particularly the addictive brand wielded by Groupe RTD, is, by their own admission, the juncture where Indian Bollywood vocal styles, offbeat licks of Jamaican dub and reggae, sleek horns inspired by Harlem’s jazz era, Somali funk and the haunting and joyous synthesizer melodies of the Red Sea collide. Sax player Mohamed Abdi Alto — so talented that they added “Alto” to his legal name — honed his trade from a steady diet of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Abdirazak’s guitar style draws heavily from his love affair with Jamaican music. Young singers Asma Omar, who won a youth talent contest to join the band, and Hassan Omar Houssein are fluent in the classic hits of Bollywood and Indian music. Synth player Moussa Aden Ainan brings a distinctly dexterous Somali touch, reminiscent of the exceptional keys work of Somalia’s Iftin and Waaberi Band. Their sound is kept afloat by measured Tadjouran rhythms, courtesy of drummer Omar Farah Houssein and dumbek player Salem Mohamed Ahmed’s perfect interplay. But recording this album was Ostinato’s biggest challenge yet. A web of bureaucracy and strict rules had to be navigated. Djibouti’s authorities gave us only three days to record the entire set, with no extension. Up for the task and eager to deliver, the musicians promptly tore down the “no smoking or chewing khat” sign in RTD’s recording studio and began a heated, three-day, khat-fueled devilish feast of music amid a smokey haze, unleashing the very reason the band was founded: to strut Djibouti’s majestic music on the world stage when the opportunity arrived. The recording equipment in the radio had not been upgraded in decades and technical neglect meant we had to devise a novel approach to ensure the highest quality recording possible. With the help of Djibouti’s head of customs, we flew in a state-of-the-art mobile recording studio replete with the very best audio interfaces and carefully positioned microphones around a less than soundproof room to achieve a vibrant, professional sound while maintaining the analog warmth of decades prior. This game-changing setup, a far cry from the old days of field recordings, is Ostinato’s vision for the future: to capture the contemporary sounds of Africa and the world flawlessly, in any environment or circumstance. We proudly present Ostinato’s premier studio recorded album and the first ever international album to emerge from Djibouti — Groupe RTD: The Dancing Devils of Djibouti. This album, if listened to at an inappropriate volume, should firmly register Djibouti in the global consciousness, shifting its image from a strategic outpost of geopolitical games to cultural powerhouse.

Springing from a decades deep body of work, defined by a rigorously singular and adventurous approach to sound, cellist, composer, and improvisor, Okkyung Lee, returns with Yeo-Neun, her first outing with Shelter Press, and arguably her most groundbreaking and unexpected album to date. A vital, present force in the contemporary global landscape of experimental music, Okkyung Lee is widely regarded for her solo and collaborative improvisations and compositions, weaving a continuously evolving network of sonority and event, notable for its profound depth of instrumental sensitivity, exacting intellect, and visceral emotiveness. Yeo-Neun, recorded by Yeo-Neun Quartet - an experimental chamber music ensemble founded in 2016 and led by Lee on cello, featuring harpist Maeve Gilchrist, pianist Jacob Sacks, and bassist Eivind Opsvik - represents the culmination of one of longest and most intimate arcs in her remarkable career. A radical departure from much of the experimental language for which she has become widely known, it is equally a fearless return. Yeo-Neun loosely translates to the gesture of an opening in Korean, presenting window into the poetic multiplicity that rests at the album’s core. Balanced at the outer reaches of Lee’s radically forward thinking creative process, its 10 discrete works are born of the ambient displacement of musician’s life; intimate melodic constructions and deconstructions that traces their roots across the last 30 years, from her early days spent away from home studying the cello in Seoul and Boston, to her subsequent move to New York and the nomadism of a near endless routine of tours. At its foundation, lay glimpses of a once melancholic teen, traces of the sentimentality and sensitivity (감성 / Gahmsung) that underpins the Korean popular music of Lee’s youth, and an artist for whom the notions of time, place, and home have become increasingly complex. Elegantly binding modern classical composition and freely improvised music with the emotive drama of Korean traditional music and popular ballads, the expanse of Yeo-Neun pushes toward the palpably unknown, as radical for what it is and does, as it for its approachability. In Lee’s hands, carried by a body of composition that rests beyond the prescriptive boundaries of culture, genre, geography, and time, a vision of the experimental avant-garde emerges as a music of experience, humanity, and life. Meandering melodies, from the deceptively simple to the tonally and structurally complex, slowly evolve and fall from view, the harp, piano, and bass forming an airy, liminal non-place, through which Lee’s cello and unplaceable memories freely drift. Remarkably honest, unflinchingly beautiful, and creatively challenging, Shelter Press is proud to present Yeo-Neun, an album that takes one the most important voices in contemporary experimental music, Okkyung Lee, far afield into an unknown future, bound to her past. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker, housed in reversed-board printed inner and outer sleeve with artwork by American photographer Ron Jude.

Following her breakout EP, SiS, Jasmine Infiniti returns with thirteen disruptive club tracks fit for the The Infernal Ballroom. On her meticulously-crafted debut LP, she conjures occult rave incantations with sub-tectonic bass and spectral, seductive harmonies. Audaciously championing R&B, vogue and hip-hop sounds, Jasmine Infiniti’s latest collection of techno-hybrid dance tunes is bound to be the new soundtrack of NYC’s queer underground nightlife. Where SiS was an ode to queer solidarity, community and sisterhood, BXTCH SLÄP is as much about personal myth-building as it is about claiming individual space as a queer person. BXTCH SLÄP is cunt, unflinching and uncompromising, but it also boasts surprising range—moving briskly between ethereal hardcore house (“HOTT”), the anxious pounding of dark electro (“SPOOKED”), and certifiable techno bangers (“YES, SIR”, “WELLFAIR”). Meanwhile album standout “<3” hovers just above 100 BPM, a defiant statement of sensuality, calmness, and euphoria that’s no less gripping for its dramatic deceleration. Closing number “SHONUFF” clocks in at ten and half minutes; not a second of this adrenaline-rush of an acid techno tune feels wasted. BXTCH SLÄP might be most appropriate for the club, played at dangerously high volumes, but this music certainly takes on a new life after hours, in the moments we spend between the parties, alone and full of desire. The Queen of Hell is back and her powers are stronger than ever. All hail The Queen!

Having uprooted herself from her NYC home after 16 years, ambient composer Julianna Barwick relocated to Los Angeles in search of a fresh start and a new creative path for her first album in four years. She made some changes to her usual recording setup, working for the first time with a pair of studio monitors gifted by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi to work alongside her vocal looping technique. On “Oh, Memory,” she offsets strikingly beautiful soundscapes and the plucking strings of classical harpist Mary Lattimore. Barwick and Jónsi trade harmonies on “In Light,” letting their beatific vocals drift over pounding drum machines and sweeping synths. The guest features are new for Barwick, but her approach is just as minimal and never feels slight, applying a curative touch with her gentle, meditative songs that explore—as the title suggests—both emotional and physical healing.

Four years on from the release of her last, critically acclaimed LP, Julianna Barwick returns with “Healing Is A Miracle”, to be released on July 10th on new home, Ninja Tune. A distinctive meditation on sound, reverb and the voice, “Healing Is A Miracle” is a record built on improvisation and a close affinity to a couple of trusted items of gear, from which she spins engrossing, expansive universes. Additionally, Barwick draws on the input of three collaborators with whom she has nurtured deep friendships with over the years: Jónsi (Sigur Rós), Nosaj Thing and Mary Lattimore; who each gently nudge out at the edges of her organically-evolved sound. Recorded in the wake of a seismic shift in her life following a move from New York—where she had lived for 16 years—to Los Angeles where she is now based, the title of the record came to her after thinking about how the human body heals itself, of the miraculous processes we pay little attention to: “You cut your hand, it looks pretty bad, and two weeks later it looks like it never happened… That’s kind of amazing, you know?” It’s a sentiment that feels particularly apt for the moment. From there, she conceived of the record’s simple statement title, ran it past a couple of friends, and it was settled. Like with the record itself, and all of her work, it’s about following her gut, and seeing where it takes her. “Healing Is A Miracle” began life in spring of last year, when Barwick sat down with her vocal looping set-up and began sketching out some ideas for new solo material. “It had been so long since I had done that,” she recalls, “making something for myself, just for the love of it… it was emotional, because I was recording music that was just from the heart, that wasn't for an 'assignment' or project… it brought me to tears a little”. Part of the joy also came from a small but significant switch up to her recording process: the addition of some studio monitors—a birthday gift from Jónsi and Alex (Somers)—having previously recorded all of her music on headphones. “The first song I remember making with those was the first song on the album, Inspirit.” she explains, “When I added the bass I really felt it in my body, you know, in a way you just wouldn’t with headphones… it was kind of euphoric and fun. I got really excited about making the record in that moment, and I think that really had an impact on the sounds I ended up making.” Excitement too came from the chance to work with three dream collaborators. Her connection to Jónsi began via producer Alex Somers, when Barwick flew to Reykjavík to record some sessions with him for her 2013 record “Nepenthe”, a trip which would begin a long-standing affinity with Iceland and the people she connected with there. “I think he has the best voice in the world,” she says, “and hearing my voice with Jonsi's is one of the joys of my life.” Nosaj Thing—the highly respected electronic producer and stalwart of the LA scene who has worked with the likes of Kendric Lamar—had gotten in touch to express his affection for her 2011 album “The Magic Place”, and they’d since been trying to find a way to work together. Barwick and Lattimore had struck up a friendship over many years performing live together, and had moved to LA around the same time. Finding herself in the same city as all three for the first time, it felt natural to include them in her process, and added to the feeling of newness, support and friendship she had while producing the record. Beyond her records, Barwick’s impressive live shows have gained incredible praise over the years from the likes of The Guardian—who described her performance as “exquisite in its eloquence, reflection and compassion” in their 5* review—The New York Times, NPR, and more. She has also supported and performed with an amazing array of artists including Bon Iver, Grouper, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós, Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Perfume Genius, Mas Ysa, and Nat Baldwin. Barwick has additionally been involved in some head-turning collaborations over the years. In 2015 she took part in The Flaming Lips’s Carnegie Hall show, performing music from their reimagining of “Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band”, alongside Phillip Glass, Debbie Harry, Laurie Anderson and Pattie Smith. That same year she was invited to play two shows with Yoko Ono, one at MoMA (“my favorite thing ever”) and one in Central Park. In 2012 she released a collaborative album with Helado Negro as OMBRE, and has also released a collaborative single with Rafael Anton Isarri, on the super-limited Thesis label, and most recently, the “Command Synthesis” EP, on RVNG Intl. sub-label Commend There, which employed AI to build five tracks that responded to the airborne environment outside a hotel room. In 2019 she teamed up with Doug Aitken on his nomadic art project, and created stunning performances in the Massachusett wilderness. The album’s artwork was shot in Iceland by Joel Kazuo Knoernschild and is taken from a series of aerial films shot by drone above the country’s breathtaking coastline, which also make up the video for ‘Inspirit’.

Presenting the spirit booster that this year needed; the incredible, debut proect from London's Demae (fka Bubblerap and ⅓ of Hawk House) — due on digital and 12” vinyl via Touching Bass. 'Life Works Out...Usually' is a soothing antidote to these turbulent times; a soulful coming-of-age story celebrating black joy, self-empowerment and life learnings centered around an integral two year period of growth and featuring appearances from Fatima (Eglo Records), Joe Armon-Jones, Ego Ella May and Nala Sinephro — all part of our close-knit, London-based musical community. Sonically, it draws a unique line between the grit of inner-city London soul, interstellar Flying Lotus electronic rushes and new-age Dilla-isms mixed with flecks of London’s exciting jazz-influenced sounds. Production comes from rising producers like Eun (Ego Ella May, Denzel Himself), Jake Milliner (Slum Village, Lord Apex), 104.ROG (Liv.e, THEESatisfaction) and Wu-Lu (Ego Ella May). Demae was previously one-third of hip-hop adventurists, Hawk House, whose introspective, eclectic style was reshuffling the rule book for UK-based rap, quickly making them one of the UK’s most exciting emerging sounds and earning fans from Mac Miller and Ghostpoet to Wretch 32 and Jill Scott.  Touching Bass' relationship with Demae runs deep (having met each other back in 2012) making the label the perfect home as they continue to prise open a distinct, exciting lane for themselves as a stable for forward-thinking, soulful music. In a previous life, she built a notorious reputation and following on Soundcloud for creating imaginative covers, demos and flips of tracks under her Bubblerap alias. From Minnie Ripperton and MNDSGN to Missy Elliott and Andre 3000, the tracks have racked up over a million plays. In more recent times, she has also become a fundamental part of Fatima’s touring band as a backing vocalist since the release of her much loved second album And Yet It’s All Love.

Over the last decade, Khruangbin (pronounced “krung-bin”) has mastered the art of setting a mood, of creating atmosphere. But on *Mordechai*, follow-up to their 2018 breakthrough *Con Todo El Mundo*, the Houston trio makes space in their globe-spinning psych-funk for something that’s been largely missing until now: vocals. The result is their most direct work to date. From the playground disco of “Time (You and I)” to the Latin rhythms of “Pelota”—inspired by a Japanese film, but sung in Spanish—to the balmy reassurances of “If There Is No Question,” much of *Mordechai* has the immediacy of an especially adventurous pop record. Even moments of hallucinogenic expanse (“One to Remember”) or haze (“First Class”) benefit from the added presence of a human voice. “Never enough paper, never enough letters,” they sing from inside a shower of West African guitar notes on “So We Won’t Forget,” the album’s high point. “You don’t have to be silent.”