A heavyweight astral shower of rhythm and vibes, Ash Walker’s third album ‘Aquamarine’ is set for release on 19th July via Night Time Stories. An avid collector of jazz, blues, soul, funk, reggae, and all things in-between; Ash has DJed far and wide... from the infamous Royal Mail squat party to the canals of Venice, spinning vinyl in Brixton with The Specials to scattering dub across San Francisco and LA. Ash’s production output is similarly exploratory: his journeys have taken him far and wide, from tunnels under the river Thames to recording local percussionists in the Atlas mountains of Morocco. Inspired by a deep dive of sounds from artists including Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, King Tubby, Bo Diddley, 4Hero, J Dilla, Pete Rock, Curtis Mayfield, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich; his first two albums, ‘Augmented 7th’ (2015) and ‘Echo Chamber’ (2016) gained attention from the likes of BBC 6 Music DJs Gilles Peterson, Don Letts, Gideon Coe and Clash Magazine, XLR8R and MIMS. ‘Aquamarine’ is a projection and culmination of all he’s absorbed. A cosmic explosion of sound and colour, rhythm, shape and patterns. The arrival of an unassuming dreamer now projecting his unique flavour of expression. ‘Aquamarine’ is the take-off of this audial spaceship, a sound discovered in the grooves of thousands of records, united in one. A meditation designed to inspire good energy, Ash hopes to bring a sense of calm and tranquility to the listener amongst the chaos of life. Recorded at home with the freedom of time and space, it combines analogue with digital, and a fondness for normally unwanted shapes and textures such as fuzz, hiss and crackle. “My previous albums have felt to me more like ventures on land. This one feels more like a deep sea voyage into the subconscious. Living to dream with visions of grandeur. Manifesting a beautiful path to walk on. It was inspired by everything around me, from friends and family to art and design, engineering and architecture, movement and how we use our five senses. I love to try and push my own boundaries of what I perceive to be right and wrong, seeing mistakes as innovations, and obstacles as inspiration.” Highlights on the album include ‘Under The Sun’, ‘Time’ and ‘Finishing Touch’, all of which feature the smooth and silky voice of Laville. Themes of metaphysical exploration and transportation re-occur in the cosmic jazz of ‘Brave New World’ and the smoked beats on ‘Come With Us’. Also featured across the album are trumpet and flugelhorn genius Yazz Ahmed, bassist Marc Cyril (Keziah Jones, Jr Walker & The All Stars) and renowned musician and producer Jonathan Shorten. Having already graced the stages of some of the biggest UK festivals as well as as The Jazz Cafe and Rich Mix, The Ash Walker Experience is a formidable six piece live lineup. Ash has collaborated with Ezra Lloyd-Jackson to turn each performance into a vibrant, multi-sensory experience combining live reactive projections and carefully crafted frequency complimenting fragrances. Previous press: “A sound that is truly in a world of it’s own” Gideon Coe “A real sense of flexibility. Lush sonics with a beatific vibe” Clash Magazine “Definitely one to watch out for” Tom Ravenscroft “Always delivering solid, timeless grooves” Don Letts “Relentlessly Killer Grooves”Gilles Peterson
Sam Barker is a resident DJ at Berghain, Berlin’s celebrated temple of techno, and as one half of the duo Barker & Baumecker, he has crafted plenty of hard-hitting tracks perfectly calibrated for the club’s cavernous post-industrial interior. On his debut solo album, though, Barker takes a different tack, excising the drums and other outward attributes of conventional techno until all that’s left is a billowing swirl of richly colored synths. Yet for all the music’s resemblance to the ambient techno of the mid-’90s, *Utility* isn’t really ambient music, save for the ethereal “Wireheading” and the downbeat closer “Die-Hards of the Darwinian Order.” Pulsing and flickering, filled up with pumping chords reminiscent of the Chain Reaction label’s dubby drift, the end result is a kind of techno by another means, where all the hard surfaces have melted away. Like rushing floodwaters, it carries real force beneath its fluid exterior.
“We all dance away our lives to the tune of the sovereign pleasure-pain axis.” – David Pearce, The Hedonistic Imperative Pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance as a rave metaphor fits the music of Sam Barker. The Berghain resident and Leisure System co-founder has spent the last few years exploring the euphoric potential of altering key variables in dance music formulas. This was especially true on his 2018 Ostgut Ton debut EP ‘Debiasing’, which was flush with unconventional rhythmic chord stabs, melody and percussion but devoid of kickdrums. Now, on his debut solo LP ‘Utility’, he turns his focus toward melding experimentation and dancefloor pragmatism with the psychology behind the musical decision making process. ‘Utility’ is a playful but non-ironic musical approach to a whole spectrum of utilitarian and transhumanist ideas: from models for quantifying pleasure and “gradients of bliss” to abolishing suffering for sentient beings (not just people) through the ethical use of drugs and nanotechnology. Over nine tracks his vision ebbs and flows through waves of deeply psychedelic musical vignettes; free-floating and futuristic melodies and rhythms as targeted brain stimulation. The sound draws heavily on modular synthesis, as well as self-built mechanical instruments and plate reverbs to create atmospheres that are at once alien and emotionally recognizable, functional and utopian.
An expressive electronic album with the kind of positive, stirring resolve that leaves you feeling utterly comforted, Bjarki’s new album ‘Happy Earthday’ is influenced by his home country Iceland as well as environmental issues. Having released bodies of work on трип and his own label bbbbbb, Bjarki views ‘Happy Earthday’ as his proper debut album; he feels it’s a more coherent and conceptual body of work that finds him offering up music he never thought he would release. The album contains very personal material written over the last decade during fragile moments of introspection. Says Bjarki on the album: “You can consider this album as a window into my head and even my soul. It reflects my thoughts at the time I made this music. For me it is a bit odd, sharing it like this with the world. As a very private person I am not used to open my door so completely, it can be a little scary for me. What if … I tend to think, expecting all kinds of everything. Releasing this album is also a kind of a farewell to music I made in a certain period in my life. It’s like I’m saying farewell to a grown-up child which is now ready to leave. When facing the world, the music undergoes many changes from my point of view. It becomes global, ceased to be obeyed by my thoughts. Now it’s yours, the folks that listens, thinks, speculates about it, consumes and develops a private opinion. Not one, or two, but many, even thousands. And your opinion is equally as ‘right’ as mine, or maybe more. That’s how art is. When published, the understanding or opinion is even more of the consumers than the artist. He has lost his control over it and for me that is the scary part. Again, what if … My music is under a heave influence from my inheritance as an Icelander, my upbringing, my family, surroundings and of course the music and artists I have listened to all my life. That’s how things are. Maybe you can feel the melancholy of my life, the nature overall. Volcanos and the lava flowing down the slopes, the frightening noise of the ocean beating the land, the strong wind in the mountain passes and a glimpse of the first ray of the rising sun over the glacier. Now that is the dawn of a new day.”
London's Touching Bass are excited to be collaborating with Melbourne's Wondercore Island to present 'Pareidolia' — the debut album from self-taught, multi-instrumentalist producer and Hiatus Kaiyote drummer, Clever Austin (aka Perrin Moss). Born near the Blue Mountains in Australia and originally a hip-hop producer, Moss counts some of the world’s most acclaimed drummers and producers as his fans (Questlove, Pharrell Williams, Erykah Badu, Chris Daddy Dave, Flying Lotus). Much like his Grammy-nominated work for HK, Pareidolia is a genre-bending sonic and emotive pilgrimage with virtuosic, percussive groove at its core. Conceived via countless nights in his home studio, it dreamily roams across 16 tracks which slowly unravel with the cinematic feel of a movie; all mixed and self-produced over a period of two years. Guest appearances are spontaneous, late night drop-ins, cross town musical crossovers and moments of respect paid to established and emerging innovators. Touching Bass are proud to be the first UK label to introduce the mesmeric talents of Texas native, Jon Bap on first single “Blue Tongue”. Elsewhere, fresh from her well-received 2018 release on Brainfeeder, Georgia Anne Muldrow blesses “You Are All You Need” with her mercurial voice. Closer to home, Cazeusx O.S.L.O’s baritone spoken word grounds “Mothership Strip” and Brisbane-born multidisciplinary artist, Laneous (aka Lachlan Mitchell) croons on “Catapult”. As with most organic collaborations, the label connection was a result of sheer serendipity. Touching Bass founder, Errol, has been following Clever Austin and the Wondercore Island mixtape series since 2013. But it took until 2018 — during their debut Australia/Japan tour — for him and Alex Rita to make their own way to Melbourne. One night, following on from a Touching Bass event, the pair got involved in a late night jam session at Clever Austin’s studio with Lori, Silent Jay and Mandarin Dreams’ Kuzich. “We were all bigging up and sharing music made by friends in our respective homelands but when Perrin started playing his own project, everyone was just in silence. He’d crafted something that was equal parts peculiar, innovative and so beautiful that it brought us to tears. That’s when we knew it was special.” Pareidolia further cements a trans-global cultural exchange between the soulful sounds emanating from Melbourne and London.
Look past its futurist textures and careful obfuscations, and there’s something deeply human about FKA twigs’ 21st-century R&B. On her second full-length, the 31-year-old British singer-songwriter connects our current climate to that of Mary Magdalene, a healer whose close personal relationship with Christ brought her scorn from those who would ultimately write her story: men. “I\'m of a generation that was brought up without options in love,” she tells Apple Music. “I was told that as a woman, I should be looked after. It\'s not whether I choose somebody, but whether somebody chooses me.” Written and produced by twigs, with major contributions from Nicolas Jaar, *MAGDALENE* is a feminist meditation on the ways in which we relate to one another and ourselves—emotionally, sexually, universally—set to sounds that are at once modern and ancient. “Now it’s like, ‘Can you stand up in my holy terrain?’” she says, referencing the titular lyric from her mid-album collaboration with Future. “‘How are we going to be equals in this? Spiritually, am I growing? Do you make me want to be a better person?’ I’m definitely still figuring it out.” Here, she walks us through the album track by track. **thousand eyes** “All the songs I write are autobiographical. Anyone that\'s been in a relationship for a long time, you\'re meshed together. But unmeshing is painful, because you have the same friends or your families know each other. No matter who you are, the idea of leaving is not only a heart trauma, but it\'s also a social trauma, because all of a sudden, you don\'t all go to that pub that you went to together. The line \[\'If I walk out the door/A thousand eyes\'\] is a reference to that. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Gregorian music. I’d started really getting into medieval chords before that, and I\'d found some musicians that play medieval music and done a couple sessions with them. Even on \[2014\'s\] *LP1*, I had ‘Closer,’ which is essentially a hymn. I spent a lot of time in choir as a child and I went to Sunday school, so it’s part of who I am at this stage.” **home with you** “I find things like that interesting in the studio, just to play around and bring together two completely different genres—like Elton John chords and a hip-hop riff. That’s what ‘home with you’ was for me: It’s a ballad and it\'s sad, but then it\'s a bop as well, even though it doesn\'t quite ever give you what you need. It’s about feeling pulled in all directions: as a daughter, or as a friend, or as a girlfriend, or as a lover. Everyone wanting a piece of you, but not expressing it properly, so you feel like you\'re not meeting the mark.” **sad day** “It’s like, ‘Will you take another chance with me? Can we escape the mundane? Can we escape the cyclical motion of life and be in love together and try something that\'s dangerous and exhilarating? Yeah, I know I’ve made you sad before, but will you give me another chance?\' I wrote this song with benny blanco and Koreless. I love to set myself challenges, and it was really exciting to me, the challenge of retaining my sound while working with a really broad group of people. I was lucky working with Benny, in the fact that he creates an environment where, as an artist, you feel really comfortable to be yourself. To me, that\'s almost the old-school definition of a producer: They don\'t have to be all up in your grill, telling you what to do. They just need to lay a really beautiful, fertile soil, so that you can grow to be the best you in the moment.” **holy terrain** “I’m saying that I want to find a man that can stand up next to me, in all of my brilliance, and not feel intimidated. To me, Future’s saying, ‘Hey, I fucked up. I filled you with poison. I’ve done things to make you jealous. Can you heal me? Can you tell me how to be a better man? I need the guidance, of a woman, to show me how to do that.’ I don\'t think that there are many rappers that can go there, and just put their cards on the table like that. I didn\'t know 100%, once I met Future, that it would be right. But we spoke on the phone and I played him the album and I told him what it was about: ‘It’s a very female-positive, femme-positive record.’ And he was just like, ‘Yeah. Say no more. I\'ve got this.’ And he did. He crushed it. To have somebody who\'s got patriarchal energy come through and say that, wanting to stand up and be there for a woman, wanting to have a woman that\'s an equal—that\'s real.” **mary magdalene** “Let’s just imagine for one second: Say Jesus and Mary Magdalene are really close, they\'re together all the time. She\'s his right-hand woman, she’s his confidante, she\'s healing people with him and a mystic in her own right. So, at that point, any man and woman that are spending that much time together, they\'re likely to be what? Lovers. Okay, cool. So, if Mary had Jesus\' children, that basically debunks the whole of history. Now, I\'m not saying that happened. What I\'m saying is that the idea of people thinking that might happen is potentially really dangerous. It’s easier to call her a whore, because as soon as you call a woman a whore, it devalues her. I see her as Jesus Christ\'s equal. She’s a male projection and, I think, the beginning of the patriarchy taking control of the narrative of women. Any woman that\'s done anything can be subject to that; I’ve been subject to that. It felt like an apt time to be talking about it.” **fallen alien** “When you\'re with someone, and they\'re sleeping, and you look at them, and you just think, \'No.\' For me, it’s that line, \[\'When the lights are on, I know you/When you fall asleep, I’ll kick you down/By the way you fell, I know you/Now you’re on your knees\'\]. You\'re just so sick of somebody\'s bullshit, you\'re just taking it all day, and then you\'re in bed next to them, and you\'re just like, ‘I can\'t take this anymore.’” **mirrored heart** “People always say, ‘Whoever you\'re with, they should be a reflection of yourself.’ So, if you\'re looking at someone and you think, ‘You\'re a shitbag,’ then you have to think about why it was that person, at that time, and what\'s connecting you both. What is the reflection? For others that have found a love that is a true reflection of themselves, they just remind me that I don\'t have that, a mirrored heart.” **daybed** “Have you ever forgotten how to spell a really simple word? To me, depression\'s a bit like that: Everything\'s quite abstract, and even slightly dizzy, but not in a happy way. It\'s like a very slow circus. Suddenly the fruit flies seem friendly, everything in the room just starts having a different meaning and you even have a different relationship with the way the sofa cushions smell. \[Masturbation\] is something to raise your endorphins, isn\'t it? It’s either that or try and go to the gym, or try and eat something good. You almost can\'t put it into words, but we\'ve all been there. I sing, \'Active are my fingers/Faux, my cunnilingus\': You\'re imagining someone going down on you, but they\'re actually not. You open your eyes, and you\'re just there, still on your sofa, still watching daytime TV.” **cellophane** “It\'s just raw, isn\'t it? It didn\'t need a thing. The vocal take that\'s on the record is the demo take. I had a Lyft arrive outside the studio and I’d just started playing the piano chords. I was like, ‘Hey, can you just give me like 20, 25 minutes?’ And I recorded it as is. I remember feeling like I wanted to cry, but I just didn\'t feel like it was that suitable to cry at a studio session. I often want everything to be really intricate and gilded, and I want to chip away at everything, and sculpt it, and mold it, and add layers. The thing I\'ve learned on *MAGDALENE* is that you don\'t need to do that all the time, and just because you can do something, it doesn\'t mean you should. That\'s been a real growing experience for me—as a musician, as a producer, as a singer, even as a dancer. Something in its most simple form is beautiful.”
In the middle of writing his sixth album *Flamagra*, Steven Ellison—the experimental electronic producer known as Flying Lotus—took up piano lessons. “It’s never too late!” the 35-year-old tells Apple Music. “It\'s always nice to have someone checking your technique and calling you on your bullshit.” For the past decade, Ellison’s primary tool has been his laptop, but for this album, he committed to learning each instrument. “It actually made me faster,” says the artist, who is a product of LA’s beat scene and the grandnephew of John and Alice Coltrane. “Suddenly, I could hear every part.” Inspired by the destructive wildfires that swept California\'s coastline and the deadly 2016 Ghost Ship fire, which broke out at a warehouse in Oakland, *Flamagra*—a jazzy, psychedelic concept album that spans 27 tracks—imagines a world in which Los Angeles was lit by an eternal flame. “One that was contained, and good,” he says. “How would we *use* it?\'\" To explore that heady framework, he tapped some of pop culture\'s most out-of-the-box thinkers, including George Clinton, David Lynch, Anderson .Paak, and Solange—all visionary artists with specific points of view who, Ellison knows, rarely do guest features. \"The fact is, most of these artists are my friends,\" he says. \"I like to do things organically. That\'s the only way it feels right.\" Read on for the story behind each collaboration. **Anderson .Paak, \"More\"** \"I first met Andy a long time ago. He\'s a drummer and grew up around Thundercat and Ronald Bruner Jr., two amazing musicians Andy was probably inspired by. So I chased him down and we recorded the demo to \'More.\' It was dope, but it was never done. There were things both of us wanted to change. For years I\'d run into him at parties where he\'d be like, \'What\'s up with the song, man? Is it done yet? Why ain\'t it done yet?\' It became this running joke with his big ol\' toothy smile. Then, finally, we got it done. And now we don\'t have nothin\' to talk about.\" **George Clinton, \"Burning Down the House\"** \"I made this beat while I was in a big Parliament phase. One day, George came through and I threw it on. We sat next to each other working on it—the lyrics, the arrangements. And even though he\'s so brilliant, I was able to help fill in little gaps that made it work with the album\'s concept, so it was truly collaborative. It also gave me more confidence writing lyrics, which isn\'t something I normally do that often.\" **Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon, \"Spontaneous\"** \"I\'d been trying to work with Little Dragon for forever. We\'ve always been playing similar shows, passing each other at festivals, being like, \'We gotta do something! We gotta do something!\' Finally I was like, \'I\'ma reach out and get this poppin\'.\' The song was actually one of the last to get added onto the album.\" **Tierra Whack, \"Yellow Belly\"** \"Honestly, I was just a fan of hers from SoundCloud. Then, one day, Lil Dicky came over to play some music and brought her along. He didn\'t really give her the proper introduction. He was just like, \'This is my friend Tierra, she makes music.\' She didn\'t say much, but she was cool and we were vibing out. A couple hours later, Dicky was like, \'Okay, wanna listen to some of this Tierra Whack music?\' I was like, \'Wait a second, you mean, you\'re the—oh my god! I know all your songs. I mean, you\'ve only got two of them, but I know \'em both!\' I super-fanned out.\" **Denzel Curry, \"Black Balloons\"** \"The thing I love about Denzel is that he\'s got so much to prove. He\'s got a fiery spirit. He wants to show the world that he\'s the greatest rapper right now. I love that. But the difference is that he actually comes back better every time I hear him. He\'s putting in the work, not just talking shit. He cares about the craft and is such a thoughtful human. So there\'s an interesting duality there. He\'s got the turn-up spirit, but he\'s very conscious and very smart.\" **David Lynch, \"Fire Is Coming\"** \"This album has a middle point—like a chapter break moment—and David Lynch couldn\'t have been more perfect to introduce it. You know, initially I thought it should be a sound design thing, something weird and narrative and unexpected. I wasn\'t thinking about chopping David Lynch on the beat. But when I sent them a version that was basically atonal jazz—you know, weird sounds—they hit me back like, \'Hey, so we think this would be so cool if it had that Flying Lotus beat!\' I was like, \'Oh, all right, okay, I got you.\'\" **Shabazz Palaces, \"Actually Virtual\"** \"This one is special to me. He came out to my house, stayed in my guest room, and we worked on songs for three days straight. And the truth is, we made so much stuff that we forgot about this track. When I found it later, randomly, I was like, \'What the fuck is this? It needs a little TLC, but man, it could really be something.\' After I spent some time on it and sent it back over to him, he just goes, \'That\'s hardbody.\' Such an East Coast line.\" **Thundercat, \"The Climb\"** \"The thing is, Thundercat is on every track. He\'s pretty much playing on 90 percent of the album. But this is the only one he\'s singing on. We started this song the way we start everything: frustrated and depressed about the world, knowing we want to make something that reminds people that most of the chaos out there is just noise. Be above all that shit. Be above the bullshit.\" **Toro y Moi, \"9 Carrots\"** \"Toro is the person I always wind up in vans with at festivals. Somehow, I always wind up in the van with Toro. We play a lot of the same shows, we get picked up from the same hotels, and he\'s just always in the van, or on the plane, things like that. Over time, I guess I started to feel a kindred spirit thing, even though he\'s someone I don\'t know too well. But finally we were like, \'We gotta make something happen.\'\" **Solange, \"Land of Honey\"** \"I\'d been trying to make this song happen for a long time. We initially started it for a documentary film that didn\'t pan out. But I really loved the song and always thought it was special, so I kept on it. I kept working on it, kept to trying to figure out how to tie it into the universe that I was building. Eventually, we recorded it here at the house and just felt really organic, really natural. She\'s someone I\'d definitely like to keep working with.\" **Honorable Mention: Mac Miller** \"A couple songs on the album, like \'Find Your Own Way Home\' and \'Thank U Malcolm,\' were inspired by Mac. \'Thank U Malcolm\' is special to me because it\'s my way of thanking him for all the inspiration he left behind in his passing, and for all the fire he inspired in me, Thundercat, and all of our friends. He made us want to be better, to let go of the bullshit. And now, you know, none of us are out here experimenting with drugs or anything. That\'s largely because of him. After he left us, everyone was like, \'You know what? Fuck all that shit.\' In a way, in his passing, he\'s got friends of mine clean. He\'ll always mean a lot to me.\"
Part IV: Local Fuzz Just a few months since arriving to town and Gene has already found himself way in over his head. Several fortnights wiled away in the Rebound Lounge weren’t going to make a man’s life better - that’s as sure as sunrise. Just as sure was that the Discount Boys weren’t going to let him skip town without paying his due. Only from the prudent counsel of the canine oracle down in Chinatown does he manage to pull his head out of the sand and see the light. A swift flight out the gates and across the neon dunes to the East provides a brief respite - ‘brief’ being the operative word. The Discount Boys were one thing to contend with, but the Local Fuzz are another ballgame.
This is not idle music! London has long been a hotbed for experimentation for music from West Africa, and it’s into this global-local story that we can situate London’s newest afrobeat innovators: Kokoroko. In the 40’s World War Two veteran Ambrose Campbell and his West African Rhythm Brothers, were enticing Soho music lovers with sweet palm wine sounds. The following decade, a young Fela Kuti (and his Koola Lobitos outfit with drummer Tony Allen), would jam with Campbell, and the seeds for his global Afrobeat revolution were sown. The band’s name is an Urhobo – a Nigerian tribe and language – word meaning ‘be strong’. Sonically living up to their name, Kokoroko are an all star band featuring leading lights from the London jazz community. Powered by seismic horn section (Maurice Grey, saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, trombonist Richie Seivewright), guitar (Oscar Jerome), keys (Yohan Kebede), drums (Ayo Salawu) and percussion (Onome Edgeworth); Kokoroko are on a mission to fashion new languages using the medium of afrobeat. “This is not idle music!” says Sheila Maurice-Grey, reflecting on the rich history of sounds that have inspired the band. Whether it's the social commentary, the political stance of acts like the Black President, or the high power energy of afrobeat nights: the music is teeming with a potent energy the band want to propel forwards, London style. Make no mistake, this is not a band interested in performative tributes or pastiche. For Maurice Grey, part of the drive behind their creative impulse to is ask: “what does this music sound like for my generation?” “We love this music and want other people to love it the way we do”, shared Edgeworth. Aside of the primacy of love for the music, a subtext of the bands creation was a sense of alienation at London’s thinning pool of afrobeat and highlife nights – particularly of black listeners and players. “We don’t want this music to die”, he added. Rather than launching straight into writing their own music, since the band’s formation in 2014, they immersed themselves in the sounds of Pat Thomas, Ebo Taylor and others by playing covers to sell out crowds. “I remember speaking with Dele Sosimi about the structure of Fela’s songs – every element plays a part. But, before melody or harmony, there’s rhythm. The rhythmic aspect of the solos from that era is amazing. The West African approach to jazz and improvisation is hip!”, offered Maurice-Grey. In writing their own music, Edgeworth emphasised how much the KOKOROKO sound is shaped by the capital. “We didn’t want it to sound too clean – that doesn’t really fit into the London sound”, he said. Instead, the band opt for grooves with added grit: “we wanted it to sound rough, like going out and hearing music pushed through speakers or the energy of people dancing at afrobeat parties: its music we’ve seen work on dancefloors”. Drawing as much from nightlife, the musical influences of West African Pentecostal churches, jazz and Western classical, its both in the middle of and beyond this mix of influences that Kokoroko’s self titled EP takes shape. Adwa opens deep-ridge grooves. Drawing from the syncopated funk of Ethio-jazz, it takes its name from the Ethiopian city of the same name. Composed by keyboardist Yohan Kebede, the victorious spirit of the track is a meditation not only on the infamous Battle of Adwa, but of the way societies evolve in the aftermath of conflict. Ti-de is a soft lullaby taking its cue from a medley of old West African folk melodies. A meditation on remaining present through change, the track is laced with opiating guitar lines, soft percussion and languid vocals that feel at times interchangeable with the grand sway of the horn section. The jubilant Uman arrives as a “celebration of women, black women in particular,” shares Maurice Grey. “I wrote the tune with my mother in mind”. The track tackles the cultural trope of the ‘black superwoman’ and – similarly to Maurice-Grey’s visual artwork – asks questions about why misrepresentations about black women exist. Ultimately, it's a redemptive track that makes space for both the unique struggles black women face, and their vulnerability. Like Ti-de, Absuey Junction takes its lead from Ebo Taylor’s horn led approach, and showcases the band’s deft hand with palm wine infused ballads. The hit single, first featured on the We Out Here compilation, reached 18 million + views on YouTube. Based on a composition by guitarist Oscar Jerome, the track captures the sunset hum of Gambia’s nocturnal soundscapes, winding horn solos and haunting vocals. A precursor to their album, “it’s an honest capture” of the band’s progression and a stunning introduction to their sound. Written by Teju Adeleye. Tracklist: 1. Adwa 2. Ti-de 3. Uman 4. Abusey Junction Musicians: Sheila Maurice-Grey - Trumpet Cassie Kinoshi - Saxophone Richie Seivewright Trombone Oscar Jerome - Guitar Yohan Kebede - Keys Mutale Chashi - Bass Ayo Salawu - Drums Onome Edgeworth - Percussion
HR21 Pies Sobre la Tierra hace referencia al espacio mental como un lugar de relativa libertad e ilusión: como este interactúa con lo tangible.
InFiné as a label has always had an extra sharp eye on electronic piano music. As a genre, it leaves a free-range to explorations and experimentations that represent our society in different perspectives. What makes experimentations hard is the ability to set the creative path free from the bargain to undertake some specific approaches or to tick some conventional boxes. But the new upcoming InFiné electronic piano talent, Mischa Blanos, evades any strict definitions, blending in his unique way different music genres, determining his approach to experimentation with its own rules and notes. "Indoors", despite the title, is an album to listen outdoors because it embraces all our visceral feelings that life pushes us towards to. In every track, different layers of melodies embark us on journeys that define the rhythm of a day of each one of us. From sunrise to sunset, every second, every moment, every fraction in Mischa Blanos' music finds an answer or a beat that can describe it. Exploring our scattered and frenetic era is a tough task, but yet, even though his young age, Mischa finds himself comfortable in directing us in this hectic composition that is life. "Chatting In 21st Century", based on Bach, questions our ability to connect without words but with images and icons. "Am Wired" tries to pierce the bubble of glass behind our phones and their cameras, in which we hide in a vertiginous abyss. "Habits" is a melancholic ballad of all the regrets and the "what if" that we left behind us. But as in 24 hours, there is light and there is darkness, "Indoors", in the same way, also reminds us of our humanity and its tender beautiful fragility as in the after-love of "Two Sugar Cubes" or in the melodic piano "Forebondings", both tracks that leave us with a sense of peaceful restored faith and desire to experience life. A desire that drags us until the last bits of a sunrise either in solitude as in "Pillow Talk" or in a party on Hamburg rooftops’ as in "Hammock On The Roof".
Across forty minutes of punishing street justice, Mutant Joe peels back societies accepted norms and values, kicking down the door of the family next door armed with razor wire, bondage tape, police transmitters and overt torture tactics. Opening up with confessions from inside a Miami mega jail, Home Invasion Anthems spills its guts over trap, Memphis rap, jungle and street electronics, with a horde of collaborators including Lord Pusswhip, Onoe Caponoe and the Lost Appeal Crew mobilising together and pulling in resources from now defunct message boards and online sample dumps. Together they've created something which is as much rooted in 80's horror as Lil Ugly Mane, black metal, industrial and the stifling paranoia of life in 2019, all festering and morphing together like a tumour feeding on crime scene T.V and terror politics. Don't go outside. Don't answer the phone. Artwork from Tin Savage.
After a trilogy of spectacular explorations of relentlessly driving rhythms – Sagittarian Domain (2012), Quixotism (2014) and Hubris (2016) – Simian Angel finds Oren Ambarchi renewing his focus on his singular approach to the electric guitar, returning in part to the spacious canvases of classic releases like Grapes from the Estate while also following his muse down previously unexplored byways. Reflecting Ambarchi’s profound love of Brazilian music – an aspect of his omnivorous musical appetite not immediately apparent in his own work until now – Simian Angel features the remarkable percussive talents of the legendary Cyro Baptista, a key part of the Downtown scene who has collaborated with everyone from John Zorn and Derek Bailey to Robert Palmer and Herbie Hancock. Like the music of Nana Vasconcelos and Airto Moreira, Simian Angel places Baptista’s dexterous and rhythmically nuanced handling of traditional Brazilian percussion instruments into an unexpected musical context. On the first side, ‘Palm Sugar Candy’, Baptista’s spare and halting rhythms wind their way through a landscape of gliding electronic tones, gently rising up and momentarily subsiding until the piece’s final minutes leave Ambarchi’s guitar unaccompanied. While the rich, swirling harmonics of Ambarchi’s guitar performance are familiar to listeners from his previous recordings, the subtly wavering, synthetic guitar tone we hear is quite new, coming across at times like an abstracted, splayed-out take on the 80s guitar-synth work of Pat Metheny or Bill Frisell. Equally new is the harmonic complexity of Ambarchi’s playing, which leaves behind the minimalist simplicity of much of his previous work for a constantly-shifting play between lush consonance and uneasy dissonance. Beginning with a beautiful passage of unaccompanied percussion dominated by the berimbau, the side-long title piece carries on the first side’s exploration of subtle, non-linear dynamic arcs, taking the form of a gently episodic suite, in which distinctive moments, like a lyrical passage of guitar-triggered piano, unexpectedly arise from intervals of drifting tones like dream images suddenly cohering. In the piece’s second half, the piano tones becomes increasingly more clipped and synthetic, scattering themselves into aleatoric melodies that call to mind an imaginary collaboration between Albert Marcoeur and David Behrman, grounded all the while by the pulse of Baptista’s percussion. Subtle yet complex, fleeting yet emotionally affecting, Simian Angel is an essential chapter in Ambarchi’s restlessly exploratory oeuvre.
"Upon The Apex is a testament to remaining patient while continuing to work hard, pursue goals, and improve. It’s trusting the process through times of uncertainty and feeling every step of the path. The release of Upon the Apex signifies the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. It’s the second major piece in the puzzle of my artistic journey." - Rah Zen Boston's Rah Zen returns to Dome of Doom for the release of his sophomore full-length, Upon The Apex. The new album is scheduled to release across limited edition cassette and digital formats worldwide on July 12, 2019. Bridging Rah Zen's love for the structural resonance of boom bap and the experimental edges of electronic, the 14-track album features contributions from 3Deity, Kadeem, Dirty Merlin, CLYDE, and Dephrase. Upon The Apex was created during a series of travels to the deserts of Arizona, the cities and landscapes of Israel, and a cross-country road trip from Boston to Los Angeles and back via the southern route. Recordings initiated in the summer of 2017, months before the release of his debut album for Dome of Doom, Midnight Satori.
Rian Treanor will release his anticipated debut album ‘ATAXIA’ on Planet Mu this March. The striking full-length follows singles for The Death Of Rave and Warp’s Arcola imprint as well as live sets at Boilerroom x Genelec, Nyege Nyege festival, tours in India and various high profile EU shows. The title ‘ATAXIA’ means 'the loss of full control of bodily movements' and relates to Rian's music which is “intended to make people’s bodies move in unpredictable ways.” He adds “the angles in the letters, the phonetics seem to mirror the geometry and idiosyncratic patterns in the music.” Rian explains that components of the tracks were made by generating a series of irregular events and re-structuring them, or by destabilising a pattern that is constant. When asked how the album compares with his previous releases, he says “My earlier EPs share a similar interest in angular and asymmetrical rhythms that are designed for club sound systems,” adding “they were more improvised, focusing on sequencing and pattern modulation, using standard drum sounds and synthesiser patches. ATAXIA is more focused and stricter, it’s more co-ordinated in terms of the track selection and the rhythmic structures. I spent more time refining the synthesis and sound design, pushing it further than the previous releases.” He expresses an interest in exploring opposites in his music: “fluidity and syncopation,” “systematic and unpredictability,” “reduction and extremity,” “irregular symmetry,” “easy listening and brutal”. There’s clear a conceptual backdrop, but the music itself is not overthought. There’s an immediate joy to much of the album – check out ATAXIA_D3 with its wonderful cut-ups and modulations of the phrase “people don’t understand people.” The roots of Rian's playful sound are directly linked to his love of the music he grew up with. Coming from Sheffield, you can hear elements of industrial, synth-pop, bleep, extreme computer music and speed garage at play. From Cabaret Voltaire to Warp and beyond; the sound of his city has been, and is, an integral part of his musical development and is still a direct influence. Last year, he noted in an interview that "I'm not a computer programmer, I'm not an articulate person in that kind of way. I'm a visual artist." Now he elaborates “I meant more that I’m a visual thinker.” Drawing and visual art have been a fundamental part of his life “since I was a child. I got really into graffiti as a teenager and around the same time I got into mixing and these both developed together.” You can sense the mind of a visual artist at work in his music which is also reflected in the artwork he created for this project. As well as his visual art, installations and multichannel sound works he is involved in numerous collaborations such as with composer Nakul Krishnamurthy exploring the common ground between Indian classical music and electronic music and his work with improv saxophonist Karl D'Silva, plus his time studying with Lupo at Dubplates and Mastering in Berlin (who taught him the “importance of reduction”) have all helped shape and push his sound into other unique and adventurous zones. Treanor is developing on different levels and in different forms all at the same time, re-imagining the intersection of club culture, experimental art and computer music, presenting an insightful and compelling musical world of fractured and interlocking components.
The Loop' is the new LP by Los Angeles based polymath Shafiq Husayn, an epic project which saw its inception in 2012 through a series of studio sessions at Shafiq’s home, including collaborations with the likes of Thundercat, Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, Bilal and Anderson Paak. Amongst a close knit circle of friends and family the golden tones of The Loop were created, deeply rooted in ideas of song, story, history, guidance and spirituality. The album bumps, jumps and jangles through progressions in jazz, hip hop, soul and funk, following on from his debut album ‘Shafiq En’ A-Free-Ka’ and adding further to his rich history of timeless, unique music. On The Loop past, present and future are brought together through a psychedelic concoction of time traveling drum machines, celestial string sections and trails of synthesizer vapour. Inflections of Sly Stone, Pharaoh Sanders and Earth Wind And Fire traverse with Marley Marl and Dilla-esqe drums making for an organic yet LA-trifying experience. Shafiq has brought together an impressive array of LA's musical royalty, enlisting the likes of Thundercat, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Kamasi Washington, Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave, Eric Rico, Coultrain, Computer Jay, Jimetta Rose, Om'Mas Keith, Kelsey Gonzalez, I-Ced and more to provide the backbone to his recording sessions. Drawing in features from an international cast of performers and artists like Erykah Badu, Robert Glasper, Hiatus Kaiyote, Fatima and Karen Be amongst others. Now complete and finally ready for release in 2019 The Loop is truly something to behold. The records is accompanied by a series of paintings by acclaimed Japanese visual artist Tokio Aoyama, who worked in tandem with Shafiq to create a painting for each song on the record.
Conceived in the Mushroom Hour Half Hour lab, SPAZA is a band with no permanent personnel, with each lineup assembled for the express purpose of recording once-off improvised or workshopped material. For this, the initial salvo, SPAZA was put together from a group of musicians with individual and collective links to Johannesburg’s jazz, afro funk and experimental electro scenes. In the context of this completely improvised album, the term “spaza” not only refers to the gallery in Troyeville, Johannesburg where this project was recorded live (and in one take) in the autumn of 2015, but to South Africa’s thousands of informal neighbourhood stores. In South Africa, “spaza” has come to signify an entrepreneurial spirit, especially in the country’s black townships where economic barriers to business ownership mean that only a few can attain the status of formal business ownership. In the country’s socio-political context, spazas, usually operating out of converted garages, shacks or repurposed shipping containers, are also contested territories. They are sites of often fatal bloodshed where financially disenfranchised South Africans routinely mete out their frustrations on those they consider “foreigners” and “outsiders”. It is these outsiders who have come to dominate the spaza economy. However, spazas are also colourful, with their facades branded, styled and designed by each owner. They can become the nerve centres of social activity in the communities they occupy and are often stocked with an array of iconic South African brands and products, many of which are referenced in the track names of this album. Perhaps obliquely, there are musical sensibilities to be grasped at the mention of the term. “Spaza,” the recording, the location, the revolving ensemble - all evoke a spirit of independence, a D.I.Y aesthetic, a propensity for spontaneity, and, literally, a coming together of minds at the corner to shoot the breeze or let off a seriously considered prognosis. True to this, there is a heightened and sustained sense of intuition running through this recording whose sonic palette is so wide it captures - through soundscaping, invocation, lament, impressionistic vocal weaving - not only the transient and hybridised nature of life in Johannesburg, but also the heaviness of the air at the time of its recording. More ambient, controlled swirl of rhythm and experimental mixing than incessant groove, the album is an outpouring of a range of expressions that exist between the supposed binaries of indigenous forms of music and the electronic experimentation Johannesburg is known globally for. Between percussionist Gontse Makhene on the bottom end of the scale, and sound sculptor Joao Orrechia on the nebulous end of it, vocalists Nosisi Ngakane and Siya Makuzeni (who also plays trombone) marshal a vocal experiment that is as tense as it is playful. From their respective posts, bass player Ariel Zarmonsky and string wizard Waldo Alexander stitch, stretch and add body to the various strands of sound being created. There is an intelligence to the vocal sculpting that gives structure and coherence to the music, creating a sonic monolith that honours various aspects of South African life, including divination, burial rites, as well as the precariousness of a simple trip to the cornerstone. The interlude Tigerbalm noBuhlebakho, for instance, relays the sometimes charged atmosphere of a trip to the spaza, one laced with catcalling indicative of the war over womens' bodies. While this can end in violence and, in some cases, death, ultimately this album seems to point to the liberating feeling of levitating above it all. At times opaque, and at others direct, SPAZA is always unyielding and propulsive. This could be the sound of the city turned inside out, ruminating on its troubled history and ever morphing present. There are pensive and celebratory streaks crisscrossing the album, not to mention a vulnerability that is in keeping with the spontaneous ethos of Mushroom Hour Half Hour. The results, shaped in the Pan African milieu that is Johannesburg, is a freewheeling representation of continental astral travel.
On Mtendere Mandowa’s first album since 2014’s *E s t a r a*, the Los Angeles producer better known as Teebs reminds listeners what makes him one of the beat music scene’s most distinctive talents. To begin with, the beats themselves are never the main event: Mandowa is far more interested in texture and atmosphere than he is rhythmic propulsion or kinetic fireworks. He’s hardly a stranger to a seductive groove, but the drums aren’t so much timekeeper or anchor as they are a kind of shadow creeping beneath a verdant swath of gentle keys, guitars, and even the occasional harp. Lush is the operative term: The opening “Atoms Song,” which pairs bit-crushed chords with rustling percussion, is ambient by another name; “Prayers I” and “Marcel” are beatless tone poems, while “Prayers II” puts a liquid spin on shuffling boom-bap. The biggest surprises come courtesy of Teebs’ collaborators: Sudan Archives turns “Black Dove” into woozily atmospheric soul; “Mmntm,” featuring Ringgo Ancheta, aka Mndsgn, and Former Boy, is practically a folk song, right down to its nylon-stringed guitar and airy vocal harmonies. And on “Studie,” featuring one of the album’s most propulsive beats, Panda Bear’s reverbed cries tilt the song toward psychedelic pop. It’s a fine reminder of Teebs’ versatility: Never overstuffed, his productions nevertheless contain multitudes.
The wait is finally over for new music by Teebs, aka Mtendere Mandowa. It’s been 5 years since his last body of work, but 25 October will mark the release of his next full length album “Anicca”. With the help of a host of musical friends including Panda Bear (Animal Collective), Sudan Archives, Ringgo Ancheta aka MNDSGN, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Anna Wise, daydream Masi, Former Boy, Pink Siifu, Jimetta Rose and Thomas Stankiewicz, the 47 minute LP fuses Teebs’ signature bright and fluid productions with the grounded and colorful elements of his collaborators. With roots at the ‘My Hollow Drum’ collective, Dublab, and Low End Theory, Teebs is a staple in Los Angeles music. “My creative family in LA is so important,” he explains. “It’s a part of who I am when I step outside and how others in LA view me. I love the feeling of community and trying to understand how I can be useful in it.” A consummate artist with a completely unique style, his ideas seemingly flow from a cloudy hidden realm of the ether straight through the medium and onto the canvas. As both a producer and a painter, his projects possess a flawless consistency that pull one deep into the worlds he creates. Reflecting on his 5 year hiatus from releasing music, he says: “It feels like it [the music] comes from a different place now. My inspiration to work has changed and my choices with it. I’ve explored more with what tools and instruments I used and tried to be more open to collaboration.” The record showcases just how effortlessly his work lays landscapes for his guests’ contributions to blend in with his own production and Teebs himself is full of admiration for his collaborators. For example, of Panda Bear from Animal Collective, who is featured on lead single ‘Studie’ he explains that: “Everything he decides to do is pure gold or fine wine.” It’s a similar story with kindred spirit Sudan Archives who graces ‘Black Dove’ - of whom he says, “She really is a scary genius who deserves the world’s ears and eyes.” The album was recorded mostly at home using his Roland SP-404 sampler, Mellotron M4000D synthesizer, seprewa (Ghanaian harp-lute), guitar and laptop - “If you listen closely you might hear my daughter speaking or my wife typing on a laptop on the record,” Teebs says smiling. Family is at the heart of Mtendere’s life now and they are his primary source of inspiration. “My daughter was born the year after ‘Estara’ and taking time to watch her grow meant everything to me...” he explains. “Also my relationships with my wife,mother, brother, and the friends around me, and the mistakes I’ve made through my life have all inspired Anicca.” He also cites the American poet David Antin and his 1976 work “Talking at the Boundaries” as a notable read and a quote about art, nature and form from Hans Arp’s “Notes from a Dada Diary” that struck a chord with him during the making of the record. As for the title - “Anicca” - it describes the impermanence of all being in Buddhism. Recognition of the fact that ‘anicca’ characterizes everything is one of the first steps in the Buddhist’s spiritual progress toward enlightenment. “It’s a reminder to myself that nothing is permanent,” he says. A highly respected visual artist, Teebs created the artwork for “Anicca” just as he has done for his previous albums. “I’m using the two disciplines [music and art] together to explore the worlds of communication and semi abstractions” he explains. The artwork for “Anicca” started as a drawing about his wife and mother and evolved into an enamel pin that transformed again as he collaborated with his friend Megan Geer-Alsop to make a stained glass replica. That work later got photographed and digitally enhanced to make the cover. “The artwork is so special to me because of all the hands working together to create an idea,” says Mtendere. “The piece went through so much change and landed in a state of constant change being made out of glass with its colors and reflections… no matter how you look at it or what time of day it is, it’s always something different, yet the same... quite like nature works. It felt like life, like semi abstractions and like the album title.”
“How people may emotionally connect with music I’ve been involved in is something that part of me is completely mystified by,” Thom Yorke tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “Human beings are really different, so why would it be that what I do connects in that way? I discovered maybe around \[Radiohead\'s album\] *The Bends* that the bit I didn’t want to show, the vulnerable bit… that bit was the bit that mattered.” *ANIMA*, Yorke’s third solo album, further weaponizes that discovery. Obsessed by anxiety and dystopia, it might be the most disarmingly personal music of a career not short of anxiety and dystopia. “Dawn Chorus” feels like the centerpiece: It\'s stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful with a claustrophobic “stream of consciousness” lyric that feels something like a slowly descending panic attack. And, as Yorke describes, it was the record\'s biggest challenge. “There’s a hit I have to get out of it,” he says. “I was trying to develop how ‘Dawn Chorus’ was going to work, and find the right combinations on the synthesizers I was using. Couldn’t find it, tried it again and again and again. But I knew when I found it I would have my way into the song. Things like that matter to me—they are sort of obsessive, but there is an emotional connection. I was deliberately trying to find something as cold as possible to go with it, like I sing essentially one note all the way through.” Yorke and longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich (“I think most artists, if they\'re honest, are never solo artists,” Yorke says) continue to transfuse raw feeling into the album’s chilling electronica. “Traffic,” with its jagged beats and “I can’t breathe” refrain, feels like a partner track to another memorable Yorke album opener, “Everything in Its Right Place.” The extraordinary “Not the News,” meanwhile, slaloms through bleeps and baleful strings to reach a thunderous final destination. It’s the work of a modern icon still engaged with his unique gift. “My cliché thing I always say is, \'You know you\'re in trouble when people stop listening to sad music,\'” Yorke says. “Because the moment people stop listening to sad music, they don\'t want to know anymore. They\'re turning themselves off.”
When TNGHT first emerged in 2012—thanks in part to a rambunctious, smoke-filled SXSW performance that went viral online—the oddball duo of Glasgow producer Hudson Mohawke (Ross Birchard) and Montreal’s Lunice (Lunice Fermin Pierre II) became a sensation. Armed with an exhilarating debut EP of bombastic hip-hop beats that flirted with bass music and electro, they quickly became a welcome antidote to then-booming EDM. “Things had gotten fragmented within dance and electronic music,” Pierre tells Apple Music. “We had this weird sound that no one knew how to place.” Success came quickly via festival gigs, commercial syncs, and even interest from Kanye West (“Blood on the Leaves” samples their track “R U Ready”). But as experimental trap music veered mainstream, the scene and sound the pair helped build became diluted by commercial imitators, costumes, and Vegas-style pyrotechnics. The following year, TNGHT announced a hiatus. Says Birchard, “We didn’t want to become a caricature of what we’d been trying to do.” They each returned to their solo careers—Pierre toured with Madonna, Birchard joined West’s creative inner circle at G.O.O.D. Music—but the cult following they’d amassed as TNGHT held strong. Seven years later, the duo found themselves living in LA and decided to go for round two. The resulting EP, *II*, is a glitchy, distorted field day of leftfield electronic music that once again thrusts club music into stranger territory. Here, they guide us through it, track by track. **Serpent** Lunice Pierre: “This was the first song we did, and it was a make-or-break moment. If it worked, we’d keep going; if it didn’t, we wouldn’t. We didn’t want any pressure around it. We started making some ambient stuff to get a feel for the new equipment, and at one, almost accidentally, the sounds became metallic, melodic, and big. It sounded so fucking fun that we knew we had something. Later on, Ross suggested putting ad-libs over it, so I started yelling at the top of my lungs—so loud that the neighbor’s dog started barking and I barked back. Obviously, we kept all that.” **Dollaz** Ross Birchard: “There were a lot of moments in this record where I wanted to strip things down to the bare elements—sharp angles, breathy pauses. Because it’s effective. This song actually hits harder because of the negative space. When you come from a background where you predominantly make hip-hop and rap music, like we do, you’re always leaving room for a vocal. We’ve learned never to overstuff songs.” **First Body** RB: “This was the last song we made and it took some serious fine-tuning. It was a catchy party song, but we wanted it to be more—we wanted a guttural reaction. The thing we’re ultimately aiming for is tricky to pull off: We want to make relatively serious music that doesn\'t take itself too seriously. We want to make party songs that don’t insult your intelligence. It’s a balance.” **Club Finger** LP: “We consider this song an observation on the sounds we grew up on. It’s hard to overstate the influence that rave music and rave culture had on us. It was all we listened to as teens, and it was something we really, really loved. We’re always trying to find ways to incorporate it into our music, but you want to do it respectfully—you don’t just want to wholesale rip it off.” RB: “You almost want to recontextualize it, because so many people think that music is super fucking corny. But for me, what I love about it is that it’s really, unashamedly hard music but it has this cheeky edge. It’s almost winking at you, or daring you. That’s something we tried to capture here.” **What\_It\_Is** LP: “This is a heavy nod to the Missy-Pharrell-Timbaland era, which imprinted itself on our brains as young beatmakers. The music they were making was so unusual and influential. From the moment I started producing, I wanted to figure out how to make *those* types of sounds.” RB: “I like to think this is our weirdo take on a big pop song, except it’s largely one drum loop with some scattered scratching. It’s almost meditative.” **I’m in a Hole** LP: “We were toying with other ways to program drums and found a sample from Syv de Blare, a singer I worked with on my debut album. She wasn\'t saying, ‘I\'m in a hole,’ but I like chopping vocals to make them sound a certain way. Once we got it to work, we felt like we should follow it.” RB: “I know it sounds so corny, but that’s our artistic process: We look for things that feel weird but sound interesting and follow them as far as we can.” **Gimme Summn** LP: “Working on a second project helped both producers better understand their collaborative dynamic. If there’s a pattern to how we work, it’s this: I goof around on Ross’ drum machine until he jumps up and says, ‘Wait! That! Do that again!’” RB: “It sounds very us, but it isn’t safe. We did not want to regurgitate the first record. That would be really boring. I’ve been thinking a lot about being present and how it can affect your art. Art is true when you aren’t worried about how it’s going to sound or look later. There is only now.”
On Time Out of Time is a suite of works originally commissioned for the 2017 installations ‘ER=EPR’ and 'Orbihedron' by artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand (in collaboration with Jean-Marc Chomaz and LIGO) for the exhibition, ‘Limits of Knowing’ at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin by curator, Isabel de Sena. These works utilize, among other things, exclusive source recordings from the interferometers of LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) capturing the sounds of the merging of two distant massive black holes, 1.3 billion years ago. The CD and Digital formats feature two tracks: The 40-minute title track, “On Time Out of Time,” as well as “4(E+D)4(ER+EPR)”, a live track recorded during the aforementioned installation. The vinyl LP format features two exclusive mixes of the title track: “On Time Out of Time” on the a-side; and “On Time Out of Time (The Lovers)” on the b-side, made especially for the vinyl format.