{"title":"CD","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"nick-mazzarella-trio-ultraviolet","title":"Nick Mazzarella Trio - Ultraviolet","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eChicago innovators elevate intuitive improvisation with artfully constructed themes in a thoughtful elaboration of formal free jazz.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased September 25, 2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNick Mazzarella - alto saxophone\u003cbr\u003eAnton Hatwich - bass\u003cbr\u003eFrank Rosaly - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll compositions by Nick Mazzarella (BMI)\u003cbr\u003eRecorded and Mixed by Brian J Sulpizio\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Shelly Steffens\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Damon Locks\u003cbr\u003eLayout by Craig Hansen\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Nick Mazzarella\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918411948373,"sku":"IARC0005CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0603541400_10.jpg?v=1779448918"},{"product_id":"ahleuchatistas-arrebato","title":"Ahleuchatistas - Arrebato","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eGuitar + Drum duo make mammoth melodic tectonic movements that raze and reshape conventional sonic terrains.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased October 30, 2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRyan Oslance - drums\u003cbr\u003eShane Parish - guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusic by Parish\/Oslance\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by David Allen\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Shelly Steffens\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Cody Sarabia\u003cbr\u003eLayout by Craig Hansen\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918412243285,"sku":"IARC0006CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2759159203_10.jpg?v=1779449709"},{"product_id":"rob-mazurek-emmett-kelly-alien-flower-sutra","title":"Rob Mazurek \u0026 Emmett Kelly - Alien Flower Sutra","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eAn emotive collection of future folk ballads framed by an animate palette of electronic treatments.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased May 13, 2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComposed and Arranged by Rob Mazurek (OLHO, ASCAP)\u003cbr\u003eLyrics by Emmett Kelly (thecairogang, BMI)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRob Mazurek - Electronic Treatments, Modular Synths, Cornet\u003cbr\u003eEmmett Kelly - Voice, Guitar\u003cbr\u003eThomas Rohrer - Rabeca (on Blackout)\u003cbr\u003eGuilherme Granado - Synth, Sampler, Electronics (on Bright Nights Havoc)\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Issa - Guitar and Electronics (on Bright Nights Havoc)\u003cbr\u003eBrittany Mazurek - Voice (on Embryo Genesis)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Rob Mazurek\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Helge Sten\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Editing by David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaintings by Rob Mazurek\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Craig Hansen\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918412472661,"sku":"IARC0008LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918412996949,"sku":"IARC0008CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2325895455_10.jpg?v=1779450016"},{"product_id":"ben-lamar-gay-downtown-castles-can-never-block-the-sun","title":"Ben LaMar Gay - Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\"Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun\" is as much a 'greatest hits' as it is a 'debut album' for Ben LaMar Gay. It's a collection of music composed, performed \u0026amp; produced by the anomalous Southside Chicago-born, sometimes Brazil-residing artist, compiled from 7 albums he made over the last 7 years but never made the effort to actually release.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith its title taken from the mantra Ben repeats across several tracks on \"Grapes\" (1 of the 7 aforementioned albums), \"Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun\" is our effort to channel the rainbow of sonic expressions, art \u0026amp; poetry beaming from the ark of his unreleased catalogue into a cohesive \u0026amp; communicable compilation. It's as good of an introduction to Ben LaMar Gay as we could fit onto a single LP. To call it \"eclectic\" would only scratch the surface. This music is everything.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003eReleased May 4, 2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCompiled \u0026amp; Sequenced by Scott McNiece \u0026amp; Ben LaMar Gay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art \u0026amp; Photos by Maren Celest.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eAll rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918414471509,"sku":"IARC0017CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3641786439_10.jpg?v=1779453506"},{"product_id":"dos-santos-logos","title":"Dos Santos - Logos","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eDos Santos is a quintet just 5 years working in Chicago but already established as one of the city’s most potent, impactful performers. A band known to be at home in a broad spectrum of venues and contexts – as proficient at nailing epic progressive arrangements for summer street festivals in the Latinx culture hub of Pilsen as they are at extended improvisational, experimental cumbia sets on the jazz-centric cabaret stage of the California Clipper, or the Chinook Lounge of The Hideout – Dos Santos’s elasticity \u0026amp; consistency in live performance has earned them an enthusiastic \u0026amp; highly diverse audience in the too-often segregated Chicago music scene. In recorded output, the sound established by their first EPs \u0026amp; singles garnered them wider attention for their ability to rekindle \u0026amp; re-present vintage sounds. But anyone with more than a distant perspective on their musicianship \u0026amp; aesthetics would know not to over-simplify Dos Santos as purely a psychedelic\/cumbia revivalist outfit. Dos Santos have been steadily tipping forward into something more future-minded \u0026amp; universal this whole time, something that transcends the nationalism many of us are desperately trying to depart from, but don’t have the vocabulary to fully escape. \"Logos,\" their International Anthem debut, is a bold \u0026amp; vulnerable push into this\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003etranscendence, the band’s effort to proactively poeticize the future in sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Chicago-born,” “progressive,” “boundary defying,” \u0026amp; “unique sounds” are all sentiments from our label’s mission statement. And though, on the surface, Dos Santos may seem like a departure in the narrative flow of our catalogue \u0026amp; community, this band \u0026amp; this album truly epitomize what we strive to cultivate \u0026amp; present. Over several Summer 2017 sessions at IARC HQ Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Wayward Machine Co storefront \u0026amp; the basement of Dos Santos drummer Daniel Villarreal-Carrillo’s home (all on the same 3200 block of Morgan Street in the Southside Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport), the band settled into comfortable confines with The Daves (engineers Vettraino \u0026amp; Allen), making space to improvise, incubate \u0026amp; innovate. What’s heard on the ultimate product of this homegrown process (Logos) is Dos Santos laying their voices bare, at once aware of cultural context, informed by aesthetic precursors, and yet fully irreverent to expectations or how any of this might be “appropriately” employed. Whether through the balladic melodrama of “caminante,” the noir-cumbia refrains of “purísima,” the afro-psych gallup of the title track “logos” (which features the Antibalas horn section), the Tortoise on TNT-resounding guitar phrases of “coda,” or the Tame Impala-like Juno synths of “manos ajenas (touch you every day),” each composition offers a bridge into a sonic landscape that speaks to histories of migration and arts of living that have been central to everything from house music to blues, Latinx punk to salsa in the City of Chicago. Logos presents an idealized new progressive American music, as rooted in Chicago as it is communicable with the world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased June 15, 2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlex Chavez - vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion\u003cbr\u003eJaime Garza - electric bass\u003cbr\u003eNathan Karagianis - guitar, vocals\u003cbr\u003ePeter \"Maestro\" Vale - congas, percussion\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Villarreal Carrillo - drums, percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ew\/ cameos by\u003cbr\u003eBen LaMar Gay - cornet (on \"return y regreso\" and \"caminante\")\u003cbr\u003eRoger Reeves - spoken word (on \"sole party\")\u003cbr\u003eand the ANTIBALAS horn section\u003cbr\u003eMartín Perna - baritone saxophone\u003cbr\u003eMorgan Price - tenor saxophone\u003cbr\u003eJordan McLean - trumpet\u003cbr\u003eEric Biondo - trumpet\u003cbr\u003earranged by Nick Mazzarella (on \"logos\" and \"(you are) my revolution\")\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; David Allen.\u003cbr\u003eEdited by Alex Chavez \u0026amp; Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Shelly Steffens.\u003cbr\u003eArtwork \u0026amp; Design by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by Scott McNiece.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918415028565,"sku":"IARC0019LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918414733653,"sku":"IARC0019CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1574753908_10.jpg?v=1779459260"},{"product_id":"makaya-mccraven-where-we-come-from-chicago-x-london-mixtape","title":"Makaya McCraven - Where We Come From (Chicago x London Mixtape)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eRecorded live at Total Refreshment Centre 18 \u0026amp; 19 October 2017 (CHICAGOxLONDON).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLive recordings mixed at Total Refreshment Studios 20 \u0026amp; 21 October 2017.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRemixed live at Total Refreshment Centre 22 October 2017 (FRESH ROASTED: Live Beat-Making \u0026amp; Battle).\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased July 27, 2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerformed by Makaya McCraven - drums; Soweto Kinch - saxophone, voice; Theon Cross - tuba; Joe Armon-Jones - Rhodes piano; Nubya Garcia - saxophone; Kamaal Williams - keys.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRemix Production \u0026amp; Additional Overdubs by LeFtO; Don Leisure \u0026amp; Earl Jeffers (Darkhouse Family); Ben LaMar Gay; Emma-Jean Thackray; Quiet Dawn; Lexus Blondin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixtape Production by Makaya McCraven\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; David Allen\u003cbr\u003eRecording Assisted by Matteo Musetti\u003cbr\u003eEdited by Makaya McCraven\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by Fabrice Bourgelle\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Raimund Wong\u003cbr\u003eAssociate Production by Alejandro Ayala, Tina Edwards \u0026amp; Lexus Blondin\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by Scott McNiece\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpecial Thanks: Will Savery, Steven King, Garrett Shelton, Lauren Kasper, Mark Pallman, David Burkhart, Lori Mendoza, Angel Bat Dawid, Ken Okuda, Simbad, Stella Kun, Emma Warren, Lexy Morvaridi, Oran Maneti, Will Shanahan, Kim Alpert, Junius Paul, Jaimie Branch, Tomeka Reid, Alexander Hawkins, Tina Richard, Aly Gillani, Kristian 'Capitol K' Robinson, and Gus.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918415159637,"sku":"IARC0020CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP - 2022 Repress","offer_id":53918415552853,"sku":"IARC0020LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0657830546_16.jpg?v=1779460018"},{"product_id":"makaya-mccraven-universal-beings","title":"Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eParis-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In The Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced \u0026amp; re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation \u0026amp; experimentation In The Moment established a procedural blueprint that he has since been sharpening \u0026amp; developing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHoning this process on narrower sets of source material, Makaya followed up In The Moment with 2 mixtape releases – 2017’s Highly Rare, a lo-fi free-jazz-meets-hip-hop suite he made from a live 4-track recording, and June 2018’s Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape), which he produced using live recordings from London jazz hub Total Refreshment Centre (captured at a showcase called CHICAGOxLONDON).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, after 4+ years of refining his approach, Makaya McCraven puts forth an ambitious new work – Universal Beings – a culmination of concepts conceived by In The Moment, and his most elegant \u0026amp; articulated\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ework yet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpurred by a desire to connect with old friends \u0026amp; new collaborators in places where similar spirits \u0026amp; diasporic jazz innovations are thriving, Makaya worked with International Anthem across late 2017 \u0026amp; early 2018 to setup intimate live sessions in New York \u0026amp; Chicago, and pop-up “studio” sessions in London \u0026amp; Los Angeles. Though the contexts and logistics were D.I.Y. (as they almost always are with IARC), the friends \u0026amp; friends-of-friends that Makaya was able to enlist are top tier players across the board. Some might call them super groups of “new” jazz musicians from their respective cities, with Makaya as a common denominator. But more importantly, collectively they make an inspiring display of the organic global inter-connectedness of the Black American music tradition in 2018.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhysically spanning national \u0026amp; international borders to create an album that musically spans deep spiritual jazz meditations, pulsing post-bop grooves \u0026amp; straight-ahead boom-bap, Makaya McCraven defies the simplifications of revisionism \u0026amp; regionalism while celebrating the sounds, settings \u0026amp; stories that define the provenance of his work. Universal Beings projects an all-encompassing message of unity, peace \u0026amp; power by embracing transcendence in all its expressions.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased October 26, 2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 1-6 (New York Side) recorded live @ H0L0,\u003cbr\u003eRidgewood, Queens, NY, August 29th, 2017.\u003cbr\u003eBrandee Younger (harp)\u003cbr\u003eJoel Ross (vibraphone)\u003cbr\u003eTomeka Reid (cello)\u003cbr\u003eDezron Douglas (double bass)\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven (drums)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 7-11 (Chicago Side) recorded live @ Co-Prosperity Sphere,\u003cbr\u003eBridgeport, Chicago, IL, September 2nd, 2017.\u003cbr\u003e*Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone)\u003cbr\u003eTomeka Reid (cello)\u003cbr\u003eJunius Paul (double bass)\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven (drums)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 12-16 (London Side) recorded @ Total Refreshment Studios,\u003cbr\u003eStoke Newington, London, UK, October 19th, 2017.\u003cbr\u003eNubya Garcia (tenor saxophone)\u003cbr\u003e**Ashley Henry (Rhodes piano)\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Casimir (double bass)\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven (drums)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 17-22 (Los Angeles Side) recorded @ Jeff Parker's house,\u003cbr\u003eAltadena, Los Angeles County, CA, January 30th, 2018.\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson (alto saxophone)\u003cbr\u003eMiguel Atwood-Ferguson (violin)\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker (guitar)\u003cbr\u003eAnna Butterss (double bass)\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño (percussion)\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven (drums)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*Shabaka Hutchings appears courtesy of Verve Label Group\u003cbr\u003e**Ashley Henry appears courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by David Allen \u0026amp; Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Damon Locks\u003cbr\u003eInsert Portrait by Fabrice Bourgelle\u003cbr\u003eInsert Design by Craig Hansen\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Makaya McCraven\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by Scott McNiece\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918415716693,"sku":"IARC0022CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/0014644948_10.jpg?v=1779460657"},{"product_id":"damon-locks-black-monument-ensemble-where-future-unfolds","title":"Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble - Where Future Unfolds","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eWhere Future Unfolds is a new work spirited by Chicago-based sound \u0026amp; visual artist Damon Locks. Starting as a solo sound collage piece (where Locks pulled samples from Civil Rights era speeches and recordings to create an improvisational pallet for performance on his drum machine), over 4 years the project has blossomed into his 15-piece Black Monument Ensemble – featuring musicians (including Angel Bat Dawid on clarinets and Dana Hall on drums), singers (alumni of the Chicago Children's Choir), and dancers (members of Chicago youth dance company Move Me Soul). Where Future Unfolds is a live capture of the ensemble's epic debut at the Garfield Park Botanical Conservatory on the West Side of Chicago. Recalling the spirits of Phil Cohran's Artistic Heritage Ensemble, Eddie Gale's Black Rhythm Happening, Archie Shepp's Attica Blues, and Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, the album presents an inspired, innovative \u0026amp; immediate intersection of gospel, jazz, activism \u0026amp; 808 breaks.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased May 31, 2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusicians:\u003cbr\u003eAngel Bat Dawid (clarinets), Dana Hall (drums, percussion), Damon Locks (electronics, bells, voice), Arif Smith (percussion).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSingers:\u003cbr\u003ePhillip Armstrong, Monique Golding, Rayna Golding (on \"Rebuild A Nation\"), Eric McCarter, Tramaine Parker, Lauren Robinson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDancers:\u003cbr\u003eAnna Martine Whitehead, Raven Lewis (Move Me Soul), Cheyenne Spencer (Move Me Soul), Mary Thomas (Move Me Soul), Bryonna Young (Move Me Soul), Tiarra Young (Move Me Soul).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLyrics \u0026amp; Compositions by: Damon Locks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by: Charlie Mammoser.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by: Casey Rice \u0026amp; David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCostumes Designed by: Jamie Hayes at Production Mode.\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by: Daris Jasper \u0026amp; Chris Hershman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbum Art by: Damon Locks\u003cbr\u003eLayout \u0026amp; Liner Design by: Craig Hansen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded Live at Garfield Park Conservatory, as part of Red Bull Music Festival, Chicago, November 15th, 2018.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP with Obi Strip","offer_id":53918416306517,"sku":"IARC0025LP_OBISTRIP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918415946069,"sku":"IARC0025LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918416142677,"sku":"IARC0025CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0773898138_10.jpg?v=1779791096"},{"product_id":"angel-bat-dawid-the-oracle","title":"Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eComposer, clarinetist, singer \u0026amp; spiritual jazz soothsayer Angel Bat Dawid descended on Chicago's jazz \u0026amp; improvised music scene just a few years ago. In very short time, the potency, prowess, spirit \u0026amp; charisma of her cosmic musical proselytizing has taken her from relatively unknown improviser to borderline ubiquitous performer in Chicago's avant-garde. On any given night you can find Angel adding aura to ensembles led by Ben LaMar Gay, or Damon Locks, or Jaimie Branch, or Matthew Lux, or even, on a Summer night in 2018, onstage doing a woodwind duo with Roscoe Mitchell. For her recorded debut on International Anthem, The Oracle, we've chosen to release a batch of tracks that Angel created entirely alone – performing, overdubbing \u0026amp; mixing all instruments \u0026amp; voices by her self – recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, from London UK to Cape Town RSA, but primarily from her residency in the attic of the historic Radcliffe Hunter mansion in Bronzeville, Southside, Chicago.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003eReleased February 8, 2019\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918416896341,"sku":"IARC0023LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918416634197,"sku":"IARC0023CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2808259986_10.jpg?v=1779466676"},{"product_id":"junius-paul-ism","title":"Junius Paul - Ism","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003ePolychromatic low tone poems,\u003cbr\u003efree form funk flight\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp; Great Black Music\u003cbr\u003eturn the page to a brand new chapter in the Chicago sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by Ayana Contreras:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIsm opens audaciously with the spiritual mic-check “You Are Free To Choose,” a track that features Junius Paul alongside Vincent Davis (drums), Justin Dillard (piano), and Corey Wilkes (horns).\u003cbr\u003eThis is by no accident. In many ways, “You Are Free To Choose” captures the spirit of Junius Paul’s artistic roots. Corey, Justin, and Vincent were among the multigenerational cadre of Chicago musicians present when Junius chose to follow his own path of creative discovery at the storied Velvet Lounge on the South Side of the city back in October of 2002.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough the origins of his craft go back to playing in church, his creative instrumental voice really developed during jam sessions at clubs like The Velvet alongside members of the AACM, or Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. It was iron sharpening iron, the most natural form of knowledge transfer. He explained Velvet’s vibe in 2018: “It’s like in Africa.... If you had\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ethis society of diviners or medicine people, or you know, sages… The Velvet stuff is not secret; but there are certain aspects of it… if you weren’t there, you weren’t there.” The Velvet Lounge closed in 2010.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It was very much like church. I had some unbelievable spiritual experiences there. You can feel this thing inside of you. There were moments at the Velvet Lounge that were so magical that I’d get scared. I remember a night with Vincent Davis. It was like, oh my God. He can play with that intensity for that long. The Velvet Lounge was the first time I experienced anything like that. I didn’t think that people could do that. And it scared me. You think you’ve heard [some things]… and then you hear something that completely destroys anything that you thought you knew.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBack in the sixties and seventies, Chess Records’s Ter-Mar Studios was just a few blocks away from where The Velvet sat beginning in 1983. Chess was where some of Junius’s idols (like guitarist Pete Cosey and producer Charles Stepney) recorded some of his favorite albums. He sees himself as a part of that lineage. “I come from that... It’s special to be a part of that magic.” Junius still drives back to the club’s former location. “Every time I pass there” he notes, “the memories flood back.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fred Anderson and a Half” and “Ma and Dad” were both were recorded at the first of two June 2016 sessions Junius led at Comfort Station (a historic trolley stop turned art gallery on Chicago's Northwest side). They both were also named in tribute to people who helped form him. “Fred Anderson and a Half” for the musician and proprietor of The Velvet, and “Ma and Dad” for his parents, who helped guide his musical journey from an early age. Both of his parents are musical, his father was at one time a DJ. Meanwhile, his stepfather was instrumental in introducing Junius to deep cuts by artists like Miles Davis and Jackie McLean, helping to shape his musical worldview. All of these influences are clear in the Comfort Station recordings. “For a while, I wanted [these sessions] to be the album,” Junius adds. “They are very unique,” and come “from the Velvet Lounge family,” featuring Junius alongside Tomeka Reid and Isaiah Spencer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Spocky Chainsey Has Re-Emerged” was recorded live one summer evening in 2016 at the Polish Triangle (the busy Chicago intersection of Division, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenue). The cut takes up a whole side of the LP, but stays lean, slinking and swinging for its duration. Junius notes that “the familiarity [of the players] showed itself… from playing together all of those years,” relationships that trace back to the Velvet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn “Georgia,” a sexy, smoky bop featuring Junius’ casual slap bass technique and Justin Dillard’s lounge-bred organ is flipped digitally by drummer and friend Makaya McCraven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Baker’s Dozen,” featuring Isaiah Spencer on drums, Rajiv Halim on sax and Jim Baker on his outrageous ARP synthesizer, was recorded live at the second of the two Comfort Station sessions and flipped by Makaya McCraven, who highlighted the crunchy Funkadelic meets Water Babies funk of that session to great effect. Jim was a last-minute addition to the set, providing the backbone of what Junius calls an “unassuming headbanger.” Jim is also part of the Velvet Lounge Family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, of course, the spirit of the Velvet Lounge is not dead. “Tune No. 6,” recorded live at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago, is a sweet interlude here to remind us that jazz is alive and bristling with what’s yet to come.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Paris” is another stand out track. It was born at The Hideout in Chicago, but developed (or “chopped”) by Makaya in Paris. The pair were working on a different project during the day, would head to a bistro for a meal (Junius favors duck confit and wine), then would work on edits at night. Junius notes that “Paris” is one for the clubs: “I want a 12” [extended DJ] cut!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Junius pushes forward as a creative musician, he is careful to carry with him the spirit and the knowledge he’s gathered from those who have come before him. He is very literally a bridge between generations of the Chicago vanguard, currently playing in Makaya McCraven’s combo and in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in addition to fronting his own band.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne morning on tour with the Art Ensemble in Australia, Roscoe Mitchell called Junius’s hotel room and asked if he was coming to breakfast. He was. “That will never get old,” he shared with me on the other line. To play in the Art Ensemble of Chicago is the culmination of “a dream.” One that started at The Velvet Lounge nearly twenty years ago while watching his heroes. “What they taught me is that you can be yourself, as long as you’re badass at it.” Ism is a testament to Junius Paul’s journey towards himself. And he’s graciously invited us along for the ride.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 22, 2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 1, 8, 9, 10 \u0026amp; 16 recorded January 9th 2019 at Decade Studios, Old Town, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Vincent Davis, Justin Dillard \u0026amp; Corey Wilkes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 2, 3 \u0026amp; 4 recorded June 30th 2016 at Comfort Station, Logan Square, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Isaiah Spencer, Jim Baker \u0026amp; Rajiv Halim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 5, 6 \u0026amp; 7 recorded August 23rd 2016 at the Polish Triangle, Wicker Park, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Vincent Davis, Justin Dillard \u0026amp; Corey Wilkes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrack 11 recorded December 20th 2016 at The Hideout, Goose Island, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Makaya McCraven \u0026amp; Marquis Hill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrack 12 recorded April 2nd 2018 at Co-Prosperity Sphere, Bridgeport, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Vincent Davis, Justin Dillard \u0026amp; Corey Wilkes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrack 13 recorded July 26th 2016 at The Polish Triangle, Wicker Park, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Shanta Nurullah, Isaiah Spencer, Scott Hesse, Irvin Pierce \u0026amp; Makaya McCraven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 14 \u0026amp; 15 recorded June 2nd 2016 at Comfort Station, Logan Square, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, Tomeka Reid \u0026amp; Isaiah Spencer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrack 17 recorded December 13th \u0026amp; 20th 2016 at The Hideout, Goose Island, Chicago, featuring Junius Paul, William Kurk, Xavier Breaker \u0026amp; Makaya McCraven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by: Junius Paul \u0026amp; Makaya McCraven\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by: Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; David Allen\u003cbr\u003eEdited by: Makaya McCraven\u003cbr\u003eSequenced by: Scott McNiece\u003cbr\u003eMastered by: David Allen\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by: Scott McNiece \u0026amp; Makaya McCraven\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Photos by: Fabrice Bourgelle\u003cbr\u003eCover Design by: Raimund Wong\u003cbr\u003eLiner Photos by: Andrea Falcone\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by: Ayana Contreras\u003cbr\u003eLayout \u0026amp; Liner Design by: Craig Hansen\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Black Vinyl Gatefold Double LP","offer_id":53918417289557,"sku":"IARC0028LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918417092949,"sku":"IARC0028CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1687092525_10.jpg?v=1779793326"},{"product_id":"carlos-nino-miguel-atwood-ferguson-chicago-waves","title":"Carlos Niño \u0026 Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - Chicago Waves","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eIn late November of 2018, long-time collaborators (\u0026amp; life-long Los Angelenos) Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Miguel Atwood-Ferguson flew to Chicago to participate in the album release performance of Makaya McCraven’s Universal Beings. Just 11 months prior, Carlos \u0026amp; Miguel were part of recording the ‘Los Angeles Side’ of Universal Beings at Jeff Parker’s house in Altadena, California, and this performance in Chicago would be the first time that all of the musicians reunited to re-learn and perform the music they’d collectively composed during those sessions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Universal Beings performance and preceding days of rehearsal took place at the iconic South Shore Cultural Center – a historic gilded-era urban club-turned-public facility deep on Chicago’s Southside and right along the reedy shore of Lake Michigan, giving the building’s backdrop an infinitely blue Northern expanse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe night after the performance at South Shore Cultural Center, friend of International Anthem Jeremy Cunningham was scheduled to debut new music (\"The Weather Up There,\" which has since been released on Northern Spy Records) at our HQ, Co-Prosperity Sphere. Since Carlos \u0026amp; Miguel were still in Chicago (before they’d head to New York City for a second Universal Beings performance at\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eLe Poisson Rouge), we invited them to do a Special Guest duo set to open the show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the conclusion of their 44-minute improvised set that night, Carlos spontaneously dubbed the piece “Chicago Waves.” His proclamation gave us the distinct impression that the previous days spent in South Shore (and the many commutes to-and-from, along Lake Shore Drive) had imprinted the deep blue vastness of early-Winter Lake Michigan into Carlos \u0026amp; Miguel’s respective \u0026amp; collective consciousness, and thus, into the spirit of the luminous music they created that night at Co-Prosperity Sphere. We at IARC are happy to share this recording of Chicago Waves with the world in a time when peace-bringing sound and a sweet memory of live music, sparkling inside the collective breath of community in communal space, has potential to provide the utmost nourishment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e...about Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Miguel Atwood-Ferguson...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño – a multidimensional and catalytic producer, arranger, percussionist and DJ – made early in-roads through independent music in 1995, founding Spaceways Radio, the longstanding program for LA’s KPFK station and, shortly thereafter, co-founding non-profit internet radio giant Dublab. Moreover, Niño has been front-and-center in the forging of post-hip hop, contemporary Spiritual Jazz and New Age lexicons in Los Angeles. From community activism at Leimert Park’s The World Stage to kindred allyship within Leaving Records’ all-genre manifestations, his ensemble, Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Friends, is a living collaborative force that has engaged a fountain of inspired players such as Sam Gendel, Jamael Dean, Dexter Story, Jamire Williams, Josh Johnson, Deantoni Parks, Madlib, Kamasi Washington, and of course, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAtwood-Ferguson – an arranger, composer, music director, producer and multi-instrumentalist – rose as a classically trained session musician to what the New York Times would call “a leader of skilled ensembles, a celebrator of repertories and an organizer of legacies.” He has composed string arrangements for everyone from Dr. Dre to Anderson .Paak, Thundercat and Flying Lotus (among many, many others). Suite for Ma Dukes, a towering homage to the late J Dilla, saw Atwood-Ferguson re-interpreting the legendary producer’s work for orchestra while assembling a 60-piece ensemble performance that featured Bilal, Talib Kweli, Karriem Riggins and others. His highly anticipated debut LP, Les Jardins Mystiques, is slated for release in 2021 via Brainfeeder Records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough Niño and Atwood-Ferguson initially met some years before, the two lifelong Los Angelenos truly connected as artists and friends in 2005. It was in that year that Atwood-Ferguson joined Niño in the studio to record two different records – With Voices, the final album by Niño’s beatmaking duo Ammoncontact, and Living Room by The Life Force Trio, a group comprised of Niño, Dwight Trible and Dexter Story. That same year, Atwood-Ferguson also joined Niño’s ensemble, Build An Ark. The two became close.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is among my dearest, closest friends and collaborators. He is family,” says Niño. “I enjoy every opportunity that we find \/ create, or invitation that we agree to accept, to communicate with each other psychically.” Atwood-Ferguson says: “Carlos has been one of my greatest friends and teachers ever since 2005. I am joyously eternally indebted to him and can't wait to do as much with him as possible!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth prolific independent artists and consummate advocates of creative music in Los Angeles and beyond, Niño and Atwood-Ferguson reunited in 2007 to record their debut album for Alpha Pup, a stirring and plaintive duet entitled Fill the Heart-Shaped Cup. They would go on to play together often over the following decade but it’s not until 2020 that they release another recording as a duet. That recording is Chicago Waves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- bio by Joe Darling\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased June 26, 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music composed by Carlos Niño (Third Side Music)\u003cbr\u003eand Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (Warp Publishing).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded live November 30th, 2018,\u003cbr\u003eat Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport, Chicago, Illinois.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño – percussion \u0026amp; soundscapes\u003cbr\u003eMiguel Atwood-Ferguson* – 5-string violin \u0026amp; effects\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art by Sam Klickner.\u003cbr\u003ePortrait by Kristie Kahns.\u003cbr\u003eLayout \u0026amp; Liner Design by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*Miguel Atwood-Ferguson appears courtesy of Brainfeeder Records.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918418436437,"sku":"IARC0033LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918418141525,"sku":"IARC0033CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0463730313_10.jpg?v=1779794764"},{"product_id":"makaya-mccraven-universal-beings-e-f-sides","title":"Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings E\u0026F Sides","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eAn addendum to Makaya McCraven's critically-acclaimed 2018 release Universal Beings, which The New York Times said \"affirms the drummer and beatsmith's position as a major figure in creative music,\" Universal Beings E\u0026amp;F Sides presents fourteen new pieces of organic beat music cut from the original sessions, prepared and produced by Makaya as a soundtrack to the Universal Beings documentary film.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDirected by Mark Pallman, the Universal Beings documentary follows Makaya to Los Angeles, Chicago, London and New York City for a behind the scenes look into the making of the artists breakthrough album, taking the viewer through the story of Makaya's life, his process and the community of musicians that helped bring this project to life. The Universal Beings documentary and Universal Beings E\u0026amp;F Sides album release July 31st 2020.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNamed one of the best albums of 2018 by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, Stereogum, Billboard, SPIN, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, and more, Universal Beings was recorded at four sessions in New York, Chicago, London and Los Angeles, and features some of the best \"new\" jazz players from those hot bed cities: Brandee Younger, Tomeka Reid, Dezron\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eDouglas, Joel Ross, Shabaka Hutchings, Junius Paul, Nubya Garcia, Daniel Casimir, Ashley Henry, Josh Johnson, Jeff Parker, Anna Butters, Carlos Niño and Miguel-Atwood Ferguson - all of whom feature on Universal Beings E\u0026amp;F Sides.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased July 31, 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 1, 5 \u0026amp; 11 recorded August 29th, 2017, at H010 in Ridgewood, Queens, New York. Featuring:\u003cbr\u003eBrandee Younger - harp\u003cbr\u003eJoel Ross - vibraphone\u003cbr\u003eDezron Douglas - double bass\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 2 \u0026amp; 14 recorded October 18th, 2017, at Total Refreshment Centre in Stoke Newington, London, UK. Featuring:\u003cbr\u003eSoweto Kinch - saxophone\u003cbr\u003eKamaal Williams - keys\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 3 \u0026amp; 4 recorded October 19th, 2017, at Total Refreshment Studios in Stoke Newington, London, UK. Featuring:\u003cbr\u003eNubya Garcia - tenor saxophone\u003cbr\u003eAshley Henry* - rhodes piano\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Casimir - double bass\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums\u003cbr\u003e*Ashley Henry appears courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 6, 12 \u0026amp; 13 recorded January 30th, 2018, at Jeff Parker's house in Altadena, California. Featuring:\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson - alto saxophone\u003cbr\u003eMiguel Atwood-Ferguson - violin\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker - guitar\u003cbr\u003eAnna Butterss - double bass\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - percussion\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrack 7 recorded June 18th, 2017, at Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport, Chicago, Illinois. Featuring:\u003cbr\u003eJunius Paul - double bass\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTracks 8, 9 \u0026amp; 10 recorded September 2nd, 2017, at Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport, Chicago, Illinois. Featuring:\u003cbr\u003eShabaka Hutchings* - tenor saxophone\u003cbr\u003eTomeka Reid - cello\u003cbr\u003eJunius Paul - double bass, percussion\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums\u003cbr\u003e*Shabaka Hutchings appears courtesy of Verve Label Group\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; David Allen.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art by Damon Locks.\u003cbr\u003ePortrait by Sean Owens.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Makaya McCraven.\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by Scott McNiece.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918419059029,"sku":"IARCEF22LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918418731349,"sku":"IARCEF22CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a4180158321_10.jpg?v=1780412729"},{"product_id":"aquiles-navarro-tcheser-holmes-heritage-of-the-invisible-ii","title":"Aquiles Navarro \u0026 Tcheser Holmes - Heritage of the Invisible II","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eTelepathic Afro-Caribbean improvisational trumpet-and-percussion duo Aquiles Navarro \u0026amp; Tcheser Holmes are longtime friends, collaborators, and tireless hustlers on the creative music scenes of New York City.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Heritage of the Invisible II\" follows Navarro and Holmes’s rise to prominence as members of free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements. In March of 2020 in \"The Nation\" writer Marcus J. Moore said \"Irreversible Entanglements’ fearless music takes to task the police, American politics, capitalism, and racism.\" The revolutionary ethos that drives Irreversible Entanglements is no less present in Navarro and Holmes’s duo work, though their duo finds them much more wholeheartedly and jubilantly embracing their Latin and Afro-Caribbean foundations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAquiles Navarro was born in Toronto during a time of great, political upheaval in his family’s native home of Panama. Dangers surrounding the reign of Manuel Noriega and the subsequent U.S. invasion of 1989 prompted the Navarro family’s exit, returning years later to Panama City in 1997. Latin folkloric music was fastened deeply to the family paradigm. After studying with Panamanian trumpeter Victor “Vitin” Paz (Fania All-Stars) and\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ePanamanian-American composer\/saxophonist Carlos Garnett (Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders), Navarro moved to Boston to study at the New England Conservatory (NEC). Before the semester had even begun, a friendship had kindled between him and another incoming new student, Tcheser Holmes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince a young age, Tcheser Holmes naturally wove into the fabric of a tight-knit Pan-African community in Brooklyn centered around the spiritual organization, Ausar Auset Society, and his family’s dance company, The Bennu Ausar Dancers. From early on, Holmes remembers “playing and viewing music purely as a source of celebration and achievement.” As a teenager he enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music’s Precollege for pre-conservatory training, and eventually made his way toward NEC.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter their tenure at NEC, both musicians relocated to New York City. “In New York, I've been a working musician since day 1,” recalls Navarro. \"Tcheser and I played all over the city, from Uptown to all over Brooklyn, often booking our own gigs.\" Dance clubs and subway platforms, The Bowery Poetry Club, the Latin Jazz Big Band at the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, and Roberto Roena y Su Apollo Sound in the Bronx – the two musicians developed a wide creative range. “We got familiar with a system where the rhythm is quantified,” says Holmes. “But I feel like we always remained ‘children’ in terms of viewing music. Kobe said ‘Be a Kid.’ We never needed to validate the process.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Summer 2014 they traveled to Panama together to perform and record a set of duo improvisations, which they digitally self-released later that year. Back in Brooklyn in 2015, Navarro and Holmes performed as a duo at a Musicians Against Police Brutality event, where they shared the stage with the trio of Camae Ayewa (aka Moor Mother), Keir Neuringer and Luke Stewart. The two groups made fast friends, and shortly after, came together to form the collective quintet Irreversible Entanglements. With Irreversible Entanglements they recorded two critically-lauded albums (\"Irreversible Entanglements\", released 2017, and \"Who Sent You?\", released 2020) across several years of growth and international touring (including performances at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, Le Guess Who? in Utrecht, NL, the Barbican in London, and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the Fall of 2019 Navarro and Holmes coalesced around the idea of composing new, expanded duo music, and booked two after-hours sessions at Brooklyn’s S1 Studios. “Each tune has a compositional background to it, but improvisation and the telepathy between us remains the main catalyst,” notes Navarro. From this open map, the duo layered samples and electronic elements from Juno 106 and Moog Grandmother synths over their acoustic improvisations, overdubbed contributions from poets, vocalist and instrumentalist friends, and added field recordings of themselves in conversation. To sculpt the mass of sounds they commissioned ada adhiyatma (aka Madam Data, a Philadelphia-based composer\/electronicist who they’d met through a joint collaboration with Moor Mother) for a final mix. The resulting album – \"Heritage of the Invisible II\" – reveals Navarro and Holmes stepping firmly into the limelight of progressive music-making.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tracks flash by in a rapturous onslaught, crystalizing in incantations by Spanish poet Marcos de la Fuente (an apocalyptic fever dream on “Initial Meditation”), vocalist Brigitte Zozula (the bliss of bustling nightlife on “A Night in NY”), Navarro’s mentor and collaborator Carlos Garnett (the banality of economics on “$$$ \/\/\/ billete”) and their own musings on friendship and community (the stoned soul picnic of “Plantains”). Of the album’s de facto anthem “Pueblo,” Navarro says “it’s a celebration of life, the coming together of the people, el pueblo, a celebration of who we are, where we come from, it’s our pueblo, our people, a feeling of openness, hope, and a future of unity from el pueblo, the people.” Identifying as active listeners and audience members as well, Navarro and Holmes step back on “M.O.N.K (Most Only Never Knew)” to shine a light on the solo improvisation of pianist\/composer Nick Sanders. On the 8-minute duet “NAVARROHOLMES,” the two players reach a summit as they face off in spirited alliance, conjuring visions of legendary free jazz telepathics – Braxton and Roach, Coltrane and Ali, Cherry and Blackwell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNavarro and Holmes never idle on \"Heritage of the Invisible II,\" choosing instead to ponder their origins in a devout charge of ecstatic cooperation. Meditating on the unseen constructive forces of culture and rhythm as a cadence encoded in one’s heritage, with \"Heritage of the Invisible II\" they share a volume of their story in rich color – a brilliantly imagined testament to generations of memory, creation and existential joy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- bio by Joe Darling\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleased October 23, 2020\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Fried Plantain\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918420009301,"sku":"IARC0035LPRT","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918419517781,"sku":"IARC0035LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918419288405,"sku":"IARC0035CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0743046101_10.jpg?v=1779795538"},{"product_id":"rob-mazurek-exploding-star-orchestra-dimensional-stardust","title":"Rob Mazurek, Exploding Star Orchestra - Dimensional Stardust","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eMarfa TX-based multidisciplinary abstractivist Rob Mazurek has made an indelible impact on creative music over the past 30 years. Emerging from the musical nexus of the 1990s Chicago scene, he’s written more than 400 compositions and is featured on more than 70 recordings (including International Anthem’s very first, IARC0001, \"Alternate Moon Cycles\"). He’s led or co-led many ensembles – including the Chicago Underground (Duo, Trio, Quartet \u0026amp; Orchestra), Isotope 217 (alongside members of Tortoise), Pharoah and the Underground (feat. Pharoah Sanders), Alien Flower Sutra (with Emmett Kelly), São Paulo Underground (his primary working group across his time in Brazil), and a duo with Jeff Parker – each of which possesses its own distinct musical personality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile Mazurek’s solo work as a musician expands from cornet, piano, and piccolo trumpet studies to embody musique concrete and electronic experimentation, his composition for large ensemble reveals an intuitive sense of scale. Commissioned by the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute of Chicago in 2005 to assemble a group representing the diversity of the city’s contemporary avant-garde, Mazurek amassed a 14-piece ensemble and began composing music for what became his Exploding Star Orchestra (ESO)\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e. Including musicians from the often-segregated communities of Chicago’s North, South, and West sides – from his long-time collaborators in Tortoise’s expansive orbit, to Great Black Music luminaries from the hallowed AACM, to free jazz revivalists from the Umbrella Music group – ESO debuted in the urban epicenter of Chicago’s Millennium Park and, shortly after, went into John McEntire’s Soma Studios to record \"We Are All From Somewhere Else\" (Thrill Jockey, 2007). By the time of \"Galactic Parables Vol. 1,\" ESO’s 2015 triple LP release on Cuneiform Records, Mazurek reflected to Pop Matters that \"Exploding Star Orchestra is the conceptual, compositional and philosophical center of all my work... a life star of musical, visual and conceptual ideas.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2018, JazzFest Berlin curator Nadin Deventer invited Mazurek to present a new iteration of ESO with musicians based in Berlin as well as Chicago. Meeting the commission with the boundless ambition characteristic of his artistic approach, he imagined a jubilee of fifteen musicians and improvisers, true to ESO’s ethos in their widely diverse backgrounds and voices, but more tightly arranged around his intricate compositions than ever before. Summoning an array of symphonic studies – from Béla Bartók to Morton Feldman to Gil Evans to Sun Ra to Pedro Santos to Bill Dixon to The Art Ensemble of Chicago – in an ecstatic and wholly original program, Mazurek’s November 2018 debut at Berliner Festspiele marked a new pinnacle in his distinction as a composer and conductor of Contemporary Music. “Mazurek’s arrangements burst in colors, making synesthetes of us all,” wrote Paul Acquaro in a review of the concert for Free Jazz Collective.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Mazurek returned to Chicago in Summer 2019, International Anthem took the opportunity to capture his new ESO compositions with a cast of collaborators from their collective constellation of artists. Over a handful of studio dates between August 2019 and March 2020, Mazurek channeled his arrangements through 11 musicians – Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, Mikel Patrick Avery, Tomeka Reid, Chad Taylor, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Macie Stewart, Angelica Sanchez, and John Herndon – and commissioned his long-time lyrical collaborator Damon Locks to draft original texts for each of the titles and record vocal tracks. After three months of rigorous post-production, editing and assembly work, in June 2020 Mazurek completed his culminating new collection of ESO recordings: \"Dimensional Stardust.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dimensional Stardust\" showcases the intricacy and complexity of Mazurek’s compositions but in their most potent, most compacted forms. Opting to focus on tight ensemble orchestration over passages of open improvisation, Mazurek distills a maximal orchestra of explosive improvisers into a beautifully restrained, graceful group exercise in melodic minimalism. The album features almost no “soloist” moments, excepting Jeff Parker’s other-worldy guitar meltdown on “The Careening Prism Within,” and when Nicole Mitchell’s flute floats to the front of the barrage on “Sun Core Tet.” Mazurek himself is sparsely present as instrumentalist, only occasionally joining the ensemble with his piccolo trumpet (notably on “Parable 3000,” where he shares leads with Mitchell’s flute and Joel Ross’s vibraphone, and his trills and textures haunt ghostly around Jaimie Branch’s trumpet counterpoint). Even Damon Locks’s voice is employed more like an ensemble instrument than a lead vocalist. Locks’ distinctively dry, abstract narrative flow beams in intermittently – sounding almost like fragments of Deltron 3030 through an Orson Wells-style radio transmission – climaxing in the album-closing poetry of “Autumn Pleiades.” And all the way through, the electro-acoustic poly-rhythmic percussion section (Chad Taylor, Mikel Patrick Avery, and John Herndon) churns, thrusting the music forward as the harmonic instruments collectively bow between frenzied, futurist chromaticism and soaring, pan-humanist pentatonic anthems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomehow swirling the most adventurous elements of avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical into the most universal attractors of pop music, the cosmic opera of \"Dimensional Stardust\" is a pure spiritual extension of Exploding Star Orchestra’s unifying ethos, and a new peak in the prolific creative career of Rob Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\"Dimensional Stardust\" is the second album co-released by the North \u0026amp; South American partnership of International Anthem \u0026amp; Nonesuch Records, following Jeff Parker's early 2020 release, \"Suite For Max Brown.\" International Anthem \u0026amp; Nonesuch Records are slated to co-release at least 6 titles over 3 years, details on future albums TBA. Outside of North and South America, these albums are marketed \u0026amp; distributed by K7 Records.***\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 20, 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRob Mazurek - director, composer, piccolo trumpet, electronic renderings, modular synth\u003cbr\u003eDamon Locks - voice, electronics, texts\u003cbr\u003eNicole Mitchell - flutes\u003cbr\u003eMacie Stewart - violins\u003cbr\u003eTomeka Reid - cellos\u003cbr\u003eJoel Ross - vibraphone\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker - guitar\u003cbr\u003eJaimie Branch - trumpet\u003cbr\u003eAngelica Sanchez - acoustic piano, electric piano\u003cbr\u003eIngebrigt Håker Flaten - bass\u003cbr\u003eChad Taylor - drums, percussion\u003cbr\u003eMikel Patrick Avery - drums, percussion\u003cbr\u003eJohn Herndon - drum machines\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll Music and Titles by Rob Mazurek (OLHO, ASCAP).\u003cbr\u003eWords by Damon Locks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered, Recorded \u0026amp; Mixed by David Allen \u0026amp; Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Recording by Nicole Mitchell, Mikel Patrick Avery, John Herndon \u0026amp; Rob Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003eEdited by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Dave Cooley.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Painting by Rob Mazurek (“Some Other Time” 2020).\u003cbr\u003ePrints by Rob Mazurek with technical assistance by Mathieu Constans.\u003cbr\u003ePackage Design by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Scott McNiece, David Allen, Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; Rob Mazurek.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"info license\" id=\"license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918420140373,"sku":"IARC0036LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Limited Edition \"Moon Dust\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918420402517,"sku":"IARC0036LPCM","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918424432981,"sku":"IARC0036CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/0022380944_10.jpg?v=1779967193"},{"product_id":"dezron-douglas-brandee-younger-force-majeure","title":"Dezron Douglas \u0026 Brandee Younger - Force Majeure","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eForce Majeure is an uplifting suite of real, soulful comfort music – an album that cathartically encapsulates an all-too-familiar human experience of 2020. Featuring 11 pieces performed by bassist Dezron Douglas \u0026amp; harpist Brandee Younger across a series of live-streamed shows from their living room in Harlem, NY, the album was self-recorded by the duo using just a single microphone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe same day Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down “non-essential” businesses throughout the state of New York, Douglas \u0026amp; Younger set up a window to the world that would prevail as a weekly musical reprieve over the devastating weeks and months to come. As the early effects of covid-19 plagued the citizens of New York City, Douglas \u0026amp; Younger did as we were all ordered to do — shelter-in-place. From their apartment in Harlem, their reflex as players and community-builders was immediate. Broadcasting via social media and spreading the word to friends and family, the duo hosted “Force Majeure: Brunch in the Crib with Brandee \u0026amp; Dezron,” a Friday morning live stream where they performed songs, said “hi” to friends tuning in, and passed a digital tip jar. The name “force majeure” — known to diligent contract-readers as a seldom-invoked bit of legalese that voids commitments in event of “extraordinary circumstances”\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e— was, for Douglas \u0026amp; Younger, a reference to the sudden loss of livelihood that they and their musician peers suffered in the wake of covid-19.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We vowed to become a part of the resiliency of this city,” says Douglas. “You can take the work away, but you can’t stop musicians from being creative. Live streaming is just a part of it. The world as a whole saw that arts \u0026amp; entertainment is an integral and vital part of this ‘service’ city. We, musicians and creatives, are as essential to this city as the MTA is. The NYC community responded with love and honesty on a high level. Expression became vital for people to make it through the day and, at the same time, listening and watching expression became vital.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe success of Douglas \u0026amp; Younger’s initial live streams turned their series into an ongoing weekly ritual for a fast-growing audience of supporters. For most, it was a momentary musical break that helped ease the stressful weeks of lockdown, even as the weeks turned into months and the re-opening date extended further and further into the future. In late May, as the country erupted over the compounded murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless other Black Americans, Douglas \u0026amp; Younger continued to connect from their Friday morning platform, uniting with more and more people through the healing power of playing, sharing, and listening. The series got attention from NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Boiler Room, Downbeat, and others; but regardless, finding the creative energy to devote to the project was a regular challenge for the two musicians. “Sometimes it was hard to be creative because the mood in the world was so dark, but every Friday we felt compelled to give back and allow GOD to heal through vibration,” says Douglas. Not only was the human connection vital, the duo felt a responsibility as stewards of music’s future. “Whatever the next thing is, I will make it a point to be involved because Music saved my life, saves lives, and must be taken care of.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe repertoire that Douglas \u0026amp; Younger performed began with standards they knew and music they wanted to learn (or “get inside of,” as Douglas often said), but evolved on a week-to-week basis to incorporate shifting emotions, milestones, and special requests from friends and family. Younger recalls: “In choosing the repertoire we played, it was definitely more organic and personal. When we realized a birthday of a certain artist or holiday was coming, we'd do something in dedication… Sometimes we'd pick the rep based on our mood. On those very dark days that Dez mentioned, we'd play “Sing\" to perk up the mood. Something about that song just brings smiles all around. It was very hard to fake when the mood was dark, though. Marvin Gaye helped us out a lot during that time, as did some spirituals.” With what became their brunch staples they covered a broad range of memories and sounds, including classics by The Stylistics, The Jackson 5, Alice \u0026amp; John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Kate Bush, Sting, and The Carpenters, as well as a co-written original composition with which they ended every set, “Toilet Paper Romance.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the earliest sessions, the duo worked alongside International Anthem to review the weekly recordings; together they compiled, edited, and eventually arrived at the stream-to-songbook of Force Majeure. Between the choicest takes of tunes chosen for the final album sequence, they put excerpts of their sometimes cute or comedic, often profound banter. Notably Douglas’s voice ends both side A and side B with off-the-cuff variations of: “Black Music cannot be replicated, it can only be expressed.” Like poetic bookends for Force Majeure, his words could also serve as foundational principles for the work, underscoring the importance of authenticity and integrity in music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDouglas elaborates: “Black Music, no matter what genre, is exactly what it is — Music created by Black Musicians for the sake of vibrating on our own frequencies of understanding and empathy. I love all music, but I also recognize that music is a cultural and regional vibration. You don’t have to be Black to play Black music, but if you are out here making money off of Black Culture and have no empathy for the People and the Culture then you are even more part of the problem. Black Lives Matter because for a long time our lives didn’t matter and it was Normal — normal to society and normal to us as Black humans. What’s different between then and now is the fact that the Virus has given people time to focus on the current social media platform used to document evil in this world. The filming and documentation of the loss of human life to evil is more powerful than Politics and Government. It’s LIFE showing us how Inhumane we are as a Human Race. Yet we still haven’t figured it out yet. Let’s hope we aren’t the catalyst for this planet to implode. That would be unfortunate considering we have the chance to fix it. We have the chance to do right by Mother Nature and we have the chance to do right by each other. We always have a chance. Change is inevitable, but is evil and selfishness and self-righteousness a part of change? Certainly! Is Love and Empathy and Humanity a part of change? Most definitely! What side are you on? We are on the side of Love.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDouglas \u0026amp; Younger understand that the revolution begins with a transformation of the heart. And for the heart to be transformed, it must be lifted up. “This album is a testament to the power of music to uplift us through the most challenging times,” says friend, collaborator, and fellow International Anthem recording artist, Makaya McCraven. Force Majeure is an uplifting suite of real, soulful comfort music – a spiritual salve, emanating warmth from the hearth of a Harlem sanctuary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- bio by Joe Darling \u0026amp; Scott McNiece -\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBassist, composer, bandleader, and educator Dezron Douglas has established himself as a major force in contemporary creative music. A protégé of the great Jackie McLean, the Downbeat Magazine 2019 Rising Star is known for his work with Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Cyrus Chestnut, David Murray, Louis Hayes, and also with piano legends George Cables, Eric Reed, Mulgrew Miller and Benny Green. Douglas has recorded on more than 100 albums, contributing to the artistry of numerous bandleaders and maintaining an integral presence in the sounds of his peers, which include Keyon Harrold, Jonathan Blake, Melanie Charles, and Makaya McCraven. He is an active music educator, currently on the Jazz Studies faculty at NYU Steinhardt. He has released 6 albums as a lead artist and maintains a variety of projects that he uses as platforms for his compositions. His band, Black Lion, released their latest single “COBRA” in October of 2020.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarpist, composer, educator, and concert curator Brandee Younger is known for her work with Ravi Coltrane, Moses Sumney, Lauryn Hill and producer Salaam Remi. The New Yorker has described her instrumental craft as “radiant playing ... as cogent on hip-hop and R\u0026amp;B albums as it is set against classical and jazz backdrops.” Her work often extends to illustrious heights, featured by Beyoncé in Netflix’s concert documentary Beyoncé: Homecoming as well as Quincy Jones and Steve McQueen in 2019’s “Soundtrack of America” series. She recently joined the harp faculty at NYU Steinhardt and the New School in Manhattan. When Alice Coltrane passed away in 2007, her son Ravi Coltrane asked Younger to perform at the memorial. Her performance “moved me and everyone in attendance from the first glissando,” Coltrane told the New York Times. “No harpist thus far has been more capable of combining all of the modern harp traditions — from Salzedo, through Dorothy Ashby, through Alice Coltrane — with such strength, grace and commitment.” Younger recently signed to Impulse! Records, with whom she has a new album planned for release in 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDouglas \u0026amp; Younger are long-time companions in life and in music. The two East Coast natives met early in life and have accompanied each other, personally and professionally, through equally prolific careers. “Brandee and I met in college, University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music, back in 2001,” remembers Douglas. “Her practice room was across the hall from mine. We began a friendship instantly through music and Black culture. We would jam a lot in college when she wanted to practice ‘Jazz.’ She was a Classical Harp and Music Business double major and she was heavily influenced by Jazz and Black Music so I sort of became an outlet for her to walk on the wild side in the eyes of University and Classical politics.” To this day, Douglas and Younger often accompany each other in the ensembles they lead, respectively. The two have played together in the Ravi Coltrane Quartet, with The Baylor Project, and in sessions for Makaya McCraven’s 2018 release Universal Beings, on which they are both featured artists. Force Majeure is their first release as a duo.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased December 4, 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music arranged by Brandee Younger \u0026amp; Dezron Douglas;\u003cbr\u003eexcept \"Inshallah\" arranged by Dezron Douglas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDezron Douglas - double bass, bass guitar, voice\u003cbr\u003eBrandee Younger - harp, voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded between March and June, 2020, at Dezron \u0026amp; Brandee's apartment in Harlem, New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered by Brandee Younger.\u003cbr\u003eRemote Recording Assistance by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEdited \u0026amp; Sequenced by Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003eMixed \u0026amp; Mastered by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art by Esther Sibiude.\u003cbr\u003eDesign \u0026amp; Layout by Craig Hansen.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918431543637,"sku":"IARC0038LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918429184341,"sku":"IARC0038CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3667047525_10_dbccf59a-c704-431a-84b0-df68347f8865.jpg?v=1779968039"},{"product_id":"angel-bat-dawid-tha-brothahood-live","title":"Angel Bat Dawid \u0026 Tha Brothahood - LIVE","description":"\u003cp\u003eLIVE was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel Bat Dawid and her band Tha Brothahood – which includes Deacon Otis Cooke, Viktor Le Givens, Xristian Espinoza, Norman W. Long, Dr. Adam Zanolini, and Asher Simiso Gamedze – it was the first stop of their first European tour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eForty-eight hours before the show, Angel and members of the band were on their way to the airport in Chicago when they received news that Viktor Le Givens had passed out on the street and subsequently woke up in a hospital with all his personal belongings missing. When they arrived in Berlin, the band’s manager Najee-Zaid Searcy reached out to the production staff of JazzFest Berlin to inform them of the situation. Their initial reply: “if you cannot find a substitute, we will have to reduce your fee.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf the cold, insensitive response to Viktor’s unfortunate situation, Angel recalls: “It really put a whole damper on my spirit to have to deal with this a few hours before performing. How the fuck is this response ever acceptable anywhere?!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngel continues: “I have issues in general about the way artists are treated because I see a difference in how tech folks treat women and artist of color… I’m calling it out. A lot of the racism and things I’m talking about are steeped in microaggressions and are so subtle and can go unnoticed. But all those things happen a lot and it was very evident at the festival… Yes I am hyper sensitive to any infraction I ever see, feel or observe when it comes to racism, and I no longer pass it off as an over sensitivity but an opportunity to blow the whistle on intellectual and structural racism that is still a rampant and ugly beast, especially in the European music world.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngel and her band had a handful of experiences over their two days in Berlin that contributed to her feelings, including an interaction at The Ellington Hotel (a place that’s named \u0026amp; themed in homage to the famous Black American composer), where the band was staying. The moment was recorded by Angel’s bandmate and she chose to include an excerpt at the beginning of the album’s first track, where she shouts repeatedly: “ever since I’ve been here y’all have treated me like shit!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe full story, from Angel: “The morning at the Duke Ellington Hotel was the result of a buildup of things… The insensitive way the festival dealt with Viktor… to mean stares walking down the street with my Brothers… A man came up to all of us and said he was frightened by our group. I went to another shop and they told me ‘don't go to East Berlin because they don’t like Blacks’... Berlin was leaving me feeling very isolated and angry. So the morning we were leaving this hotel, with its homage to Black musicians in every room… They had a piano in their bar area and I decided to play a tune, sing and praise, to leave on a good note. Deacon Otis was filming it as our way of just walking in love, no matter what. As I was singing someone on the staff runs up to me red face and angry saying ‘ma’am please don't do this in the lobby this is not allowed!’ And I just went the fux off. I had had enough of the reprimands... I just couldn't be my genuine Black self anywhere in Berlin without someone reprimanding me…”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother sound that Angel chose to include in the album is an excerpt from a JazzFest Berlin panel discussion she participated in, which was moderated by writer Emma Warren – a friend of Angel’s – and recorded by Searcy. Angel’s powerful declamations from the panel stage are heard on the album’s last track “HELL,” through a dense layering of effects. “The discussion was led by Emma… so I was feeling very much myself and was going to tell the honest truth about how these festivals and music scenes still operate and support intellectual and structural racism, because they are never challenged,” Angel recalls.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite, or perhaps in light of the difficulties Angel and her band faced, they performed a set at Berliner Festspiele that Angel considers to be one of their best ever. “The show was very deep, and really helped me to process all the rage, and uncomfortable things I was feeling... It made me think of all the artists of the past who endured way more than I ever will with this music industry. It was a very freeing and beautiful show… we played our ass off!!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarlem, NY-based journalist Shannon J. Effinger, who had interviewed Angel for Pitchfork earlier in 2019, was in Berlin to cover the festival and witnessed Angel’s performance. “I had no clue Shannon was there and I was so happy to see her... We had breakfast in the morning together and I was able to vent to her about my frustrations about being in Europe. She shared the same sentiments, because she too was experiencing all the subtle microaggressions that happen over there,” Angel says.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShortly after Angel decided to make the Berlin recording into an album, in Summer 2020 she invited Effinger to write liner notes. In her notes for LIVE, Effinger touches on Angel’s mistreatment; but for the most part her attention is paid to the music that Angel \u0026amp; Tha Brothahood made during their performance. An excerpt: \"On Sun Ra’s “Enlightenment,” Dawid’s arpeggiated chords on keys brought us all to our own hush harbor meeting, a once haven for enslaved Blacks to gather in secret and release their hardships through shout and prayer. As Dawid, Cape Town drummer Asher Gamedze and Adam Zanolini on reeds build into a tense crescendo, it is their attempt, through music, to exorcise the generational pain that has plagued Blacks for far too long.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I feel Shannon really captured the moment I was feeling. The story of my unrest with the racist undertones of the music industry isn’t why I want this album out. I want this album out because the Brothahood kicked ass on the music. Because she was there at the actual show, her notes have the purest, most authentic and accurate take on the situation,” says Angel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother excerpt from Effinger's notes: \"From the unwavering strength of the “Black Family” as told through her clarinet, strong and resolute, to “We Are Starzz” which allowed the members of the Brothahood to dance and explore in their respective constellations over Zanolini’s walking bassline, Dawid strives to reconcile where Black life in America presently stands today—bestrided by a glorious yet troubled past, the disillusioned promise of our future, and a present that has never truly belonged to us.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAngel Bat Dawid: “I hope that this album will uplift and raise awareness to the world that we are still not in a good place when it comes to the relationship between whites other races. Universities, festivals, organizations etc that were built over 50 years ago, even though they have changed outwardly, have not changed internally, and still uphold the principles of their founders, who were racists. We still got a long way to go. And music is a great place to start in repairing this age old, distorted reality.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl Gatefold 2LP","offer_id":53918431969621,"sku":"IMRC0037LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918431641941,"sku":"IMRC0037CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0910541570_10.jpg?v=1780477831"},{"product_id":"carlos-nino-friends-more-energy-fields-current","title":"Carlos Niño \u0026 Friends - More Energy Fields, Current","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e'More Energy Fields, Current' is a definitive new peak in the recorded continuum of prolific producer\/percussionist Carlos Niño. Featuring heavy contributions from many of the most exciting instrumentalists in the creative music constellation of Los Angeles (of which Niño’s has been a central force for over 2 decades), the album collects 10 pristine gems of collaborative communication helmed by the Southern Californian sage, elegantly presented in his unique “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage” style.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStarting with the subtle invitation of “Pleasewakeupalittlefaster, please…” (accompanied by the liner note from Niño: “We’re all in this together. I look forward to living in a much higher, much more conscious, harmonious state, here, with You, on this Magical Planet Earth.”), a gorgeously-keyed canonic infinity by pianist Jamael Dean articulates an Earth-loving, universalist ethos that imbues the entire 44 minute program. While the sonics shift and evolve, gracefully placed in patient order across subsequent track highlights “Nightswimming” (featuring Dean and Dntel on modular synth), “Thanking the Earth” (featuring multi-instrumentalists Sam Gendel and Nate Mercereau, whom Niño has been working and bonding extensively with in recent years), “Salon Winds”\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(featuring Jamire Williams on drums and Aaron Shaw on flute), and “Togetherness” (featuring Dean and Devin Daniels on sax), the naturalist sentiments established in the exposition remain potently present.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album is ripe with “ambient” passages that function like open portals between moments of consonance and clarity. But even in the occasional absence of drums, there is a powerful pulse implicit in the program’s frequency of consciousness. It’s a testament to Niño’s foundations as a DJ. His distinct ability to craft kinetic, cinematic sonic experience from dozens of independent, often rhythmically-ambiguous improvisational archive memories is more fluently displayed on 'More Energy Fields, Current' than anything we’ve heard from him to date. It resonates, lucidly, with the way Niño’s mentor Iasos – who is known to the world as an original founder of New Age music – has described his work: \"Real Time Interactive Imagination, Flow Texturization.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn 'More Energy Fields, Current', Niño immerses us in the watery depths of his world, spiriting us like a submarine through exotic nether-leagues of untouched sound. And when we arrive at the final, book-ending piece “Please, Wake Up.” (an extended version of the opening theme with transcendental counterpoint by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings), it’s like a return, safely to shore.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased May 7, 2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. Pleasewakeupalittlefaster, please...\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Piano and Organ\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing, Editing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe’re all in this together. I look forward to living in a much higher, much more conscious, harmonious state, here, with You, on this Magical Planet Earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2. The World Stage, 4321 Degnan Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90008\u003cbr\u003eSam Gendel - Alto Saxophone and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Piano\u003cbr\u003eRandy Gloss - Hybrid Drum Set\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded and Mixed by Tomoaki Soto from Sunday, November 24, 2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3. Nightswimming\u003cbr\u003eDntel - Modular Synthesizer\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Piano\u003cbr\u003eJira \u0026gt;\u0026lt; - Beats\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Sound Design, Mixing, Editing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4. Now the background is the foreground.\u003cbr\u003eAdam Rudolph - Drum Machine, Multi-Instruments and Production\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Yamaha DX7\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing, Editing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Silvia Bianchi and La Terraza Magnetica \/ Madrid\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5. Thanking The Earth\u003cbr\u003eSam Gendel - Vibraphone\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth, Multi-Instruments and Production\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Field Recordings, Mixing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Ishmael Butler\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6. Salon Winds\u003cbr\u003eJamire Williams - Drums, Painting\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth World\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Prophet Keyboard\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw - Flute and Tenor Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Jason Lader on Wednesday, August 26, 2020\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Travis Lett, Mike D and Tamara Davis\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7. Ripples, Reflection, Loop\u003cbr\u003eLaraaji - Zither and Voice\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Electric Piano\u003cbr\u003eSharada - Voice\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Sound Design, Mixing, Editing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Alex Kelman of Third Side Music\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8. Togetherness\u003cbr\u003eDevin Daniels - Alto Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Electric Piano\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Synthesizer, Percussion, Mixing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9. lasos 79 ‘til Infinity\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Synthesizer, Chimes and Collage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInvite them in, say, “Yes, Come.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10. Please, wake up.\u003cbr\u003eShabaka Hutchings* - Tenor Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Piano and Synth\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing, Editing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on a Duet by Shabaka and Carlos recorded by Andy Kravitz\u003cbr\u003eat Studio 4 West on Monday, March 11, 2019\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Scottie McNiece\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*Shabaka Hutchings appears courtesy of Impulse!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003ePhotos by Todd Weaver.\u003cbr\u003eIndigo by Niki Tsukamoto.\u003cbr\u003eArt Direction by Nep Sidhu.\u003cbr\u003eDesign and Layout by Craig Hansen.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918433739093,"sku":"IARC0040LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD Compact Disc","offer_id":53918433345877,"sku":"IARC0040CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"IARC0040LPWS","offer_id":53918433935701,"sku":"IARC0040LPWS","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0914025926_10.jpg?v=1779969020"},{"product_id":"irreversible-entanglements-open-the-gates","title":"Irreversible Entanglements - Open the Gates","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eIrreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album OPEN THE GATES is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us. Let’s watch and listen, as this platter snakes through the sandy ashes of possible histories, dialogs with a nervous present, and asks to be birthed into a holographic new future. “Together in holy sound!” the band stitches patient anthems out of atmosphere. Pulling from a wider sonic vocabulary than on previous excursions, the agit-jazz found here is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalypse, as bass lurches in a tranced-out loop, horns are up in the track grooves like poltergeists playing in the streets, poetry cascades like a warrior call at a satsang, the drums both wild and refined pulse with uhuru-heart cadence. This is Irreversible Entanglements on new ground; same as the old ground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd we need it now – the universe was awash in the sickly static veneer of anti-cosmos, of anti-nation; the halls were emptied, our shadows echoing and staining the walls of our abandoned oases – so we poured out into 2020’s wild streets. The ghosts of our labor danced around the sickness as we set fire to our old ways of thinking and moving, as we set fire to cop cars and bashed in the windows of our own rising disenfranchisement. “Open the gates!”\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewe shouted, blessed be – we need it now!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere come Irreversible Entanglements – Luke Stewart, the high priest on bass; Aquiles Navarro, the electric universe in human form on trumpet; Keir Neuringer, the cosmologist with the siren sound on sax; Tcheser Holmes, the griot, the myth-maker on drums; and Camae Ayewa, the Moor mother with an empyrean pen game – on this new disc with their fierce aural tectonics shifting the earth, their watery post-pangea as dirge, their punk rock ethos and crash and bang polyrhythmic super-sonic sound synesthesia in the form of OPEN THE GATES – here it comes, my Brothas and Sistas, here it comes.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 12, 2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCamae Ayewa - voice, synth\u003cbr\u003eKeir Neuringer - saxophone, synth, percussion\u003cbr\u003eAquiles Navarro - trumpet, synth\u003cbr\u003eLuke Stewart - double bass, bass guitar\u003cbr\u003eTcheser Holmes - drums, percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded on January 5th, 2021, at Rittenhouse Soundworks, Philadelphia. Mixed in April, 2021, at International Anthem Studios, Chicago. Mastered in May, 2021, at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by: Camae Ayewa, Keir Neuringer, Aquiles Navarro, Luke Stewart, and Tcheser Holmes.\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by: Michael Richelle.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by: Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by: Dave Cooley.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Photo by: Cyrus Moussavi.\u003cbr\u003eBack Cover \u0026amp; Liner Photos by: Bob Sweeney.\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by: Alex Smith.\u003cbr\u003eDesign \u0026amp; Layout by: Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by: Scott McNiece \u0026amp; David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(( Album cover photo \u0026amp; \"Open The Gates\" video feature Judah Son of Pharoh ))\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"NEPTUNE BLUE\" Color Vinyl Gatefold 2LP","offer_id":53918434623829,"sku":"IARC0049LPS","price":30.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl Gatefold 2LP","offer_id":53918495211861,"sku":"IARC0049LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918499012949,"sku":"IARC0049CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3760979007_10.jpg?v=1779970533"},{"product_id":"jamire-williams-but-only-after-you-have-suffered","title":"Jamire Williams - But Only After You Have Suffered","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e'But Only After You Have Suffered' is a densely layered and deeply personal new work from multidisciplinary artist, composer, percussionist \u0026amp; producer Jamire Williams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConceived as a spiritual, autobiographical artistic statement, Jamire applies sound collage practice to modern jazz composition, beat production, MC\/vocalist features, and his uniquely impressionistic drumming style – making an album as akin to minimalist painting as an art-house film soundtrack or a classic hip-hop mixtape. A “self-reflective, almost testimonial work” that swiftly cycles across a vast spectrum of styles, it's the culmination of his five-year musical journey to the outer reaches of his own sound. It’s the album he has always wanted to make.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo do so he engages his faith and the friends and family that shaped him, working with a host of close collaborators in a free and spontaneous manner. The shared musical, communal, and spiritual sensibility gives the album its sense of unity. “It’s a whole work,” Jamire explains. “It flows seamlessly, and it’s meant to keep playing until you really understand all the messages, prayers, and cries.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcross twelve multi-faceted tracks, he brings together artists from his hometown of Houston (vocalists Corey King, Lisa E\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e. Harris, Fat Tony, Jawwaad Taylor), those he became close to over several years living in LA (Sam Gendel, Zeroh, Mic Holden, Josh Johnson, fellow International Anthem artist Carlos Niño), and other creative partners from his life-long journey in sound (Chassol, Svet, Kenneth Whalum).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs such, 'But Only After You Have Suffered' builds its own world from the pull between Jamire’s jazz heritage - eleven years as a drummer in NYC recording with world-renowned musicians like Jason Moran, Christian Scott, and Dr. Lonnie Smith - and the experimental, narrative art-pop of his more recent work with Solange, Moses Sumney, and Blood Orange.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIts origins can also be traced to his 2016 solo percussion album '\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Effectual' (released by Leaving Records) - a turning point for Jamire, who has since embarked on a process of stripping back and breaking down his musical identity, creating a new sound from the fragments that most speak to his experience as a musician and a person.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRooted in his faith, Jamire opens the album with “Hands Up,” a devotional hymn cut against the stark reality of the modern world that sounds like an apocalyptic middle-grounding of Kendrick Lamar’s 'To Pimp A Butterfly' and Merry Clayton’s “Gimme Shelter.” Whether in the rousing, spiritual “Just Hold On” or the fluid verses of Fat Tony on “Safe Travels,” the music exists in the tension between higher realms and social realities - what Jamire calls the “duality of a personal thing and what I’m seeing in my community, in the Black community, as a Black man.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album reaches its climax on “Pause In His Presence,” which features a chilling operatic performance from Lisa E. Harris, recorded in one take off the back of a single conversation and a shared vision between the two artists. “Every time I hear that song, I cry,” Jamire says. “It’s so real.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving recently moved back to Houston, the release of 'But Only After You Have Suffered' marks a moment of Jamire coming full circle. A literal homecoming and his arrival as an undeniably multi-faceted artist in his own right.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased December 3, 2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Jamire Williams.\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Mixed by Jake Viator at Stones Throw Studios in Los Angeles, CA.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles, CA.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArt by Nik Ewing.\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by Charisse Weston.\u003cbr\u003eInsert Portrait by Ray Neutron.\u003cbr\u003eLayout \u0026amp; Insert Design by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJamire Williams – drums, vocals, drum programming, samplers, mellotron, synthesizer, sequencer, electric piano\u003cbr\u003eBrandon Owens – bass guitar\u003cbr\u003eBurniss Travis – bass\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño – percussion\u003cbr\u003eChassol – keyboards, synthesizer, programming\u003cbr\u003eCorey King – vocals\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Aged – bass guitar\u003cbr\u003eFat Tony – vocals\u003cbr\u003eFlash Gordon Parks – turntable\u003cbr\u003eJason Arce – bass clarinet\u003cbr\u003eJason Moran – piano\u003cbr\u003eJawwaad Taylor – vocals\u003cbr\u003eJoelle Corey – vocals\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson – mellotron, synthesizer, programming\u003cbr\u003eKenneth Whalum – vocals\u003cbr\u003eLisa E. Harris – vocals\u003cbr\u003eMatthew Stevens – lead guitar\u003cbr\u003eMic Holden – vocals\u003cbr\u003eMike Haldeman – guitar synthesizer\u003cbr\u003ePaul Cornish – midi strings\u003cbr\u003ePeter Lee Johnson – strings \u0026amp; string arrangement\u003cbr\u003eSam Gendel – guitar synthesizer, alto saxophone\u003cbr\u003eSvet – vocals\u003cbr\u003eZeroh – vocals\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Safe Travels\" contains a sample of the recording “I Need Your Love” performed by Skip Mahoaney \u0026amp; The Casuals, courtesy of The Numero Group. Written by Skip Mahoaney \u0026amp; James Purdie. Published by Dust Index (BMI). Used with permission. All rights reserved.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Clay Slip\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918488002901,"sku":"IARC0046LPS","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918481744213,"sku":"IARC0046LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918489968981,"sku":"IARC0046CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1572508792_10.jpg?v=1779969901"},{"product_id":"jeff-parker-forfolks","title":"Jeff Parker - Forfolks","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003ealbum liner notes by Matthew Lux:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYears ago when Jeff and I were in a band together, I always insisted that our records could not have any liner notes. I was enthralled with the idea that imparting any information beyond the music itself was heresy. As if whatever the sound didn't convey needed to be left to the listener. Somehow, I was able to hold this opinion while simultaneously voraciously consuming every record jacket, CD cover, cassette J card and whatever else I could get my hands on regarding any music that interested me. Many years and finally the making of my own album forced me to confront my cognitive dissonance and recognize context can help the audience find their place in the art that they enjoy. That context is especially necessary when the artist is as under-appreciated yet influential as Jeff Parker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I met Jeff, he was the first adult (24 years old to my 18) whose musical taste was as broad as mine and my friends. He liked Eric Dolphy, De La Soul, ‘70s Miles, and Donny Hathaway. We first played together in the living room of my parents’ apartment. We agreed to each bring a friend to round out a group. He brought the amazing and criminally under-represented Sara P. Smith on trombone, and I brought my high school band mate Chad Taylor on drums. Chad\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eand I were certainly outclassed that day, but nevertheless we all became fast friends. A few weeks later, at our regular jam session at the Bop Shop, I told my girlfriend (now wife) to pay attention to Jeff. \"He's going to be important,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Chicago that Parker had moved to was ripe with young musicians eager to push at the boundaries. There weren't many venues catering to these new attempts at mixing things up, but slowly a number of great bands coalesced out of a group of like-minded friends, mixing everyone's backgrounds whether punk, disco, jazz or whatever. I clearly remember going to see New Horizons Ensemble at the Hothouse with Jeff, then a few weeks later going to the Empty Bottle to see Tortoise. Within months he'd be in both those bands. He was instrumental in forging a link between players with different styles that helped define the sound of creative music in ‘90s Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a particular thing to hear Jeff play solo. He is an unusually selfless improviser, often times laying out and highlighting the contributions of his band mates. He's never been one to play three notes where none would suffice. On this recording however he is by himself, joined only by his own ideas, looped or frozen, to flesh out the music he's creating in his mind. Hearing him craft entire sound worlds on these eight selections gives us an opportunity to really see how Parker orders sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe has been ordering sound with an amazingly diverse array of artists and collaborators for the past three decades. While it's common for a professional musician to be versed in many styles, that normally means a succession of genre tropes deployed to ensure the listener knows exactly where they are and what's supposed to be happening. A guitarist, for example, might play a Nile Rogers type rhythm on Disco or Funk, a favorite B.B. King lick on a blues or a Wes Montgomery phrase over a standard. Parker rarely does anything this overt. While perfectly capable (Once, in the studio, at the behest of a musician we were working with, I heard him take a solo that could have been an outtake from a Steely Dan album), he eschews genre playing and chooses a painterly approach to coloring the music, maintaining a deeply personal voice without weighing down the music with obvious stylistic maneuverings. His unique approach fits so well into so many contexts precisely because SOUND is his main focus and concern. One can clearly hear the breadth of Black Music in Parker’s playing. He is part of a continuum of musicians extending back to antiquity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe structures here challenge our preconceptions of background and foreground. ALL the layers are primary. We are presented with fully integrated sonic developments rather than accompaniment, melody, or \"soloing\". Often times a solo album is an excuse for an artist to display their virtuosity. The idea being, possibly, that unencumbered by other musicians, the soloist is free to ride off on flights of fancy. But a career spent in the practice of subtlety is thankfully apparent in every song here. On Forfolks, a standard of the Great American Songbook fits comfortably next to multi-layered improvisations, a Thelonious Monk tune, and several compositions of Parker’s own, dating back twenty-five years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMonk, I find to be an apt comparison. Both men were deeply involved in some of the most progressive musical movements of their respective generations, neither gaining much renown at the time, but both kept on doing things in their own quietly iconoclastic ways until the world caught up with them some twenty years later. I was fortunate enough to recognize the first time I heard Jeff Parker thirty years ago that I was witnessing something very special.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased December 10, 2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker - electric guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered by Graeme Gibson at Sholo Studio in Altadena, California on June 28th \u0026amp; 29th, 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Graeme Gibson in Cypress Park, Los Angeles, California on July 15th \u0026amp; 16th, 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSequenced by Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by Lee Anne Schmitt.\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by Matthew Lux.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Jeremiah Chiu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Scott McNiece.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Cool Mint\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918514118997,"sku":"IARC0052LPCM","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918514676053,"sku":"IARC0052LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918511235413,"sku":"IARC0052CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2972278449_16.jpg?v=1779972046"},{"product_id":"charles-stepney-step-on-step","title":"Charles Stepney - Step on Step","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eInternational Anthem is proud to present 'Step on Step', a double LP collection of home recordings marking the de-facto eponymous debut album by enigmatic producer, arranger, and composer Charles Stepney (1931-1976). The music that makes up Step on Step was created by Stepney alone, in the basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago, sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before his untimely death in 1976.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Chicago born and bred arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, Stepney is known for his work with Earth, Wind \u0026amp; Fire, Deniece Williams, and Ramsey Lewis, and as a staff producer for Chess Records in the 1960s, where he was an essential creative force behind seminal recordings by Rotary Connection, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Terry Callier, The Dells, The Emotions, and many more. In the decades since his passing, the presence of his name in liner notes and on vinyl labels has become a seal of quality for record collectors, music historians, and aficionados, while his sound has been used by countless samplers in the hip-hop world including Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, MF Doom, and Madlib. But in comparison to the post-mortem renown of his sound, or the music he created and the artists he\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esupported while he was alive, Stepney is a greatly underappreciated figure… a genius relegated to the shadows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the signature elements of his “baroque soul” sound is the epic, expansive, orchestral expression of his horn and string arrangements (in many cases brought to life by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), as heard on Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleurs,” or Marlena Shaw’s “California Soul,” or Terry Callier’s “What Color Is Love.” Hence making it even more special that his de-facto debut LP Step on Step, which sees its first wide release nearly five decades after his death, is a collection of stripped-down 4-track tape recordings featuring Stepney, alone, performing all instruments with minimal means. It is, as said by Chicago culture historian (and author of Step on Step liner notes) Ayana Contreras, “the uncut funk,” an unprecedented depiction of an imbued composer imagining and conceiving music (some of which would eventually become massive studio productions) in its primal state.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStep on Step features 23 tracks, most of which are original compositions by Stepney that were never again recorded by him or any other artist. It also features prototypical, seedling-style demos of Stepney compositions for Earth, Wind \u0026amp; Fire, including “That’s The Way of The World,” “Imagination,” and “On Your Face,” as well as the original version of “Black Gold,” which would eventually be recorded by Rotary Connection (as “I Am The Black Gold of The Sun,” with lyrics by Richard Rudolph). And in addition to the wordless croons of Stepney original and early single “Daddy’s Diddies,” Stepney’s actual voice is heard on a couple occasions across the album, testing microphones and inputs on his tape machine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll of the otherwise unrecorded, previously unnamed original compositions contained on Step on Step were given their titles by Stepney’s daughters Eibur, Charlene, and Chanté Stepney, whose voices are also heard throughout the album, telling stories and sharing memories about their father. The Stepney Sisters, who produced this album over many years, have long been engaged in efforts to celebrate their father’s legacy and bring his work into brighter light. They’ve cherished the tape reels left behind by their father in the basement of their home, transferring the audio on multiple occasions, and originally compiling the recordings for an ultra-limited CD on their own DIY label (The Charles Stepney Masters) in the early 2010s. “We always talk about how we were trying to develop this and would go to different people and they would go ‘what is this raw stuff…’ It was just the first level of something that became something really great,” says Chanté. “To get this type of intimate look into an artist’s process is really unknown and unheard of… so I just really appreciate the opportunity to give this. I am very happy for my Dad that we’re able to share this with the world in this way, with this amount of respect.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis new double LP collection on International Anthem presents “a genuine, beautiful, deeply emotional and personal effort by three women to reconnect with their father and validate their own memories of his passion and brilliance,” says label co-founder Scott McNiece. And it’s a long-overdue fulfillment of Stepney’s unsatiated plan to release a solo album – which he once vowed to his daughters that he would do, and that he would name it: “Step on Step.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased September 9, 2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll instruments performed \u0026amp; recorded by Charles Stepney.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced \u0026amp; Narrated by Eibur, Charlene, and Chanté Stepney.\u003cbr\u003eEdited \u0026amp; Sequenced by Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Recording, Treatment \u0026amp; Mixing by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhotos by Rubie Stepney.\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by Ayana Contreras.\u003cbr\u003eDesign \u0026amp; Layout by Craig Hansen.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"info license\" id=\"license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Certified Gold\" Color Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918516216149,"sku":"IARC0055LPI","price":30.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918516543829,"sku":"IARC0055LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918516412757,"sku":"IARC0055CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2300896001_10.jpg?v=1780481594"},{"product_id":"makaya-mccraven-in-these-times","title":"Makaya McCraven - In These Times","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eIn These Times is the new album by Chicago-based percussionist, composer, producer, and pillar of our label family, Makaya McCraven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlthough this album is “new,\" the truth it’s something that's been in process for a very long time, since shortly after he released his International Anthem debut In The Moment in 2015. Dedicated followers may note he’s had 6 other releases in the meantime (including 2018’s widely-popular Universal Beings and 2020’s We’re New Again, his rework of Gil Scott-Heron’s final album for XL Recordings); but none of which have been as definitive an expression of his artistic ethos as In These Times. This is the album McCraven’s been trying to make since he started making records. And his patience, ambition, and persistence have yielded an appropriately career-defining body of work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs epic and expansive as it is impressively potent and concise, the 11 song suite was created over 7+ years, as McCraven strived to design a highly personal but broadly communicable fusion of odd-meter original compositions from his working songbook with orchestral, large ensemble arrangements and the edit-heavy “organic beat music” that he’s honed over a growing body of production-craft.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith contributions from over a dozen musicians and\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ecreative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators – including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill – the music was recorded in 5 different studios and 4 live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work from home. The pure fact that he was able to so eloquently condense and articulate the immense human scale of the work into 41 fleeting minutes of emotive and engaging sound is a monumental achievement. It’s an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer; but moreover it’s the strongest and clearest statement we’ve yet to hear from McCraven, the composer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn These Times is an almost unfathomable new peak for an already-soaring innovator who has been called \"one of the best arguments for jazz's vitality\" by The New York Times, as well as recently, and perhaps more aptly, a \"cultural synthesizer.\" While challenging and pushing himself into uncharted territories, McCraven quintessentially expresses his unique gifts for collapsing space and transcending borders – blending past, present, and future into elegant, poly-textural arrangements of jazz-rooted, post-genre 21st century folk music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased September 23, 2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMakaya McCraven - drums, sampler, percussion, tambourine, baby sitar, synths, kalimba, handclaps, vibraphone, wurlitzer, organ\u003cbr\u003eJunius Paul - double bass, percussion, electric bass guitar, small instruments\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker - guitar\u003cbr\u003eBrandee Younger - harp\u003cbr\u003eJoel Ross - vibraphone, marimba\u003cbr\u003eMarta Sofia Honer - viola\u003cbr\u003eLia Kohl - cello\u003cbr\u003eMacie Stewart - violin\u003cbr\u003eZara Zaharieva - violin\u003cbr\u003eGreg Ward - alto sax\u003cbr\u003eIrvin Pierce - tenor sax\u003cbr\u003eMarquis Hill - trumpet, flugelhorn\u003cbr\u003eGreg Spero - piano\u003cbr\u003eRob Clearfield - piano\u003cbr\u003eMatt Gold - guitar, percussion, baby sitar\u003cbr\u003eDe’Sean Jones - flute\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music composed by Makaya McCraven; except “Lullaby” composed by Makaya McCraven based off a song originally written by Péter Dabasi and Agnes Zsigmondi. All music published by Makaya McCraven Music (ASCAP) \u0026amp; International Anthem Publishing (ASCAP), administered by Domino Publishing Company USA (ASCAP).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In These Times\" contains an excerpt of audio from the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, used with permission, courtesy of Chicago History Museum and WFMT.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded at Co-Prosperity Sphere Chicago; Symphony Center Chicago; JAMDEK Studios Chicago; Palisade Studios Chicago (fka Decade Music Studios); Shirk Studios Chicago; Makaya Music Studios; Walker Arts Center Minneapolis; Submerge Studios Detroit; Sholo Music Studios LA.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Makaya McCraven.\u003cbr\u003eEngineered and Mixed by Dave Vettraino, David Allen, and Makaya McCraven, with recording assistance from Najee-Zaid Searcy.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Mastering.\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Image \u0026amp; Insert Photos by Sulyiman.\u003cbr\u003eArt Direction by Caroline Waxse.\u003cbr\u003eDesigned by Jake Simmonds.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918516740437,"sku":"IARC0059LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Limited Edition \"Cymbal Sheen\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918517002581,"sku":"IARC0059LPS","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918517199189,"sku":"IARC0059CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3992958598_16.jpg?v=1780480972"},{"product_id":"dezron-douglas-atalaya","title":"Dezron Douglas - Atalaya","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eATALAYA is new work by bassist Dezron Douglas, and it is alive. That is, ‘alive’ in all the ways that jazz is at its best – as a pure and personal expression of Black Music channeled through time-honored traditions by a group of musicians who practice sonic coherence through musical unity. As Dezron puts it in the opening statement of his liner notes for the album: “Mysticism, Magic, Faith, Love, Power, Discernment! These are words that embody the creative process of Music.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFollowers of contemporary jazz might recognize Dezron for his bass work behind Pharoah Sanders, Louis Hayes, or Ravi Coltrane. Others might know him as the newest full-time member of the Trey Anastasio Band. Steady International Anthem listeners might remember him from the New York side of Makaya McCraven's Universal Beings. More recently we presented Force Majeure, Dezron’s sublime duo record with harpist Brandee Younger, which compiled the best of livestream performances from their Harlem apartment during the original covid lockdown. That album, which came out in December of 2020, reflected the speed and feeling of the moment while somehow simultaneously distracting from the harsh reality of it. It also captured a very vulnerable, intimate, and real impression of Dezron\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eon double bass, sharing his power and truth without abandon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eATALAYA, similarly, wasn’t processed in the lab, but rather, captured in the room. The realness factor is once again forefront in the sound; but the difference is in the energy and ambition of the music, which reaches for the stratosphere. Again, let’s defer to Dezron here: “Welcome to the Black Lion rocket ship.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith Emilio Modeste on saxes, George Burton on keys, and Joe Dyson Jr. on drums, Dezron’s crew summons the dynamism of Coltrane’s classic Quartet, or Dave Holland’s Quintet on Prime Directive, or Charles Mingus on Nostalgia In Times Square… swinging virtuosically and firing on all 4 cylinders. But there’s nothing remotely revisionist here – Dezron and his quartet embody poetry, presence, artistic and emotional clarity in every note they play. Free and dissonant, sweet and consonant, sweeping and pure… This is the band you hope is playing every time you walk into a club.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 18, 2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDezron Douglas – basses\u003cbr\u003eGeorge Burton – piano and rhodes\u003cbr\u003eJoe Dyson Jr. – drums\u003cbr\u003eEmilio Modeste – saxophones\u003cbr\u003eMelvis Santa – vocals and percussion on “Wheeping Birch”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll compositions by Dezron Douglas (NORZED Music ASCAP); except “Wheeping Birch” co-written by Dezron Douglas and Melvis Santa (TENAJA Sounds ASCAP).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Dave Vettraino, with assistance from Greg Dicastro, at Firehouse 12, New Haven, Connecticut, on August 25th and 26th, 2021. “Octopus” and vocals on “Wheeping Birch” recorded by David Stoller at Samurai Hotel, Astoria, New York, on November 28th, 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Dezron Douglas.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Adama Coulibaly.\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by Deneka Peniston.\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by Dezron Douglas.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Jeremiah Chiu.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Deep Sea\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918518903125,"sku":"IARC0058LPS","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918517854549,"sku":"IARC0058LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918518477141,"sku":"IARC0058CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0328508299_10.jpg?v=1780480612"},{"product_id":"angel-bat-dawid-requiem-for-jazz","title":"Angel Bat Dawid - Requiem for Jazz","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eComposer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eItself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African American experience - as one of freedom and restraint, of joy and suffering - that manifests in the triumph of spirit over the crushing prejudice of daily life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCutting together archive reels from Black neighborhoods in Chicago with live performance footage from Sun Ra and his Arkestra among others, the film remains a radical and prescient evocation of Black pride and its roots in the history of jazz, from spirituals to blues and beyond.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs South African writer Nombuso Mathibela captures in the album’s liner notes:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Music is our weapon of struggle]\u003cbr\u003ethat radiantly holds our positive aspiration\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e, group pride and determination as Black people. Sonics! our beautiful fire that gave light to the world.\u003cbr\u003eAnd a world that gave us blues. The blues that gave us Black in jazz\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing a through line to today’s vibrant avant-garde, Angel Bat Dawid’s Requiem For Jazz picks up the liberation work laid out by Bland’s film, taking the message of joy and suffering within the Black classical tradition into a contemporary setting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusic from the project was originally premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019, where Angel conducted a multigenerational fifteen-piece instrumental ensemble of Black musicians from across Chicago’s creative community, alongside a four-person choir (featuring singers from Black Monument Ensemble) as well as dancers and visual artists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecordings from the performance were then mixed and post-produced by Angel, who added interludes, vocals and additional sounds. As well as transcribing a piece from the film, Requiem For Jazz also alludes to The Cry of Jazz through contributions from the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott on the album’s final movement, which were recorded remotely at the historic Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia in late 2020.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I want us to have this very wonderful conversation that Ed Bland started over 50 years ago and I want to continue the conversation; because this is a loving conversation that we need to have with each other” - Angel Bat Dawid, Feb 2023\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased March 24, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRequiem for Jazz Composed, Arranged, Conducted \u0026amp; Mixed by Angel Bat Dawid\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eexcept “My Rhapsody,” from the 1959 Ed Bland film “The Cry of Jazz,” composed by Paul Severson \u0026amp; Norman Leist (Glenayre Publishing Co. BMI), arranged by Angel Bat Dawid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLyrics include extracts from “The Cry of Jazz” and the Roman Catholic Liturgical Requiem Missal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRequiem for Jazz Intros\/Interludes Composed, Produced, Mixed \u0026amp; Performed by Angel Bat Dawid\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRequiem for Jazz premiered Sept, 30th 2019 at the Reva \u0026amp; David Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL. Commissioned for the 2019 Annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded Live by Najee-Zaid Searcy \u0026amp; Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Najee-Zaid Searcy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTha ArkeStarzz:\u003cbr\u003ePiano - Dr. Charles Joseph Smith\u003cbr\u003eContrabass - Jeremiah Hunt\u003cbr\u003ePercussion - Vincent Davis\u003cbr\u003eAuxiliary Instruments - Xristian Espinoza\u003cbr\u003eElectronics - Norman W. Long\u003cbr\u003eFlute - Dr. Adam Zanolini\u003cbr\u003eClarinet - Hannah Washington\u003cbr\u003eTrumpet - Sam Thousand\u003cbr\u003eSoprano Saxophone - Isaiah Collier\u003cbr\u003eAlto Saxophone - Fred Jackson Jr.\u003cbr\u003eTenor Saxophone - Kwesaiah\u003cbr\u003eViolin - J’Niya Blunt\u003cbr\u003eViolin - DaJour Smith\u003cbr\u003eViola - Michelle Manson\u003cbr\u003eCello - Olula\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTha Choruzz:\u003cbr\u003eSoprano - Tramaine Parker\u003cbr\u003eAlto - Monique Golding\u003cbr\u003eTenor - Deacon Julian Otis Cooke\u003cbr\u003eBaritone - Phillip Armstrong\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpecial Cosmic Guests on “Lux Aeterna- Eternal Light\/My Rhapsody”:\u003cbr\u003eMarshall Allen - Alto Sax, Ewi\u003cbr\u003eKnoel Scott - Percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDancers:\u003cbr\u003eViktor Le Givens\u003cbr\u003eAquarius\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSet Design:\u003cbr\u003eViktor Le Givens\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVisualz:\u003cbr\u003eJonathan Woods\u003cbr\u003eLiz Gomez\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Thy  Kingdom Come\" Purple Color Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918520705365,"sku":"IMRC0061LPI","price":29.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918519689557,"sku":"IMRC0061LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD Compact Disc","offer_id":53918520410453,"sku":"IMRC0061CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3348922210_10_069a66f4-25bc-4750-9b9a-89741a536e3b.jpg?v=1780478847"},{"product_id":"rob-mazurek-exploding-star-orchestra-lightning-dreamers","title":"Rob Mazurek, Exploding Star Orchestra - Lightning Dreamers","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eLightning Dreamers is new work by composer, trumpeter, interdisciplinary abstractivist and modern music mogul Rob Mazurek, who wrote the music for a compacted version of his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. A follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 Mazurek\/ESO release Dimensional Stardust, the album features guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn, among others. It was recorded mostly at the remote Sonic Ranch studios in West Texas, not far from Mazurek’s current home in Marfa, in the days leading up to a debut of the music at Trans Pecos festival in September 2021. Mixing and post-production was headed by Dave Vettraino from IARC studios in Chicago across 2022.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s opener “Future Shaman” was co-produced by Parker and features added percussion by Mazurek’s longtime São Paulo Underground collaborator Mauricio Takara, as well as synth bass from\u003cbr\u003eCathlene Pineda. The track finds Mazurek and ESO where they left off with Dimensional Stardust – deep in a chromatic beat fantasy of outer-space grooves and Bartok-ian riffs. Vocalist\/MC Locks brings the Orson Welles via Deltron 3030 energy while Taborn and Sanchez face-off from behind Wurlitzer pianos and Moog\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esynthesizers. On “Dream Sleeper” Locks’s poetry is swirled in drifting storm clouds of fractured atmospherics, both improvised and composed. “Shape Shifter” finds Mazurek recalling a past life of Isotope 217 – not just for the swinging grooves anchored by Moog basslines, but also in that he returns to the trumpet after years of playing cornet. Once the soaring melodic theme is established the ensemble shifts into On The Corner mode, creating a mangled rhythmic base for Taborn’s Wurlitzer runs and clean guitar soloing from Parker, before shapeshifting yet again under Mazurek’s rising polytonal electronics as Locks’s scattered vocal embellishments take us to the promised land.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album’s whole B-side is an immersive trip that spans two tracks – “Black River” and “White River” – for which Mazurek interwove takes from the Sonic Ranch sessions with live material from an expanded ESO performance recorded in February 2022 at Sons d’Hiver in Paris, France. In the liner notes for Lightning Dreamers, Mazurek writes that the music is “an evocation of a theme from the “Black River Suite,” which I have been revisiting and reimagining over time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe elaborates: “I spent 3 years of my life on the great Rio Negro in Manaus, Brazil, where the Black and White Rivers meet. It is custom and a kind of rebirthing to take a boat to the dividing\/divining line of these 2 great rivers and dive into and through, as an affirmation of the simple premise (although We All Come from Somewhere Else) that we all come from the same place... the stars. The feeling of moving between and through these great bodies of water is etched in my soul forever. The visual and sonic material (both thematic and imagined) evokes the spirits past, present and future along this mighty river. The undercurrents of time, the movement of storm systems in the sky, the gentle sway of a boat moving upriver, the power and intensity when the wind decides to blow and the torrential rains fall. The sound of the electric eels below, the melodies of the inhabitants along the way, the\u003cbr\u003eshattering blasts from lightning in the sky. The river flows on and on and on.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmong the artists featured in the recording from Sons d’Hiver is the late jaimie branch, playing synthesizers \u0026amp; electronics behind the guiding trumpet improvisations of Mazurek (whom she long considered a mentor in multiple mediums). She passed away in August 2022, and her earthly absence has since imbued an otherworldly presence into the chaotic riptide of sound on “Black River.” As production wrapped on the album that Fall, Mazurek was moved to present Lightning Dreamers as a dedication to branch’s memory.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased March 31, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music composed by Rob Mazurek (OLHO, ASCAP). Words by Damon Locks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded at Sonic Ranch, Tornillo, TX, September 23rd \u0026amp; 24th, 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRob Mazurek - director, composer, trumpets, voice, launeddas, electronic treatments\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker - guitar\u003cbr\u003eCraig Taborn - wurlitzer, moog matriarch\u003cbr\u003eAngelica Sanchez - wurlitzer, piano, moog sub 37\u003cbr\u003eDamon Locks - voice, electronics, samplers, text\u003cbr\u003eGerald Cleaver - drums\u003cbr\u003eMauricio Takara - electronic percussion, percussion\u003cbr\u003eNicole Mitchell - flute, voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Future Shaman\" co-produced by Jeff Parker, with additional synth bass played by Cathlene Pineda.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Black River” and \"Dream Sleeper\" include samples of Exploding Star Orchestra recorded live at Sons d’hiver in Paris, France, on February 3rd, 2022, featuring: Rob Mazurek, jaimie branch, Tomeka Reid, Thomas Roher, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Julien Desprez, Pasquale Mirra, Angelica Sanchez, Damon Locks, Mikel Patrick Avery, Chad Taylor, and Mauricio Takara.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered by: Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Recording by: Jeff Parker, Mauricio Takara, Nicole Mitchell, and Rob Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003eProduced and Mixed by: Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; Rob Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by: David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbum art by: Rob Mazurek Radical Chimeric #1 #2 (mesh, screen, mylar, canvas, video projection) 2022.\u003cbr\u003eInsert Photo by: Britt Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by: Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank You Britt Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis album is dedicated to jaimie branch.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition *Silver Lightning* Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918524965205,"sku":"IARC0065LPS","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918522736981,"sku":"IARC0065LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918524801365,"sku":"IARC0065CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0713357999_10.jpg?v=1779800671"},{"product_id":"asher-gamedze-turbulence-and-pulse","title":"Asher Gamedze - Turbulence and Pulse","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eCape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out May 5th 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGamedze’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dialectic Soul was released at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Around the release of that record, with friend and writer Teju Adeleye he organized and participated in a joint online discussion “Poesis,” with historian Robin D.G. Kelley and others. One of the notable comments made in this session was by the poet and scholar Fred Moten, who described Gamedze’s drumming as an “amazing interplay between turbulence and pulse. Pulse is supposed to regulate and also be regular, but the turbulence underneath it and on top of it, it’s just extraordinary.” Moten added that this concept is a fundamental element of the percussive approach in Black music more broadly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTurbulence and Pulse takes its title from this moment of synchronicities. Inspired by this description, Gamedze developed the metaphor further, expanding the concept of turbulence and pulse through the lens of history. “Time in music is a metaphor for thinking about time in history and how time moves,” he says. “The way we’re taught history is generally in a way that robs people of\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eagency in imagining themselves as part of history and how it unfolds. It is something that happens to us. I think there's a productive metaphor in that because the sense of time in music is created by musicians playing together. If we can use that to think about history and time in history, you can see that, actually, history is created by people in a whole range of ways. At the heart of it, historical motion is created by people organized and acting together, whether for progressive or reactionary ends.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Gamedze, the underlying message of Turbulence and Pulse is “to claim a form of historical agency and realize that the future is not a foregone conclusion. As people we can organize, to transform our world in small and big ways.” This concept comes out of Gamedze’s involvement in radical cultural work and political organizing. He adds: “One of the ideas that I've had for a long time is to unsettle the way that people think about culture as something static or as something fixed. There’s this tension in Africa, because of the way that the colonists have constructed visions of African culture, where people speak about this need to conserve culture and document it. I think that's important, but you also have to understand that these things are moving. And we are the people who have to participate in that movement.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor the album artwork, Gamedze extends the visual aesthetic of his previous release with a hand-drawn illustration. “I feel like my drawings represent the inside of my mind. It’s very free and improvisational,” he says. Friend and designer Naadira Patel worked with Gamedze to design the final cover layout, which includes liner notes penned by his sister, writer and artist Thuli Gamedze.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTurbulence and Pulse comes via the partnership of Chicago-based International Anthem and Johannesburg-based Mushroom Hour Half Hour, as the first collaborative release by the two labels. - album writeup by Atiyyah Khan\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleased May 5, 2023\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl Gatefold 2LP","offer_id":53918526734677,"sku":"IARC0057LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918525063509,"sku":"IARC0057CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0792804420_10.jpg?v=1780480152"},{"product_id":"damon-locks-rob-mazurek-new-future-city-radio","title":"Damon Locks \u0026 Rob Mazurek - New Future City Radio","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eNew Future City Radio is the first duo collaboration of longtime creative partners Damon Locks \u0026amp; Rob Mazurek. In a hyperactive 40-minute, 18-track suite that runs like a boombox mixtape, the two prolific multi-media artists contemplate community, transformation, and the future through the programmatic format of a pirate radio station for the people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese two artists have worked together from the peak days of the late 90s \/ early 00s Chicago music scene up through the present day, which has seen Locks featured as lead vocalist of multiple critically-acclaimed Exploding Star Orchestra (ESO) albums composed\/produced by Mazurek and released by International Anthem (IARC) in 2020 (Dimensional Stardust) and 2023 (Lightning Dreamers). In recent years, Locks has also earned great renown from his revolutionary, expansive latter-day gospel\/jazz project Black Monument Ensemble (BME), with which he’s released two albums on IARC (2019’s Where Future Unfolds and 2021’s NOW). New Future City Radio finds the artists creating a natural but innovatively-assembled blend of the sounds of those two projects, with Locks’s BME-style sample-based sound collage creating compositional beds underneath the signature Orson Welles-like vocal\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003edelivery he’s developed through his work with ESO, alongside Roland SP flourishes and arresting brass improvisations by Mazurek.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThemes both sonic and text based were predetermined but improvisation leads the journey. The music these two have devised may sound hyper-charged one moment and gently transportive the next, and often somewhere in between. When asked about New Future City Radio the duo exclaim in one voice: \"I'm talking post, post, post, future. I'm talking resilience and levitation. I'm talking beauty and structural integrity for my people. I'm talking light beams that tell stories and educate. Let's talk about that if you wanna talk new future!\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased July 28, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDamon Locks - voice \u0026amp; sampler\u003cbr\u003eRob Mazurek - trumpet, piccolo trumpet, sampler, modular synthesizers, voice, flutes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMauricio Takara - electronic percussion, percussion on “The Beat” and “Flitting Splits Reverb Adage”\u003cbr\u003eRoberto Carlos Lange aka Helado Negro – voice on “Flitting Splits Reverb Adage”\u003cbr\u003eBrandi Augustus – vocals on “New Future”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnnouncers:\u003cbr\u003eRosetta Carr – “The Sun Returns”\u003cbr\u003eAndres Hernandez – “The Concord Hour”\u003cbr\u003eAlain 'Fusion' Clapham – “10mins Past The Hour”\u003cbr\u003eBrenda Hernandez – “Las Niñas Estan Escuchando (The Children Are Listening)”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded \u0026amp; Engineered by: Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by: David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbum Art by: Damon Locks\u003cbr\u003ePhoto of Rob Mazurek by: Ziga Koritnik\u003cbr\u003ePhoto of Damon Locks by: Petra Cvelbar\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition *New Future City Shimmer* Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918544101717,"sku":"IARC0068LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918538694997,"sku":"IARC0068LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918544265557,"sku":"IARC0068CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2024789163_10.jpg?v=1779802989"},{"product_id":"jaimie-branch-fly-or-die-fly-or-die-fly-or-die-world-war","title":"jaimie branch - Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))","description":"\u003cp\u003eI\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003en July of 2022, just one month before jaimie branch’s death sent shockwaves around the world, the trumpet player and composer was in Chicago at International Anthem studios putting finishing touches on an album. It was a suite of music she had composed and then recorded with her flagship ensemble, Fly or Die, over the course of a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. In her wake, the album was near complete, with only mixing tweaks, final titles, and artwork to be fully realized. In the months following, her family (led by sister Kate Branch), her band (Jason Ajemian, Lester St. Louis, and Chad Taylor), and her collaborators at IARC banded together to gather memories, texts, emails, photographs, artwork and fragments belonging to jaimie to light the path forward. The goal was always to do what jaimie would have done. Packaged in stunning artwork by John Herndon, Damon Locks, and branch herself, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) is jaimie’s final album with her Fly or Die quartet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the album's liner notes, written by jaimie's Fly or Die bandmates:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“jaimie never had small ideas. She always thought big. The minute you told her she couldn’t do something, or that something\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewould be too difficult to accomplish, the more determined and focused she became. And this album is big. Far bigger and more demanding — for us, and for you — than any other Fly or Die record. For this, jaimie wanted to play with longer forms, more modulations, more noise, more singing, and as always, grooves and melodies. She was a dynamic melodicist. jaimie wanted this album to be lush, grand and full of life, just as she was. Every time we take a listen, we feel the deep imprint of her all over the music, and we see all of us making it together.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003eReleased August 25, 2023\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ejaimie branch – trumpet, voice, keyboard, percussion, happy apple\u003cbr\u003eLester St. Louis – cello, voice, flute, marimba, keyboard\u003cbr\u003eJason Ajemian – double bass, electric bass, voice, marimba\u003cbr\u003eChad Taylor – drums, mbira, timpani, bells, marimba\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e-with special guests-\u003cbr\u003eNick Broste - trombone (on track 5 \u0026amp; 6)\u003cbr\u003eRob Frye - flute (track 5), bass clarinet (track 5, 6 \u0026amp; 7)\u003cbr\u003eAkenya Seymour - voice (track 5)\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Villarreal - conga and percussion (track 2, 5, 6 \u0026amp; 7)\u003cbr\u003eKuma Dog - voice (track 5)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll compositions by jaimie branch; except \"and kuma walks” composed by jaimie branch, Lester St. Louis, Jason Ajemian \u0026amp; Chad Taylor; and “the mountain” composed by Curt Kirkwood (originally performed by The Meat Puppets as “Comin’ Down”).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, April 25-29, 2022. Edits, overdubs and mixing at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, IL, July 18-23, 2022. Additional mixing at International Anthem Studios, August \u0026amp; December 2022.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by: Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eEdited by: jaimie branch \u0026amp; Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMixed by: Dave Vettraino \u0026amp; David Allen\u003cbr\u003eMastered by: David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art by: jaimie branch \u0026amp; John Herndon\u003cbr\u003eCover Design by: Damon Locks\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by: Ben Semisch; courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts\u003cbr\u003eLiner Notes by: Jason Ajemian, Lester St. Louis, and Chad Taylor; edited by Kate Branch.\u003cbr\u003eLayout \u0026amp; Insert Design by: Craig Hansen\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limousine Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918544527701,"sku":"IARC0066LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918544757077,"sku":"IARC0066CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0938416696_10.jpg?v=1779801252"},{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-come-with-fierce-grace","title":"Alabaster DePlume - Come With Fierce Grace","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn order to record the compositions in his critically-acclaimed 2022 release\u003cem\u003e GOLD\u003c\/em\u003e, Alabaster DePlume instilled a culture of creativity by leading his ensembles in spontaneous composition and development. To allow them to be present, he kept the musicians constantly creating across several weeks of sessions at London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre. This process resulted in an abundance of material, much more than he could fit onto the initial double LP.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter spending most of 2022 touring in support of\u003cem\u003e GOLD\u003c\/em\u003e, Alabaster spent much of early 2023 revisiting the additional material from those Total Refreshment Centre sessions – adding, subtracting, producing and arranging – resulting in an entirely new album, \u003cem\u003eCome With Fierce Grace\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eCome With Fierce Grace\u003c\/em\u003e is an album made of authentic and unstipulated – yet welcomed – human interaction. It is for the most part an album of instrumentals, with exception of a few vocal features by Momoko Gill (aka MettaShiba), Falle Nioke, and Donna Thompson. However the instrumentals on this album are much more embryonic and unfiltered than the lush orchestrations heard on Alabaster’s breakout 2020 album \u003cem\u003eTo Cy \u0026amp; Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003eCome With Fierce Grace\u003c\/em\u003e is perhaps the most raw and candid portrait of Alabaster’s creative compositional process we’ve yet to hear, as he’s captured vividly in the room with his collaborators – stretching, exploring, working to deepen and expand the emotions underlying his melodic and poetic frameworks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegarding the process, Alabaster cites a similarity to how elements in nature contribute to shared work and beauty without a collective motive – a bee’s own motives result in the delivery of pollen. As he says: “The great thing wants to happen, let us allow it to happen.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegarding the origin of the album’s name: On his first trip to perform in the US in March 2022, Alabaster collected messages from individuals, as he asked them if there is anything they would like him to share with his audiences. One message (from a person who preferred to remain anonymous) asked Alabaster to encourage people to “come with fierce grace.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleases September 8, 2023\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProduced and arranged by\u003c\/strong\u003e Alabaster DePlume.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRecorded onto tape by\u003c\/strong\u003e Kristian Craig Robinson at Total Refreshment Centre, London.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMixed by\u003c\/strong\u003e Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMastered by\u003c\/strong\u003e David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlbum Art by\u003c\/strong\u003e Raimund Wong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInsert photo by\u003c\/strong\u003e Chris Almeida.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLayout by\u003c\/strong\u003e Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComposed in the act of performance by and with:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlabaster DePlume \u003c\/strong\u003e– tenor sax, guitar, synths and voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFalle Nioke \u003c\/strong\u003e– voice, percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRozi Plain \u003c\/strong\u003e– guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSarathy Korwar\u003c\/strong\u003e – drums, tabla\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTom Skinner\u003c\/strong\u003e – drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKenichi Iwasa\u003c\/strong\u003e – percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJames Howard\u003c\/strong\u003e – guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTom Herbert\u003c\/strong\u003e – double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNatalie Pela\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRosa Slade\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eElly Condron\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLuisa Gerstein\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMatt Webb\u003c\/strong\u003e – double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMichael Chestnutt\u003c\/strong\u003e – synths\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUrsula Russell\u003c\/strong\u003e – drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConrad Singh\u003c\/strong\u003e – guitar\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah Miller\u003c\/strong\u003e – cello and voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDonna Thompson\u003c\/strong\u003e – voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMatthew Bourne\u003c\/strong\u003e – piano\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMomoko Gill\u003c\/strong\u003e – lead vocal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRuth Goller\u003c\/strong\u003e – bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll rights reserved\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Greek Honey\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918544953685,"sku":"IARC0070LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918545183061,"sku":"IARC0070LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918545379669,"sku":"IARC0070CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3957026135_10.jpg?v=1779803973"},{"product_id":"carlos-nino-friends-im-just-chillin-on-fire","title":"Carlos Niño \u0026 Friends - (I'm just) Chillin', on Fire","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eLiner Notes by Marcus J. Moore:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver the past few years, concert patrons have stopped the musician Carlos Niño after gigs to ask two simple questions: “Are you a shaman?” “I hear the medicine in your music, can I come to your next ceremony?” The queries are fair enough: Looking at Niño, a tall man with a wild beard and kind eyes, one would think he’s from some faraway time and could maybe cast spells. Once you get to know him, you find that he’s just an incredibly sweet guy with a laid-back demeanor, and that he isn’t some guru claiming to have an all-access pass to the otherworld.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what does he say to those wondering if he’s a spiritual teacher?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m just chillin’, on fire,” he declares. “I'm not rolling with or out any kind of religious or traditional focus, rules or doctrine. I'm just presenting something that has a lot of energy, and is intended to be an opening for those of us who are journeying, creating musically, and for those who gather with us.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIndeed, there’s a communal essence to Niño’s self-described Energetic Space Music. As leader of Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Friends, he encourages his collaborators to improvise without preconceived ideas of what the sound is supposed to entail. His new album\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e, (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire, features more than a dozen musicians and includes a who’s who of sonic experimentation — everyone from guitarist Nate Mercereau and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, to New Age cornerstone Laraaji and hip-hop legend André 3000 playing his now trademark flute. On purpose, Niño lets the music drift and the unity ensue, making (I’m just) Chillin’, on Fire another highlight in a recent run of sublime work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut where albums like 2020’s Chicago Waves (with multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson) and last year’s Extra Presence hovered in the speakers, (I’m just) Chillin’ forges ahead in certain spots through energetic drums equally indebted to jazz and electronic funk. It eschews genre, but the tenets of ‘70s underground jazz are present. Fifty years ago, acts like Brother Ah, the Ensemble Al-Salaam and Mtume Umoja Ensemble crafted music that scanned as Spiritual Jazz yet flared in many different directions. They leaned into the transcendence of the music overall, not artificial terms used to market it. (I’m just) Chillin’ emits the same emotion: On “Mighty Stillness,” when the experimental violinist V.C.R proclaims her “ancestral right” to rest, she evokes Black women like Jeanne Lee, Jayne Cortez and Beatrice Parker, innovative vocalists from indie scenes who embodied the same freedom. Then on “Love Dedication (for Annelise),” Niño uses subtle bass (from Michael Alvidrez) and a serene piano loop (from Surya Botofasina) to speak of endearment in broad terms. “Love is unconditional — everywhere, everything, flowing always,” he observes. “Totally alive, no upper limit.” Though he hesitates to embrace comparisons to the spacious arrangements heard on indie labels of the ‘70s like Strata, Strata-East and Tribe (only because of how much he respects their legacies, not wanting to claim any space in their fields), there’s no denying his stature as an anchor in the jazz, hip-hop and beat scenes in Los Angeles over the last nearly 30 years, and how his influences are alive in what he makes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“All of those labels to me are hugely influential,” Niño says. “When I think about Strata-East, I immediately think of Pharaoh Sanders, and I think of one of my favorite albums of all-time, Live at the East (on Impulse!), and how The East and that movement is a huge influence. I'm not from that community. I don't claim any direct connection to it, but my awareness of it and my appreciation of it is gigantic.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe vocals for (I’m just) Chillin’ were compiled unconventionally. “I was like, ‘I'm going to turn on the mic, and you're going to listen all the way through the album and record anything you're feeling at any moment,’” Niño says of the creative process. “It was completely open to their interpretation.” He found that the vocalists Cavana Lee, Maia, Mia Doi Todd, and V.C.R interpreted the music in similar ways: “People who are not even in the same room, who did not hear what the other person did, they all created these really cool weavings — and it was so fun.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the album compiles live and studio arrangements recorded in places like Venice, Leimert Park and Woodstock over the past three years, it feels harmonious, as if captured in one space with all musicians present. This highlights Niño’s ability as a conductor and producer. That he could winnow such vast experimentation into a seamless set is a worthy feat on its own. Much like Niño’s other LPs, (I’m just) Chillin’ is an immersive listen that requires attentive ears to fully absorb. In a world dominated by social media and the 24-hour news cycle, it seems we’re all in a hurry for no reason in particular. By creating music with tender messages and leisurely pacing, Niño nudges listeners to slow down and appreciate life’s natural wonders, to savor the journey and not rush so quickly to the destination. In turn, his art conjures pastoral images — endless fields, boundless oceans, ripples crashing along the shoreline. It urges you to simply look up: notice the wind rustling through the trees, listen to the birds sing a glorious song. This is real life, the stuff you can’t quite capture with a smartphone camera. As a conduit, Niño embodies the water he cherishes so deeply. He’s not just the bandleader, but a vessel for everyone’s ideas to shine through.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Creativity, to me, is an expression of a being's state, and their states of being,” he says. “It's really reflecting or reporting how they feel. The deeper ‘why’ is what I'm getting to with all this, what is inside that feeling, and it's not uncharted territory. I'm one of these people who's very into organizing, curating and offering; it's a deeply sharing kind of thing. It's a living thing; it grows. Sometimes it gets sculpted. Sometimes it gets rocked by forces outside of its maneuvering. Sometimes it looks one way. Sometimes it looks another way, but it's alive.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased September 15, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced, Mixed, Edited, and Arranged by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBells, Chimes, Cymbals, Drums, Field Recordings, Flutes, Gongs, Kalimbas, Keyboards, Leaves, Plants, Rattles, Shakers, Sound Design, Synths, Voice, and Whistles throughout by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Photo by Annelise.\u003cbr\u003eOn The Cover and Insert: Tile VI (Fall in or Fly Away), Ceramic, by Aparna Sarkar.\u003cbr\u003eArt Direction and Original Elements by Nep Sidhu.\u003cbr\u003eGraphic Design and Layout by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e01) Venice 100720, Hands In Soil\u003cbr\u003eJamire Williams – Drums\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson - Alto Saxophone and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eAndres Renteria – Congas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded Live in The Townhouse Courtyard in Venice, California by Don Hernandez, on Wednesday, October 7, 2020. Congas added in January 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e02) Mighty Stillness\u003cbr\u003eJamire Williams – Drums\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson - Alto Saxophone and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eV.C.R – Voice\u003cbr\u003eCavana Lee – Voice\u003cbr\u003eMia Doi Todd – Voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded Live at The World Stage in Leimert Park, California by Tomoaki Soto on Friday, November 6, 2020. Voices added in December 2022.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e03) Love Dedication (for Annelise)\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina – Piano\u003cbr\u003eMichael Alvidrez – Bass\u003cbr\u003eAnnelise – Voice\u003cbr\u003eCavana Lee – Voice\u003cbr\u003eMaia – Voice\u003cbr\u003eMia Doi Todd – Voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe basis of this piece was Recorded by Jesse Peterson during the Sessions for Surya's Album Everyone's Children. Bass and Voices added in December 2022.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e04) Flutestargate\u003cbr\u003eDeantoni Parks – Drums\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar, Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e05) Maha Rose North 102021, Breathwork\u003cbr\u003eLaraaji - Electric Kalimba and Voice\u003cbr\u003ePhotay - Buchla and Drum Machine\u003cbr\u003eLionmilk – Flute\u003cbr\u003eArji - Chimes and iPad\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded Live at Maharose North, in Woodstock, New York by Stu Pender on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Thanks to Luke Simon, Diego Gaeta,\u003cbr\u003eMekala Session, and V.C.R. for their additional Vibes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e06) Transcendental Bounce, Run to it\u003cbr\u003eDeantoni Parks – Drums\u003cbr\u003eThe Growth Eternal – Synth Bass\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau – Electric Guitar, Guitar Synth and Effects\u003cbr\u003eSibusile Xaba – Acoustic Guitar\u003cbr\u003eJesse Peterson – Synthesizer(s)\u003cbr\u003eMaia – Voice\u003cbr\u003eCavana Lee – Voice\u003cbr\u003eMia Doi Todd – Voice\u003cbr\u003eV.C.R – Voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e07) Taaaud\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Piano and Wurlitzer\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eSibusile Xaba - Voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContains a Sample of \"Duat\" by Jamael Dean, from his Solo Piano Album Ished Tree, used with permission from the Artist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e08) Spacial\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean – Piano and Wurlitzer\u003cbr\u003eSibusile Xaba – Voice\u003cbr\u003eJesse Peterson – Synthesizer(s)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e09) Am I Dreaming?\u003cbr\u003eDntel - Modular Synthesizer\u003cbr\u003eLuis Pérez Ixoneztli - Aerophones, Drums and Percussion\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina – Keyboards\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Maya Luma for her energy toward this piece.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10) Etheric Windsurfing, flips and twirls\u003cbr\u003eAdam Rudolph - Drum Machine, and Gimbre\u003cbr\u003eJesse Peterson – Synthesizers\u003cbr\u003eMaia – Voice\u003cbr\u003eAlakoi Peete – Percussion\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina – Keyboards\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e11) Boom Bap Spiritual\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina - Keyboards and Piano\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased on the piece \"Beloved California Temple.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e12) Woo, Acknowledgement\u003cbr\u003eMark Ives – Clarinet\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau – Zither\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina – Keyboards\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis piece originated as the second half of a Remix made for the Woo piece \"Paradise In Pimlico\" (from the Album of the same name, released by Quindi Records). Clive and Mark added to the Remix, then Carlos decided to focus on and develop this part.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e13) Sandra’s Willows\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone and Flute\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina – Keyboards\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese pieces were recorded by Jesse Peterson at Carlos Niño’s Home Studio, Composed in the moment for a Film Project by Sandra de la Loza. She and her partner William were present in the Studio.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e14) One For Derf\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone and Flute\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina – Keyboards\u003cbr\u003eMichael Alvidrez – Bass\u003cbr\u003eMaia – Voice\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean – Piano\u003cbr\u003ePablo Calogero - Bass Clarinet\u003cbr\u003eAndres Renteria - Hand Drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDedicated to The Great Derf Reklaw.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e15) Conversations\u003cbr\u003eAndré 3000 - Flute and Voice\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar, Sampler and Synthesizers\u003cbr\u003eMaia – Voice\u003cbr\u003eCavana Lee – Voice\u003cbr\u003eMia Doi Todd – Voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Recording Engineer Ken Oriole and to Jesse Peterson who can be heard playing Gimbre through Pedals for a few moments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e16) Essence, The Mermaids Call\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Electric Guitar\u003cbr\u003eClive and Mark Ives - Multi-Instruments and Voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCo-Produced by Woo. Thanks to Laraaji and his piece \"Essence\" - the inspiration for the genesis of this one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e17) Eightspace 082222\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw – EWI\u003cbr\u003eAndres Renteria - Hand Drums\u003cbr\u003eAnnelise – Percussion\u003cbr\u003eDiego Gaeta – Keyboards\u003cbr\u003eKamasi Washington - Tenor Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina - Keyboards and Piano\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThanks to Linafornia, Banch Abegaze, Nes Abegaze, Scottie McNiece, Alejandro Ayala, and Andrew Maxwell for their support of this Concert.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"info license\" id=\"license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Etheric Pink\" Color Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918545805653,"sku":"IARC0067LPI","price":30.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918547083605,"sku":"IARC0067LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Limited Edition Cassette","offer_id":53918545609045,"sku":"IARC0067CS","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918565531989,"sku":"IARC0067CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0903648781_10.jpg?v=1779801697"},{"product_id":"daniel-villarreal-lados-b","title":"Daniel Villarreal - Lados B","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eOn October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained unreleased.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLados B is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker, and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation – flow as informed by the Latin funk of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly humanity trance of Brain Records – while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on Parker's recently-released Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, and the LA side of Makaya McCraven's 2018 LP Universal Beings) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased October 6, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDaniel Villarreal – drums, percussion\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker – guitar\u003cbr\u003eAnna Butterss – double bass, electric bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRhodes piano on “Salute” by Neal Francis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Ben Lumsdaine, October 15-16, 2020,\u003cbr\u003eat Chicali Outpost, Los Angeles CA.\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Recording by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino and Daniel Villarreal.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Daniel Villarreal, Dave Vettraino, and Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003ePhotos by Carolina Sánchez.\u003cbr\u003eTitles by Natalie Miller.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Craig Hansen.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Cigar Smoke\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918588797269,"sku":"IARC0071LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918588010837,"sku":"IARC0071LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918580539733,"sku":"IARC0071CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a4049990247_10.jpg?v=1779804730"},{"product_id":"bex-burch-there-is-only-love-and-fear","title":"Bex Burch - There is only love and fear","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eLiner Notes by Emma Warren:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn rare occasions, all the stars align. This is how it was when composer-musician and instrument-maker Bex Burch jumped into her car and drove eight hours across Europe to Utrecht in November 2021. “Mostly life isn’t like that,” she says. “We’re here to figure things out and struggle. But occasionally things just fall into place. Sometimes the world is magical.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe car trip began in Berlin, where she was living after a long stint in London, where she’d made her name in the layers that exist between jazz and improvised experimentalism. The journey ended at Le Guess Who? Festival and an invitation from International Anthem’s Alejandro Ayala. Or perhaps it ended in a ground floor studio in Chicago’s South Side with light streaming through a skylight onto her newly-finished wooden xylophone and a stream of musicians selected by International Anthem’s Scottie McNiece and Dave Vettraino. Or maybe, like a wave travelling across the ocean, the travels continued until Bex Burch finally finished editing thirty-two days of exceptionally tender improvised recording sessions into the forty gossamer minutes of this stunning debut solo record, which oscillates between modes of quiet open-heartedness and powerful\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eexpression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere is only love and fear is the sound of Bex Burch in communion with some of the finest sonic communicators in International Anthem’s extended family. These include woodwind player Rob Frye, who gave Burch a tour of the Illinois Audubon Society’s Gremel Wildlife Sanctuary the day after she arrived in Chicago. Also Tortoise drummer Dan Bitney and Ben LaMar Gay, who both took Burch through her first few days in the studio, tuning into her communicative harmonics and responding with their own. And double bassist Anna Butterss and violinist Macie Stewart, who participated separately but both became key collaborators in the album’s post-production, accenting their respective string improvisations with additional sounds remotely recorded per Burch’s direction. Everyone on this record is highly skillful, a rare talent, but drawn together by Burch they were invited to inhabit something even more extraordinary: their most open selves, requested only to bring the sounds they liked – or even needed – in the moment of recording.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What has come through in this album,” she says, “is a more domestic style of music: the simplicity of life and sound-making. The word I’m shy to use is ‘feminine’ but it’s true, and I reclaim it in all its power.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe describes her sound as “messy minimalism.” The twelve tracks evoke variously the sweet kind of zoning-in that allows the listener access to their own feelings; the generative meditations of First Thought, Best Thought-era Arthur Russell; Vivaldi or Laurie Anderson – if they’d been ultra-gentle satellite reflections of Chicago’s minimalist and avant-garde music histories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBurch has previously released as part of Boing! with Leafcutter John, and with the critically acclaimed Strut-released Flock with Londoners including Sarathy Korwar and The Comet Is Coming’s Danalogue. She also runs the band and label Vula Viel and has collaborated with artists from Peter Zummo to Dame Evelyn Glennie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis album also welcomes in the sound of the natural world; ‘hip as fuck’ wood pigeons and resonant nightingales recorded in Berlin parks and forests, dreamy waves lilting onto the sand on the Baltic coast of Rügen Island for the unforgettable closing track ‘When Love Begins’ – and some extreme Chi-Town weather.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There was this ignition moment,” she says of ‘You thought you were free’, the carnival-coloured mid-point of the album. “There was a tornado warning, our phones were all going off: ‘go into the basement’.” The players collectively shrugged their shoulders – until siren sound waves began ghosting through the studio walls. “I turned one of the microphones up to catch the thunder and the rain under the skylight,” she says. “I was properly scared, not just because of the storm, but because I was nervous. I was trying to stay open and be conscious of the fact that I didn’t know what to expect – and that doing so means surrender. That knife edge of presence was really intense. We all just played through.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlaying through was possible, at least in part because of a 90-day practice Burch calls Dawn blessings, which also provided some of the ‘heard sounds’ that dance around the music generated during these collaborative recordings. The practice refers to a friend called Dawn, not daybreak, although at least one of the Dawn blessings that ended up on There is only love and fear was recorded when the sun came up. The Dawn blessings required Burch to make one piece of music daily, in answer to the question: ‘what sounds do I like today?’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My intention was to cultivate this feeling of expansion and magic that I felt when I was invited to the US. The music is already there, and I have to let go and allow myself to be in it. The 90-day practice was to strengthen that muscle. You know if you do sit ups, you get a six-pack? Perhaps this was exercising my openness six-pack.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was also exercising her hand-made xylophone. Burch lived in Ghana for three years, including an 18-month apprenticeship in instrument-making, in the Upper West of Ghana with master gyil player Thomas Sekgura. The new instrument isn’t of a particular tradition, indeed the harmonics are tuned to maximise the resonance and was made in collaboration with Jamie Linwood in Stroud, in the south west of England. “The question ‘what sounds do I like today?’ brought up harmonics, and this is the first instrument I’ve made because of what I want to hear. This record happens to be the first that features it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's quite a christening: a resonant, respectful, super-warm expression of asymmetry, repetitiveness and space. “It’s how the universe works, it’s how we’re all vibrating. We all resonate, literally, with these fundamentals. Tension and release, space, chaos and asymmetry in heard sounds in nature – I love it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe energy sent into the world when Bex Burch turned the ignition key of her car and drove to Utrecht has finally landed on the beach, in the shape of There is only love and fear. “It’s about choosing to act in love and choosing not to put more force or fear into the world,” she says. “Imagine it like I’m swimming: instead of just leaving a wake of love behind me, I’m pushing it ahead of me, and all around me as well, void of hierarchy, it’s beyond the linear and binary. We can lift people up when we do that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSoak this music up – it will rejuvenate you.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased October 20, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded for International Anthem at Center for Search \u0026amp; Research (Chicago), Palisade (Chicago), Chicali Outpost (Los Angeles), Bronson Canyon (Los Angeles), Stanglerhof (Italy), Jamie Linwood’s house, and various heard sounds from Yorkshire, The Baltic Sea, Berlin, SüdTirol, Wyoming, Chicago and LA.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered by Dave Vettraino*\u003cbr\u003e*except engineered by Adrian Garcia (track 11), Ben Lumsdaine (tracks 4, 9), Dave Vettraino and Jordan Parry (track 7)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Bex Burch and Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEdited \u0026amp; Produced by Bex Burch\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Producers Scott McNiece, Dave Vettraino, David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArtwork \u0026amp; Design by Jeremiah Chiu\u003cbr\u003ePhotos by Bex Burch (front cover) and Chris Almeida (back cover)\u003cbr\u003eObi strip design by Craig Hansen\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Brother Sun\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918589354325,"sku":"IARC0064LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918589190485,"sku":"IARC0064LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918588928341,"sku":"IARC0064CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0040478415_10.jpg?v=1779799701"},{"product_id":"resavoir-resavoir-1","title":"Resavoir - Resavoir (2023)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eNotes by Anton Spice:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eResavoir - the collaborative project led by Chicago producer\/composer Will Miller - presents their second self-titled album. The new 'Resavoir' is a subtly radiant symphony interweaving modern-day soul-jazz with bedroom beats, synth serenades and twilight sonatas. It represents Miller’s most assured and refined work to date.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImagined, instigated and produced by Miller, who ties the diverse sounds into an expansive, coherent whole, 'Resavoir' features a wide and vibrant cast of collaborators, including Elton Aura, Whitney, Akenya, Matt Gold, Eddie Burns, Lane Beckstrom, Jeremy Cunningham, Irvin Pierce, Macie Stewart, Peter Manheim and more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRooted in the collaborative spirit of the early 2010s indie hip-hop scene, Miller cut loose from his training at Oberlin jazz conservatory, taking a compositional assignment to write a tune about a reservoir as his cue to explore a beats and RnB-inspired sound that could function as a literal reservoir of music to draw from. Running his trumpet through MIDI keyboards, experimenting with samplers, drum machines and synths, he began to build a sound that could seamlessly collaborate with MCs, vocalists and\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003einstrumentalists.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With Resavoir, it’s been more about unlearning those stigmas and traumas of going through the very rigid system of learning music and coming back to making something that is going to make me feel good and reflects how I'm feeling in the moment,” Miller explains.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA longtime member of indie band Whitney, and having subsequently worked with the likes of Mac Miller, ASAP Rocky, Chance The Rapper, Lil Wayne and SZA - for whom he produced “Blind” from her 2022 album SOS which spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard 100 chart - the Resavoir project allowed Miller to take these experiences into his own work - creating a sound that is deft yet deep, compositionally complex, yet finely tuned to the timbres of emotion that color life’s quieter moments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInitially developed as a group project, Miller released his debut self-titled Resavoir album in 2019. Described by Pitchfork as “a complex, soulful album which celebrates interconnectedness,” the album received widespread critical acclaim. However, Miller’s concept for Resavoir continued to evolve as the pandemic forced everyone back onto themselves, this deep well of music now offering a return to the fundamentals of his approach. He explains: “Resavoir is a compositional practice, a place, a feeling, and a reflection of the community I have around me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRenting a studio in the old Hammond B3 organ factory on Chicago’s NW side, Miller went back to basics, organizing open air jam sessions in the side lot of his Logan Square apartment building that would form the basis of two shimmering tracks – “Midday” and “First Light” – years before this new album came into view. As Miller remembers: “Both recordings came from the first time any of us had played music with anyone else since the onset of the pandemic so there was quite a tangible energy and emotion in the air. Folks from the neighborhood were stopping by to drop off 6-packs of beer and listen.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten over three years beginning in April 2020, the new 'Resavoir' saw Miller challenge himself to experiment with what he calls the “medicinal” daily practice of music making. Born out of a process of introversion and mindfulness, the eleven effervescent songs that ultimately made the cut are testament to Miller expanding on his breezy and melodic signature to showcase a bold new sonic direction - a beat-oriented but compositionally complex, lush and cinematic soul-jazz sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst single \"Inside Minds\" channels a João Gilberto-meets-MF DOOM whimsey – stripped back, spontaneous yet orchestrated. Capturing the moment of discovery, other tracks like \"Sunset\" are like vignettes of Miller’s process - music as an exercise in letting go, embracing the organic imperfections of their creation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDiscussing his approach to the work, Miller says: \"a single chord change has the power to completely divert my entire day and provide me with a feeling of peace and wonder. Those are the best moments when creating music, the moments of transformation and healing. The feeling of this new album to me is meditative, peaceful, serene, quiet, introspective, intentional, patient, calm, awe-filled and loving. If I was truly writing to how I was feeling in the moment I think it would sound a lot different. So I wanted to speak to the transformational power of music.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 3, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePRODUCED BY WILL MILLER\u003cbr\u003eMIXED BY DAVE VETTRAINO\u003cbr\u003eMASTERED BY DAVE COOLEY\u003cbr\u003eARTWORK \u0026amp; DESIGN BY CRYSTAL ZAPATA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWILL MILLER: PIANO, EVI, TRUMPET, FLUGELHORN, WURLITZER, SYNTHS, SAMPLER, 808\u003cbr\u003eLANE BECKSTROM: DOUBLE BASS, BASS GUITAR\u003cbr\u003eMACIE STEWART: VIOLIN\u003cbr\u003eEDDIE BURNS: DRUM PROGRAMMING, DRUMS\u003cbr\u003eMATT GOLD: GUITAR, VOICE\u003cbr\u003ePETER MANHEIM: DRUM KIT, CONGAS, PERCUSSION\u003cbr\u003eAKENYA SEYMOUR: VOICE, WURLITZER\u003cbr\u003eELTON AURA: GUITAR, VOICE\u003cbr\u003eJULIEN EHRLICH: GUITAR, VOICE\u003cbr\u003eMAX KAKACEK: GUITAR\u003cbr\u003eKENNETH LEFTRIDGE JR.: FLUTE, SAXOPHONE, CLARINET, BASS CLARINET\u003cbr\u003eWILLS MCKENNA: ALTO FLUTE\u003cbr\u003eJEREMY CUNNINGHAM: SPD DRUMS, DRUMS\u003cbr\u003eIRVIN PIERCE: SAXOPHONE\u003cbr\u003eELLA WILLIAMS: VOICE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*Whitney appears courtesy of Secretly Canadian\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition Dusk Cloud Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918590599509,"sku":"IARC0072LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918590861653,"sku":"IARC0072LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918591058261,"sku":"IARC0072CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/coverartIARC0072Resavoir.jpg?v=1779792262"},{"product_id":"thandi-ntuli-with-carlos-nino-rainbow-revisited","title":"Thandi Ntuli with Carlos Niño - Rainbow Revisited","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eLiner Notes by Thandi Ntuli:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI travelled to Los Angeles and the USA for the first time in 2019. Although I had not met Carlos in person, we connected via Instagram where he saw a video of me playing a piano motif (titled ‘The One’ in this sequence) that he really liked and expressed a wish to record. This was around 2017. We tried a few times to get me over to Los Angeles, but the timing was always off. Through a performance organised by a creative collective called The Nonsemble at The Ford Theatre we finally got the opportunity to meet, play together and subsequently go into studio to record some improvisations as he guided the recording process.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHaving been aware of some of his work – in particular his collaborative projects as Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Friends, as well as with his friend and long-time collaborator, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – I knew that, with Carlos as producer, the artistic direction of the album would likely take me to a place I’d never considered going. A fact that had me both curious and terrified (as one tends to be when stepping into the unknown) Lol!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInitially keen to record the song that he had seen\/heard me play on Instagram, our performance a few days before the\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esession drew him to the song Rainbow off my sophomore album, Exiled (2018). On that zen-like California afternoon in Andy Kravitz’s cozy studio in Venice Beach, he encouraged me to play around with various iterations of Rainbow. “Try it this way”, “How about adding that?”, “Can you breathe into the mic?”, “What if you focus on the last section?”, and many other explorations that eventually went through a few cuts, edits, yays and nays to become this body of work. Rainbow Revisited was birthed through that session, another session a couple of days later, and a series of many small synchronicities that led up to that moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA particularly special moment for me was when he invited me to play something from home, which lent itself to me recording a song originally written by my grandfather that we often sing when at family gatherings. The song is called Nomayoyo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo much has happened since that session in late 2019. Many changes in our personal and collective universes. Losses and gains, births and transitions into the next life, Mother Nature’s ever-constant cycles reminding me that through all the chaos there remains, just beneath, this perfect order in Her ebb and flow. And most importantly, reminding me to feel for Her and to listen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe speaks!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf Rainbow in my initial birthing of it, expressed a discontent with what we have accepted as freedom in South Africa and, possibly, around the world, I’d like to think that Rainbow Revisited is some kind of a response. Where the idea of ‘the rainbow nation’, with all the baggage it carried, had hijacked the innocence and mystical nature of a rainbow, I now reclaim its meaning through going back, going inward, healing, and rebuilding with the hope of a less heart-breaking and more fulfilling tomorrow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLihlanzekile!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 17, 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThandi Ntuli: Piano, Synthesizer, Tongo, Voice\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño: Cymbals, Percussion, Plants\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Andy Kravitz at Studio 4 West, Venice Beach, California, August 2019.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Recording by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003eProduced and Mixed by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen and Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art by Shabaka Hutchings.\u003cbr\u003ePoem by Thandi Ntuli.\u003cbr\u003eInsert Photo by Thandi Ntuli.\u003cbr\u003eGraphic Design and Layout by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThandi’s Thank You’s:\u003cbr\u003eMy gratitude to you Carlos for conceiving and believing. For your\u003cbr\u003ehumanity and enthusiasm. All the years that this album was in the\u003cbr\u003emaking, and still so excited about it, if not more-so now. Scottie\u003cbr\u003eand David of International Anthem for your care and unrelenting\u003cbr\u003ebelief in this project. It is an honour to be in partnership with you.\u003cbr\u003eThank you, as well, to Shabaka for your contribution and energy\u003cbr\u003eby means of the artwork. I am so glad we were able to have your\u003cbr\u003evoice included in such a beautiful and fitting way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo Umdali… Always in all ways, I remain committed to Love\u003cbr\u003eand being in service of you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo all those who come before me, in my lineage, in\u003cbr\u003econsciousness, in deeds and musically. And to all those who\u003cbr\u003ehave just arrived and are still to come, who keep us hoping,\u003cbr\u003estriving, and dreaming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNgiyabonga!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo all who receive this music and complete the circle by giving\u003cbr\u003ethis work meaning, thank you!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd finally, to Graeme… I dedicate my contribution to this\u003cbr\u003ealbum to Dr Graeme Gilfillan who left us just when we\u003cbr\u003econcluded the final details of the album. Like I’d always say to\u003cbr\u003eyou “not all heroes wear capes”. May you be welcomed by a\u003cbr\u003egreat party of all the artists you fought for whilst you walked on\u003cbr\u003ethis earth. There aren’t enough thank you-s for what you have\u003cbr\u003edone for me and how you have empowered me. Thank you for\u003cbr\u003ewalking the walk and being a real one!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKuyosala izibongo.\u003cbr\u003ePhambili!\u003cbr\u003eAyabonga amaPhemba, nabo bonke abahamba nami!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTill we meet again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCarlos's Thank You's:\u003cbr\u003eThandi, what an Honor and Joy to make this Album\u003cbr\u003ewith You, Scottie McNiece, Francesca and Cosmo,\u003cbr\u003eDavid Allen, Alejandro Ayala, International Anthem,\u003cbr\u003eAndy Kravitz, the Wizard, Studio 4 West, The World Stage,\u003cbr\u003eAlex Kelman, Third Side Music, Jason Sugars, Kali Malikah,\u003cbr\u003eGreg Paul, David Otis, Ken Barrientos, Siya Makuzeni,\u003cbr\u003eShabaka Hutchings, Abdullah Ibrahim \/ Dollar Brand,\u003cbr\u003eTownhouse Venice, Louie \u0026amp; Netty Ryan, Novena Carmel,\u003cbr\u003eAlix Fisher, Nate Mercereau, Banch Abegaze, Jesse Peterson,\u003cbr\u003eTravis Lett, Jason Lader, Aaron Wiggs, Laraaji,\u003cbr\u003eClaudia Niño, Je Stabenau, Annelise and Mossy . . .\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Pot of Gold\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918591549781,"sku":"IARC0073LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918591254869,"sku":"IARC0073LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918591746389,"sku":"IARC0073CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2237445642_10.jpg?v=1779805703"},{"product_id":"tom-skinner-voices-of-bishara-live-mu","title":"Tom Skinner - Voices of Bishara Live @ mu","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eIn January 2023, Tom Skinner and his ensemble performed material from his recently-released album 'Voices of Bishara' (Brownswood, IARC \u0026amp; Nonesuch, 2022) at London club “mu”— a venue founded by the curators at Brilliant Corners and named after the seminal Don Cherry live album. Their performance was augmented by three pieces by Abdul Wadud, whose 1977 self-released solo cello album, By Myself, was a primary inspiration for Voices of Bishara.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe woodwinds featured on Skinner's original Voices of Bishara album — Shabaka Hutchings and Nubya Garcia — had already been replaced in Skinner's live ensemble with Robert Stillman (who also plays with Skinner in The Smile) and Chelsea Carmichael; with the extended rhythm section of Tom Herbert (double bass) and Kareem Dayes (cello) still rounding out the lineup with Skinner on drums.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the opening moments of Voices of Bishara Live at \"mu\", which was recorded on that legendary January 2023 night, it's clear that this band’s aim is to excavate the deep corners of the repertoire, kicking things off with an extended rendition of Skinner’s own composition “Bishara” that employs the same relationship to rhythmic and tonal freedom found in the Abdul Wadud cello work that inspired it. That aesthetic connection is even more clear by the time the\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003egroup moves into their 20-minute exploration of Wadud’s “Oasis,” the stunning centerpiece of the set that culminates with a scorching 5+ minute sax solo by Carmichael.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHearing Skinner’s compositions - flexed and stretched with extended improvisation, and in context with works by Wadud - both places them and this band firmly in the creative music continuum they honor, and provides us with an unobstructed view of where that continuum is leading us.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased May 10, 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom Skinner – drums\u003cbr\u003eKareem Dayes – cello\u003cbr\u003eChelsea Carmichael – tenor saxophone and flute\u003cbr\u003eTom Herbert – bass\u003cbr\u003eRobert Stillman – tenor saxophone\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded live at “mu” London by Juan Blanco on January 18th and 19th, 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dilip Harris.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSleeve design and artwork by Paul Camo for Studio Camo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Bishara,\" \"The Journey,\" and \"The Day After Tomorrow\" composed by Tom Skinner (Warp Publishing).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Red 2\" is a version of \"Two Pieces of One: Red,\" composed by Anthony Tillman Williams (EMI Music Publishing Ltd\/EMI Blackwood Music Inc\/Tillmon Music Co. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oasis,\" \"Camille,\" and \"Happiness\" composed by Ronald Earsell DeVaughn (Bisharra Music).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMade with gratitude, love, respect, and admiration for the great Abdul Wadud.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition Deluxe Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918617043285,"sku":"IARC0076LPI-SLEEVE","price":35.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Limited Edition Cassette","offer_id":53918596268373,"sku":"IARC0076CS","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Limited Edition Deluxe CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918617272661,"sku":"IARC0076CDI","price":14.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1081356019_10.jpg?v=1779806804"},{"product_id":"ariel-kalma-jeremiah-chiu-marta-sofia-honer-the-closest-thing-to-silence","title":"Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu \u0026 Marta Sofia Honer - The Closest Thing to Silence","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eIn August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu \u0026amp; Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music. They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer \u0026amp; Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other. The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter meeting their twenty minute goal for the program\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTheir collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUltimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu \u0026amp; Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — \"The Closest Thing to Silence\" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium\/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleased February 2, 2024\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918596890965,"sku":"IARC0077CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3064571280_10.jpg?v=1779807499"},{"product_id":"ruth-goller-skyllumina","title":"Ruth Goller - SKYLLUMINA","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eSKYLLUMINA represents a new evolution of London-based, Italian-born composer, bassist, and vocalist Ruth Goller.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGoller is known for her bass and vocal work with Alabaster DePlume, whose music she elevates in live contexts with her genre-less improvisational intuition. She's also known for work with Bex Burch's Vula Viel, whose DIY label released Goller's solo debut Skylla in 2021. And she is known to creative musicians far and wide, with an incredibly diverse CV that includes performance and recording with Shabaka Hutchings, Rokia Traore, Melt Yourself Down, Sam Amidon, Damon Albarn, and many more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExpanding on the wholly original sound Goller established with her solo work on Skylla – i.e. compositions of detuned bass under a spectra of soprano voices she arranged and overdubbed herself – SKYLLUMINA complicates matters as she augments every piece with a different drummer. “As a bass-player, I love playing with drummers and I decided to focus on my close connection to that instrument and to the amazing people I met in my life who play it,” says Goller. Her accompanists on the album include International Anthem labelmates Bex Burch, Tom Skinner, and Frank Rosaly, as well as prolific British player Sebastian Rochford and longtime Vula Viel\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ecollaborator Jim Hart. But more importantly: this music is an immersive hyperfocus for Goller and her patently distinct, singular compositional vision.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSKYLLUMINA, despite its highly conceptual origins, is heavy with human emotion. Its dark washes of melody and contrapuntal percussion could fit easily into a mixtape with indie downbeat \/ ennui royalty like Grouper or Low, while also being right at home next a Cage-Tudor prepared piano piece. And the piercing, sibilant ice age siren song heard in Goller's powerfully feminine vocal arrangements find her in an otherworld only occasionally inhabited by the likes of Björk and The Knife.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGoller says: “This record is deep insight into my soul and my recent life. It’s coming through a meteor storm and grasping the first light... out of a very unexpected tumultuous time... there are feelings of grief, loss, hope, purest of love, connection to my home, death, and new configurations... as well as self-discovery.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased March 1, 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e01) Below my skin\u003cbr\u003eTom Skinner: drums and electronics. Ruth Goller: electric bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e02) Reach down into the deepest white\u003cbr\u003eMark Sanders: drums. Ruth Goller: electric bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e03) Of Snowhere\u003cbr\u003eMark Sanders: drums. Jim Hart: vibraphone. Ruth Goller: double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e04) Next time I keep my hands down\u003cbr\u003eJim Hart: vibraphone and drums. Ruth Goller: electric bass, double bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e05) All the light I have, I hand to you\u003cbr\u003eMax Andrzejewski: drums. Ruth Goller: electric bass and vocals\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e06) She was my own she was myself\u003cbr\u003eBex Burch: sanza and llimba. Ruth Goller: double bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e07) How to be free from it\u003cbr\u003eEmanuele Maniscalco: drums. Ruth Goller: electric bass, double bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e08) From breaks to shreds it’s a short path\u003cbr\u003eSebastian Rochford: drums. Lauren Kinsella: vocals. Ruth Goller: electric bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e09) Don’t follow me\u003cbr\u003eWill Glaser: gongs. Ruth Goller: electric bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10) I have for you - simple truth\u003cbr\u003eFrank Rosaly: drums and percussion. Ruth Goller: electric bass, double bass and vocals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music composed and produced by Ruth Goller.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMasks by\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca rel=\"nofollow ugc\" href=\"http:\/\/wintercroft.com\/\"\u003ewintercroft.com\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Zak Watson\u003cbr\u003ePoem by Alabaster DePlume\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Craig Hansen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank you: Scottie McNiece, Dave Vettraino, David Allen, Alejandro Ayala and everyone at International Anthem, Alice Grant, Lauren Kinsella and all the amazing musicians who have contributed to this record, Bex Burch and Vula Viel records, Barbara, Peter, Pedro Velasco and Nell Greco.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"info license\" id=\"license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition *Sunrise of Mine* Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918597316949,"sku":"IARC0078LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918597120341,"sku":"IARC0078LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918597480789,"sku":"IARC0078CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a0042990498_10.jpg?v=1779807749"},{"product_id":"ibelisse-guardia-ferragutti-frank-rosaly-mestizx","title":"Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti \u0026 Frank Rosaly - MESTIZX","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eMESTIZX is Bolivian-born singer and multi-medium performer Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and renowned Chicago expat jazz drummer Frank Rosaly's debut album as co-composers, arrangers and musicians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePartners in both marriage and art, the Amsterdam-based Ferragutti and Rosaly dove into the sounds of their respective ancestral roots in Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico to create a deeply personal meditation on decolonization and the defiant power of ritual and protest. They chose the title MESTIZX – a non-gendered version of the sometimes slurred Spanish colonial word for a “mixed person” - as a means of both challenging and embracing the liminality of their identities and artistic practices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRosaly says: “I grew up quite Puerto Rican in my home, but was taught to mask it outside my home. I wasn’t allowed to speak Spanish, so the drums eventually became my language, secretly tying together my own feeling of connection to mi tierra. This record is the first time I actively give voice to the nuance within myself, allowing me to take ownership of this in-between, which is what this album communicates for me… There is this unusual place that exists between these two cultures, of which I am both. There is a complex story in that sliver of in-betweenness, worthy of giving voice\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eto all of us that live in-between.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFerragutti adds: “My personal understanding is one that stems from being placed in between lineages that carry the colonizer and colonized, the oppressor and oppressed, the demon and the angel… thus by definition is tied to post-colonial social constructs which we as Bolivians have to step in, like a 500 year novel that goes on and on… We have access to many memories and traditions, but not really, because we don’t fully belong to any of those… This makes us feel we're in a constant state of being the “visitors” and “outsiders.” On one hand, we are never truly part of one lineage. On the other hand, it makes us a travelers of worlds, storytellers in between multiple languages, cultures, and worldviews. We chose MESTIZX for this work as an act of recognizing the mixed state of being as a difficult and yet powerful one.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album was produced and recorded primarily at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, where Ferragutti and Rosaly were joined by a community of musicians and beloved friends including Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, and Mikel Patrick Avery, with addditional contributions from Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens and Fredy Velásquez.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe music creatively infuses Latin rhythmic patterns and oblong swing from pre-and post-colonial Latin America into a collision of avant jazz, art punk, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, Andean, minimal, electronica, and folk. A wholly original but undeniably universal sound – both of-the-moment and alluringly futuristic - MESTIZX contains points of reference and resonance for fans of Juana Molina, Café Tacvba, Max Roach \u0026amp; Abbey Lincoln, Liquid Liquid, Arto Lindsay, As Mercenarias, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s a vast, vibrant and encompassing spectrum of sounds, but at its core MESTIZX is a lucidly conscious collection of auto-biographical statements from Ferragutti \u0026amp; Rosaly on the deeply personalized effects of colonialism on geography, history, and identity. Despite its heavy subject matter, however, MESTIZX finds a lifeline in communal, celebratory, soul-bearing and movement-inducing music.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eReleased May 3, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Editioon \"Red Moon\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918614847829,"sku":"IARC0079LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918615667029,"sku":"IARC0079LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918615208277,"sku":"IARC0079CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1116156932_10.jpg?v=1779876102"},{"product_id":"carlos-nino-friends-placenta","title":"Carlos Niño \u0026 Friends - Placenta","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003ePlacenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Friends music released on International Anthem in the last four years. It is also the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, co-creating\/playing, and co-mixing every song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlacenta is announced on April 11th, 2024, a date chosen because it is the 1st solar return of Moss Niño (a new being in human form, who Carlos and his partner Annelise are Earth parents of). Their experience of pregnancy, labor and delivery were all profoundly impactful for Carlos. Becoming a father again (a whole 24 years after the birth of Azul Niño, who has become a regular artistic collaborator with Carlos) he felt total Inspiration for this set of recordings, and hence it is perhaps the most conceptually-grounded Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Friends album we've yet to present – fully connected to the spirit of family, birth, and \"how we get here.\"\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased May 24, 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced, Mixed, Edited, and Arranged by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBells, Chimes, Collage, Cymbals, Drums, Field Recordings, Gongs, Kalimbas, Keyboards, Leaves, Plants, Rattles, Shakers, Sound Design, Synths, Voice, and Whistles throughout by Carlos Niño.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis Album is Dedicated to Mothers, Children, Babies, Aunties, Doulas, Midwives, Birthworkers, and especially Haize Hawke, Maia, Aleksandra Evanguelidi, Meaghan Snider, Doctor Phabillia Afflack, Amy Tinney, Doctor Dani, Constantia Tielbeke, Shelly Girard, Davi Kaur Khalsa, Marsha Connor, Tiffany de Leon, Destefano DeLuise, Grace Oh, Mia Doi Todd, Cavana Lee, V.C.R, Rosamond Goulet, Jill Townsend-Sorel, my Sister Claudia Niño, my Mom Carla Niño, Azul Niño and their Mom Andrea Flores, Moss Niño and his Mom, my great Partner Annelise, and her Mom Denise . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1) Love to all Doulas! (featuring Nate Mercereau)\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Nate Mercereau\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - French Horn and Collage\u003cbr\u003eNamed for Haize and Tiffany, and made with Alyssa and Juniper, Banch and Nes Abegaze, Thandi Ntuli and Doctor Graeme Gilfillan, in Heart and mind . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2) Some rest for the Midwives . . . (featuring Jamire Williams and Sam Gendel)\u003cbr\u003eJamire Williams - Drums, Painting and Dancing\u003cbr\u003eSam Gendel - Alto Saxophone and Pedals\u003cbr\u003efrom a Live Trio Concert at Ojai Rancho Inn\u003cbr\u003eon Sunday, July 29, 2018, hosted by Kenny, Serge and John.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3) Real Vital Organs (featuring Jamael Dean)\u003cbr\u003eJamael Dean - Organ\u003cbr\u003eOrgan Recorded by Jesse Peterson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4) Surges, Expansions (featuring Dexter Story and Nate Mercereau)\u003cbr\u003eDexter Story - Drums\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eBrandon Eugene Owens - Bowed Bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5) In Appreciation of Chico Hamilton’s Vast Influence on the West Coast Sound (featuring Nate Mercereau)\u003cbr\u003e( ) - Drums\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6) Birthworkers Magic, and how we get hear . . . (featuring Maia, André 3000 and Jesse Peterson)\u003cbr\u003eMaia - Concert Flute and Voice\u003cbr\u003eAndré 3000 - Quetzacoatl Flute and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eJesse Peterson - Guimbri and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eRecorded and Mixed by Ken Oriole at Groove Masters\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7) This “I” was not (featuring Ariel Kalma, Surya Botofasina and Annelise)\u003cbr\u003eAriel Kalma - Voice\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina - Organ\u003cbr\u003eAnnelise - Percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8) Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy (featuring Haize Hawke, Surya Botofasina, Aaron Shaw, Devin Daniels, Tiffany de Leon, Michael Bolger, Michael Alvidrez, Jesse Peterson, Annelise and Moss)\u003cbr\u003eHaize Hawke - Voice\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina - Synths\u003cbr\u003eJesse Peterson - (sped up) Aerophones\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw - (sped up) Tenor Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eDevin Daniels - Alto Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eTiffany de Leon - Voice\u003cbr\u003eMichael Bolger - Accordion\u003cbr\u003eMichael Alvidrez - Bass\u003cbr\u003eAnnelise and Moss - Voices\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9) Carla’s Beads (featuring Iasos)\u003cbr\u003eIasos - Celestial Instruments\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10) Moonlight Watsu in Dub (featuring Nate Mercereau and Photay)\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003ePhotay - Drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e11) Generous Pelvis (featuring Sam Gendel, Deantoni Parks, Nate Mercereau and Adam Rudolph)\u003cbr\u003eSam Gendel - Alto Saxophone and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eDeantoni Parks - Drums\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003eAdam Rudolph - Dubbed Hindewhu and Voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e12) Bi-Location (featuring Aaron Shaw, Andres Renteria and Nate Mercereau)\u003cbr\u003eAaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone\u003cbr\u003eAndres Renteria - Hand Drums and Percussion\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Guitar Synth and Pedals\u003cbr\u003efrom a Live Quartet Concert at The World Stage\u003cbr\u003eon Friday, February 10, 2023, hosted by Dwight Trible\u003cbr\u003eand Mama Nene.\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Tomoaki Soto\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Nate Mercereau\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e13) “Play Kerri Chandler’s RAIN” (featuring Surya Botofasina, Nate Mercereau and Cavana Lee)\u003cbr\u003eConceived by Carlos Niño\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Carlos Niño \u0026amp; Nate Mercereau\u003cbr\u003eMixed and Arranged by Nate Mercereau\u003cbr\u003eSurya Botofasina - Electric Piano, Synth Bass,\u003cbr\u003eLead Synth, Electronic Strings. “The vamp landed on after acknowledging the original composition was purely a two-chord celebration of the Spirit Driven collective we all are.”\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau - Multi-Instruments as part of the Live Trio\u003cbr\u003eperformance, and many more added to his post Arrangement\u003cbr\u003eCavana Lee - Voice, Dancer, Traveler\u003cbr\u003eCarlos Niño - Percussion and Cosmic Guide, Narrator\u003cbr\u003eBased on a Live Concert Recording of Surya Botofasina,\u003cbr\u003eNate Mercereau and Carlos Niño with Special Guest Cavana Lee, from King Georg in Köln, Germany on Thursday, November 17, 2022.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover Art by Bernard XOLOTL.\u003cbr\u003eDesign \u0026amp; Layout by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank Yous:\u003cbr\u003eJeff Stabenau, Alex Kelman, Third Side Music, Scottie, Francesca and Cosmo, David Allen and Family, Alejandro Ayala, Dave Vettraino, all International Anthem Family, Ben LaMar Gay, Matthewdavid, Diva and Love, Leaving Records, Justin Hansohn and Anandamide, Noah, May, Sam, Adrian and floating, Laraaji, Luis Pérez Ixoneztli, Phil Ranelin, Michael Gregory Jackson, Matthew, Augustina and the kids, Endless Color, Aztlan Unearthed, Jimetta Rose \u0026amp; The Voices Of Creation, Diego Gaeta and V, Pablo Calogero, Alex Cline, Dntel, Louie \u0026amp; Netty Ryan, Travis, Helen and Cy, Idris Ackamoor, Nep Sidhu, Ishmael Butler, all Botofasina-Reyes Familia, Kamau and Badia Daaood, Joey Ector, Pharoah Sanders, The Village x Preference Records, 2220 Arts + Archive, Quelle Chris, Liv.e, Devin Morrison, Mndsgn, Knx., Greg Paul, Sudan Archives, Qur’an Shaheed, Sharada Shashidhar, Aankha Neal, Green-House, N Kramer, Colloboh, Alex Rita, Touching Bass, Aparna Sarkar, Arji, Cindy Aikman, Ellie Torres, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Jada Rose, Will Logan, Novena Carmel, Linafornia, Madlib, Josh Johnson, Rush Hour, Mark Maxwell, Don Hernandez, Kate Magic, the Families of everyone that contributed to this Album, to Bandcamp, to Nathan \u0026amp; Michelle Vinson, CJ and EZ, Doctor Mike De Napoli, Hashim and Akiko Bharoocha, Niki and Yusuke Tsukamoto, Stephen, Tracy and Dylan, Solar Return, Shabaka Hutchings and Marwa, Kamasi Washington, Saul Williams, Terence Nance, Roba El-Essawy, Miles Spilsbury, Ariel Spilsbury, Celia Hollander, Lionmilk, Jason Lader, Bruce Schachne and Family, April Bombai, Duval Timothy, J Rocc, Falle Nioke, Sibusile Xaba, David Keady, Q-Tip, DJ Premier . . .\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Placental Purple\" Color Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918617796949,"sku":"IARC0080LPI","price":30.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53918618190165,"sku":"IARC0080LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918618321237,"sku":"IARC0080CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":53918617534805,"sku":"IARC0080Cassette","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a3331746881_10.jpg?v=1779876452"},{"product_id":"rob-mazurek-exploding-star-orchestra-live-at-adler-planetarium","title":"Rob Mazurek, Exploding Star Orchestra - Live at Adler Planetarium","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eThe Exploding Star Orchestra is Rob Mazurek’s vehicle for blowing minds and reshaping worlds. For more than a decade and a half, the multi-instrumentalist has guided the variably configured big band through appearances on three continents. Its first performance in his former hometown of Chicago in more than five years determined to be more than just a concert. With support from the city’s Experimental Sound Studio and International Anthem, the Exploding Star Orchestra not only played music from the new Lightning Dreamers LP, but Mazurek and Co. also showed the processes behind its creation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe event took place under the dome of Adler Planetarium, which provided a suitably cosmic surface upon which to project Mazurek’s visuals. A painter, sculptor and digital artist as well as a musician, he spends a typical day at his home studio in Marfa, Texas, improvising electronic music, whose signals he translates into visuals, whose digital information is then fed back into the music. Some of this work might eventually manifest as pure sound, flickering light or compositions for one of Mazurek’s bands; in this setting, he could finally unleash the whole shebang.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA digital projection flashed an ever-changing stream of vividly colored, abstract shapes derived from his paintings and\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eanimations over the audience’s heads, while the Orchestra, which on this night numbered eight musicians besides its leader, transformed the stylistically disparate pieces from Lightning Dreamers into an enveloping maelstrom. Electric pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn pushed layers of plush texture back and forth over the intricate, tripartite grooves of bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and two drummers, Chad Taylor and Gerald Cleaver. Mazurek’s trumpets and wordless cries, Tomeka Reid’s cello and Nicole Mitchell’s flute and voice periodically surfaced out of the flow, issuing sharp, energetic statements, while Damon Locks’ proclamations flickered in and out of the mix like an erratic signal from some interstellar radio announcer. Together, they reimagined the brooding sound of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew as a force for transcendent uplift.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe concert’s climactic moment was a visual one. At one point, Mitchell put down her flute, spoke into Mazurek’s ear and pointed up to toward the dome. As he looked up, his own horn came down, and for a moment, the two of them gazed with undisguised awe at the spectacle that the Orchestra had unleashed. In a time when so many forces conspire to bring people down, this concert was an invitation to look up and out past the\u003cbr\u003ehorizon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e— review by Bill Meyer; originally published in Magnet Magazine, April 2023\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased September 27, 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRob Mazurek - director, trumpets, bells, voice, compositions\u003cbr\u003eNicole Mitchell - flute, voice, electronics\u003cbr\u003eDamon Locks - voice, samplers, electronics\u003cbr\u003eTomeka Reid - cello, electronics\u003cbr\u003eCraig Taborn - wurlitzer electric piano, moog, electronics\u003cbr\u003eAngelica Sanchez - wurlitzer electric piano, moog\u003cbr\u003eIngebrigt Håker Flaten - bass\u003cbr\u003eChad Taylor- drums\u003cbr\u003eGerald Cleaver- drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded Live in the Grainger Sky Theater of Adler Planetarium, Chicago, March 24th, 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music by Rob Mazurek (OLHO, ASCAP).\u003cbr\u003eWords by Damon Locks.\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Elliot Dicks, Alex Inglizian and Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVideo images by Rob Mazurek with technical assistance from Mathieu Constans and Brian Ashby.\u003cbr\u003eFront \u0026amp; Back Cover Photos by Alejandro Ayala.\u003cbr\u003eGatefold Photo by Brian Ashby.\u003cbr\u003eInsert Photo by Alex Inglizian.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Craig Hansen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Experimental Sound Studio \u0026amp; International Anthem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSpecial Thanks to Olivia Junell, Adam Vida, and Alex Inglizian of ESS; Mike Smail, Ann Grant, Sarah Sarka, and everyone at the Adler Planetarium; The Robert D. Bielecki Foundation; and our special Anonymous Donor for essential contributions.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition Black Vinyl","offer_id":53918664786261,"sku":"IARC0087LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Limtied Edition CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918653088085,"sku":"IARC0087CD","price":15.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1774559027_10.jpg?v=1779878818"},{"product_id":"tomin-a-willed-and-conscious-balance","title":"Tomin - A Willed and Conscious Balance","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eTomin’s debut full-length work, A Willed and Conscious Balance, answers a set of questions left unasked in recent years, as a new generation of artists re-energizes the tradition often referred to as “jazz” into its own directions: Where are the composers working with large ensembles? Who are the arrangers creating unexpected charts and dreaming up new orchestral sounds, layered tones and harmonically vibrant colors, the kind that have amended jazz’s “music for soloists” reputation since the swing era’s sunset? Yes, if you pay enough attention, you know that big-bands still walk the Earth, and composers are writing compelling charts for them; but they’re all-too-rarely making music that sounds both new and inviting, now and classic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich is where the singular septet featured on Tomin’s A Willed and Conscious Balance comes in. It’s about the air they breathe into current ideas of creative music, the beautiful harmonies and textures this group of esteemed New York + Chicago players bring to life in Tomin Perea-Chamblee’s six originals — as well as in two pieces by fallen heroes, Booker Little and Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre — all of which the 27 year-old composer, multi-instrumentalist and band-leader (re)imagined for the occasion. This is music that\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003easpires towards humanist synergy, pulling forth a palette hard to come by nowadays, neither too difficult nor too abstract, yet one that still requires a healthy leap of sonic faith. In this, Tomin’s A Willed and Conscious Balance is, quite simply, unlike any new jazz album you’ll hear in 2024.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s partly because Tomin’s not your run-of-the-mill New York musician. The many wind-\/brass-\/reed-playing, born-and-bred Brooklynite has an exceptional local pedigree — time spent as trombonist in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra, alumnus of the punk-hip-hop-jazz Standing on the Corner, with co-signs by (and appearances alongside) a slew of jazz-adjacent post-genre mavericks. Yet even as Tomin quietly negotiates Brooklyn’s DIY music community, his day-job as a bioinformatician, working with science data and research, distinguishes his relationship to the sound, and his role within it. The string of homemade Bandcamp-only EPs he recorded in 2020-21 (and gathered on this summer’s compilation, Flores para Verene\/Cantos para Caramina), was filled with bedroom recordings of beatless miniatures, poetic jazz covers made from layered horns, and originals formed out of solo synths. Already, Tomin’s deep care for outre jazz traditions, a rare approach to blending instruments, and the desire to create sonic spaces owing as much to modern processes and technology as to history, was on full display.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTomin’s discerning, emotionally weighty perspective is among his artistic superpowers, and it’s a primary reason A Willed and Conscious Balance is played by an all-star team of collaborators gathered from throughout his life. Trumpeter Linton Smith II and cellist #1 Clérida Eltimé are long-time compadres — Tomin describes the former as a “brother\/mentor” and the latter as “section leader” with “sister vibes.” Bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Tcheser Holmes are the rhythm section in Irreversible Entanglements, and alongside Lester St. Louis, cellist #2 here and a key member of jaimie branch’s Fly or Die, all central figures of that Brooklyn community. Tomin first played with Chicago-based keyboardist Teiana Davis (who also records as Anaiet Soul) at a July 2021 show, “Angel Bat Dawid + jaimie branch and Friends.” That show is also where he first met Lester, Luke and Tcheser, making the spiritual influence those two great female bandleaders hold over the proceedings hard to deny. (Particularly branch, to whom Tomin co-dedicates a poem in the album’s sleeve notes.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet as good as the band is, it’s the remarkable way these musicians attack these pieces — how the sound in Tomin’s head blossoms in their mutual hands — that makes A Willed and Conscious Balance a triumph. Each plays on and off the page, less engaged in soloing than in the interaction of the collective, the building of a band sound and how that informs the building of society, is the album’s foundational point. Much of the music was recorded live, but it’s also strewn with minor overdubs, not for highlighting individual instrumental lines, but to create thicker harmonic layers that both carry the listener and create tension. (Not for nothing that Tomin invokes Charles Mingus as his arranging hero.) It’s a worldly Balance where trombones are stacked, cellos are split, multiple clarinets begin to resemble synths, and even the composer who imagined it gets blissfully lost in the music when trying to identify all the elements.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis sound in Tomin’s head required the right symmetry of compositions, so he did what great writers and arrangers have done through the years: make up something new, but also borrow from himself and from those he’s long admired. There are two pieces written specifically for Balance — “movement” had this band’s players in mind, an interlocking bass-cello-drums groove, with Tomin’s flute and Linton’s trumpet floating above; while “Untitled Dirge” is a gorgeous large-scale funeral march with solos from Luke and, especially, Lester’s mournful cello, a heavy emotional piece. Three tracks reimagine Tomin compositions that appeared previously in bedroom versions: “Love” has gone from a solo keyboard model to a slowly unfolding epic, rooted in a cello–keys drone, and feels like the most “spiritual jazz” track here. “Life” is now a dance-tune, driven by Teiana’s Wurlitzer and Tcheser’s funky drums, and features a wonderful counterpoint in Clérida’s cello solo. And “Life Revisited,” originally written as an inversion of “Life,” is a many-layered beast (Tomin describes it as “sisyphean to me”), gloriously but simply heaping reeds and horns on top of each other. Considered together, alongside Tomin’s solo-constructed interludes, they are a portrait of a young composer and music-thinker of immense pathos and ingenuity, ears and heart pointed out towards the universe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album ends with two exquisite covers that Tomin credits with “huge compositional impact on me.” Released in 1961, trumpeter Booker Little’s “Man of Words” was written as a conceptual piece (ostensibly about writer\/producer Nat Hentoff, but also manifested Little’s desire to find a new balance between composing and free-playing); it features his trumpet in front of a drumless group that included Julian Priester’s trombone and Eric Dolphy’s clarinets, and it’s easy to hear its colors and ideas influencing Tomin. Except that here, Linton’s gorgeously expressive horn now rises and sweeps ahead of a big group-sound, with Teiana’s Rhodes and Tomin’s alto clarinet peeking out of the forest, Little’s concept writ large. The closing, full-band version of Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre’s reverential “Humility in the Light of the Creator” brings Tomin’s journey full-circle. When Tomin was younger, discovering this 1969 piece by the Chicago saxophonist was a further gateway into work by the AACM family, and, though he does not consider himself religious, spoke to, in his own words, “the powers beyond us\/the life we’re fortunate to live.” A solo version, released in 2021, found Tomin rebuilding “Humility” out of clarinets. And here too he harmonizes on it, playing the melody by simultaneously stacking alto + bass clarinets and the flute, before a baroque wall of sound, the strings underpinning and shadowing him. The aura, from its original title through the septet’s beautiful performance, is of Coltrane and Pharoah and that moment in musical time so revered these past few years. Not mimicked or recreated, so much as imagined anew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew and yet old. Upon hearing parts of the whole album’s early mix, a high-school bandmate of Tomin’s who remains a confidante, said that it sounded a lot like the music he talked about making even back then. Its individual sounds, its humanist ideals, its shared accessibility and difficulty, its sense of group rather than of a star soloist. If the tradition often referred to as “jazz” continues to move forward — and it always will, whether all of us get to hear it on recordings or not — this is part of the balance required of its continued travels. Willed and conscious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- Piotr Orlov\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased November 1, 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerformed by:\u003cbr\u003eTomin Perea-Chamblee - Flute, Alto and Bass Clarinets, Trombone, Euphonium, Bells, Sine Waves (Casio MT-70), Boss SP-303, and additional Trumpet\u003cbr\u003eTeiana Davis - Rhodes, Wurlitzer, and Spaceship (Casiotone 1000p)\u003cbr\u003eClérida Eltimé - Cello\u003cbr\u003eLester St. Louis - Cello\u003cbr\u003eLinton Smith II - Trumpet, Tambourine, and Yamaha HS-500\u003cbr\u003eLuke Stewart - Bass\u003cbr\u003eTcheser Holmes - Drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll songs composed by Tomin; except Man of Words composed by Booker Little, and Humility in the Light of the Creator composed by Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProduced by Tomin Perea-Chamblee\u003cbr\u003eExecutive Production by Alejandro Ayala\u003cbr\u003eRecorded by Dave Vettraino and David Allen at The Bunker Studio A, Brooklyn NY, February 17th 2024\u003cbr\u003eAdditional recording by Linton Smith II and Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino at International Anthem Studios, Chicago IL\u003cbr\u003eInterludes recorded and mixed by Tomin Perea-Chamblee\u003cbr\u003eSequenced by Scott McNiece\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003eCover artwork by Clay Mednick\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by Alejandro Ayala\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Craig Hansen\u003cbr\u003ePoem by Tomin Perea-Chamblee\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInside, the footfalls of hooves\u003cbr\u003equiet the thunder. She\u003cbr\u003ewas supposed to tuck me in.\u003cbr\u003eBut she wont. I understand\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003enow. Still, hours after the rain\u003cbr\u003ethe water drips in syncopated threes,\u003cbr\u003efalling around these altars at which\u003cbr\u003eI almost kneel, but for the fear of\u003cbr\u003eascension. The\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehigh always ends, giving way\u003cbr\u003eto the realization that this, in fact,\u003cbr\u003eis not a time to celebrate life. I imagine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe feeling was the same the night\u003cbr\u003eColtrane died, wet reeds drying\u003cbr\u003efor the last time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- Flowers for jb and JC\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Contemplation\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918690935125,"sku":"IARC0088LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53918686478677,"sku":"IARC0088LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918681465173,"sku":"IARC0088CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2987568424_10.jpg?v=1779879244"},{"product_id":"jeff-parker-the-way-out-of-easy","title":"Jeff Parker - The Way Out of Easy","description":"\u003cp\u003eJanuary 2nd, 2023. Aside from being the second of a new year, it was a pretty ordinary night at ETA in Los Angeles, where guitarist Jeff Parker - alongside his ETA IVtet with saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose - had been holding down a regular Monday gig since 2016. At the time, nobody knew it was the first gig of the last year that ETA would be open for business.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver seven years of holding down that residency, Parker’s ETA ensemble evolved from a band that played mostly standards into a group known for its transcendent, long-form (sometimes stretching out for 45 minutes or more) journeys into innovative, often uncharted territories of groove-oriented, painterly, polyrhythmic, minimalist and mantric improvised music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith that musical growth, the crowds for Parker and his band at ETA grew across the years too. What started as a sparse gathering of weeknight drinkers, friends, family, and Chicago expats (coming to get a shot of nostalgia for the atmospheres Parker used to create at Rodan across the ‘00s and early ‘10s) grew into a Los Angeles nightlife staple with a packed house and a line down the block for every show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy January 2023 interest in Parker’s music was\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003estronger than ever, coming off successes with the December 2021 International Anthem\/Nonesuch release of Forfolks – a collection of solo guitar works – and the October 2022 Eremite release of Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, a double LP chronicling the ETA IVtet’s distinct, expansive approach to improvisation across four side-length tracks recorded and mixed live by engineer Bryce Gonzales.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMondays introduced the world to the ETA IVtet’s signature sound with a gathering of unnamed recordings from dates between 2019 and 2021. Parker’s new ETA IVtet offering stays true to that formula in some ways – as he returns to Gonzales’s archive of analog captures to gather four long recordings totalling around 80 minutes – while zooming in on a more particular moment in his journey. The Way Out of Easy provides us a macro-lens view of the ever-refining, infinite organic essence of the ensemble as they stretch out across a single night of soundmaking on January 2nd, 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe engineer Gonzales is well known for the high-end audio gear he builds as Highland Dynamics, and even designed a custom mixer to be able to record the ETA IVtet, specifically, while only taking up a single space at the bar. In his liner notes for The Way Out of Easy, he colors his process and approach: “There are many different ways to make recordings and they all have their place. But for this band, the most important thing to consider is: not doing anything to get in the way of what they are saying to each other.” He refers to the simple schematic he used for capturing these performances – “basically only 4 level controls for one microphone per player” – which allows us an incredibly pure, honest, transparent and transporting experience of the music as it unfolds and is created in real time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe set begins with an extended take on Parker’s composition “Freakadelic” – a tune he originally recorded for his 2012 Delmark release Bright Light in Winter. The B-side piece “Late Autumn” finds Parker swaying in alliterative, arpeggiating cycles, using just a few plucked notes as he lays the compositional foundation. At first it almost sounds like an echo of the humble tunes he wrote alone with his guitar on Forfolks, but in this space his ensemble joins him to help build a beautifully multi-textured, gently-shifting four-dimensional construction out of a simple idea. On “Easy Way Out,” Butterss’s bobbing bass line leads, paddling the ensemble into a placid expanse of tender psychedelia while Bellerose dusts off the drums like an archaeologist unearthing ancient artifacts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had become customary for the IVtet to end their shows every week with a standard or a tune – a practice that Parker embraced for wanting to give the audience something warm and familiar to take home after a long night of taking them out on creative limbs. Some of Parker’s more common calls were “This Guy’s In Love With You” by Burt Bacharach, “1974 Blues” by Eddie Harris, or “Peace” by Horace Silver. In this set, the IVtet closes not with a familiar song, but a familiar sound in the form of a dub\/reggae groove (given the name “Chrome Dome” by Parker in post), developing spontaneously out of lyrical ad libs by Johnson on solo saxophone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn early December of 2023, ETA co-owner Ryan Julio was forced to make a sudden announcement that the venue would permanently shutter at the end of the year. On December 23rd, Parker and the band played at ETA for the last time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn July 22nd, 2024, the ETA IVtet gathered to perform together for the first time since then, playing for a sold-out crowd of several hundred listeners – a smiling Ryan Julio among them – at Zebulon in Los Angeles. Gonzales was there, recording with his compact analog setup just behind the band on stage. The space may be gone but its spirit lives and the music moves forward into new vessels.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl Gatefold 2LP","offer_id":53918731403605,"sku":"ROW IARC0089LP","price":30.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53918696210773,"sku":"ROW IARC0089CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2139666555_10.jpg?v=1780479346"},{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-a-blade-because-a-blade-is-whole","title":"Alabaster DePlume - A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eAlbum Notes by Liz Pelly:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume often asks a simple question: what do people need? In his work, at his shows, in his collaborations, the Mancunian singer-saxophonist and poet-philosopher poses this to the people around him. What are people looking for? In recent years, the same reply kept coming up: healing, healing, people need healing. But why, and what does it mean to heal, especially in a world where the very idea is often commodified and sold as a luxury? If people were coming to his music for something so mysterious, he ought to figure it out. Maybe he ought to try some healing himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“For a long time, I've always tried to give responsibility for my value to someone else,” DePlume told me on a recent phone call. It seemed he’d become so caught up in the work of forging connections, and thinking about the effects of his work on others, that he’d lost a sense of himself. “I was working on that,” he explained.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis experiment in healing included slowing down, reading, reflecting, and even taking up the practice of jiu-jitsu. DePlume wrote poetry, too, including the book 'Looking for my value: prologue to a blade', seventy pages of verse rooted in its title’s great search, in finding strength of self within a community, alongside\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emeditations on the paradox of the blade. “The blade, that divides, is whole,” he writes in the introduction. “Healing is the forming of a whole, and a whole is singular, more itself, as in more one, as in more alone.” A blade could be used to attack, to shave, to sever, but it could also be used to cut oneself loose—in the process of getting free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What's the opposite of sleep? It’s trying to sleep,” he told me. “And so what's the opposite of looking for my value? It is knowing my value. It simply is there. My dignity is there. I don't need anyone else to know my dignity, or me, to know it. I know it first. I can't seek it from another. I stand for it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSelections from the poetry book ultimately became the lyrics across half of the tracks on 'A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole', DePlume’s latest full-length work for the reliably great International Anthem label: eleven songs of agency and survival and presence; of confronting life’s pains rather than trying to avoid them; of banishing escapism. In sum, it documents his learning of the fact that dignity and self-determination are prerequisites for becoming whole, which is to say, for healing. If a blade were broken it would not serve its purpose; it must be unbroken, it must be whole, to be of use.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the Alabaster DePlume songbook, the celestial ease of his instrumental tracks can sometimes feel like a trojan horse for a voice that is disarmingly honest about the heaviness of existence. Opener “Oh My Actual Days” is true to form in that sense, with DePlume’s tenor sax and Macie Stewart’s ghostly strings playing together like a slow march towards an inner reckoning, one that’s beautiful because it is true. The punchy and contemplative “Thank You My Pain” makes a rhythmic refrain from his titular lyric, inspired by the Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh, who urged the importance of listening to one’s own pain. “Hello my little pain, I know you are here,” Nhất Hạnh would say. “I am home to take care of you. I do not want to cover you up with consumption anymore.” While writing A Blade, DePlume “watched loads of him on YouTube.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen there’s the gorgeous swell of “Invincibility,” an ode to self-respect that feels a bit like a choir of angels led by a trickster, a group contemplating: how do we live with the forces that seek to destroy us? The whole song feels like a heavy exhale, or like the feeling of reaching the surface after a long while underwater. “If I meet with my feelings, they cannot destroy me,” he told me. “When I allow myself to embody them, physically, then I live through that feeling and I meet with it and I make peace with it and I find that my feeling is me, and I welcome it. It is a sense that I cannot be destroyed by my feeling. I am invincible.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Form a V” is the closest DePlume comes to a monologue, and also his song most indebted to his jiu-jitsu practice. “I’ve only been doing it for the past two or three years,” he told me. “But now I don’t know how you get by without it.” The song takes inspiration from a tradition where a whole dojo will stand in the shape of a V, facing just one lone individual, who is then attacked quickly and repeatedly by each of the others. “The title is a challenge to the world,” DePlume explained. “Go on, form a v—I am ready.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcross the first half of the record, when the sax comes in short phrases, it feels like a highlighter over lines in DePlume’s poetry book. Other times, it plays out like an extension of his voice. “Playing the saxophone feels like singing,” he said. A transfixing run of instrumentals on the second half of the record includes “Prayer for My Sovereign Dignity,” an anthem for self-possession. “Believing in yourself feels ridiculous,” he says. “It's ridiculous, but that's what it takes. That's what's required. To stand for yourself is absurd. Let us do the absurd that is standing for ourselves. There is this prayer going on in the background—you can't quite tell what the words are, but it's basically, I'm praying for my sovereign dignity but I don't need to pray for it. It's not going to be given to me. I already have it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere DePlume’s previous material was drawn from collective sessions, improvisation, and editing, A Blade was tightly composed, arranged and produced by DePlume himself. From there, he brought his compositions to a cast of players and co-arrangers, including Macie Stewart (strings), Donna Thompson (backing vocals), and Momoko Gill (strings and backing vocals), for sessions at the collective arts space Total Refreshment Centre, where he has long been involved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBorn Gus Fairbairn, DePlume is a man of many past lives. He played “rock band type music” as a teenager, and started playing improvised music around 2008. He is compelled by how improvising allows him to “put faith in others.” He taught himself the saxophone around the time that he became employed as a support worker assisting men with mental disabilities; he once called playing music with them “one of the best breakthroughs for me as an artist.” His debut as Alabaster DePlume came in May 2012, while he was still living in Manchester. He moved to London in 2015 and took up residency at Total Refreshment Centre, where he was encouraged to put on a monthly concert, leading to the series Peach, releasing a namesake album that year, too. His music, from the start, has been imbued with his politics and values; he was maybe arrested once during a protest with the environmental group Extinction Rebellion. His proper international breakthrough came in 2020 with 'To Cy \u0026amp; Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1', after nearly a decade of steadily releasing records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a phone call in the fall of 2024, we barely speak about any of this though. For at least an hour, we mostly just speak about his recent trip to Palestine, and how could we not? DePlume had traveled to Bethlehem in the spring for a conference hosted by a local Lutheran pastor, before meeting up with musicians from a community arts space, the Wonder Cabinet, and the independent radio station, Radio Alhara. “Palestine is a place where people make records,” he says. “I want to normalize the dignity of that. It's not like, oh, I'm going to make a thing about Palestine. I am just there, and I'm making a thing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the end of 2024, DePlume prefaced A Blade with a collection of recent works: the poetry book and a three-track EP partially recorded in Bethlehem, and in collaboration with Palestinian musicians. There’s “Honeycomb” and “Cremisan,” both recorded during his “Sounds of Places” residency at Wonder Cabinet; “Cremisan” documents the conclusion of a daylong performance presented by Wonder Cabinet and Radio alHara, June 1, 2024, described as “a cry from the Cremisan Valley (Bethlehem, Palestine) to Rafah (Gaza).” The EP’s final recording, “Gifts of Olive,” references the soul-wrenching poem “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer, professor of English literature at the Islamic University in Gaza, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo suggest that dignity is a human right we are all entitled to is to say: by nature of being alive, every human life has worth. Contemplating the very concept of human dignity also raises the daily indignities that are so normalized in a world of suffering. The lack of access to clean water, air, housing, healthcare. Without the basic necessities of life, we cannot know dignity. And how can people know dignity if they are living under a constant state of military attack, if they are living as the target of a genocide?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The album was written before the genocide started, but I had Palestine on my mind all the time,” DePlume explains. “This question of dignity, sovereignty, and the work of healing. It has a relevance in what's being perpetrated there by the Israeli state, and taking responsibility for my place in that. I pay my taxes here in the United Kingdom—I am contributing to, as a white Englishman, the country that brought the Balfour Declaration, that brought the Sykes-Picot Agreement, that supports and enables the colonization and the settler-colonial project in Palestine. It is my issue, and I have a position where I can speak about it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dignity” has roots in the Latin dignitatem: worthiness. And instilling the plain truth of every human life’s worth has been a recurring commitment in DePlume’s work. “They can’t use us on one another if we don’t forget we’re precious,” he sang in 2022, summing the emotional core of his 2022 album 'GOLD', concerns of shared humanity that play out into the new works as well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We make stories in our lives,” DePlume says. “Oh, I need my story. Oh, something bad happened, and I need to heal upon that. Then I will be healed and all will be good, happily ever after. But no, it is work that needs doing all the time. We all are wounded in our many different ways. And there are degrees of healed, or wounded. Basically, we are either doing one thing or we're doing the other. How do I know I am not destroying myself? I only know that when I am working on healing.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased March 7, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlabaster DePlume – voice, tenor and baritone sax, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, synths\u003cbr\u003eConrad Singh – electric guitar\u003cbr\u003eDonna Thompson – drums, voice, vocal arrangement for Invincibility\u003cbr\u003eHannah Miller – cello\u003cbr\u003eJohn Ellis – piano\u003cbr\u003eMacie Stewart – violin, string arrangements\u003cbr\u003eMikey Kenney – violin, voice\u003cbr\u003eMomoko Gill – voice, drums, string arrangement for Form a V\u003cbr\u003eRozi Plain – bass\u003cbr\u003eRuth Goller – bass, voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComposed and Produced by Alabaster DePlume, except Salty Road Dogs Victory Anthem, co-composed with Conrad Singh, Momoko Gill and Rozi Plain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded to analogue tape at Total Refreshment Centre\u003cbr\u003eEngineered \u0026amp; recorded by Kristian Craig Robinson, except Invincibility, Kuzushi and Too True engineered \u0026amp; recorded by Alabaster DePlume\u003cbr\u003eStrings engineered by Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dilip Harris\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003eArtwork by Rebecca Salvadori\u003cbr\u003ePortrait photo by Chris Almeida\u003cbr\u003eDesign \u0026amp; Layout by Aaron Lowell Denton\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"That Was My Garden\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919284298069,"sku":"IARC0090LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919275974997,"sku":"IARC0090LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919270699349,"sku":"IARC0090CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"IARC0090LPG","offer_id":53919283380565,"sku":"IARC0090LPG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2823532332_10.jpg?v=1779881659"},{"product_id":"macie-stewart-when-the-distance-is-blue","title":"Macie Stewart - When the Distance is Blue","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003e'When the Distance is Blue' is Macie Stewart’s International Anthem debut. The Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser describes the collection as “a love letter to the moments we spend in-between”—a letter realized via an intentional return to piano, her first instrument and the origin of her creative expression. Here Stewart creates a striking and cinematic work through collages of prepared piano, field recordings, and string quartet compositions, one that gives shape to a transient universe all its own while tracing the line of her musical past, full circle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLong-heralded in musician circles for her versatility, Stewart stands as a distinguished, go-to collaborator across genre and style, with a collaborative CV that reads like a dream year-end list—performing strings for Makaya McCraven or Japanese Breakfast; singing harmonies with Tweedy; arranging for Alabaster DePlume, Resavoir, Mannequin Pussy, or SZA; co-leading the jagged art-rock experimentation of Finom, her duo with songwriter Sima Cunningham. This varied-yet-distinct sound has led to a name recognition that goes beyond the devoted liner note enthusiast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Macie Stewart has had a hand in making some of the best\u003cbr\u003etracks of the past five years transcendent.”\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e(Pitchfork)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'When the Distance is Blue' finds her gathering those threads and focusing those sensibilities into an 8-piece song cycle. The first sessions were recorded with IARC house engineer Dave Vettraino at Chicago’s Palisade Studios in early 2023. The piano was prepared with coins and contact mics, creating harmonically and texturally rich sounds to explore and improvise alongside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose improvisations eventually became nestled within a growing collection of Stewart’s field recordings. 2023 was a year marked with extensive touring, during which she collected dozens of aural snapshots from airports, stairwells, and crowded markets, effectively compiling an audio journal of her travels. Weaving their way throughout the record, those recordings form a collage of sound, movement, and memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I wanted to recontextualize these recordings and evoke a nostalgia for something I wasn’t able to name,” says Stewart. That recontextualization was deepened by further performances and improvisations by Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson (Matchesse), and Zach Moore, all recorded at Comfort Station in Chicago. It’s fitting for such a fervent collaborator that these collaborations began to bring the musical scope of 'When The Distance is Blue' into focus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Spring Becomes You, Spring Becomes New” begins with a series of unmetered and searching prepared piano repetitions before blooming into a rhythmically pulsing waltz of ennui à la Margaret Leng Tan’s approach to the material of Cage or Crumb. Electronically enhanced sustaining notes merge with droning violins in a dense teapot upper register, then are slowly paired away to reveal the inner layer of consonance and comfort, as the metallic rhythms of the prepared piano are co-opted by pizzicato plucked strings. When the sound of the piano re-enters it’s in its natural, unprepared state and in service of a simple melody—a slow-moving earworm, the final repetition, carrying the dynamic piece to its end. “This piece reminds me of a cross country train ride through different sceneries and landscapes,” says Stewart. It’s the feeling when you’re witnessing everything pass outside your window, knowing you may never set foot there.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat’s more, this conceptual train ride is one that touches on many of the themes throughout the record—traveling through pieces like “Tsukiji”, which consists of field recordings taken during a walk through the crowded Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, or “Stairwell (Before and After)”, a serendipitous collage of piano improvisations overlaid with vocal improvisations recorded in a beautifully reverberant stairwell in Paris, France.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the album’s final piece, “Disintegration,” Stewart’s through-composed quartet arrangement bends and contorts in a microtonal descent. Raw harmonics scrape and pull, whistling flute-like across desolate valleys, as strings spiral into an unknown beyond. From this stripped, warped place, we face the inevitability of transformation, and embrace the possibilities of change.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'When The Distance is Blue' is a companion piece for moving through life. A source of solace when we are unsure where we will land. The album draws its title from Rebecca Solnit’s book of essays, 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost'. Stewart, too, contends with the longing for all that lies out of reach, and gives shape to that longing throughout this contemplative collection with a musical lexicon which lands somewhere between Alvin Curran’s 'Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden' and Claire Rousay’s 'A Softer Focus'.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased March 21, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll compositions by Macie Stewart\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMacie Stewart - piano, prepared piano, violin, voice, field recordings\u003cbr\u003eLia Kohl - cello\u003cbr\u003eWhitney Johnson - viola\u003cbr\u003eZach Moore - double bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrepared piano with dimes, contact microphones, and guitar amp, recorded at Palisade Studios, Chicago, IL | April 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrepared piano with felt recorded at International Anthem Studios, Chicago, IL | Feb 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eString improvisations and compositions played by Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson, Zach Moore, and Macie Stewart at Comfort Station, Chicago, IL | January 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eField recording for Tsukiji recorded at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan | March 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eField recording of vocal improvisation for Stairwell (Before and After) recorded in a stairwell at the Philharmonie de Paris in Paris, France | June 2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eField recording for Disintegration recorded at Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan | March 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered and Mixed by Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBio contributions by Audrey Steiner\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbum Art \u0026amp; Design by Zander Raymond\u003cbr\u003eAdditional Layout Design by Aaron Denton\u003cbr\u003eInsert Photo (top) by Macie Stewart\u003cbr\u003eInsert Photo (middle) by Shannon Marks\u003cbr\u003eInsert Photo (bottom) by Dave Vettraino\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Glacial Blue\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919303401813,"sku":"IARC0093LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919317426517,"sku":"IARC0093LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919309300053,"sku":"IARC0093CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2784680489_10.jpg?v=1779882707"},{"product_id":"gilles-peterson-gilles-peterson-presents-international-anthem","title":"Gilles Peterson - Gilles Peterson presents International Anthem","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eGilles Peterson presents International Anthem is a double-LP-length compilation of tracks from Chicago-born record label International Anthem curated by legendary London-based radio host, DJ, label head, and cultural impresario Gilles Peterson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe twenty-nine tracks on this compilation chronicle Peterson’s long-standing affinity for and connection to International Anthem’s expansive creative music community, and were chosen by an extensive review of playlists from his broadcasts on BBC 6 Music, Worldwide FM, and various syndicated radio programs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe compilation includes a previously unreleased track recorded by Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti \u0026amp; Frank Rosaly at Peterson’s Brownswood Basement studio in London. It also includes several unreleased introductions from a January 2020 Worldwide FM broadcast at Chicago’s Co-Prosperity (also the site of the album cover photo, taken by Carolina Sanchez), where Peterson gave International Anthem “Label of the Year” honors, as part of his 2020 Worldwide Awards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbum Liner Notes by Gilles Peterson:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the get go I could see it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI could see that International Anthem was the real deal. I\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ecould hear it too - more importantly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA record label with the vision and care that places it in the pantheon of labels where you can pick up any release without knowing what it is and be certain the quality will be there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA label where the singular attention to every detail - sound, packaging, cover design and branding - shows the respect in which the artists and their music are presented and held.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso the deep connection to Chicago where the unique crosswinds of Chess Records, Sun Ra’s Saturn and the AACM all intersect with the blues, house music, footwork and post-rock to create a fertile space for creative music to emerge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInternational Anthem is more than a record label though. It’s a community that is built on the city’s history but has, over the years, championed the spirit of creative music and pushed it forward with an outlook that reaches out to like minded souls regardless of time and space.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout the 10 years of their existence we have crossed paths many times. From being in Chicago to celebrate them as label of the year in January 2020 just before the world shut down, to hanging with the crew in London, to playing so much of the label’s output on both on my radio shows and in my DJ sets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it is my pleasure to honour our friendship with a selection of tracks that have soundtracked the journey, so far…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- Gilles Peterson, November 2024\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased July 11, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCompilation Produced by Gilles Peterson, Federico Bolza, and Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003ePhotos by Carolina Sanchez.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Aaron Lowell Denton.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl 2LP","offer_id":53919422316885,"sku":"IARC0100LP","price":27.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"2CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919422382421,"sku":"IARC0100CD","price":14.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"IARC0100LP-RSD","offer_id":53919351112021,"sku":"IARC0100LP-RSD","price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1055138236_10.jpg?v=1779886012"},{"product_id":"resavoir-matt-gold-horizon","title":"Resavoir \u0026 Matt Gold - Horizon","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003ealbum notes by Josh Terry:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eImagine it’s late afternoon, you’re outside by the lake, and there’s sunlight on the water. This is the peaceful and contemplative scene that Matt Gold and Resavoir set on their collaborative LP Horizon. Across 10 lush and exploratory tracks, it’s the product of two Chicago-based musicians—Will Miller, the acclaimed trumpeter, composer, and producer who’s worked with SZA, Whitney, and more, and Gold, a seasoned multi-instrumentalist and accomplished guitarist—effortlessly combining their distinct sensibilities for something hypnotic and tangibly inviting. What started as a love letter to their shared admiration for ‘60s and ‘70s Brazilian music evolved into a dynamic and sprawling body of work. These sunny and expansive tunes are as immersive as they are endlessly replayable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth Miller and Gold attended Oberlin College’s Conservatory of Music together and in the years after graduating, they orbited each other around Chicago’s music communities. “We were showing up for each other as friends and taking an interest in each other's projects, noticing a lot of resonances and similarities working within in our music,” says Gold, who’s collaborated with artists like Makaya McCraven and Jamila Woods and stretched the bounds\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eof jazz and Americana on solo albums Imagined Sky and Midnight Choir. “We had talked so much about eventually working together that it was almost like an ongoing bit at a certain point,” says Miller. Though they had known each other for over a decade, they first had their chance on “Inside Minds,” the breezy lead single on 2023’s Resavoir. While those sessions were remote, two had palpable chemistry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt wasn’t until Miller left the touring band of the Chicago group Whitney in 2023 that their plans to make music together in person came to fruition. “When I first started Resavoir, I was chasing the desire to produce records and now that I had time to focus exclusively on that, Matt was the first person I called to come to the studio,” says Miller. The two had bonded over an admiration for the Brazilian guitarist Luis Bonfa and songwriter Milton Nascimento, especially the latter’s work with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, so they decided to use nylon string guitar as a starting point for these early sessions. “Canopy,” which opens Horizon, was the earliest track. Kicking off with bright acoustic chords, the song slowly unfurls into a slinking groove, samples, and fluttering leads from soprano saxophonist Tim Bennett.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs these initial experiments proved successful, Gold and Miller felt they could broaden the scope of their vision. “We were initially conceiving of it as this acoustic guitar driven record but eventually we wanted to frame it orchestrally and see how many shades and colors we can bring in around that sound,” says Gold. “Dewy” thrives within this orchestral palette of woozy synths, strings from Macie Stewart, Claire Chenette’s oboe, flautist Wills McKenna, and French horns from Lloyd Billingham. “We discovered that our multi-instrumentalist mentalities—using piano and bass, samplers, drum grooves, guitar ideas all as starting points— nurtured the broad orchestration across this record,” says Miller.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The LP took about a year with on-and-off sessions,” says Miller. “The songs benefit from letting them ferment for a couple months, coming back to it, and seeing what sort of new flavors have developed.” Co-produced by Miller and Gold (and mixed by Dave Vettraino), Horizon proudly reflects the artists’ vast artistic community and musical network in Chicago and beyond. Along with Gold, Eddie Burns (Clairo), Peter Mannheim (Tony Glausi), and Carter Lang (SZA, Lil Nas X) provide drums and percussion throughout. On the dreamlike single “Diversey Beach,” New York songwriter Mei Semones lends vocals and along with her band members Noah Leong and Claudius Agrippa, collaborated on a mesmerizingly conversational string arrangement. “We wrote \"Diversey Beach\" on the coldest day of the year watching a blizzard coming down out of the window, where the sounds of the cars driving by sounded like waves crashing on a beach,” says Miller. “I sent it to Mei Semones, who I’ve been a fan of for a long time. She's absolutely incredible and it’s amazing what she did with it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHorizon is a testament to the feeling of endless possibilities that come from collaboration. It’s a remarkable synthesis of two artists who share musical community and an artist lineage but have carved their own paths in unique ways. Nowhere is this more evident than “Hazel Canyon,” which boasts Gold’s silky pedal steel and a subtly enveloping arrangement that evokes Erasmo Carlos. “Musically, we're always trying to capture a fleeting moment of infinite expanse, feeling the vastness of things while knowing they'll always change,” says Gold. “This record keeps the light reflecting on the water just a little longer -- our collaborative process running through the backbone of these songs and rippling out in so many beautiful directions..”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased May 23, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten, produced, arranged, and recorded by Will Miller and Matt Gold\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1) Canopy\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - piano, organ, EVI; Matt Gold - bass, guitar, percussion; Macie Stewart - strings; Tim Bennett - soprano saxophone\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2) Memento\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - piano, organ, EVI; Matt Gold - bass, guitar, percussion; Macie Stewart - strings; Wills McKenna - flute; Eddie Burns - drums; Peter Manheim - percussion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3) Dewy\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - piano, voice, synth; Matt Gold - bass, guitar, drums; Macie Stewart - strings; Wills McKenna - flute; Eddie Burns - drums; Peter Manheim - drums, percussion; Claire Chenette - oboe; Lloyd Billingham - french horn\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4) Zero Gravity\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - EVI, sampler, bass; Matt Gold - guitar; Peter Manheim - cymbal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5) Diversey Beach (feat. Mei Semones)\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - keys; Matt Gold - bass, guitar; Carter Lang - drums, percussion; Mei Semones - voice; Claudius Agrippa - violin; Noah Leong- viola\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6) Ahhh\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - piano, sampler; Matt Gold - bass, guitar, drums; Eddie Burns - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7) Horizon\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - drums, keys, programming; Matt Gold - bass, pedal steel, guitar; Eddie Burns - drums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8) Hazel Canyon\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - piano, voice; Matt Gold - bass, pedal steel, guitar, drums; Anabel Hirano - voice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9) Metropoli\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - sampler; Matt Gold - piano\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10) Tomorrow\u003cbr\u003eWill Miller - piano, organ, whistle; Matt Gold - bass, guitar, drums, percussion; Julius Tucker - wurlitzer; Carter Lang - bass\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Dave Vettraino\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover photo by Will Miller\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Crystal Zapata\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExecutive produced by Will Miller\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Lake Glass Green\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919366938965,"sku":"IARC0096LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919370150229,"sku":"IARC0096LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Discc","offer_id":53919361499477,"sku":"IARC0096CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1572550953_10.jpg?v=1779883870"},{"product_id":"ben-lamar-gay-yowzers","title":"Ben LaMar Gay - Yowzers","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eYowzers is a new album by Chicago composer, improvisor, instrumentalist and musical folklorist Ben LaMar Gay. The twelve track collection is a leap forward in the lexicon of Gay’s recorded output, and a veritable masterwork of ancient inner-body rhythms and intuitive melodic storytelling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s worth mentioning that a leap forward for Gay is no small feat. The musical ground he has covered in the last decade, both as a bandleader and collaborator, is immense. His de facto debut album—the 2018 compilation Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun—properly introduced the world to Gay by placing fifteen stylistically diverse tracks from seven then-unreleased albums next to one another, letting the populace outside of Cook County in on an unintentionally best-kept-secret that Chicagoans had already been marveling at for quite some time. That secret has become even more open in the years since, with the full unveiling of those seven previously-unreleased albums, the release of his critically-acclaimed 2021 song cycle Open Arms To Open Us, and the explosive free sonics of 2022’s Certain Reveries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn addition to being featured on a staggering number of International Anthem releases (including albums by Makaya McCraven\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e, jaimie branch, Damon Locks, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti \u0026amp; Frank Rosaly), Gay is one of the most prolific collaborators in creative music today. He makes active contributions to Mike Reed’s Separatist Party, Joshua Abrams’s Natural Information Society, Theaster Gates’s Black Monks, and many more. He is also a long-time participant in Chicago’s legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Suffice to say, his credentials are astonishing and the scope of his interests and abilities is seemingly limitless, with Yowzers representing the latest redrawing of that ever-expanding creative borderline.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMuch of the music on Yowzers features his working quartet with Tommaso Moretti (drums, percussion, voice), Matthew Davis (tuba, piano, bells, voice), and Will Faber (guitar, ngoni, bells, voice). But the unlisted feature here is Gay’s own ability to summon and unleash the unique strengths of his collaborators. The quartet material leans into a vocabulary that the group has developed over the course of several years together on the road; and the repertoire delivers an arresting cocktail of pulsing and free rhythms that somehow swing alongside a gathering of melodic phrases that sweep the outer-reaches of harmony with nostalgic echoes of family songs from the living room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Building a language, or taking a while to build a language—it’s like every other thing,” says Gay. “These stories are passed around through melody. You write a story and you share the story with individuals, and then you allow their individuality to embellish the story and take it on in another way. That person is a whole universe. It’s about trusting these people—trusting the people you leave something with, just like people trust their kids and their grandkids to carry a thing on. To not give it all away. To keep it in this tightly-knit body and to just keep it going.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s not a new concept for Gay. One uniting factor in his deep, multi-faceted discography is a never-ending commitment to taking the stories of the past and pushing them outward, filtered through a sense of self, to keep that information moving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInformation moves through Yowzers via the intuitive physicality of Gay’s creative polyrhythmic constructions as he covertly delivers familiar folk tunes and tales. “It’s the most natural thing,” says Gay. “That’s how the world is. There are overlapping rhythms all around us, and so it reminds you of the reality of the world when you hear them. It’s a loop and the loop is always changing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYowzers is ripe with the fine mash of that loop’s changes and diffusions, recalling the high-minded freedom of Liberation Music Orchestra, the abstract boom-bap balladry of Georgia Anne Muldrow, the unbridled rhythms and sandpaper bellows of Bukka White, the harmolodic cartoon glory of Arthur Blythe’s Illusions, or the oft-copped but rarely distilled patterns of Naná Vasconcelos. More amalgam than pendulum swing; a fresh thought made up of old ideas, like some imaginary Sacred Heart Ensemble led by Elvin Jones and Rashid Ali. It’s all there, filtered through an improvisational approach and a lifetime of stories and secrets embodied. For a man who has inhabited and traveled these continents so extensively, it’s safe to call this work true Americana, despite what that word might mean to the average white person in the United States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A big part of the language this quartet has developed is spatial,” says Gay. “It’s seeing and hearing it live.” Translating that language to a studio situation is a tough task, even for a seasoned crew. “You’re dealing with a thing that is older than the industry that sells it, and if you’ve never experienced those bodies in a room there can be a disconnect.” Striving to document the magic of those live moments, to great end, Gay chose to track the quartet pieces (“the glorification of small victories,” “there, inside the morning glory,” “I am (bells),” and “cumulus”) for Yowzers live, in real time, seated with his bandmates in a small circle at Palisade Studios in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe spectrum of the album is widened by a batch of music created via Gay’s highly successful approach to composing in-studio, augmented with contributions from his bandmates, instrumentalist Rob Frye, and a mini-choir comprising vocalists Ayanna Woods, Tramaine Parker, and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu. This straying from the quartet material throughout the course of the record acts as an expansion of detail rather than an interruption of continuity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll together, the pacing and flow of Yowzers is proof-positive of Gay’s practiced grasp on how the album format can traverse such a breadth of atmospheres. The titular album opener “yowzers” is a simple, soulful, three-chord piano and vocal repetition nestled in the hypnotically swelling effect of the Woods\/Parker\/Nwaogwugwu choir. The undecorated lyrics leave ample room for a listener to comprehend references to the binding existential crises of our times. It’s a Blues that everyone in the world should feel in their bones:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAin’t gon snow no more x4\u003cbr\u003eRain gon pour and pour x4\u003cbr\u003eFire don’t stop no more x4\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“for Breezy”, a could-be New Orleans dirge, straddles the deep sigh of a heavy sadness and the sweet lift of a fond look back, echoing the most contemplative moments of Duke Ellington’s small group arrangements. Gay’s clustered synth chording sets the scene while Frye’s breathy flute and Moretti’s delicate brushwork are positioned front-and-center along with a synthetic static—the nagging question of darkness even as beauty blooms. Gay’s flugelhorn enters at the 1:35 mark, maneuvering slowly around Frye and locking the vibe into place. It’s a gorgeous and fitting tribute to an old comrade.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“John, John Henry” begins with doomy oscillations and click-clack electronic rhythm loops hovering atop a contextually disjointed swing beat from Moretti. Enter Gay and his choir, digging into a take on the dusty-yet-timeless tale of man versus machine, an update we didn’t know we needed and an entrance we didn’t know we wanted. The way the group’s vocal rhythms hit here is a classic example of the Gay conundrum: an idea that reads as challenging on paper but sounds simple to the ear and feels intuitive to the body. With spectacles underfoot and charts out the window, the listener sings along, unencumbered by know-how. It’s all in service of Gay’s ongoing exploration and expansion of folklore in his work—arguably the one concept that bridges the gap between all of the disparate elements of his oeuvre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis bottomless bag of tricks never induces fatigue, instead allowing for breaths and bites as needed—the quick-vibe banana peel windup of “rollerskates”; the endlessly psychedelic metallic rhythm chant of the album’s centerpiece “I am (bells)”; and the triumphant free-folk shouts of “the glorification of small victories,” which is a drastic and collaborative quartet rework of a composition originally recorded for Gay’s album Grapes that serves as further evidence of his steady crew’s interpretive powers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow, though, does Gay end a collection that covers so much ground? The sweetest sendoff is often the one that sounds like a beginning. The album closer “leave some for you”—a balladeer’s kiss as the sun comes up—pairs a deeply disintegrated series of rhythmic loops with a diddley bow shuffle, ushered by the sturdy-yet-understated swing of Moretti’s kit. Gay’s sweetly intoned low-register lilt is front and center with an affirmation delivered as an earworm. The simple melody carries it home:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou look brand new today\u003cbr\u003eNot cause you need it\u003cbr\u003eJust cause you want it\u003cbr\u003eNew\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReleased June 6, 2025\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Ipomoea Jalapa\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919385846101,"sku":"IARC0097LPI","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919376802133,"sku":"IARC0097LP","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919382503765,"sku":"IARC0097CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2952110613_10.jpg?v=1779884136"},{"product_id":"jeremiah-chiu-marta-sofia-honer-different-rooms","title":"Jeremiah Chiu \u0026 Marta Sofia Honer - Different Rooms","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003ealbum notes by Jeremiah Chiu \u0026amp; Marta Sofia Honer:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDifferent Rooms is a collection of songs and musical motifs we composed, edited, and collaged in the weeks between late 2024 and early 2025. Most of the recorded material was performed during that editing process, except for live performances taken from improvisations we recorded with Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson some time in 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn our typical process, much of our material is collaged and combines moments of live improvisation, field recordings, and in-studio experimentation. This record, however, marks an evolution in our approach to studio production.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOur studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn contrast to our first album, Recordings from the Åland\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eIslands, we wanted this music to feel very present. Where Recordings was intended to transport you to another place, Different Rooms is meant to meet you where you are. It’s a decidedly urban album. The field recordings were captured on train platforms, in city streets, in rooms at home, and intentionally paint a quotidian sonic image, blurring the line between what you hear in your own environment and what is on the record.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe song cycle is set in palindromic sequence, figuratively, with certain pieces (reflected) by a reprised or recurring motif that is often reimagined with new instrumentation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sonic and temporal abstraction between what is performed in real-time versus what is recorded, manipulated, and collaged reinforces our intent to collect the works under the title Different Rooms, which literally expresses the way the material was recorded in different rooms while reminding us that our shared experience of present time is also one that is asynchronous, historied, and complex.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased June 20, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll Compositions by Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer;\u003cbr\u003eexcept “Side by Side” composed by Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer, and Jeff Parker, and “Different Rooms” composed by Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer, and Josh Johnson.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePerformed, recorded, and arranged from November 2024 – January 2025 by Jeremiah Chiu \u0026amp; Marta Sofia Honer in Los Angeles, with additional performance recordings from Amsterdam, London, and Hamburg.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeremiah Chiu – modular synthesizer + live-sampling\u003cbr\u003eMarta Sofia Honer – viola + electronics\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeff Parker – guitar (on “Side by Side”)\u003cbr\u003eJosh Johnson – saxophone + effects (on “Different Rooms”)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVoice on “Long and Short Delays,” “Different Rooms,” and “Mind by a Way” by Giovanna Jacques.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eZhinan Temple field recording on “One of Eight” by Michael Hilger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdditional string treatment on “Before and After Signs” by Ben Babbitt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer, and Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eSequenced by Jeremiah Chiu, Marta Sofia Honer, and Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbum Cover Art by Sam Prekop (Untitled, September 2023).\u003cbr\u003ePhotography by Christophe Guary and Daniel Everett.\u003cbr\u003eDesign and Layout by Jeremiah Chiu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank you to our Los Angeles community.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919390400853,"sku":"IARC0098CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1429006852_10.jpg?v=1779884796"},{"product_id":"chicago-underground-duo-hyperglyph","title":"Chicago Underground Duo - Hyperglyph","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eChicago Underground Duo is the long-running collaborative project of composer\/trumpeter\/electronicist Rob Mazurek (Exploding Star Orchestra, Isotope 217, New Future City Radio with Damon Locks) and composer\/drummer\/mbiraist Chad Taylor (jaimie branch’s Fly or Die, Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons, Luke Stewart’s Silt Trio). Hyperglyph is their first album in 11 years, and 8th in the absolute cabinet of wonders that is the Chicago Underground Duo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pair have played music together in a multitude of formations over nearly three decades, including their ongoing partnership in Mazurek’s large-format-skyward-expressionism vehicle Exploding Star Orchestra, in the expanded Chicago Underground Trio \u0026amp; Quartet (with guitarist Jeff Parker), and in a plethora of other assemblages. The early albums by the Duo have proven to be embryonic blueprints for the avant-jazz \/ electronic \/ indie rock hybridizations of the time, making them majorly important moments in the articulation of the “jazz” dimensionality of the then-burgeoning \"post rock\" sound. That sound, of course, was being transmitted far and wide due to the success of these groups as well as Mazurek’s Isotope 217 project with Jeff Parker, and the Chicago Underground’s frequent collaborators in\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eTortoise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the sounds being created by this extended family are and were far from static. Just as most of the still-working artists born of that Chicago era have evolved, reconfigured, and grown, Chicago Underground Duo has undergone a number of musical moltings, with the project always in the background of disparate individual aural investigations — always an option, always an outlet. As the project drops off and picks back up, the concurrent personal evolutions of Mazurek and Taylor make the Duo a true reflection of their own lives and friendship.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rob is my longest collaborator and also one of my best friends,” says Taylor, who first performed with Mazurek at a club in Chicago in 1988, aged 15.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When it feels right we do it,” says Mazurek of the gaps in duo activity. “We have worked together and have been friends for a long time. This creates a kind of continuity not only in the music, but in our lives.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMusically, there are certainly internalized nods here to AACM composers like Wadada Leo Smith, or albums like Don Cherry \u0026amp; Ed Blackwell’s “Mu” and El Corazon, but the songs of Hyperglyph exemplify Mazurek and Taylor’s individualities while also addressing another longtime influence on the Chicago Underground Duo sound — the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of extreme studio editing in jazz-adjacent music, Miles Davis and Teo Macero’s Bitches Brew, In A Silent Way, and Get Up With It.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Post production has always been a big part of our process,” says Taylor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sometimes it just flows and we one-take a thing,” Mazurek elaborates. “Other things take time to ferment. We hit those hard in the post production.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInternational Anthem engineer Dave Vettraino was indispensable as part of this process, recording and mixing the entire album at IARC HQ in Chicago. “We are very open and free in the studio,” says Mazurek. “Working with Dave is a joy because he is so intuitive and open with his approach as well. We can try anything with him. In this way it is more like a trio than a duo.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCouple this trio’s take on the now classic cut-and-recut production techniques of Davis\/Macero with Mazurek and Taylor’s longtime interest in deep electronic sounds (think Bernard Parmegiani, Morton Subotnick, Xenakis, Eliane Radigue, Plux Quba), transformative processing (think Autechre, King Tubby, Mouse On Mars, Carl Craig) and we can finally get close to understanding just where the duo lands in this lineage — this ongoing narrative each individual finds themselves in whether they see it or not. The Chicago Underground Duo, it seems, sees it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the musical language of Mazurek and Taylor can certainly be clocked in the slew of projects that they participate in together, the sound of a Chicago Underground Duo album is singular among them. Hyperglyph is no exception and could even be considered a distillation of that intuitive yet complex sound. A key can be found in the title of the album itself: highly complex geometric structures which can seem overly complex at first but, when thousands are arrayed in 3D space and with user training and adaptation, can significantly enhance perception and information assimilation and lead to new knowledge and insights.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe album opener “Click Song” kicks off with a blown-out horn chant from Mazurek, doubled by tuned bells and nestled into a muscular and symmetrical stereo-overdubbed polyrhythm from Taylor. Synthesized bass pulls our ears along cyclically, dropping in and out to almost severe dynamic effect while Mazurek and the subtle-yet-persistent bells elaborate upon the melody before ultimately departing from their repetitive psalm in favor of improvisation. It’s all held together by the steady, deep, chest-thump boom of Taylor’s kick drum pattern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There has always been a lot of African influence in the rhythms we play,” says Taylor. “With this record, specifically, we utilize rhythms from Nigeria, Mali, Zimbabwe, and Ghana.” Taken as a whole, spiritually, this introductory three-minute stomper lives somewhere between a Tuareg wedding and the most hypnotic moments of the click songs of Northern Africa.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTitle track “Hyperglyph” follows, and begins with a chromatic moving harmony played by Mazurek on the RMI electric piano, an instrument famously utilized on Miles Davis’ groundbreaking Filles de Kilimanjaro. The vibe here, though, is one of unyielding, trancelike repetition. The trumpet introduces the time, with Taylor's chunky smacking rhythm hitting hard from the get go. Eventually, the tune undergoes a transformation, with the back and forth of melody and rhythm hitting a fever pitch. A pitch-shifted trumpet becomes a New Orleans march baritone. Dennis Bovell-style dub sounds enter (or, maybe, reveal themselves) at the start of the song’s final movement, followed by wordless incantations. Swelling and saturated, the track sounds as if it’s about to tear itself apart. Static pulsing merges and overtakes the recorded percussion to present a new rhythm of hissing electronics — the harnessed wailing of the unleashed ghost in the machine. A spiritual awakening from the bowels of the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hemiunu”, a Chad Taylor composition, is a waltz based around a simple piano figure repeated throughout. A folk melody from anywhere, the kind that’s been in the air for as long as anyone can remember. One might imagine the melody played clawhammer on an Appalachian afternoon, bowed somberly on the Chinese erhu, or hummed nonchalantly on the factory line. From the jump, Taylor’s percussion threads itself into the sound of a well-worn upright piano as the high register is haunted in wide stereo by that roiling RMI electric piano in octaves, alternately dubby and harplike. Enter Mazurek with another folk-like melodic phrase. Pause. Again. Pause. Leaving room for the now densely waltzing bouquet to bloom before diving deep into laser-sharp Lee Morganesque territory with a wildly vibrating high trumpet cry, but with a tone Mazurek owns completely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe deeper reference for Mazurek’s most untethered emotional playing is his late friend and mentor Bill Dixon, an extraction most apparent in the three-part \"Egyptian Suite.” At the start of part one (“The Architect”) a cyclical pattern from Taylor becomes a bed for Mazurek’s repeating, descending, synthetic-Egyptian scaled theme. This call to action dissolves into the second movement, “Triangulation of Light,” where Taylor’s bowed cymbals set the stage for an exploration of microtonal color with and against the occasional joining and un-joining of tones that stretch the frequencies to their limits from Mazurek's open and half muted trumpet. Like a tornado siren in the distance, breaking through the membrane of storm clouds on the horizon, in search of another siren.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe third and final movement, “Architectonics of Time,” announces itself with free rolling swaths of percussion from Taylor à la Robert Frank Pozar’s mind-bending percussion on The Bill Dixon Orchestra’s classic Intents and Purposes. Here, though, the lineup is limited to two, with no overdubs or post-production. Taylor's singular style and Mazurek's tonal painting coalesce into a maelstrom of intervallic tone and beat before the final repeat of the lead melody from the suite’s first movement. It truly feels like reaching the summit. It’s pure and free duo interaction, the symbiosis of 30 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Succulent Amber,” the final track on Hyperglyph, could fit just as easily on side two of Autobahn. After a brief modular synth-induced pan-harmonic melody shift, a steady kalimba is joined by the gentle intermittent raindrop-melodicism of the RMI electric piano in this understated final duo performance, unadorned by further studio arrangement. It’s a full-on comedown moment after the intensity of “Egyptian Suite,” though rather than winding down or petering out, here the Chicago Underground Duo still manage to point toward some kind of incoming mystery with four sudden-yet-patient ascending chords on the low-register of the RMI electric piano just before the curtains close. The piano notes end on a leading tone, leaving the resolution to the listener.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce we’ve climbed the mountain, they remind us, we have to deal with what’s on the other side.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased August 15, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChad Taylor - Drum Kit, Percussion, Mbira, Kalimba\u003cbr\u003eRob Mazurek - Trumpet, Piccolo Trumpet, RMI Electric Piano, Modular Synths, Samplers, Voice, Flutes, Bells\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music composed by Rob Mazurek (OLHO, ASCAP) and Chad Taylor (ctorb, ASCAP); except “Plymouth” and “Hemiunu” by Chad Taylor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded May 6th-9th and September 25th-27th, 2024,\u003cbr\u003eat International Anthem Studios, Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEngineered \u0026amp; Mixed by Dave Vettraino.\u003cbr\u003eSequenced by Scott McNiece.\u003cbr\u003eMastered by David Allen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFront cover photo by Mikel Patrick Avery.\u003cbr\u003eBack cover photo by Alejandro Ayala.\u003cbr\u003eDesign by Aaron Lowell Denton.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Succulent Amber\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919422480725,"sku":"IARC0101LPI","price":22.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919422611797,"sku":"IARC0101CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a1867604369_10.jpg?v=1780045563"},{"product_id":"tortoise-touch","title":"Tortoise - Touch","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-about\"\u003eThe songs on Touch, the first new Tortoise music in nine years, are dramas without words. They’re elaborately appointed and carefully mixed to enhance a familiar feeling — a distinctly cinematic uneasiness. Close your eyes and you might see cars swerving around unlit rural roads, or cityscapes at night with bells clanging in the distance, or some abandoned warehouse where spies chase each other between towering stacks of boxes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe making of Touch is an entirely different kind of film — a heartwarming story of musicians adapting to life circumstances.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTortoise operates as a collective; the five multi-instrumentalists make records by committee, seeking input on creative decisions large and small. All ideas are considered, and for most of the band’s influential three-decade run, the process has been straightforward: Each musician brings in songs or sketches, and as the group absorbs them, the players exchange ideas about the structure, instrumentation, different grooves or (more frequently, because they’re Tortoise) odd metric divisions that might stretch the initial conception of the song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese discussions have always happened in real time, face to face. Until Touch. As guitarist and keyboardist Jeff Parker\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eexplains, over the last decade, the members of Tortoise scattered geographically, making the pre-production rehearsal sessions if not impossible, at least more complicated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It’s the first record we’ve done where everything wasn’t based in Chicago,” says Parker. “Two of us are in Chicago. Two of us are here in Los Angeles and John [McEntire] is in Portland, OR. We recorded in several different places. But the strange thing is, in a way it’s kind of the most cohesive session that we’ve done.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMcEntire, who plays drums, percussion, and keyboards and serves as mixing engineer, had little doubt that the actual recording would be fine. His apprehension was about those more open-ended development sessions leading up to the recording, which, he says, have been known to yield moments of peak Tortoise inspiration. “We don't work remotely, unfortunately. We kind of all have to be in the room together. For me the trial-and-error stage is very important. I didn’t want to lose that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe percussionist and multi-instrumentalist John Herndon explains one reason why: The path to a “final” version of a Tortoise tune is not a straight line. “It becomes writing and arranging and editing and orchestrating and sort of getting things into a sonic space that feels good, all at the same time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was consensus about that; each of the musicians has a story about songs being transformed by the collaborative dynamic. Percussionist and keyboardist Dan Bitney recalls a session when they were working on one of his tunes. He wasn’t happy with it and promised to come up with a countermelody. “Right away somebody just asked “Does it need a melody? Like, why does this need a melody? And I’m like, “Yeah!” That’s the kind of thinking that can open your eyes.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the initial planning for the new record, the band arrived at what seemed like a reasonable geographic compromise: They’d set up shop at studios in three different areas — Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago. They scheduled sessions with sometimes months in between, so that everyone could sit with the material and refine it further. The plan: To shift some of the wild idea-chasing of those development sessions from group work to individual work, building on Tortoise’s deep and iconoclastic lexicon of sounds — and on the trust between musicians that’s accrued over decades of music-making.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It’s like, humans adapt,” Herndon says flatly. In order to keep making music as a group, he explains, everyone needed to be flexible then and remain so now. “If you’re used to doing something one way, and then it flips, well, you have to adapt to another way of working. I think that that's what we all were aspiring to do with this, endeavoring to kick in our adaptation skills.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill, it wasn’t smooth sailing. “I’m going to be honest, I think that we had some doubts” after the first set of sessions, McEntire recalls. Noting that four years elapsed from the beginning of Touch to its completion, he adds that “it took a long, long time for the music to coalesce. There was some ‘what are we doing?’ questioning going on along the way.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDouglas McCombs, who plays guitar, bass, and the deep-voiced bass VI guitar that adds a noir luster to “Night Gang” and other Touch songs, believes that questioning would have happened regardless of the geographical challenges. “In the best circumstance, there’s a flow when we’re working on a tune. Everyone’s sparking ideas and inspired. It’s not work.” He adds, “In the worst moments, when we just absolutely don’t know what to do with something, it’s torturous.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHerdon points to the early versions of “Vexations,” which became the new album’s opening track, as one such slow-torture situation. “We were confounded as to figuring out an arrangement, and things were just stuck,” he recalls. During one of the long lulls between the studio sessions, Herndon says, he got an idea for the tune. “I asked John if I could have the stems [the individual track files] for the song, and then I kind of did a reworking in the garage. Re-did the drums completely and made a breakdown section in the middle. I sent it and was like, ‘I don't know if this is anything, but here.’ And those guys seemed really excited about it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHerndon quickly adds that every Tortoise record has benefitted from similar experimentation. In fact, it’s the key thing, a defining characteristic: “Sometimes doing an edit will leave a space open for something else, and we’re all into that idea of, ‘What happens next?’ It’s this attitude of ‘Let’s make some music together and see what happens.’ We're all comfortable with the not knowing, with letting an idea go through many permutations.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlong with that is the knowledge that this open-ended exploring can be time-consuming. And might possibly end in futility. McCombs says that though the band’s approach changed with Touch, the players still needed the mindset they’d used in those brainstorming rehearsals. “When I get frustrated or when we seem like we're stalling out a little bit, I just have to remember that patience is one of the things that makes this band work.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAsked to recall a moment that required patience, McCombs doesn’t hesitate. “It seems to happen a lot with the drummers,” McCombs says. “Somebody will be like, ‘Hey John [McEntire] why don’t you play this?’ And he’ll be like, ‘I don’t wanna play it cause I hear Herndon here.’ It’s like McEntire hears Herdon and Herndon hears Bitney… That happens a lot, and then they’ll come to a consensus. Sometimes half the song will be one drummer and half the song will be another drummer. That’s kind of the way it works.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e**\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt must be said: When things click into place, Tortoise is a rare force. Whether cranking out a foursquare rock backbeat or chopping time into polyrhythmic shards that defy counting (and logic), the band challenges accepted notions of what rock music can be, what moods it can evoke — that’s part of the reason the band is revered so widely, among musicians working in many genres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTortoise’s indescribable sonic arrays have grown more intense — and more influential — over time. Early works — the 1993 debut and the 1996 Millions Now Living Will Never Die, which opens with a twenty-one-minute suite — contrast the thick harmonic schemes of Krautrock with the similarly impenetrable densities of musique concrete, adding jarring spears of electric guitar as spice accents. The commercial breakthroughs that followed, TNT (1998) and Standards (2001) found Tortoise further expanding its toolkit: Rather than orient each piece around declarative single-line melodies, the musicians let the vast, lush, inviting scenes become a hypnotic wordless narrative, built from overlapping layers and interlocking rhythms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach step in the discography underscores a truth about Tortoise: The questions about arrangement and orchestration are foundational, defining the scope of the canvas and the density of the band’s exactingly precise soundscapes. There can, as McCombs notes, be multiple drummers on a track, and their beats can be supported by acoustic percussion or random electronic blippage. Likewise, on any given track, there can be multiple mallet parts, sometimes sustaining gorgeous washes of color, at other times pounding out intricate Steve Reich-style interlocked grids of harmony. There can be multiple guitars, each with its own earthshaking effects profile. (Parker laughs when he says “I’m kind of like the straight man with the guitar sounds.”) There can be multiple synthesizers — darting squiggles of lead lines crashing into asymmetrical arpeggios, or bliss-toned drones hovering in the upper-middle register like a cloud in a landscape painting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd there can be noise, all kinds of it: While the working method of Touch meant Tortoise sacrificed some spontaneous sparks, it encouraged the musicians to explore the thickening textural possibilities of different flavors of noise (white, pink, etc). The band recently issued a set of remixes for the single “Oganesson.” The more austere, stripped-down interpretations offer telling insights about the deployment of noise as well as the track-by-track assembly process, the ways Tortoise uses open space, textural layers, and dissonances to create drama.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMcEntire believes those little devices are essential to the sound. “Because we don't have a singer, we have to have a different vocabulary for creating interest. So we use all the little things, like dynamics, texture, orchestration.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGiven the intricacy of the music, McEntire explains, every little sound starts as a decision in the recording studio, and then, subsequently, becomes a logistical decision for live performance — after all, the many parts have to be executed by the five players.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ca\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"credits-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"tralbumData tralbum-credits\"\u003ereleased October 24, 2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll music written and performed by Tortoise\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTortoise is Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire, Jeff Parker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViola on “Promenade à deux” - Marta Sofia Honer\u003cbr\u003eCello on “Promenade à deux” - Skip VonKuske\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eField Recordings on “Works and Days” - Tucker Martine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRecorded at Flora Recording and Playback, Portland OR; 64 Sound, Los Angeles CA; Electrical Audio, Chicago IL\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMixed at Soma Electronic Music Studios, Gladstone OR\u003cbr\u003eRecorded and Mixed by John McEntire\u003cbr\u003eMastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles CA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScorpion Photography - Heather Cantrell\u003cbr\u003eScorpion Sculpture - Martin McEntire\u003cbr\u003eCollage Image - øjeRum\u003cbr\u003eLayout and Design - Jeremiah Chiu\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch3 class=\"license-label\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"license\" class=\"info license\"\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"cc-icons commercial\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eall rights reserved\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"International Anthem","offers":[{"title":"Limited Edition \"Axial Seamount\" Color Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919438700885,"sku":"IARC0099LPI","price":28.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Classic Black Vinyl LP","offer_id":53919438995797,"sku":"IARC0099LP","price":25.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD - Compact Disc","offer_id":53919438799189,"sku":"IARC0099CD","price":12.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1049\/0419\/6437\/files\/a2905449829_10.jpg?v=1779885103"}],"url":"https:\/\/international-anthem.k7store.com\/collections\/cd.oembed?page=3","provider":"International Anthem","version":"1.0","type":"link"}