London-based four-piece Adult Jazz announce their first full-length album in a decade, So Sorry So Slow, out 26 April 2024 via Spare Thought. Alongside the announcement comes lovesick new single ‘Suffer One’ featuring Owen Pallett, a cautious excavation of self and sexuality, clambering across a gorgeously shapeshifting, filmic five-minutes.

Containing some of the band’s most abrasive but gentle, beautiful and melismatic work to date, So Sorry So Slow has many defining characteristics: romance, panic, devotion and remorse, threaded together by an intentionally laser-focused love. It’s deeply personal, bruised and candid in its expressions of tenderness, and deeply pained in its concurrent reflections of ecological regret. Across its hour-long runtime, a delicate, frenetic energy and glacial heaviness coexist, the band pitting those paces against one another. In their richly experimental timbre, dancing strings and fluttering falsettos prang against a bed of brass drones like a wounded bird.

“We started writing in 2017 and began recording in 2018,” says vocalist Harry Burgess. “We genuinely thought it might be finished in 2018! But things kept developing and, having resolutely not struck while the iron was hot, there was no real external push to rush things after that, so we just kept letting things shift and unfold until it felt right. Listening back to my voice notes it’s nice to notice that there are fragments of ideas from the whole period 2017-2023 which have shaped the record.”

Recorded in bursts at studios across London and in the band members’ flats, at Konk, on the Isle of Wight and in Sussex, So Sorry is unambiguous in its evolution. Sonically, there are sparks of the arrhythmic brightness that afforded the band’s critically acclaimed debut album Gist Is its cult adoration, for fans of Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, but with a blossoming, melancholic darkness often overhead. Piano sprees and luscious string sections appear like low-hanging stars on a night-time drive, whilst plunging vocal distortions and humming brass loops resurrect heavy limbs in a bad dream.

“I usually have objects as kind of totems for ideas,” explains Burgess. “The album initially started out to do with performance… [the totem] was a head mic, one of the subtle skin-tone ones, discreet on the forehead of a West End star. A number of the first songs in their original forms were almost musical theatre piano ballads. I think that was really a device to write about my life as the ‘main character’ (pre internet-speak reframing): regrets about romance, relationships - unsustainable relationships with the self and others.”

“However, once we started writing, the ideas about unsustainable personal relationships, loving unevenly and heartbreak conflated with a more expressly ecological regret. Like contending with big feelings of loss, endings, beauty, desolation, and with how much joy the earth contains in it. Feeling so much gratitude bound up in waves of sadness. Maybe witnessing a slow-motion goodbye to all that, or its last gasps. I love the earth and the life it supports so much. I love how ecosystems fit together - even the brutal stuff. It may be basic to say, but now is the time to be laser focused on that love. I was thinking about human centrality on earth, us as the ‘main character’, the way that is served by faith and romanticism, and the subsequent disingenuous understandings of our position in the ecosystem, as only stewards somehow, rather than subjects. The totems at this point: a herald’s horn, lorry inner tubes, archaeological tools. I guess from doom, industry, history respectively.”

“Now I would say the record is about gripping. Totems being: crampons, rope, drips, desalination equipment, accruing various survival tech. I think gripping sums up both of the threads. There’s the emotionally correct clinging to the earth that is the substrate of everything we value, or the delusional clinging to our imagined dominant position. But also the practical, technological aspects of creating a sustainable relationship, of remaining here. Then I think of romance again.”

So Sorry So Slow comes out 26th April 2024 on Spare Thought, mixed by Fabian Prynn at 4AD Studios and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.

Adult Jazz is Harry Burgess, Tim Slater, Steven Wells and Tom Howe.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It always surprises me when a band can inoffensively arrhythmically skip between themes and motifs in their music, because It never strikes me as something that should be doable without a noticeable thematic shift. There's something about the staggered determination and swaying dreamlike haze of Adult Jazz's music that has always been seamless and so organic, and remains in abundance here.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
Bleat Melisma
Suffer One
Y-rod

Side B
No Relief
Plenary
Marquee

Side C
Dusk Song
Earth Of Worms
No Sentry

Side D
Bend
I Was Surprised
Windfarm

Missing out on that super-chill, uber-jittery minimal groove thing? Let’s get real, real Ghosted again.

An utterly unique guitar/bass/drums triad: the guitar sounds like anything but a guitar; bass and drums simultaneously insistent and relaxed. Telepathic group-think opens a window to fresh fields of fusion: funk-jazz heads, polyrhythmic skeletons, ambient pastorals, post-kraut drones and shimmering soundtrack reveries. A music of sustained tension and deep atmosphere, marked by subtle, shifting dynamics playing out in an open sound field.

Oren Ambarchi has been collaborating with the Fire! trio (Mats Gustafsson, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin) for over a decade – and both Johan and Andreas played on Oren’s Live Hubris as well. Oren and Johan began music-making together back in the early aughts – but it wasn’t until 2021 that the three of them got together to record music. That became the first Ghosted album. When they were done, it was clear they had founded a new group. A music of sustained tension and deep atmosphere marked by subtle, shifting dynamics, Ghosted was released in May of 2022 to psyched response everywhere; the trio embarked upon an ongoing series of concert bookings around Europe, with loads of other people in the world still hoping to have the chance to be in the room at the next show. Two years on, Ghosted has gone through several represses, now it’s time for the “dreaded follow up album”! Rather than go back to the well, the guys decided to tear everything down and start all over again, reimagining themselves from scratch.

Just kidding! As we’ve noted, Oren, Johan and Andreas have been playing together for years and years, developing an essential telepathy within their shared space. They get each other and feed each other’s music processes on an elemental level. Why change that? What made the most sense was to go back to Daneil Bengtsson at Studio Rymden in Stockholm for a couple days, then have Oren and Joe Talia mix and Joe master it at Good Mixture in Melbourne again, then get Pål Dybwik to do some well-distinctive cover art, and once more, call it a record.

That’s just what they did — and it should be no surprise at all that the new Ambarchi/ Berthling/Werliin album looks and sounds as engrossing as their debut, if not more so! Ghosted II has a definitively fresh quality radiating throughout. The mutual feeling among the three players goes deep, allowing for lots more to say every time they get together — a further recombination of elements, a new expedition through alternative angles... there’s always more, and incredibly, it’s all improvised, with next-to-nothing prepared going in and minimal overdubs after they’ve laid things down. References are shared in shorthand, with just a single word, like “Santana,” or “Police” acting as working titles for certain pieces on this record (have a guess!). It’s a disservice to call them jams: above and beyond the innate feel of the songs, there’s a strong sense of structure, informed by the band’s communal aesthetic, and edified immeasurably by their time spent in concert the last couple years.

As noted at the top, these guys balance their music improbably between a relaxed feel and a nervy resolve, as each member holds down their corner in an open sound field. Making Ghosted II, the band found that there’s a different kind of tension making something for an established project rather than the kind one feels making something for the first time — and they used this new variety, as before, as a kind of fuel — driving their terse minimalism fruit-fully through the process of succumbing to and then transcending guilty pleasures. Finding fresh territory in funk sketches, jazzy heads, ambient pastorals and droning soundtrack pieces, Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin compellingly haunt a mad variety of spaces, leaving us wanting to get Ghosted II.

TRACK LISTING

En
Två
Tre
Fyra

The 111 Series comprises 15 tracks, each created by Louis Carnell alongside a diverse selection of artists from across the globe. Each track is released digitally, and titled in numerical order, with the aim of creating an environment for the listener to explore the series without hierarchy.

The tracks vary between lyric-led and instrumental compositions, travelling through experimental electronic and immersive soundscapes.

The list of collaborators includes prolific new-age artist Laraaji, Mute founder Daniel Miller, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, leading punk-rapper Wu-Lu, Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist KMRU, noise-inspired cellist and composer Okkyung Lee, post-genre multi-instrumentalist Coby Sey, Iranian-born electronica songwriter, producer and DJ Leila, mystical folk and ambient-inspired composer Naliah Hunter, artist and actor Keeley Forsyth, rising experimental sound and visual artist Damsel Elysium, LA-based ambient duo Green-House, experimental saxophonist and composer Ben Vince, Beirut-based multi-instrumentalist Yara Asmar, and Italian musician and sound designer Marta De Pascalis.

TRACK LISTING

1. Four - Louis Carnell & Yara Asmar
2. Seven - Louis Carnell & Okkyung Lee
3. Ten - Louis Carnell & Daniel Miller
4. Thirteen - Louis Carnell & Leila
5. Two - Louis Carnell & Lee Ranaldo
6. Five - Louis Carnell & Coby Sey
7. Eleven - Louis Carnell & Laraaji
8. Fourteen - Louis Carnell & Nailah Hunter
9. Three - Louis Carnell & Ben Vince
10. Six - Louis Carnell & KMRU
11. Nine - Louis Carnell & Green-House
12. Twelve - Louis Carnell & Marta De Pascalis
13. One - Louis Carnell & Keeley Forsyth
14. Eight - Louis Carnell & Wu-Lu
15. Fifteen - Louis Carnell & Damsel Elysium

Reveries is Zach Frizzell, Marc Ertel and Damien Duque’s first album for over three years, and follows the success of their debut Liberamente. Together, the trio craft delicately textured and slowly unfurling sonic vistas, occupying a unique aural domain that lies between guitar-driven drone music and modern classical compositions.

With their individual projects they are incredibly prolific, but Dawn Chorus releases are few and far between and Reveries represents a refined evolution, leaning more heavily toward string-based arrangements and compositional virtuosity. It is the very essence of what they are calling “dronegaze”, pushing the boundaries of the ambient genre while embracing a profound auditory expression.

According to the trio, the six, long tracks on Reveries are “heavily reliant on improvisation, intuition, and allowing the compositions to exist in their own moment; the aim was a feeling of fluidity and a sense that every instrument has its place and purpose”.

And they’re right. The opening title track emerges quietly in a swirl of strings; lead single ‘Deus’ eases its fittingly reverent grain into a glorious minor-key immensity; ‘Cadere’ pulls together a cast of orchestral instruments into a comforting devotional; ‘Somnium’ plays out in diffuse, shimmering melodic rounds; ‘Vale’ blossoms from a pair of sparse, alternating chord swells; and ‘Aufero’ is the perfect coda that reprises the low-end rumble of the album’s overture before being swept away on a sea of dissonance.

“We live in an era of infinite distraction,” says Zach Frizzell, “where often the most valuable thing you can find is a respite for the soul.” How right he is. This, truly, is music from a higher place.

TRACK LISTING

1. Reveries
2. Deus
3. Cadere
4. Somnium
5. Vale
6. Aufero

With his new album Y’Y (pronounced “eey-eh, eey-eh”), Amaro Freitas steps into a new realm of musical creation. A realm rooted in magic and possibility, and tempered by a sense of stewardship for the earth’s bounties. Side A serves as an expression of connection to the earth and to the ancestors, paying homage to the forest and the rivers of Northern Brazil with both the music and the album title, Y’Y, a word written in the Sateré Mawé dialect, an ancestral indigenous code that means water or river. And by bringing to life lessons he learned in the Amazon about the incandescent power of enchanted spirits who intervene on behalf of the community in times of struggle. On Side B, Y’Y shows the connections between the global Black avant-jazz community. Bringing together multi-instrumentalist Shabaka Hutchings, harpist Brandee Younger, bassist Aniel Someillan, guitarist Jeff Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, the music creates an artful conversation by weaving together jazz traditions from across the world, while staying rooted in the unique sounds and rituals found in Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous cultures. Freitas continues to intwine ancestral knowledge into music on Y’Y by bringing his fresh, “decolonized” interpretation of Brazilian jazz and sharing music that may well shatter our preconceived notions of what jazz can be.

TRACK LISTING

1. Mapinguari (Encantado Da Mata}
2. Uiara (Encantada Da Agua) - Vida E Cura
3. Viva Nana
4. Dancga Dos Martelos
5. Sonho Ancestral
6. Y'Y
7. Mar De Cirandeiras
8. Gloriosa
9. Encantados

Released periodically on three of 2024’s full moons – April 23rd’s Pink Moon, July 21st’s Buck Moon and October 17th’s Hunter Moon – the three-album cycle, “Triptych”, is (Steve Von Till from Neurosis) Harvestman’s most ambitious undertaking yet.

Guest musicians including Al Cisneros of Sleep / OM who plays bass on one track for each LP, of which he will also mix a dub version on the B-Side of each LP. Dave French of Yob, Sanford Parker and Wayne from Petbrick all make appearances.

It’s a dream diary narrating a passage through Summer Isle where Flying Saucer Attack are wafting out of a window, a distant Fairport Convention are being remixed by dub master Adrian Sherwood, celestial scanners Tangerine Dream are trying to drown out Bert Jansch and Hawkwind are playing Steeleye Span covers, all prised out of time yet bound to its singularity.

TRACK LISTING

Psilosynth
Give Your Heart To The Hawk
Coma
Psilosynth (harvest Dub)
How To Purify Mercury
Nocturnal Field Song
Mare And Foal

South African Warrick Sony is a ground breaking composer who was behind the Kalahari Surfers project which now gets a vital spotlight courtesy of Emotional Rescue. This compilation shows how effortlessly eclectic his sound was - from jive rhythms to jazz, tabla to political speeches and much more in between. A Hindu pacifist who was once conscripted into the South African Defense Force, he founded this group as a way out getting his ides out there, calling on other musicians as and when he needed them. It was the first radical white anti-apartheid pop in South Africa and as this vital collection shows it explored polyrhythms, slow motorik, dub sound collage and even a goofy cover of Nancy Sinatra.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. "Free State Fence"
2. "Crossed Cheques"
3. "Running Out Of Time"
4. "Beat About The Bush"
5. "Ten Dirty Fingers"
6. "Hillbrow 2"

Side 2
1. "Don't Dance"
2. "Beatle Love Song"
3. "I Wonder Why"
4. "Song For Magnus"
5. "Messer Im Kopf"
6. "Telephone"
7. "Perpetual Emotion"

On Gut Buster, Yosa Peit spawns fleshy sonic escapades, a swarm of vigorously processed vocals and soulful bass, set to a backdrop of visceral percussive structures. Full of roguish curiosity, the record is cast with an air of lo-fi experimentation, but with a platinum glint of pop sensibility. Peit’s second album grapples with the destructive force of modern consumption, Gut Buster is an anti-capitalist battle cry that syntheses intimacy and hostility; a surrealist-punk affirmation and a testament to Peit’s singular vision and unique approach.

The free-ranging sound of Yosa Peit recalls the intense arrangements of a cyber-era Prince with the surrealist tones of Arthur Russell and early Björk. At the album’s core, “World Eaters” unleashes scorching guitars in search of humankind’s end, “I was born on a planet, I got hungry and I ate it.”

Even in the face of planetary doom and personal obstacles, Yosa evokes our propensity for mischief, humor and pleasure. “bb moon” processes sound solely from her bass into wicked oblivion. “CALL ME,” a song about friendship, chews up it’s anthemic melody into a gnarled strut worthy of an A$AP Rocky production, while “HAD3S” urges us to find balance, nodding to the mystical fuzz of Prince. Yosa’s work has been called “personal, punk, poignant, deep” yet her genre-defying production, as textured as it is catchy, escapes definition.

Gut Buster takes that collective playground for creation to planetary reaches, congregating friends from Berlin, Cologne, and New York’s fuzzy musical underbelly: Employee, Funkycan, Gerry Franke, Glenn Astro, Nauker, Paingel, Tbz, and UCC Harlo. The record was mixed by Brainfeeder affiliate Benjamin Vukelic in Portland and Jan Brauer in Berlin.

“Glitchy yet supple, the broken beats and warped abstractions are wholly unpredictable yet deliciously odd, like an esoteric mashup of Bjork, Aphex and Laurie Anderson” Electronic Sound.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
A1 Twixx
A2 Had3s
A3 Tower Flower
A4 Dnuora Kool
A5 Shelly
A6 Call Me
Side B
B1 World Eaters
B2 Aol Slyt
B3 Bb Moon
B4 Nbp
B5 Alma
B6 Portimao
B7 Look Around
B8 Pepper Plane
B9 Gut Is God (Gate Of Discord)

‘The Water is the Shovel of the Shore’ is the revelatory new release by the nine-piece contemporary folk group Shovel Dance Collective, an expansive ensemble of multi-disciplinary artists and musicians currently based in London. Comprising members of caroline, Gentle Stranger, as well as accomplished visual artists and solo instrumentalists, Shovel Dance Collective reconceive traditional folk music as an experimental mode of longform composition, encompassing drone, early music, free improvisation, and metal. In the performances and recordings of the collective, the arrangements and lyricism of the folk canon are reinvented, as historically disenfranchised perspectives are placed at the forefront. Predicated on recounts of queer experience, black consciousness, pioneering feminist ideals, and the labour of the working class, the output of Shovel Dance Collective represents an inclusive repository of subversive oral folklore. With their third release ‘The Water is the Shovel of the Shore’ the collective explore the myriad experiential and symbolic resonances that water has for working people, focusing on the essence and significance of the river Thames. Across stark, profound adaptations of fabled balladry, elegiac sea shanties, graceful jigs and impassioned, unadorned vocal airs, Shovel Dance Collective deliver an innovative, stirring exposition of poignant folksong threaded through with site-specific field recordings. Songs of English, Irish, Scottish & Guyanese origin, documented by the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cecil Sharp, A.L. Lloyd & Wordsworth McAndrew, reflect an international, anti-colonial ethos and chronicle enduring tales of proletarian life. Embedded within an immersive sound collage, incorporating environmental recordings captured along the Thames, in churches and cathedrals, as well as in the midst of liminal urban surroundings, the evocative songcraft of Shovel Dance Collective constitutes an authentic, powerful embodiment of visionary modern folk music, rooted in ancestral homage, restitution, timeless communion and collective solidarity. 

TRACK LISTING

1) I
2) II
3) III
4) IV

“Earth, Our Planet?”: A call for environmental awareness. This time, Pedro Vian - the founder of Modern Obscure Music - presents his fourth solo album (following his 2020release, "Ibillorca"). "Earth, Our Planet?" promises to immerse us in a moving odyssey, crossing the boundaries of musical genres to provoke an urgent meditation on the protection of our planet. On this occasion Vian has composed the album influenced by the myth of the eternal return, the compositions are long and repetitive, generating
states of pure
trance.

Pedro Vian, singular for his fusion of genres and styles, ventures into even more complex territories in "Earth, Our Planet?". From the first listen, it is evident that this work treads the line of convention and breaks the boundaries of electronic and experimental music with artistic dexterity. The album weaves together texture, hypnotic rhythms and melody. Each track reveals his distinctive ability to create immersive landscapes, guiding the listener into deep emotional introspection. This is not just music; it is a transformative experience. The beauty of this album lies not only in the musical vision. The album features high-calibre collaborations that add layers of creativity and elegance. Trumpeter Pierre Bastien, whose early productions left an indelible mark on Aphex Twin's Reflex label, infuses "A Day in Rotterdam" with a unique emotional resonance. Violinist, Asia, renowned for her avant-garde approach and ability to conjure unique landscapes, elevates the album's opening tracks "Urobóros" and "Les Tambours Subterraniens". Their skill and sensitivity intertwine perfectly
with Vian's artistic vision. In addition, Italian producer Daniele Mana, with whom Pedro Vian collaborated closely on his previous album "Cascades", known for his experimental approach and talent for creating extraterrestrial atmospheres also contributes to "Les Tambours Subterraniens". His artistic perspective adds more complexity and texture to the piece, pushing the boundaries of contemporary electronic music. There is also a collaboration with Raül Refree, an artist with whom Vian worked with last year, presenting
“Font De la Vera Pau”, an album that The Guardian defined as 'a wonderful piece of electroacoustic music, a captivating mix of strings and analogue synth drones which sometimes flirts with Alice Coltrane-ish spiritual jazz'.

With "Earth, Our Planet?", Pedro Vian not only offers up some of his best work to date, but it is also a call to reflect on our relationship with the natural world. As a part of a planet where environmental awareness is more crucial than ever, he urges us to protect and preserve our world as an extension of ourselves. This extensive work is a statement, Vian addresses the
notion that too often we prioritise immediate needs over the well-being of the planet. It highlights the fact that we often consider the Earth as a possession when, in reality, we are but a part of it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Uróboros
2. Les Tambours Suterraniens Feat. Mana
3. Satan’s Voice
4. Lucid Dreams
5. Un Storia Infinita
6. The Limit Of Nothing feat. Raul Refree
7. A Day In Rotterdam Feat. Pierre Bastien
8. Your Face Shines More Than The Sun
9. Hipódromo
10. Crema Lent