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ADULT.

Adult Jazz

So Sorry So Slow

    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.


    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

    Killer Mike

    R.A.P. Music - 2022 Reissue

      R.A.P. Music, the fifth studio album by rapper Killer Mike was originally released in 2012 and is finally back in print. Production was handled by rapper and producer Jamie "El-P" Meline; the album was the first collaboration between Killer Mike and El-P, who would later form the critically acclaimed duo Run the Jewels.

      R.A.P. Music received widespread acclaim from music critics. It landed on the Year End Best Album lists of Entertainment Weekly, Consequence of Sound, Complex, Chicago Tribune, Paste, NPR, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Spin, Vulture, Village Voice, and many more. 


      Adult.

      Becoming Undone

        After a quarter century of nearly nonstop activity, dystopian Detroit synth-punk institution ADULT. have perfected a strain of stylistic cohesion in the album format, “but for this we wanted something that’s falling apart.”

        Becoming Undone, the 9th official full-length by co-founders Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller, explicitly succeeds in this aim, simultaneously rejecting and reflecting the planetary discord that inspired it. Begun in the latter half of 2020 against a backdrop of unprecedented flux and seismic isolation, the duo kickstarted their muse by sourcing fresh additions to the rig: a vocal loop pedal for Kuperus and Roland percussion pads for Miller. Reconnecting with legacy influences like the politicized industrial percussion of Test Department and the queasy miscreant synthetics of TG’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats sparked a series of fruitfully frenetic sessions, centered on themes of impermanence and dissonance. Miller’s rationale is blunt: “We weren’t interested in melody or harmony since we didn’t see the world having that.”

        From the tense technoid blitz of “Undoing / Undone” to the twitchy EBM of “Fools (We Are…)” and “I Am Nothing,” the sides bristle with strident acidic revolt and black leather sequential circuits, unhinged and unforgiving. Elsewhere, slower tempos of purgatorial unravelling (“Normative Sludge,” “She’s Nice Looking”) showcase a breadth of vocal FX, Kuperus sounding alternately indignant and possessed, decrying the crimes, fears, and failings of a deluded world. Throughout, the band’s chemistry crackles with revulsion and strobe-lit dissent, equal parts exorcism and denunciation. “Humans have always been pretty terrible,” Kuperus explains. “But every year the compromises of culture just accelerate.”

        Becoming Undone is also freighted with a more personal pain, as Kuperus’ father passed away during the height of the pandemic, just before the album took root. As his hospice caretakers, she and Miller faced the banality of finality, surrounded by objects drained of meaning, “the joy of having a body, but also the drudgery of having one.” The record’s bewitching closing track, “Teeth Out Pt. II” – which happens to be the first ADULT. song in the group’s history without drums – speaks to this sense of doomed corporeal mass and the looming, lightless unknown that binds us all. A seasick haze swells and subsides in slow, low waves, flickering with ring modulation, above which Kuperus sings in a dazed, brooding, transcendent state, as if having finally glimpsed beyond the pale: “Some day / some day I will be silent and free / of this relentless gravity.”

        TRACK LISTING

        SIDE A:
        A1. Undoing / Undone
        A2. Our Bodies Weren’t Wrong
        A3. Fools (We Are…)
        A4. Normative Sludge

        SIDE B:
        B1. I Am Nothing
        B2. She’s Nice Looking
        B3. I, Obedient
        B4. Teeth Out Pt. II

        Adult Books

        Grecian Urn

          Adult Books is the brainchild of Los Angeles-based writer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Winfrey. With the help of childhood friends Sina Salessi (drums) and Alex Galindo (guitar/synth), Winfrey crafts lyric-driven dark pop gems that recall the hook-heavy guitar work of Johnny Marr, the just-below-the-collar angst of Mission of Burma, and the doomsday bellow of early Echo and the Bunnymen.

          After a well-received string of bedroom demos and cassettes, Adult Books released their first full-length album, Running from the Blows , in 2016, trading in their previous home-recorded sounds for a cleaned-up act that allowed Winfrey’s pop savvy and understated lyrical wit to shine through. Two years of heavy touring followed, after which Winfrey found himself both burned out and uninspired by the business of music.

          Following a much-needed hiatus, Adult Books is finally ready to share their sophomore LP, Grecian Urn . Recorded with Jonny Bell (Crystal Antlers) and mastered by Dave Cooley (Animal Collective, J Dilla) , Grecian Urn was crafted over the course of nearly two years; however, the seeds of the album were sown more than a decade earlier. When sitting down to write Grecian Urn , Winfrey revisited old demos, forgotten voice memos and unfinished fragments of songs to create something wholly new.

          The end result is a self-assured and intensely personal album that places Winfrey’s evocative images and economic storytelling approach front and center. A loose concept album of sorts, Grecian Urn draws on classical Mediterranean imagery and mythos as a means of exploring Winfrey’s past traumas and struggles with chronic anxiety.


          TRACK LISTING

          1) Innocence
          2) Receiver
          3) Grecian Urb
          4) Holiday
          5) Florence
          6) 100 Dreams
          7) Apologies
          8) Cassy
          9) Adriatics
          10) Sparrows On The Razor Wire

          El Michels Affair

          Adult Themes

            Big Crown Records is proud to present Adult Themes, the latest full length offering from El Michels Affair. This album takes the band’s “Cinematic Soul” aesthetic literally and sends the listener on a journey through a whirlwind of moods and energies. With their 2005 debut album Sounding Out The City, EMA spearheaded an instrumental funk / soul movement that inspired a slew of bands and even lead to the creation of a few independent record labels. El Michels has since lent his signature sound to artists from Adele to Dr John, Lana Del Rey to Aloe Blacc, and a who’s who list of others. In 2016 he co-founded Big Crown Records and has since produced the lion’s share of its output. A short stint as the touring band for Wu Tang Clan in 2007 led to the cult classics Enter The 37th Chamber (2009) and Return To The 37th Chamber (2017). Adult Themes marks the long awaited, highly anticipated return to an album of original compositions from El Michels Affair.

            In 2017 in between producing, playing, and recording on other artists’ records Leon Michels began creating compilations of short interludes intended to be sampled by hip hop producers. Some of these wound up becoming songs by Jay Z & Beyonce, Travis Scott, and Don Toliver. These minute-long snippets were inspired by the dense moody work of ‘60s composers like David Axelrod, and Francois de Roubaix, as well as Moondog’s brand of classical jazz. Michels was having so much fun creating these instrumental / orchestral nuggets that he decided to expand on some of the ideas and create what would become the soundtrack for a movie that has yet to be made, an imaginary film entitled “Adult Themes.” The album plays like the colors on an artists pallet. Songs like “Rubix” and “Villa” are densely orchestrated with the hard-hitting drums that El Michels Affair is known for. On “Life of Pablo”, Leon’s son makes his first appearance on record and intros a song with an epic arrangement and a moving mood. “Hipps” is a drum heavy ballad that could’ve easily fit on EMA’s debut record, Sounding Out the City. Other compositions like “The Difference” and “Kill The Lights” are bare, melodic mood pieces with sparse drums and sophisticated chord movement. All of these tunes come together to make perfect backgrounds for dialogue and action. One of the beautiful things about instrumental music is that the listener can decide what the narrative is. With Adult Themes El Michels Affair has created a “choose your own adventure” in musical form.

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Enfant
            2. Adult Theme No. 1
            3. Kill The Lights
            4. Villa
            5. Adult Theme No. 2
            6. Life Of Pablo
            7. Adult Theme No. 3

            SIDE B:
            1. Rubix
            2. A Swift Nap
            3. Hipps
            4. Munecas
            5. Adult Theme No. 4

            El Paso’s Holy Wave will release their new album, Adult Fear via The Reverberation Appreciation Society. The band have always differentiated themselves from the psych pack with their keyboard-forward sound that rarely falls into standard trippy tropes, and the album’s title track is a good example of that, with a grooving bassline and nice harmonies in the chorus.

            STAFF COMMENTS

            Mine says: On 'Adult Fear', the Texans' 4th LP, Holy Wave continue doing what they do best: dreamy, foot-tapping psychedelia that makes you forget the world around you. Pure bliss!

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Nation In Regress
            2. How Was I Supposed To Know
            3. Habibi
            4. Dixie Cups
            5. David's Flower
            6. The Nurse's Tale
            7. Crys
            8. Adult Fear
            9. Time Is Not Okay

            ADULT.

            Detroit House Guests: The Remixes

              "Detroit House Guests", a project conceived by ADULT., was released earlier this year. A full length album featuring collaborations with a whole host of musicians and artists - Douglas J McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb, Michael Gira from Swans, Shannon Funchess from Light Asylum, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe aka Lichens, Austrian thereminist Dorit Chrysler and Lun*na Menoh. This Remix EP sees a selection of these tracks reworked by Barry Adamson, Shannon F, Silent Servant and label mates LIARS. Its Juan Mendez who kicks things off, sharing credits with his Silent Servant alter-ego. His version of "We Chase The Sound" is a suitably acidic and corrosive roller, keeping the industrial, Nitzer Ebb-era chants and littering an electro-focused drum palette with squelchy reverbs and metallic swirls. Shannon F's gated drums grace an alternative remix as glitchy, staccato synth elements are added to this Detroitian, electro-punk stomper. On the flip local legend Barry Adamson offers his morose and shadowy vocal talents to "We Are A Mirror", stretching it out into a paranoid, claustrophobic piece of vacuumy electronic soul. Very interesting, very out there! Finally, Mute bed fellows LIARS turn "Breathe On" into a post-coital swirl of ambience and released tension; the strung-out, narcotized mood collapsing into a state of blissed-out carnal abandon. Clever, intriguing set of remixes, lots of variation and highly listenable. Mega!

              ADULT. (Detroit’s Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller) release the new album, ‘Detroit House Guests’, their first for Mute.

              ‘Detroit House Guests’ is a collaborative project conceived by ADULT. in the early 2000s. The concept became a reality in 2014 after receiving a John S and James L Knight Foundation grant.

              Based on the visual artist residency model, each musician came to ADULT.’s studio for a three week period with the parameter that they all live, work and collaborate together. The result, a total anthropological sound experiment and a full length album.

              The album features collaborations with a whole host of musicians and artists - Douglas J McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb, Michael Gira from Swans, Shannon Funchess from Light Asylum, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe AKA Lichens, Austrian thereminist Dorit Chrysler and multidisciplinary artist Lun*na Menoh.

              ADULT. are the Detroit duo Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller. They played their first live show together in Germany in 1997 under the name Artificial Material. In early 1998 they released their first 12” under the moniker Plasma Co. Later that year, they released their first 12” under the name ADULT. Currently, they have released six albums and 19 EPs / singles on Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey and Clone Records, as well as on their own label Ersatz Audio (which currently has over 40 releases since it was founded in 1995). They have remixed over 20 acts as well, including Tuxedomoon, John Foxx, Death In Vegas and Pet Shop Boys (for Moog Music).

              STAFF COMMENTS

              Barry says: Detroit residents, and lovers of a good collaboration Adult bring together some of the greatest names in avant, experimental and electronic music to form this exciting and varied tour-de-force. Pulsing electronics, spoken word interludes and industrial rhythms form into a brilliantly fascinating epiphany of sound. Highly recommended.

              TRACK LISTING

              P Rts M Ss Ng (ft Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe)
              Breathe On (ft Michael Gira)
              Into The Drum (ft Lun*na Menoh)
              We Are A Mirror (ft Douglas J McCarthy)
              Enter The Fray (ft Dorit Chrysler)
              Uncomfortable Positions (ft Lun*na Menoh)
              We Chase The Sound (ft Shannon Funchess)
              They’re Just Words (ft Douglas J McCarthy)
              Inexhaustible (ft Dorit Chrysler)
              Stop (And Start Again) (ft Shannon Funchess)
              This Situation (ft Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe)
              As You Dream (ft Michael Gira)

              Makeness & Adult Jazz

              Other Life

                On "Other Life" the creative forces of Scottish producer Makeness and art pop four piece Adult Jazz combine to create an addictive slice of catchy disco-not-disco with post-punk influences. Makeness is the name of producer and songwriter Kyle Molleson. Having grown up in The Outer Hebrides it was at Leeds Uni that he meet Harry Burgess, Steven Wells, Tim Slater and Tom Howe of Adult Jazz. Drawing on influences from Afro Beat, New-Wave and techno in 2015 he had his debut release ‘Laca-Langa’, a thundering percussive track. Adult Jazz released two lovingly received records, 2014’s ‘Gist Is’ and 2016’s ‘Earrrings Off!’ (on Tri-Angle) and have established themselves as one of Britain’s finest new experimental pop groups, with lyrics that tackle questions of identity and belief. Prior to the release on Meno Records, a then unreleased ‘Other Life’ was remixed by Whities producer Minor Science. 15 dub plates were pressed up and stamped with MXMS, finding their way to Jamie XX, Ben UFO and Roman Flügel, who all played the track. The original track is now being released by Meno Records, with a limited run of 300 12” as well as being made available digitally. Fans of avant-disco will rejoice at the sound, with its loose and un-quantized groove, synth squeaks, flourishes and off-kilter vocal falsetto, it’s the artists but not as you know them and totally addictive. Makeness and Adult Jazz let their hair down and follow Arthur Russell’s advice; ‘First Thought, Best Thought’.


                Adult Jazz

                Gist Is

                  Following a flurry of critical acclaim for their debut single ‘Springful / Am Gone in January, Adult Jazz have announced their anticipated debut album Gist Is via their own label Spare Thought.

                  A single-note drone fills the air, joined by a lilting, pitch-shifted vocal. The mercurial melody falls between folk, plainsong, pop and jazz, the words trigger equally beguiling images and the voice has an uninhibited, freestyle timbre. At seven minutes and twenty nine seconds, ‘Hum’ is as audacious as it is a brilliant introduction to a record. Through nine tracks and 51 minutes, their debut album Gist Is, released on the band’s own label Spare Thought, is a voyage that’s startling, mesmerising and magical from start to finish.

                  Gist Is also evolved intuitively, taking four years to finish. Studies (and more recently, day jobs) had to be factored in, but the dominant factor was having the freedom, “to write and to realise a direction as we went along. There was no prescribed path for the album, so we could take an internalised approach.”

                  "Their signature sound comes in the form of frazzled melodies, punctuated by the most joyously uninhibited vocals. ‘Springful/Am Gone’ encompasses all we love about the whirling, anti-pop throws of Wild Beasts” NME

                  “Few debut tracks offer as many mindblowing oddities as Leeds band Adult Jazz’s first effort . . . it weaves and turns in mysterious ways, but always ends up at a gorgeous, inclusive endpoint” DIY

                  “Guitar jabs, indie pop melodies, experimental subtle electronics in the back, layered over with a sweet, indie rock vibe and fitting vocals, ‘Springful’ is absolutely gorgeous and unique” Disco Naïveté

                  “Adult Jazz have shown that they can create such intelligent, alternative-pop that it demands re-listen, upon re-listen, upon re-listen” The Line Of Best Fit

                  “Adult Jazz are making some pretty amazing music.” AltSounds

                  “A beguiling beauty . . . feels committed to its own sparseness, experimentally building each counterintuitively catchy groove from as few sonic elements as possible” THE FADER

                  “Quirky and disjointed, yet somehow gliding gracefully through the air . . . this is a hell of a song, understated and powerful” Stereogum



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