pilole 2021 aprile/maggio

APRILE 2021	MAGGIO 2021
ALFA MIST "Bring backs" Alfa Mist is one of the driving forces behind a young and vibrant scene of UK musicians, who've taken on jazz as their musical narrative. On his new album Bring Backs the producer, self-taught pianist and rapper takes us on a sonic trip back to his beat-making past on the streets of East London, through the depth and musicality he discovered composing and playing jazz. [ file under: nu jazz fusion ]		COLLEEN "The tunnel and the clearing" The multi-instrumentalist and vocalist’s timeless compositions make use of carefully selected tools to mold memories into transcendent splendor. The Tunnel and the Clearing finds Cécile Schott at her most vulnerable and confident, invoking contemplative and swirling organ processed through analog electronics, steady drum machine syncopations and her distinctive voice to embody breaking through the nexus of compounding transitions. [ file under: experimental ]
DRY CLEANING "New long leg" The 10-track long-player, which includes ‘Strong Feelings’ and last year’s single ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’, was recorded over two weeks last summer at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding). Following on from their thrillingly taut 2019 EPs Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks and Sweet Princess, New Long Leg is more ambitious and complex, with Shaw’s spoken vocals tightly intertwined with the band’s restless instrumentals. [ file under: post-punk ]		FAITH COLOCCIA & PHILIP JECK "Stardust" After first meeting at a concert of mine in Seattle, I was asked if I'd like to work on some recordings of Faith that would be sent to me as dubplates. I liked them a lot and started to work on them but without much success, I couldn't at that time come up with anything that I thought added to Faith's pieces. Last year in covid lockdown Faith asked again if I felt like reworking again her dubplate recordings. Second time around I really enjoyed reshaping and finding a place in them. It then took about one month to complete the tracks to my own satisfaction and sent them to Faith (hoping that she would also like them!) (Philip Jeck) [ file under: isolationism ]
FIELD MUSIC "Flat white moon" "We want to make people feel good about things that we feel terrible about." says David Brewis, who has co-led the band Field Music with his brother Peter since 2004. Sporadic sessions for the album began in late 2019 at the pair's studio in Sunderland, slotted between rehearsals and touring. The initial recordings pushed a looser performance aspect to the fore, inspired by some of their very first musical loves; Free, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles; old tapes and LPs pilfered from their parents' shelves. But a balance between performance and construction has always been an essential part of Field Music. [ file under: alternative pop ]		FATIMA AL QADIRI "Medieval femmes" Fatima Al Qadiri returns to Hyperdub, with a suite inspired by the classical poems of Arab women. Medieval Femme invokes a simulated daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden, at the border between depression and desire, where the present temporarily dissolves, leaving only past and future. [ file under: arabic electro ]
RHIANNON GIDDENS "They're calling me home" Rhiannon Giddens’ new album, They're Calling Me Home, recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, will be released April 9 (vinyl June 11) on Nonesuch Records. Giddens and Turrisi, who both live in Ireland when they aren’t on tour, have been there since March 2020 due to the pandemic. The two expats found themselves drawn to the music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland during lockdown. [ file under: americana blues ]		NILS FRAHM "Graz" Nils Frahm has quietly changed the musical landscape, reincarnating the centuries old figure of a pianist-composer for a new generation of music fans. As Nils’ word-of- mouth popularity grew and grew, so did the pop-culture profile of his instrument. He founded Piano Day with a team of like-minded friends in 2015 to help that process, some years releasing an album of piano recordings to celebrate one of humankind’s greatest inventions. [ file under: modern classical ]
GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR "G_DS pee at state's end" "we wrote it on the road mostly. when that was still a place. and then recorded it in masks later, distanced at the beginning of the second wave. it was autumn, and the falling sun was impossibly fat and orange. we tried to summon a brighter reckoning there, bent beneath varied states of discomfort, worry and wonderment." [ file under: post-rock ]		ROCHELLE JORDAN "Play with the changes" Los Angeles-based artist Rochelle Jordan announces her new album, Play With the Changes, out on TOKiMONSTA’s Young Art Records. For Jordan, a desire for sonic expansion has long been embedded into her fusion of futuristic and ancestrally soulful R&B. To hear a Rochelle Jordan song is to absorb a blend of sampledelic 90s pop, vintage UK house and garage, 31st century electronic bangers, airy late night ballads, and progressive hip-hop. [ file under: soulful house ]
MURCOF "Alias sessions" Murcof, the primary project of producer Fernando Corona, returns to The Leaf Label for the first time in thirteen years with a mammoth and visionary double album, The Alias Sessions. This collection brings together all the elements incorporated into the project to date - meticulous sound design, ghostly samples, forceful beats, diaphanous atmosphere - but pushes the sound even further in terms of both abstraction and beauty. [ file under: modern classical ]		LOSCIL "Clara" The latest collection by Cascadian resident loscil aka Scott Morgan is a stunning meditation on light, shade, and decay, sourced from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest. The subsequent recording was lathe-cut on to a 7-inch, then “scratched and abused to add texture and color,” from which the entirety of Clara was sampled, shape-shifted, and sculpted. Despite their limited palette, the compositions summon a sense of the infinite, swelling and swimming through luminous depths. [ file under: ambient ]
RONE "Rone & friends" The health crisis in March 2020 forced the closure of the theatre and paralysed the development of this unique show at the crossroads of disciplines, which, up until then, was met with both critical and commercial success. In the following social isolation, Rone felt the need to come closer to his artist friends and to reshuffle his creations with their voices as the new beating heart. [ file under: electronica ]		PORTICO QUARTET "Terrain" When Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie – the driving force behind Portico Quartet got together in their East London studio in May 2020 and started work on the music that would become their new album, the world, or most of it, was in the midst of the first lockdown. The unique impact of the events of 2020 became the backdrop to their time composing and recording; causing them to take stock, re-think, and plot a new musical path. [ file under: exp nu jazz ]
TREES SPEAK "Posthuman" This is incredibly Trees Speak’s third album on Soul Jazz Records released in the space of one year – and it’s amazing! Trees Speak’s new album Post-Human once again blends 1970s German electronic and ‘motorik’ Krautrock instrumentals (think Harmonia, Can, Cluster, Popul Vuh, Neu!), haunting and powerful 1960s and 1970s soundtracks (think Italian prog-rock Goblin and John Carpenter horror movies, Morricone and existential John Barry spy movies), together with a New York No Wave electronic synth and guitar analogue DIY-ness (think Suicide, anything on Soul Jazz’s New York Noise series or Eno's New York No Wave)! [ file under: experimental ]		CLAIRE ROUSAY "A softer focus" Experimental musician Claire Rousay and visual artist Dani Toral have been in each others’ orbit since young adulthood in San Antonio, but it took a decade for them to find A Softer Focus. Before Rousay had put her compositional gray matter to task for the album’s music, she knew she wanted to work with Toral- being familiar with her past work centering her Mexican heritage. Toral’s vibrant color palette and reinterpretations of comfort in oneself and the natural, vegetative world connected easily with her explorations in communication and intimacy. [ file under: musique concrete ]
RYLEY WALKER "Course in fable" Ryley Walker has always been a contradictory soul. With his nimble Jansch-esque finger-picking he slots neatly into that acid folk realm, while never adopting the elfen tropes of his pastoral peers. A world away from the leafy psych-folk of ‘Primrose Green’, say, new album ‘Course In Fable’ digs into his Chicago roots. An ensemble piece constructed with old-time friends, it taps into the improvisatory zest that imbues those early Tortoise or Gastr del Sol recordings with such unexpected electronicity. [ file under: alt indie folktronica ]		SONS OF KEMET "Black to the future" Sons of Kemet returns in 2021 with their new album Black To The Future, the follow up to 2018’s Mercury Prize nominated breakout release Your Queen Is A Reptile. This is their 4th record and 2nd on impulse! Guest artists include Kojey Radical, Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid, Joshua Idehen, D Double E and is part of the impulse! records “impulse 60!” 2021 campaign. [ file under: afrobeat jazz ]
AMANDA WHITING "After dark" Already an inveterate international jazz festival performer with Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Orchestra, Whiting has supported and performed with a diverse range of Djs and jazz and pop artists including Jamie Cullum, DJ Yoda, Danii Minogue and Jazzanova. Taking cues from Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane at their most delicate, renowned Welsh harpist Amanda Whiting’s mesmerising Jazzman full-length LP After Dark arrives as soft as moonlight to gladden the soul and delight the ear—without forgetting to bring the swing. [ file under: harping jazz ]		SQUID "Bright green fields" "We're excited to announce our debut album Bright Green Field, out 7th May on WARP! This is the debut album we’ve always wanted to make and without a doubt the most ambitious thing we’ve ever done. We can’t wait for you to hear the whole thing." (Squid, the band) [ file under: post-punk ]