Domino is very proud to mark the return of Jon Hopkins and his new album, Singularity, his first since 2013’s breakthrough, Immunity. Singularity is due for release on 4th May 2018. Along with news of Singularity, Hopkins has shared ‘Emerald Rush’ the first track to be released from the album.
Listen to ‘Emerald Rush’ on streaming services HERE.
In addition to news of Singularity, Hopkins has announced a run of live dates across the UK & Europe with US dates to be announced shortly. He will also be making a number of festival appearances in 2018. A full list of dates can found below.
Singularity begins and ends on the same note: a universe beginning, expanding, and contracting towards the same infinitesimal point. Where Immunity – his hypnotic breakthrough LP – charted the dark alternative reality of an epic night out, Singularity explores the dissonance between dystopian urbanity and the green forest. It is a journey that returns to where it began – from the opening note of foreboding to the final sound of acceptance.
Shaped by his experiences with meditation and trance states, the album flows seamlessly from rugged techno to transcendent choral music, from solo acoustic piano to psychedelic ambient. Its epic musical palette is visceral and emotionally honest: with a destructive opener full of industrial electronics and sonic claustrophobia and a redemptive, pure end on solo piano.
Exploring the connectivity of the mind, sonics and the natural world, Singularity reflects the different psychological states Hopkins experienced while writing and recording. It is a transformative trip of defiance from his initial sense of frustration at the state of the contemporary world to the ultimate conclusion that a true sense of peace and belonging can only come from nature.
Singularity is intended to be listened to in one sitting, as a complete body of work.
Jon Hopkins dates for 2018
30/03 :: Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool, UK (DJ)
06/04 :: Ääniwalli, Helsinki, FI (DJ)
07/04 :: Sónar İstanbul, Istanbul, TR (DJ)
25/05 :: Villette Sonique, Paris, FR
26/05 :: Department, Stockholm, SE (DJ)
02/06 :: Primavera, Barcelona, ES
09/06 :: Park Life, Manchester, UK
15/06 :: Maifeld Derby, Mannheim, DE
23/06 :: Body & Soul, Co.Westmeath, IE
29/06 :: Down The Rabbit Hole, Ewijk, NL
30/06 :: ASTRO Festival, Milan, IT
11/07 :: DOUR Festival, Dour, BE
13/07 :: Melt! Festival, Ferropolis, DE
14/07 :: Lovebox Festival, London, UK (DJ)
15/07 :: Latitude Festival, Henham Park, UK
20/07 :: Colours Of Ostrava, Ostrava, CZ
26/07 :: WWW X, Tokyo, JP
26-27/07 :: Fuji Rock Festival, Niigata, JP
03/08 :: OFF Festival, Katowice, PL
04/08 :: Wilderness Festival, Cornbury Park, UK
31/08 :: Dimensions Festival, Pula, HR
10/10 :: Rockefeller, Oslo, NO
12/10 :: Den Grå Hal, Copenhagen, DK
18/10 :: Vicar Street, Dublin, IE
19/10 :: SWG3, Glasgow, UK
20/10 :: Paradiso for ADE, Amsterdam, NL
24/10 :: Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, BE
25/10 :: Astra , Berlin, DE
26/10 :: Le Trianon, Paris, FR
02/11 :: O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
17/11 :: Newcastle, Boiler Shop, UK
22/11 :: Manchester, Albert Hall, UK
Aïsha Devi’s sophomore album, DNA Feelings, has just been announced for release by Houndstooth on May 11, along with lead single “Inner State of Alchemy”, as covered in XLR8R, Tiny Mixtapes, RA, and Uproxx. What is clear from Devi’s cryptic artist statement (see below) is that this album aims to activate those silent chains of our DNA and amplify the listener’s connection with the cosmos, which is a very likely inevitability if you’ve ever had the opportunity to experience her live. Expect numerous further transmissions from her website prior to the album’s release.
The DNA Feelings AV show ft. Emile Barret will debut at MIRA Berlin on May 5 and tour worldwide. Devi will begin to offer DJ sets in Autumn. For live AV and DJ bookings contact: brandon [at] lb-agency.net
Upcoming live AV shows:
9 Mar – Istanbul, IndieCity @ Salon IKSV 17 Mar – Lisbon @ Musicbox 24 Mar – Azores Tremor @ Arquipelago 5 May – Berlin MIRA @ Funkhaus 12 May – Lyon Nuits Sonores @ Le Sucre 16 May – Los Angeles @ The Echoplex 17 May – New York @ Elsewhere – Zone One 24 May – Vienna @ Hyperreality 14 Jun – London @ Oslo
We couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that Lisa Morgenstern, has joined the LB family.
The German / Bulgarian composer, pianist and singer will, later this year, release Chameleon; nine ambitious tracks showcasing her extraordinary, multi-octave-spanning voice, which soars with glacial elegance through poignantly atmospheric electronica and expressive piano instrumentals.
No collaboration is unlikely when the end goals are the same. A meeting of two artists who illustrate different corners of the musical landscape, come together to create a new statement that takes their collective strengths to higher elevations and encompasses new terrains.
So it is on the first collaborative journey of Canadian musicians Venetian Snares and Daniel Lanois. What started as mutual respect for one another’s work, led to several years of a creative germination resulting in an eight-track full-length exploration released May 4th on Timesig/Planet Mu.
The path began in 2014, after Lanois reached out to Venetian Snares (Aaron Funk) as a fan of his work. The project started to take root in Summer of 2016, after Funk hung around Toronto between shows. Taking his gear to Lanois’ studio, the two began to play for the first time together in what would prove to be a formative moment in their creative journey together.
“I love making music with Dan, he has a real understanding of how to create a world and build what may exist within that world. Bassdrums are trombones and they are a colossal whale which floats on clouds of leaves speaking to the blast furnace feeding the mammoth. A small painting of forest horses hangs in the cranium of the sea horse.” – Aaron Funk
Recorded live in a former Buddhist temple-turned-studio in Toronto, ‘Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois’ travels to new zones in what Lanois describes as “a body of work driven by exploration”. Like all the best collaborations, it’s brought something new out of both musicians. Equipped with their production acuity, they let their natural workflow guide them through uncharted waters. Funk laid the groundwork with drums while Lanois rode the pedal steel, weaving their sounds together in a new sonic tapestry. The two ultimately landed at their destination, their work ready to be shared with those willing to explore.
In Daniel Lanois ’own words:
“To come upon a new form reassures the head that frontier lives on The unlikely pairing of Venetian Snares and Daniel Lanois may very well have provided us with a nice new pair of shoes to walk to new sonic frontier A melange of gospel and electronics As madness of the world trips over its heels these Canadian sonic innovators prepare for travel A body of work driven by exploration, brings to us in our modern times what we remember and admire from the Jazz explorations of the 50s A splintering An appetite for the unknown”
“Drawing influence from traditional Irish music, Haitian voodoo drumming, the raw old-school jungle of Source Direct and the abstract, rhythms of Autechre”, Eomac returns with his third studio album, and first for his own label, Eotrax, with ‘Reconnect’ on April 27 as announced by RA.
‘Reconnect’ is a visceral statement, utterly contemporary and technological while simultaneously elemental and primal, incorporating Eomac a.k.a. Ian McDonnell’s own screams, as well as his bare body convulsing in trance as focus of the new AV show developed with Sal Stapleton who had directed his “Temple of the Jaguar” video.
The LP will be preceded by the “Resist All Dogma” EP on Eotrax March 9 and followed this year by his ‘Bedouin Trax II’ LP for Bedouin.
Listen to lead single “Resist All Dogma” below. Full album stream and audio + video previews of the ‘Reconnect’ AV show available upon request.
NOW BOOKING: live club sets, ‘Reconnect’ live AV, and ‘Bedouin Trax’ live/DJ hybrid sets brandon [at] lb-agency.net
BEN FROST has announced details of All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated, a brand new EP featuring new tracks and previously unreleased remixes from Alva Noto and Steve Albini, out on 23 March 2018.
Described by The Quietus as “aural equivalent of a world turned to ash”, watch the video for the title track, a collaboration with conceptual documentary photographer Richard Mosse and cinematographer Trevor Tweeten.
Ben Frost will return to London for a special date with a unique audio-visual performance featuring Marcel Weber (MFO) at Heaven on 16 March, part of a series of dates that includes Elevate Festival in Graz, Sonar in Reykjavik, ISM Hexadome in Berlin, at Schauspielhaus in Zurich and Nuit Sonores in Lyon.
“An exercise in restraint, endurance and chromatic saturation” – MOJO
“…a molten core shines through providing just enough fire to keep the shadows from overwhelming the light” – CRACK MAGAZINE
“…filled with frustration and anger, yet not without a dark humour” – The Quietus
BEN FROST LIVE
2 March – AT, Graz, Elevate Festival
16 March – UK, Convergence at Heaven, London
17 March – IS, Sonar Festival, Reykjavik
18 April – DE, ISM Hexadome at Martin-Gropius- Bau, Berlin
21 April – CH, Norient & Rewire present Sonic Fiction at Schauspielhaus, Zürich
11 May – FR, Nuits Sonores, Lyon
The peculiar genius of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma is that they make all these things sound like they could come from no one else. The fact that they are still doing it 18 years after their first album, and still capable of making some of the best music of their career, is inspiring. — Pitchfork
Dimensional People is Mouse on Mars’ first album in 6 years and most inventive to date, out April 13th on Thrill Jockey. The album is was conceived as a “spatial composition using object-based mixing technology playing with the possibilities of sonic design and collective musicianship.”
Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) features on lead single “Dimensional People Part 3” as announced + Best New Track via Pitchfork, Uncut, NME, and Intro and playlisted in the NY Times and The Guardian. Album collaborators also include Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National), Zach Condon (Beirut), Spank Rock, Swamp Dogg, Eric D. Clark, Lisa Hannigan, Amanda Blank, Sam Amidon, and Ensemble Musikfabrik.
Dimensional People will exist in many forms: as a multi-channel, spatialized sound installation, collaborative performance events, and touring show with a rotating cast of musicians joining Mouse on Mars on stage.
Their dancefloor smashing live AV show is also available with all new visuals and guest MC Spank Rock joining on occasion. Check this live clip of them in action together at Eaux Claires 2017. Several Dimensional People album tracks will be adapted to the clubby AV show.
Now booking live AV duo and Dimensional People ensemble + installation presentations: brandon [at] lb-agency.net
Rory Friers and Niall Kennedy have composed the music for the upcoming horror thriller ‘The Cured’.
Six years after an aggressive virus has spread through Europe, transforming the infected into zombie-like monsters, the great hope of a cure is found. The cure, which has a 75% success rate, restores the infected to full physical health. Although the cured remember everything they did while infected.
Three years into this great hope, the third wave of cured are ready for reintegration in Ireland.
Once released they find the dream of reintegration has failed with a two-tier society emerging. Suicide and alcoholism are widespread amongst the cured. Many are shunned by their remaining families, while others hold a deep bitterness over the government restrictions placed on them.
Amongst the third wave is Senan Browne, a man haunted with the memory of killing his brother, Luke, while infected. Senan desperately wants to confess to Luke’s widow, Abbie, and son. Although when faced with them he can’t go through with it. Senan begins to get dragged into the growing social unrest but his only concern is keeping Luke’s family safe.
With society crumbling and the government debating humane elimination of the resistant 25%, Senan’s redemption brings him to the heart of the chaos erupting around him.
One of the most interesting and unique musical collaborations we’ve ever come across. Canadian artists Aaron Funk – aka Venetian Snares – and Daniel Lanois, have been busy collaborating over the past year, and the results are truly stunning.
The two recently performed at the Texas festival Day For Night to great effect; Daniel focusing on his gorgeous ambient soundscapes via his processed (lap) steel guitar, whilst Venetian Snares contrasts with crystal clear modular electronics.
The two are finishing up an album and the snippets we’ve heard are incredible.
The diary is now open for festivals and special event bookings.
Above: Picture taken at The Great Hall, Toronto at their sold out show. Credit: Sebastien Leblanc.
We are excited to announce a special B2B DJ tour for musical friends Actress & Mount Kimbie.
There will be more select bookings for this special collab later in 2018.
Nathan Fake will release a brand new 4-track 12”/Digital EP “Sunder” via Ninja Tune on 23rd February 2018. The title track is available to stream/download now. Methodologically and sonically very different to his 2016 album “Providence” which was characterised by crisp, widescreen sonics and meticulous arrangements, “Sunder” is rougher, more urgent and raw and definitively more beat-oriented, but retains the same warmth and emotive character.
“These four tracks are like snapshots captured in a single moment. They were all recorded on an old Marantz tape deck, Jupiter 6, broken Akai drum machine and a Yamaha Reface DX,” explains Nathan. “Basically just hitting record and seeing what happened, not worrying about making mistakes etc. There are no post-edits – they are left completely as they were recorded – so they’re quite messy but I love that energy.”
Nathan Fake Live:
20/01 Festival Electropolis 2018 at BPS22, Charleroi BE
09/02 Génériq Festival 2018 at La Vapeur, Dijon FR
15/02 Goa, Rome IT
22/02 Róisín Dubh, Galway IE
23/02 Cyprus Avenue, Cork IE
24/02 Button Factory, Dublin IE
23/03 Gretchen, Berlin DE
01/04 DGTL Festival 2018 at NDSM Docklands, Amsterdam NL
Out now on Warp Records, Clark’s new 12″, Honey Badger / Pig.
“The riff in this sounds bit a tropical to me. (you kidding m8?) From a rainy grey skyed uk perspective at least! Again it’s a simple hardware improv. I started messing with my friend Yamila’s vocals and crunching out these luscious Oberheim synth recordings I made. I wanted to write something that started out as a fluid, slightly muddy blur, muted euphoria, warm, then the landscape coarsens and distorts. I like that effect, from soft and sympathetic to quite brutal, angular patterns and more bling production. Just because I can produce now it doesn’t mean I don’t still love lo-fi grit :) They mutually enhance each other. The synth at the end is a counterpoint to that. It’s something I made of my wife Melanie singing on a skype call captured with a laptop mic. I’m quite chuffed with it. No presets allowed! It’s got a glow to it that reminds me of her.” – Chris Clark
Continuing his style of big hittin’ double headers – begun last year with the D Double E / Riko Dan face-off, ‘Box’ / ‘Iceman’ – The Bug has invited Flowdan, and Killa P & Irah to get grimey on their respective Riddims. ‘Get Out The Way’ is the first collab The Bug has conducted with Killa P since the mighty ‘Skeng’, with Killa additionally inviting Irah, from his Killaz Army crew, along for the ride.
‘Bad ft. Flowdan’ premiered via Complex and was picked up by Clash, The Quietus, Pop Matters, and XLR8R amongst other notable sites. Both tracks are already receiving some heavy dubplate slayin’, with the likes of Mala, Kahn, Spooky, Pinch and Mumdance all smashing them in their sets. ‘Bad’ has already been chosen by Elijah (of Elijah & Skilliam / Butterz) as one of his Grime tunes of the year, is in Mixmag’s Essential Low-End Spotify playlist, BBC1 Xtra shows from Logan Sama and MistaJam, and was even Tweeted about by Nina Kraviz!
The digital release dropped on Nov.17, coinciding with The Bug’s first PRESSURE night at Village Underground, transplanting his infamous Berlin soundsystem club night, and it was absolutely mad as evinced by these pics/vids on his FB and this spot on Gigwise review:
It’s fantastic to see an artist who has always striven to be different and refuse to pander to the mainstream, and one who was for so long considered to be an eccentric on the fringes of the industry, finally take his place at the centre of what’s going on. The Bug is a serious prospect now, and shows like this put him at the very forefront of live performance. Take our word for it – you won’t hear a more blistering, immaculately constructed and wonderfully vicious racket than this for a long time to come.‘Bad’ / ‘Get Out The Way’ is in shops on Dec.8, 2018 via Ninja Tune.
Now book live + DJ sets w/ MCs: brandon [at] lb-agency.net
Following a string of hard hitting singles for L.I.E.S.in 2014 and 2015,Shanghai-based producerTzusing’s 2017 debut LP 東方不敗 has already sold out its first two pressings and is proving to be a defining album in clubland this year, garnering 4/5 in RA with an RA Breakthrough feature that nicely sums up what this genre-colliding Shanghai-based producer is all about – check out this album sampler and hear for yourself!
His signature blend of techno, industrial/EBM and world music has reached peak form and the album hints at the new horizons Tzusing explores on his freshly released EP 瞬千擊 (In a Moment a Thousand Hits) for Bedouin (11k plays in its first day!) which is already making massive waves and challenging techno’s dancefloor hegemony, hailed asone of 2017’s techno success stories in RA’s 4.3/5 review of the EP.
TzusingDJed Reaktor and Zeezout at ADE, turning heads with his irreverent selections and edits, which has landed him a spot in RA’s ADE 5 Key Performances. He has also slammed dancefloors for CTM, Unsound, and MIRA festivals as well as various clubs in Europe this year and will be back next Summer for festivals and select club bookings.
NOW BOOKING DJ sets at festivals + select club shows brandon [at] lb-agency.net
The first EP from Mouse on Mars since their anniversary recording 21 Again 3 years ago embraces their love of juke, footwork and chopped up house music like never before. On its three tracks, Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner reinforce the collaborative idea of 21 Again with eight different artists including Modeselektor, Jessy Lanza, Junior Boys, and Sepalcure having been involved in the making of these tracks.
The EP was released on Monkeytown on Oct.13, 2017. Listen to EP previews here and watch the zany video for “Jack Is Out” dir. by Jonah King & Winslow Funaki below.
Now booking live AV duo shows: brandon [at] lb-agency.net
Gazelle Twin has released a studio album featuring original music from the A/V show ‘Kingdom Come for Two Vocalists’, originally commissioned by Future Everything Festival, 2016, currently on tour.
Bandcamp version of this release includes unpublished images from the Kingdom Come live show at Brixton Electric, London, 2016.
The Kingdom Come live show is performed by Jez Bernholz (BERNHOLZ), Natalie Sharp (Lone Taxidermist) and Stuart Warwick, with films by Chris Turner and Tash Tung.
Following the release of Synkro AKA Joe McBride’s collection of his formative early works in 2017, Apollo Recordings is proud to present a brand new EP that draws on the rich heritage of library music.
Synkro’s signature expansive atmospherics are still very much present, but now they have been burnished by soaring synth pads and pulsing drum tracks that call to mind the haunted melancholy of John Carpenter or contemporary such as Legowelt or Andy Stott. Rhythmically ‘Hand In Hand’ sees McBride moving somewhat away from his usual off kilter programming inspired by 2-step and garage, embracing the steady pulse of 4:4 which turns out to be an effortless fit.
Synkro’s hand has also this month been turned to an excellent remix of Jono McCleery, which can be streamed below.
“After spending the bulk of his career as a key member of the 50Weapons clan, Welsh techno producer Benjamin Damage has now found a new home on the vaunted R&S label. Although his new ‘Montreal’ EP won’t arrive until October 27, we debuted the record’s melodic, rave-ready title track on Red Bull Radio’s First Floor, our weekly look at what’s new in electronic music.” – RBMA
Countless bands will attest to And So I Watch You From Afar’s influence on their own music; in 2009, the predominantly instrumental Belfast-based outfit released a self-titled record that few heard but almost every single person who did immediately took it upon themselves to start a band. As a result, they have had a direct effect on making math rock and instrumental music blossom into the modest but fertile scenes that they are in the UK today. Thanks to a myriad of local DIY independent movements and festivals such as ArcTanGent and Strangeforms, a style of music that could easily have just been seen as a small blip in the annals of music history has bloomed into something that can be genuinely regarded as a world-wide recognised movement.
For many, the Irish quartet, alongside bands such as Adebisi Shank, You Slut! and Maybeshewill, made the prospect of music with no vocals (with the exception of the odd yelp dotted hither and thither) exciting, by injecting it with a frenzied frenetic frisson and refusing to ever give the listener time to get remotely bored. Whilst the music they make is almost certainly too esoteric for it to ever be considered ‘mainstream’ (whatever that word even means in a modern context), they are originators and innovators in a genre that is adored by a modest but loyal and dedicated following of music aficionados. Their fifth album The Endless Shimmering, is available on Friday 20th October via Sargent House but you can stream the album in full below 3 days before it’s official release, exclusively with The Independent.
The Endless Shimmering ushers in a new chapter in the life of And So I Watch You From Afar. Broadly speaking, it’s possible to group the band’s previous four full-length albums into two distinct groups; their 2009 self-titled debut and 2011’s Gangs serve as an introduction to the band infusing predominantly instrumental music with a ferocious, exuberant youthful energy that has more in common with punk rock than post rock. Similarly, the colourful, schizophrenic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sugar-rush of 2013’s All Hail Bright Futures and 2015’s Heirs are natural bedfellows. The 9 songs that make up The Endless Shimmering are cut from an altogether different cloth, which guitarist Rory Friers puts down to the way in which these new songs were constructed.
“Heirs and All Hail Bright Futures were both projects where the songs were predominantly written in the studio, so we used more recording techniques and took advantage of being able to add more layers and extra instrumentation. We went in to the studio with songs that weren’t fully finished and we allowed them to come to life in the studio. That whole world is a really exciting and fulfilling one but as with everything, it’s not an approach that we want to take every single time. So this record felt like a natural point for us to step away from that studio environment when writing the songs. Before we started writing The Endless Shimmering, we knew that we wanted to spend a long time writing and rehearsing, essentially getting these songs to sound as amazing as possible as a live band.”
This approach gives the songs on The Endless Shimmering more space and room to breathe; these 9 tracks are And So I Watch You From Afar’s most focused and taut songs to date and yet they still sound thrillingly vibrant and full of life. Both Heirs and All Hail Bright Futures took ‘weeks and weeks’ to record, whilst the band experimented with adding various bells, whistles, vocal lines and layers. Gangs was recorded in ’10-11 days’ but then took an additional 3-4 weeks to mix. In contrast, the band recorded andmixed The Endless Shimmering in just 9 days, making it the quickest And So I Watch You From Afar recording experience by a long shot.
“All the work was done before we came into the studio” says Rory, “there was never a moment where we’d sit around and ask ourselves ‘what should we be doing now?’ It was a very pre-meditated approach this time around and by the very nature of how we wrote this album, essentially the four of us playing live in a rehearsal room, the songs had to stand up on their own. They were generally recorded in one or two takes, in some cases maybe three and it felt as if we’d explored every possible avenue with each song before we entered the studio, so we knew as soon as we went in exactly how each song needed to be.”
Around 30 songs were written for the record before being whittled down to the 9 that appear on the album. It’s tantalising to think that there’s so much material leftover that could potentially be turned into something that might one day be heard outside of a rehearsal room, but Rory quashes that particular notion. “It’s like an artist who wants to make a really cool painting; you’ve got to make several paintings that aren’t quite right in order to get to the really good one. And that’s ok, those not so good paintings are all a part of the process and throwing those ideas around in a room together has got us thinking and set us on the right path to the nine songs that we think of as being the really good ones. When you’re working on an idea, you always tell yourself that it’ll see the light of day at some point. But then, for whatever reason, you move past them and focus your attentions on something else. We’re a band that has very little interest in looking backwards or taking ideas from the past or being nostalgic in any way. The exciting stuff is always in front of us and so those ideas tend to never get to see the light of day. There was an EP that almost got released last year but we just didn’t get round to it and now it feels like we’ve missed the boat, because those songs just aren’t exciting to us anymore. When you play a song in rehearsal a million times, it can lose its lustre.”
Knowing which ideas to throw out and which to keep hold of is a difficult dilemma for any band; when you’re so close to material that you’ve written, how on earth are you meant to sort the wheat from the chaff? It’s something that And So I Watch You From Afar are very aware of and as such, the impulse was to follow their gut as much as possible this time around. “It’s easy to get distracted now at a time when music is thrown in front of you and consumed so quickly and easily” says Rory. “I’m speaking here as a consumer of music as well as a musician; there’s so much at your disposal so instantly and so quickly that it becomes difficult for us to live with records and really let them sink in. It’s got to a point where option paralysis is a very real thing. So I think our instincts for this record were to dismiss anything that’s wasn’t speaking directly to us, to be drawn to the ideas that naturally lend themselves to the way we play and the four personalities that are in the room. Sometimes we might work on an idea where we’re trying something new but deep down we’ll know if it’s natural for the four of us to go down that route or not. We try not to be scared of going down those corridors and exploring them sometimes but I think at some point you have to start following your gut and not force anything, and that’s exactly the approach we tried to adopt with this album.”
The band flew out to Machines with Magnets recording studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, about 40 miles South-West of Boston. Just as they arrived, a major snowstorm brought the North-East coastline to a standstill, effectively isolating the band and focusing their attentions, a situation they welcomed with open arms, as guitarist Niall Kennedy explains. “I think it had a positive affect on the album; we’d talked about wanting to have this experience where we go into a studio and completely immerse ourselves in the process. When we’ve recorded in Belfast before, we’d spend all day in the studio, call it a day and then go home to our respective homes where normal stuff and social lives begin to creep in. So we were kind of hoping to create an environment where this album was our lives for the entire time that we were doing it. When we arrived and found out that there was going to be this snowstorm, it just added to the intensity of the experience and forced us into this little creative bubble. It heightened everything and made us feel even more immersed in putting together this record, the focus was on the album 100% of the time. We came away feeling like we’d accomplished everything that we had wanted to; it was a really positive experience.”
The Endless Shimmering is an album where everything is laid bare; one could see it as a ‘back to basics’ record, where the songs have been stripped of any unnecessary parts or vocal lines (of which, bar a tiny sample at the beginning of ‘Three Triangles’, none feature what-so-ever, a first for an ASIWYFA album). There’s been talk of The Endless Shimmering being the band’s most personal album to date and, whilst they’re reluctant to go into specifics, there’s a direct approach to the material here that suggests a desire to cut through the crap and get to the meat of the matter.
“We are fortunate enough to be able to make music that is very cathartic for us” says Rory, “something that is the product of four friends coming together and writing and rehearsing long into the night. Whenever I listen to this album, I can hear everything that went into it; it feels as if there’s a lot of emotion in there. I can associate each song with various different things that were going on in our lives and it makes me so much prouder that we managed to up cycle those events and turn them into something positive. It’s taken that negative energy and made it into 44 minutes of music that, regardless of what anyone else thinks of it, we view as our proudest achievement.”
The Endless Shimmering is released on Friday 20th October through Sargent House and is available to preorder on vinyl, CDand digitally now. The band begin a 40-date tour of the UK and Europe at Patronaat in Haarlem, The Netherlands on 18th October
Before a string of autumn tour dates, the Warp veteran goes full-throttle on his knotty new mix and tells us about his ninth album Death Peak
The title of Chris Clark’s ninth album accurately captures its atmosphere. Death Peakis club music as earth music, with basslines that shake like the shift of tectonic plates, knotty synthesiser textures that sound like they’ve been ravaged by the winds, and euphoric melodies that glow like the morning sun. “I’ve had the title Death Peak since August 2016,” Clark said prior to the album’s release. “It felt so right, I would repeat it to myself like a mantra. Death Peak Death Peak Death Peak. It starts gently, all meadows and butterflies, and ends with you on top of this gnarly, fearsome mountain peak, surveying a shattered landscape below.”
The album sees the electronic producer and Warp Records veteran equip himself with a new arsenal of weapons. While he’s used vocals in his work before (notably his exceptional collaborations with Martina Topley-Bird on 2012’s Iradelphic), Death Peak weaves vocal and choral elements into his work (a children’s choir in “Catastrophe Anthem”, the angelic coos of “Aftermath”). Much of this experience could have come from his recent soundtrack work, such as a production of Macbeth at the Young Vic in 2015, the cinematic score for Sky Atlantic’s The Last Panthers in 2016, and – most recently – BBC crime drama Rellik. This year he’ll bring that on tour combining contemporary dance choreography with Clark’s music, working with frequent collaborator and partner Melanie Lane.
Currently partway through a marathon international tour (some of which saw the producer combine the contemporary dance choreography of frequent collaborator Melanie Lane with his own rave belters), Clark contributed to our latest Dazed Mix and told us about the ideas behind Death Peak.
You’ve talked about the way that Death Peak introduced vocals in a way you’d never previously used them, but what sparked your interest in vocals in the first place?
Clark: I’ve often used vocals in the past but this record it all seemed to cohere as a constant element. I didn’t want any one track to be ‘the big vocal one’; rather it was more about it being a background thread, vital but not given immediate priority over other voices. It’s also just a thrill to record other people and allow that collaborative space to furnish you with new ideas.
I always think of your music as being quite earthy and ancient, despite it obviously being electronic and modern. Do you ever think about those sorts of ideas when you’re making tracks?
Clark: I like the idea of excavation, that you have to go on this massive quest to unearth something ancient and buried before you can really glean it’s relevance/worth. Music feels like that. Obviously the metal/music detector will throw up a lot of junk as well and you just have to feel 100% fine with deleting that music.
I enjoy it, I enjoy this thing of total non-self-censorship in the creation process followed by a very tough-minded, thick-skinned approach to the edit. I think that combo is a total winner, and it continues to work for me. As you get older you realise what your process is more – you realise what is obtuse and unhelpful, you realise what is lucid and strong, and what generates the results that satisfy you – and it’s these two things that really work me for me. Boundless range and expression in the act of creation and perfectionist tough minded approach in the edit. I enjoy the stage where you can laugh and say, ‘No, fuck that, not good enough, no way’ – it’s a sign you’re getting better and more brutal with your own standards. I think I’d be terribly unpopular if was to be in A&R.
Anyway, it’s usually the tracks I enjoyed making the most are the best ones. But the thing is, I enjoy making everything, so it’s quite annoying sometimes whittling an album down and getting it tight as fuck. No flab.
Death Peak has quite a gothic overtone as a title. What’s the imagery it makes you think of?
Clark: It’s me as T-800 being mashed in with the anvil at the end of T2. On acid.
Did working on things like The Last Panthers change your approach to production and writing?
Clark: It definitely did. It made me appreciate how much fun writing solo records is, and also gave me a chance to explore a totally different palette, using orchestral instruments and tweaking them out. I definitely want to do more of this. It made me enjoy space and texture more also. ‘How you can create intense music without using any metronomic cliches?’ But every record is a learning process, really.
Given we’re in a ‘post-Brexit age’, what does the Death Peak track title ‘Un U.K.’ mean to you?
Clark: I just discovered an old version of the vocal take of the kids choir singing ‘no going back in time will tell all of us.’ I think that probably says it all. I did a version with that lyric in, but it sounded a bit trite in a musical context – it sounded better without words. Music often does!
Some of your Death Peak live shows are going to feature an element of contemporary dance, choreographed by your wife. How does working with a partner on a creative project feel?
Clark: So much of the etiquette surrounding working with other people who you don’t know starts with a slightly frivolous courting ritual. It’s a bit of a tapdance. It’s the only way to get familiar really, but with Melanie we can just bypass all that and go straight to the substance of the work. It gives it a really thorough and obsessive energy; I suppose that comes out of our of kinship/shared tastes. I would love some of her old works to be shown again some day – they are still totally fresh/original compelling slabs of choreography, Tilted Fawn in particular. So many, she smashes them out
What’s going on in this mix?
Clark: It’s a load of my mates tracks that haven’t been released yet, and a few of mine as well. I enjoyed stitching it all together. It covers quite a few styles!
“Combining a few slower, more contemplative yet complex melodies alongside passages of pure, blistering riffs and thunderous percussion, it shows off the raw energy that they aimed to instil into the whole of The Endless Shimmering.”— DIY
Northern Ireland’s And So I Watch You From Afar (ASIWYFA) share a new track today from their forthcoming album The Endless Shimmering via PopMatters. This will be the eclectic quartet’s fifth full length album following on from their widely acclaimed album Heirs. The song “Terrors of Pleasure” is available to hear and share HERE. (Direct YouTube HERE.)
ASIWYFA previously launched a video for the first single, “A Slow Unfolding Of Wings” via DIYHERE. (DirectYouTube HERE.) Second album track “Dying Giants” is available via YouTube HERE.
In support of the album, ASIWYFA launch an extensive EU/UK tour next week. They will be joined by Gallops for all of their UK dates. Please see complete dates below.
ASIWYFA have a relentless thirst for touring and over the past 7-years they have tallied up almost 500 shows worldwide — including less common tour stops such as China, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
The Endless Shimmering will be available everywhere October 20th, 2017 via Sargent House. Pre-orders are available at iTunes HERE and physical HERE.
Earlier this year, Actress aka Darren Daz Cunnigham – released AZD, the first new music from the reclusive producer in three years. The simplest you could say about AZD, is that its art the unique creation of a unique mind. There will be few more distinctive, brilliant or visionary suites of music released in 2017. Call him what you will, this is the year that Actress asserts more clearly than ever before his complete independence.
He recently played a string of US summer dates, which included a live performance at MoMa PS1’s WarmUp event. Now he is back for a extended fall tour of the US/North America and Europe with a brand new live/AV set that includes two AI performers on either side of the stage and a special appearance from Actress’ ‘Chrome Man’ figure on keyboard. A special preview of the set up can be viewed here.
This tour includes a handful of Texas dates alongside Telefon Tel Aviv and shows in Montreal, Brooklyn and Toronto with Nicolas Jaar as well as a performance at the 5th annual III Points Festival in Miami.
Samuel Kerridge’s The Silence Between Us EP was just released on Downwards on Oct.6 – view the teaser below and material that has slipped in to his unparalleled Fatal Light Attraction A/V show (trailer) which has been making the festivals rounds. XLR8R and Rolling Stone.IT have both premiered killer cuts from the 12″.
Kerridge absolutely floored Berghain in May with a completely new live set and has presented select performances of his live soundtracked film performance, The Mysterious Other (trailer), inspired by Jean Cocteau, with more on that project soon to come.
Now booking live A/V, live, and DJ sets: brandon [at] lb-agency.net