In March of 2023 Mercury Prize nominated composer & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London's Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece - gratitude - for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra More

In March of 2023 Mercury Prize nominated composer & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London's Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece - gratitude - for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra More

A Willed and Conscious Balance is the first album of material arranged for an ensemble by multi-instrumentalist composer Tomin Perea-Chamblee.
The bulk of the album was recorded in one day at The Bunker in Brooklyn, NY by IARC house engineers Dave Vettraino and David Allen, and features a truly incredible lineup that includes members of Irreversible Entanglements and jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE. Tomin’s work with this group of veteran musicians is singular though, instantly setting this material apart from the discographies of its contributors.

Imagine the density of a J.J. Johnson arrangement rhythmically stretched and pulled à la Thembi-era Pharoah Sanders, or the Dolphy-infused bop squawk elegance of Booker Little's Out Front sent through the sonic washing machine of Bernie Maupin's The Jewel in the Lotus. With each listen, the potential for comparisons feels both endless and unsatisfying, and while there were certainly hints of this direction on Tomin’s collection of solo recordings from 2024, Flores para Verene / Cantos para Caramina – simple & entrancing chord progressions, favoring the dirge, favoring the repetitive – the sounds heard on A Willed and Conscious Balance take the listener somewhere new. Somewhere fresh yet familiar. A group exploration of simplicity that yields something complicated, just like life itself.
More

A Willed and Conscious Balance is the first album of material arranged for an ensemble by multi-instrumentalist composer Tomin Perea-Chamblee.
The bulk of the album was recorded in one day at The Bunker in Brooklyn, NY by IARC house engineers Dave Vettraino and David Allen, and features a truly incredible lineup that includes members of Irreversible Entanglements and jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE. Tomin’s work with this group of veteran musicians is singular though, instantly setting this material apart from the discographies of its contributors.

Imagine the density of a J.J. Johnson arrangement rhythmically stretched and pulled à la Thembi-era Pharoah Sanders, or the Dolphy-infused bop squawk elegance of Booker Little's Out Front sent through the sonic washing machine of Bernie Maupin's The Jewel in the Lotus. With each listen, the potential for comparisons feels both endless and unsatisfying, and while there were certainly hints of this direction on Tomin’s collection of solo recordings from 2024, Flores para Verene / Cantos para Caramina – simple & entrancing chord progressions, favoring the dirge, favoring the repetitive – the sounds heard on A Willed and Conscious Balance take the listener somewhere new. Somewhere fresh yet familiar. A group exploration of simplicity that yields something complicated, just like life itself.

https://listen.k7.com/148f8fb8-896a-4e42-9199-ee5ed9c9f239
More

Mighty Vertebrate is the International Anthem debut from Anna Butterss. The Adelaide born bassist / composer has been a first call for LA tour and studio work since relocating there in 2014 – racking up credits with notables across the experimental, jazz, and pop worlds alike – but their most notable contributions to the burgeoning LA scene have been as a member of both Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and rising proto-trance supergroup SML, who Pitchfork says “represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community.”

“I had just gotten off of a bunch of touring at the end of 2022 and just wanted to write music,” says Butterss. “The best way for me to do that, I’ve found, is to set myself a discreet and focused task."

I’m going to make a song where the bass doesn’t function in the role of a bass.
I’m going to work on this for an hour and then I’m going to stop.
I’m going to make a song that uses groups of three-bar phrasing.
I want to sample something and make it into a song.
I’m going to start with a drum machine.

The music itself reflects that structure beautifully, with the material being tightly
composed and melodically realized by Butterss well in advance of production concerns. Here they reconvene a group of trusted longtime collaborators to bring their compositions to fruition: Ben Lumsdaine (drums, guitar, production), Josh Johnson (sax), and Gregory Uhlmann (guitar), plus a smoking guest appearance from Jeff Parker. The breadth and scope of the results might have been difficult to achieve otherwise. From the Robbie-Shakespeare-in-groove-mode intro to the album opener “Bishop” to the spacious cinematic doom of “Seeing You”, there is a lot to wrangle into one cohesive concept. On Mighty Vertebrate, Butterss and crew do just that. More

Mighty Vertebrate is the International Anthem debut from Anna Butterss. The Adelaide born bassist / composer has been a first call for LA tour and studio work since relocating there in 2014 – racking up credits with notables across the experimental, jazz, and pop worlds alike – but their most notable contributions to the burgeoning LA scene have been as a member of both Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and rising proto-trance supergroup SML, who Pitchfork says “represents the thrilling next phase of a vibrant L.A. community.”

“I had just gotten off of a bunch of touring at the end of 2022 and just wanted to write music,” says Butterss. “The best way for me to do that, I’ve found, is to set myself a discreet and focused task."

I’m going to make a song where the bass doesn’t function in the role of a bass.
I’m going to work on this for an hour and then I’m going to stop.
I’m going to make a song that uses groups of three-bar phrasing.
I want to sample something and make it into a song.
I’m going to start with a drum machine.

The music itself reflects that structure beautifully, with the material being tightly
composed and melodically realized by Butterss well in advance of production concerns. Here they reconvene a group of trusted longtime collaborators to bring their compositions to fruition: Ben Lumsdaine (drums, guitar, production), Josh Johnson (sax), and Gregory Uhlmann (guitar), plus a smoking guest appearance from Jeff Parker. The breadth and scope of the results might have been difficult to achieve otherwise. From the Robbie-Shakespeare-in-groove-mode intro to the album opener “Bishop” to the spacious cinematic doom of “Seeing You”, there is a lot to wrangle into one cohesive concept. On Mighty Vertebrate, Butterss and crew do just that. More

On March 24, 2023 Rob Mazurek assembled his endlessly psychedelic and explorative large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra under the dome of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium to perform material from their recently released album Lightning Dreamers along with a number of new pieces.

Tracklist
1.1Dream Sleeper (Live)
1.2Black River (Live)
1.3White River (Live)
1.4Underneath the Star Dome (Live)
1.5Spiral Parable 1a (Live)
1.6Parable 3000 (Live)

https://listen.k7.com/cdd5d2e0-7d09-4af1-8384-a413450453d3 More

On March 24, 2023 Rob Mazurek assembled his endlessly psychedelic and explorative large ensemble Exploding Star Orchestra under the dome of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium to perform material from their recently released album Lightning Dreamers along with a number of new pieces.

Tracklist
1.1Dream Sleeper (Live)
1.2Black River (Live)
1.3White River (Live)
1.4Underneath the Star Dome (Live)
1.5Spiral Parable 1a (Live)
1.6Parable 3000 (Live)

https://listen.k7.com/cdd5d2e0-7d09-4af1-8384-a413450453d3 More

This is the repeated call and the rallying chorus of the nearly 40-minute centerpiece to composer and percussionist Asher Gamedze’s new album Constitution. The expansive double album, a minoritarian fellowship in breath, is Gamedze’s follow-up to 2023’s Turbulence and Pulse (IARC0057), and his first with The Black Lungs.

Tracklist
1.1Find Each Other
1.2Determining Facts
1.3Antagonism
1.4Elaboration
1.5Constitution
2.1Destitution
2.2High Land. New Home
2.3Melancholia
2.4Deposition: A Song for the Dialectician More

Tomin is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, bioinformatician, and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His primary instruments are the flute, trumpet and alto clarinet, and he participates in the creative music scene as a performer, improvisor, composer and fan. Outside of music, he works in computational genetics, with a focus on oncology.

Tracklist
1.1Father and Son (for Cal Massey)
1.2Come Sunday, Bass (for Ellington and Dolphy)
1.3The Inflated Tear, v1 (for Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
1.4Fire Waltz (for Waldron, Dolphy and Little)
1.5Desert Fairy Princess (for Sharps, Sebastian and P.A.P.
1.6Fables of Faubus (for Mingus and Richmond)
1.7Aquarius (for J.J. Johnson)
1.8Warm Canto (for Waldron and Dolphy)
1.9The Inflated Tear, v2 (for Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
1.10Come Sunday, Soprano (for Ellington and Dolphy)
1.11Assunta (for Cal Massey)
1.12Father and Son (for Cal Massey) [Alt. Take]
1.13Spirits Rejoice, Var 1
1.14Ogún Bara
1.15Angela's Angel
1.16Naima
1.17The Prayer
1.18Rahsaan Is Beautiful
1.19A Walk with Thee
1.20Humility in the Light of the Creator
1.21Love
1.22Life
1.23Love (Alternate Take)
1.24Life Revisited

Listen: https://listen.k7.com/50abb001-03b6-4399-9f93-4248d301ef3d More

Golden Hummingbird LP

Tomin is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, bioinformatician, and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His primary instruments are the flute, trumpet and alto clarinet, and he participates in the creative music scene as a performer, improvisor, composer and fan. Outside of music, he works in computational genetics, with a focus on oncology.

Tracklist
1.1Father and Son (for Cal Massey)
1.2Come Sunday, Bass (for Ellington and Dolphy)
1.3The Inflated Tear, v1 (for Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
1.4Fire Waltz (for Waldron, Dolphy and Little)
1.5Desert Fairy Princess (for Sharps, Sebastian and P.A.P.
1.6Fables of Faubus (for Mingus and Richmond)
1.7Aquarius (for J.J. Johnson)
1.8Warm Canto (for Waldron and Dolphy)
1.9The Inflated Tear, v2 (for Rahsaan Roland Kirk)
1.10Come Sunday, Soprano (for Ellington and Dolphy)
1.11Assunta (for Cal Massey)
1.12Father and Son (for Cal Massey) [Alt. Take]
1.13Spirits Rejoice, Var 1
1.14Ogún Bara
1.15Angela's Angel
1.16Naima
1.17The Prayer
1.18Rahsaan Is Beautiful
1.19A Walk with Thee
1.20Humility in the Light of the Creator
1.21Love
1.22Life
1.23Love (Alternate Take)
1.24Life Revisited More

SML is bassist Anna Butterss (Jeff Parker, Daniel Villarreal, Makaya McCraven), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia-Honer), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven, Nate Mercereau, Marquis Hill), percussionist Booker Stardrum (Amirtha Kidambi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, Patrick Shiroishi), and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Sam Wilkes, Meg Duffy, Perfume Genius). Their debut album Small Medium Large began as a collection of long-form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park venue ETA

Tracklist
1.1Rubber Tree Dance
1.2Industry
1.3Herbie for Commercials
1.4Search Bar Hi Hat
1.5Window Sill Song
1.6Switchboard Operations
1.7Soft Sand
1.8Three Over Steel
1.9Chasing Brain
1.10History of Communication
1.11Feed The Birds
1.12Greg's Melody
1.13Dolphin Language

https://listen.k7.com/b7d4a647-d93c-4459-a87e-b6db0d5c8f29 More

SML is bassist Anna Butterss (Jeff Parker, Daniel Villarreal, Makaya McCraven), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia-Honer), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven, Nate Mercereau, Marquis Hill), percussionist Booker Stardrum (Amirtha Kidambi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, Patrick Shiroishi), and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Sam Wilkes, Meg Duffy, Perfume Genius). Their debut album Small Medium Large began as a collection of long-form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park venue ETA

Tracklist
1.1Rubber Tree Dance
1.2Industry
1.3Herbie for Commercials
1.4Search Bar Hi Hat
1.5Window Sill Song
1.6Switchboard Operations
1.7Soft Sand
1.8Three Over Steel
1.9Chasing Brain
1.10History of Communication
1.11Feed The Birds
1.12Greg's Melody
1.13Dolphin Language

https://listen.k7.com/b7d4a647-d93c-4459-a87e-b6db0d5c8f29 More

Two 140gram black vinyl LPs inside a heavyweight single pocket jacket with dome-patterned inner-sleeves

Placenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño & Friends music released on International Anthem since 2021. But perhaps more notably for the zeitgeist of today, it is the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño & Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, performing, and co-mixing every song.

Tracklist
1.1Love To All Doulas!
1.2Some Rest For The Midwives
1.3Real Vital Organs
1.4Surges, Expansions
1.5In Appreciation Of Chico Hamilton's Vast Influence On T
1.6Birthworkers Magic, And How We Get Hear
1.7This "I" Was Not
2.1Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy
2.2Carla's Beads
2.3Moonlight Watsu In Dub
2.4Generous Pelvis
2.5Bi-Location
2.6Play Kerri Chandler's RAIN More

Two 140gram *limited edition* Placental Purple color vinyl LPs inside a heavyweight single pocket jacket with dome-patterned inner-sleeves

Placenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño & Friends music released on International Anthem since 2021. But perhaps more notably for the zeitgeist of today, it is the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño & Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, performing, and co-mixing every song.

Tracklist
1.1Love To All Doulas!
1.2Some Rest For The Midwives
1.3Real Vital Organs
1.4Surges, Expansions
1.5In Appreciation Of Chico Hamilton's Vast Influence On T
1.6Birthworkers Magic, And How We Get Hear
1.7This "I" Was Not
2.1Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy
2.2Carla's Beads
2.3Moonlight Watsu In Dub
2.4Generous Pelvis
2.5Bi-Location
2.6Play Kerri Chandler's RAIN More

Shiny compact disc in a deluxe 4-panel digipack

Placenta is the fourth collection of broadly imaginative and highly collaborative Carlos Niño & Friends music released on International Anthem since 2021. But perhaps more notably for the zeitgeist of today, it is the first new music to be released by Carlos Niño & Friends following the November 2023 release of André 3000’s New Blue Sun – an album which Carlos produced alongside André, while co-writing, performing, and co-mixing every song.

Tracklist
1.1Love To All Doulas!
1.2Some Rest For The Midwives
1.3Real Vital Organs
1.4Surges, Expansions
1.5In Appreciation Of Chico Hamilton's Vast Influence On T
1.6Birthworkers Magic, And How We Get Hear
1.7This "I" Was Not
2.1Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy
2.2Carla's Beads
2.3Moonlight Watsu In Dub
2.4Generous Pelvis
2.5Bi-Location
2.6Play Kerri Chandler's RAIN More

Limited Edition Deluxe Vinyl Double LP. Two 140gram black vinyl LPs (pressed by Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST) inside a heavyweight, screen-printed jacket (art by Paul Camo), with insert sheet and dome-patterned inner-sleeves. Hand-numbered; only 1200 in existence.

In January 2023, Tom Skinner and his ensemble performed material from his recently released album Voices of Bishara at London club "mu"- a venue founded by the curators at Brilliant Corners and named after the seminal Don Cherry live album. The set was augmented by a rendition of Tony Williams" "Red" and three pieces by Abdul Wadud, whose 1977 self-released solo cello album, By Myself, was a primary inspiration for Voices of Bishara. More

SML is bassist Anna Butterss (Jeff Parker, Daniel Villarreal, Makaya McCraven), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia-Honer), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven, Nate Mercereau, Marquis Hill), percussionist Booker Stardrum (Amirtha Kidambi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, Patrick Shiroishi), and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Sam Wilkes, Meg Duffy, Perfume Genius). Their debut album Small Medium Large began as a collection of long-form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park venue ETA

Tracklist
1.1Rubber Tree Dance
1.2Industry
1.3Herbie for Commercials
1.4Search Bar Hi Hat
1.5Window Sill Song
1.6Switchboard Operations
1.7Soft Sand
1.8Three Over Steel
1.9Chasing Brain
1.10History of Communication
1.11Feed The Birds
1.12Greg's Melody
1.13Dolphin Language

https://listen.k7.com/b7d4a647-d93c-4459-a87e-b6db0d5c8f29 More

40gram classic black vinyl LP in a heavyweight gatefold jacket, with quarterfold A2 poster insert, IARC obi strip, and dome-patterned inner sleeve

Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly share musical, communal, and ancestral roots within the Latinx diaspora of Bolivia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. Ferragutti - raised in Cochabamba, Bolivia - comes from South American musical royalty on both sides of her family... with maternal uncles from the psychedelic staple of Bolivian music Los Kjarkas, and a Brazilian accordionist who played with Gilberto Gil, among others, as a paternal uncle. Rosaly was born and raised in Arizona, but spent the better part of his prolific career working on the Chicago jazz and improvised music scene where, in many ways, he himself defined the sound of the free jazz scene, for a particular era. The two artists connected in Amsterdam in 2015, where they now live together, and work in many capacities across music, theatre, performance art, dance, and community organizing.

Ferragutti & Rosaly have come together on MESTIZX - their debut full-length record as co-composers, arrangers, and musician - to deeply investigate to their lineage and ancestries without the confines of tradition or genre. They are fascinated by the never-ending beauty of Latin rhythmic patterns, microtonal mountain flutes, and oblong swing from the pre and post-colonial Latin American region. With references to free jazz, electronica, Chicago post-rock, bomba, plena, cumbia, ambient, Andean, minimal, noise, punk and folk, the record illustrates several sides of a decolonization process in a deliberately loose, eclectic, and celebratory story. The music harkens to the richness of ritualistic gatherings, which they recognize as an intrinsic form of resilience and resistance, as well as a deeply necessary practice that most humans seek — in churches, dance clubs, music venues and festivals. An atmosphere of their native ecologies appear throughout the record. Allegoric symbolism and dance traditions from the Caribbean and Andes materialize. Sometimes as a distant memory, often scrupulously. These aspects have shaped the music to represent Latin cultures and it is deeply woven in the fabric of an eccentric, speculative song-story, rhyming with echoes of protest music marked by post-dictator realities and various socio-political instabilities.

Joining them on MESTIZX is a community of international musicians and beloved friends in a collective assembly of celebratory protest music: Matt Lux, Avreeayl Ra, Ben LaMar Gay, Daniel Villarreal, Bill MacKay, Rob Frye, Mikel Patrick Avery, Chris Doyle, Guilherme Granado, Viktor Le Givens & Fredy Velásquez.

RIYL: Juana Molina, Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln, Café Tacvba, As Mercenarias, Liquid Liquid, The Ex, Tortoise, Tom Zé, Elza Soares, La Mecanica Popular More

SML is bassist Anna Butterss (Jeff Parker, Daniel Villarreal, Makaya McCraven), synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (Ariel Kalma, Marta Sofia-Honer), saxophonist Josh Johnson (Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven, Nate Mercereau, Marquis Hill), percussionist Booker Stardrum (Amirtha Kidambi, Carl Stone, Lee Ranaldo, Patrick Shiroishi), and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann (Sam Wilkes, Meg Duffy, Perfume Genius). Their debut album Small Medium Large began as a collection of long-form improvisations recorded during two separate two-night stands at beloved Highland Park venue ETA

Tracklist
1.1Rubber Tree Dance
1.2Industry
1.3Herbie for Commercials
1.4Search Bar Hi Hat
1.5Window Sill Song
1.6Switchboard Operations
1.7Soft Sand
1.8Three Over Steel
1.9Chasing Brain
1.10History of Communication
1.11Feed The Birds
1.12Greg's Melody
1.13Dolphin Language

https://listen.k7.com/b7d4a647-d93c-4459-a87e-b6db0d5c8f29 More

"The Closest Thing to Silence" is the result of a collaboration between Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma and the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut "Recordings from the Åland Islands" had been released last year

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists that have not previously collaborated to create new music together. Kalma was quick to suggest working together with two musicians whom he has never met – the International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut Recordings from the Åland Islands had been released just a few months earlier. Kalma sent an invitation to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm. Chiu had been a fan of Kalma’s work for a long time, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. After meeting their goal of 20 minutes worth of music for the program (which was four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present, and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction; but simultaneously they felt like there was much more to be said, more work to be done. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those that had. The three musicians collectively agreed that they would continue work together and try to push the music further. The Closest Thing to Silence is the result of their efforts to take the collaboration further.

Tracklist
1.1Ten Hour Wave
1.2Breathing In Three Orbits (Intro)
1.3Breathing In Three Orbits
1.4The Closest Thing To Silence
1.5Dizzy Ditty
1.6Une Ombre Légère
1.7New Air
1.8Écoute Au Loin
1.9A Treasure Chest
1.10Stay Centered
1.11Stack Attack More

First Word Records is very proud to present 'The Liminality of Her', a brand new 10-track album from their newest signing, Amanda Whiting; a highly-acclaimed Welsh harpist & composer.

A virtuoso in her field, this classically trained musician has quickly established herself as an essential player in the UK jazz scene, carving her own unique sound, following on from the paths forged by Ashby and Coltrane.

Amanda recently joined the First Word label roster, via a collaborative project with Don Leisure, 'Beyond The Midnight Sun', as well as a feature on his Welsh Music Prize nominated project 'Shaboo Strikes Back'.

She's previously toured extensively with her own band, as well as with Matthew Halsall, Rebecca Vasmant, DJ Yoda and Chip Wickham (who also features on this new project), whilst previously releasing three solo albums on Jazzman Records, and a remix project for Scrimshire's Albert's Favourites imprint. Along the way, there's been a nomination for 'Instrumentalist of the Year' from Jazz FM and she's garnered the support of DJs such as Radio 2's Jamie Cullum ("highly recommended") and BBC 6Music's Cerys Matthews ("my highlight of the Cheltenham Jazz festival 2023").

This 10-track album exemplifies Amanda's talents as a performer and composer, taking in an array of hypnotising sonics from the worlds of jazz; from fusion to spiritual and beyond. She is backed with accompaniment from a remarkable set of players in their own right, including Chip Wickham on flute and PEACH. on vocals. A confident display of purposefully blissful compositions that saunter as much as they soothe, whilst being unafraid to lean into some deep uptempo grooves.

Amanda describes the theme of this project as "liminality... that place in between, the transition from one place to another. No longer what it was, yet not what it's going to be.

The harp always presents itself at these moments. It's a sound that causes an emotion. My instrument chose me. It's been with me through every chapter of life. It's how I speak, especially when there are no words.

This album is a rite of passage for "her". A feeling of alchemy, a feeling of liberation. Moments of inner searching, intertwined, waiting but moving forward. Never looking back.

'The Liminality of Her' encompasses the highs and the lows. The nomadic love of freedom and spirituality. It's all so much bigger than you or I…"

From the cinematic, classical fusion of 'After Dark', to the more playful 'Lost in Abstraction', this album invites you to float in a soundscape of liminality...

'The Liminality of Her' is released on vinyl & digital worldwide, March 22nd 2024. More

SKYLLUMINA represents a new evolution of London-based, Italian-born composer, bassist, and vocalist Ruth Goller.

Goller is known for her bass and vocal work with Alabaster DePlume, whose music she elevates in live contexts with her genre-less improvisational intuition, and an incredibly diverse résumé that includes performance and recording with Bex Burch’s Vula Viel, Shabaka Hutchings, Rokia Traore, Melt Yourself Down, Sam Amidon, and even a very brief moment with Paul McCartney.

For SKYLLUMINA, her International Anthem debut, Goller expands upon the concept of her first solo album Skylla – de-tuned bass harmonics with layered voices – this time collaborating with a different drummer on each track. “As a bass-player, I love playing with drummers and I decided to focus on my close connection to that instrument and to the amazing people I met in my life who play it,” says Goller. “There were some who played tuned percussion as well, so it would give me another element to explore.” Her accompanists on the album include The Smile's Tom Skinner, go-to London drummer Seb Rochford, Berlin-based International Anthem labelmate Bex Burch, and ex-pat Chicago legend Frank Rosaly. But more importantly, the music is an immersive hyperfocus for Goller and her patently distinct, singular compositional vision.

SKYLLUMINA, despite its highly conceptual origins, is heavy with human emotion. Its dark washes of melody and contrapuntal percussion could fit easily into a mixtape with indie downbeat / ennui royalty like Grouper or Low, while also being right at home next a Cage-Tudor prepared piano piece. And the piercing, sibi
lant ice age siren song heard in Goller's powerfully feminine vocal arrangements find her in an otherworld only occasionally inhabited by the likes of Björk and The Knife.

Goller says: “This record is deep insight into my soul and my recent life. it’s coming through a meteor storm and grasping the first light. Coming out of a very unexpected tumultuous time there is a lot of feelings of grief, loss, hope, purest of love, connection to my home, death and new configurations as well as self-discovery.”

Tracklist
1.1Below My Skin
1.2Reach Down Into The Deepest White
1.3Of Snowhere
1.4Next Time I Keep My Hands Down
1.5All The Light I Have, I Hand To You
1.6She Was My Own She Was Myself
1.7How To Be Free From It
1.8From Breaks To Shreds It's A Short Path
1.9Don't Follow Me
1.10I Have For You - Simple Truth More

In March of 2023 Mercury Prize nominated composer & alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London's Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece - gratitude - for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra More

Repress!

Here is the debut, self-titled album from a.s.o., singer/songwriter Alia Seror-O'Neill, and producer Lewie Day. 'a.s.o.' is a thematic consolidation of the previous three singles and an impressive artistic progression. Day and Seror-O'Neill show they've mastered the format of the radio-friendly pop song and found how to subvert it completely. Across eleven songs, they have built a rich and compelling body of work.

We know where we are now, emotionally complex, trip-hop torch songs for club freaks. But the palette has broadened to encompass ethereal dream pop à la Cocteau Twins, slow-burning AOR-soul, and dubwise stylings. As a result, 'a.s.o.' is a satisfyingly coherent listen but never a musical monoculture. Variously there are nods toward Julee Cruise, Fleetwood Mac, and the uneasy listening of Portishead. It's an album that wears its influences lightly, is never weighed down by them, and always sure of its own identity.

It's anchored by Alia's unique voice. Her words speak of restraint and release, taking us from the elegiac to the euphoric. This elegantly crafted, perfect pop music sounds like it has had enough of your shit. And Day's music is the perfect foil; deep, slightly menacing, restrained, and powerful. The album has a cinematic texture, as with David Lynch; the seemingly familiar becomes uncanny and strange the closer we look. a.s.o. take our emotions for a joyride before leaving us floating in space.

'a.s.o.' is a journey; by its end, we all are changed.
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Il Quadro di Troisi presents La Commedia Everything changes, all things evolve: four years after their eponymous debut, Il Quadro di Troisi return with a new album and a new line-up. The perfect circle traced by Eva Geist (aka Andrea Noce) and Donato Dozzy (aka Donato Scaramuzzi) becomes a triangle with the permanent addition of Pietro Micioni, who collaborated in the previous recordings and had been part of ll Quadro’s live set. Nothing stays the same, and the world is a lot different from what it was in 2020. The global crisis generated by the constant escalation of conflict and by the pandemic was mirrored by a time of individual crisis and personal, often irreversible transformation that underscored the entire period of the album’s composition. The influence of these turbulent times is felt in the writing: La Commedia is about turning a crisis into an opportunity and using change as a catalyst for rebirth. Much like the characters in classic Italian comedies, who are masters in using irony to face life’s hardships, Il Quadro di Troisi explores the vast and unpredictable terrain between the lighter and darker sides of the human experience, matching the magical with the mundane. La Commedia is about the many facets of life: each song is named after an archetype (e.g. the truth, the night, the Earth, the prophet), as though our existence were a tarot deck and its reading an exercise in collective consciousness. La Commedia marks the band’s embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi’s music – classic Italian songwriting with an electronic spin – meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless. La Commedia celebrates the band’s cultural roots while constantly moving into new territory, balancing nostalgia with a forward-thinking approach. La Commedia is a rare gem that confirms Il Quadro di Troisi’s relevance in the international music scene, as demonstrated by the number of top-level artists featured on the album: from Suzanne Ciani, a legend and a pioneer of independent music with a career spanning five decades, to Aimee Portioli, aka Grand River, a Dutch-Italian musician, composer and sound designer based in Berlin, along with Francesca Colombo’s eclectic violin (the de facto “fourth angle” of Il Quadro di Troisi’s frame), Fiona Brice’s strings, cultural agitator and icon of the Roman underground scene Stefano Di Trapani (aka Demented Burrocacao and a member of Trapcoustic and System Hardware Abnormal, among other projects), Maestro Daniele Di Gregorio, an excellent musician and a longtime collaboration of songwriting legend Paolo Conte, and Tommaso Cappellato, whose professional description goes well beyond “drummer” and who has been working with artists like Rabih Beaini and Maurice Louca. The cover of the album, as well as those of the singles, was designed by Francesco Messina, another icon of Italian music. Messina is a longtime Franco Battiato collaborator and co-author, a cult musician (his Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo, made in collaboration with Roul Lovisoni, is considered a seminal record by the alternative Italian music scene), as well as a photographer, visual artist and the author of legendary record covers. More

SKYLLUMINA represents a new evolution of London-based, Italian-born composer, bassist, and vocalist Ruth Goller.

Goller is known for her bass and vocal work with Alabaster DePlume, whose music she elevates in live contexts with her genre-less improvisational intuition, and an incredibly diverse résumé that includes performance and recording with Bex Burch’s Vula Viel, Shabaka Hutchings, Rokia Traore, Melt Yourself Down, Sam Amidon, and even a very brief moment with Paul McCartney.

For SKYLLUMINA, her International Anthem debut, Goller expands upon the concept of her first solo album Skylla – de-tuned bass harmonics with layered voices – this time collaborating with a different drummer on each track. “As a bass-player, I love playing with drummers and I decided to focus on my close connection to that instrument and to the amazing people I met in my life who play it,” says Goller. “There were some who played tuned percussion as well, so it would give me another element to explore.” Her accompanists on the album include The Smile's Tom Skinner, go-to London drummer Seb Rochford, Berlin-based International Anthem labelmate Bex Burch, and ex-pat Chicago legend Frank Rosaly. But more importantly, the music is an immersive hyperfocus for Goller and her patently distinct, singular compositional vision.

SKYLLUMINA, despite its highly conceptual origins, is heavy with human emotion. Its dark washes of melody and contrapuntal percussion could fit easily into a mixtape with indie downbeat / ennui royalty like Grouper or Low, while also being right at home next a Cage-Tudor prepared piano piece. And the piercing, sibi
lant ice age siren song heard in Goller's powerfully feminine vocal arrangements find her in an otherworld only occasionally inhabited by the likes of Björk and The Knife.

Goller says: “This record is deep insight into my soul and my recent life. it’s coming through a meteor storm and grasping the first light. Coming out of a very unexpected tumultuous time there is a lot of feelings of grief, loss, hope, purest of love, connection to my home, death and new configurations as well as self-discovery.”

Trackliste
1.1Below My Skin
1.2Reach Down Into The Deepest White
1.3Of Snowhere
1.4Next Time I Keep My Hands Down
1.5All The Light I Have, I Hand To You
1.6She Was My Own She Was Myself
1.7How To Be Free From It
1.8From Breaks To Shreds It's A Short Path
1.9Don't Follow Me
1.10I Have For You - Simple Truth More