Makaya McCraven - Universal Beings (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING October 26, 2018)

Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In The Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced & re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation & experimentation In The Moment established a procedural blueprint that he has since been sharpening & developing. 

Honing this process on narrower sets of source material, Makaya followed up In The Moment with 2 mixtape releases – 2017’s Highly Rare, a lo-fi free-jazz-meets-hip-hop suite he made from a live 4-track recording, and June 2018’s Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape), which he produced using live recordings from London jazz hub Total Refreshment Centre (captured at a showcase called CHICAGOxLONDON). 

Now, after 4+ years of refining his approach, Makaya McCraven puts forth an ambitious new work – Universal Beings – a culmination of concepts conceived by In The Moment, and his most elegant & articulated work yet.

Spurred by a desire to connect with old friends & new collaborators in places where similar spirits & diasporic jazz innovations are thriving, Makaya worked with International Anthem across late 2017 & early 2018 to setup intimate live sessions in New York & Chicago, and pop-up “studio” sessions in London & Los Angeles. Though the contexts and logistics were D.I.Y. (as they almost always are with IARC), the friends & friends-of-friends that Makaya was able to enlist are top tier players across the board. Some might call them super groups of “new” jazz musicians from their respective cities, with Makaya as a common denominator. But more importantly, collectively they make an inspiring display of the organic global inter-connectedness of the Black American music tradition in 2018. 

Physically spanning national & international borders to create an album that musically spans deep spiritual jazz meditations, pulsing post-bop grooves & straight-ahead boom-bap, Makaya McCraven defies the simplifications of revisionism & regionalism while celebrating the sounds, settings & stories that define the provenance of his work. Universal Beings projects an all-encompassing message of unity, peace & power by embracing transcendence in all its expressions.

1. A Queen's Intro

2. Holy Lands (feat. Brandee Younger)

3. Young Genius (feat. Joel Ross)

4. Black Lion (feat. Dezron Douglas) 02:56

5. Tall Tales (feat. Tomeka Reid)

6. Mantra

7. Pharaoh's Intro

8. Atlantic Black 09:10

9. Inner Flight

10. Wise Man, Wiser Woman (feat. Shabaka Hutchings)

11. Prosperity's Fear (feat. Junius Paul)

12. Flipped OUT

13. Voila (feat. Daniel Casimir)

14. Suite Haus (feat. Nubya Garcia)

15. The Newbies Lift Off (feat. Ashley Henry)

16. The Royal Outro

17. The Count Off (feat. Carlos Niño)

18. Butterss's (feat. Anna Butterss)

19. Turtle Tricks (feat. Jeff Parker)

20. The Fifth Monk

21. Brighter Days Beginning (feat. Josh Johnson)

22. Universal Beings (feat. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson)

Tracks 1-6 (New York Side) recorded live @ H0L0,

Ridgewood, Queens, NY, August 29th, 2017.

Brandee Younger (harp)

Joel Ross (vibraphone)

Tomeka Reid (cello)

Dezron Douglas (double bass)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

Tracks 7-11 (Chicago Side) recorded live @ Co-Prosperity Sphere,

Bridgeport, Chicago, IL, September 2nd, 2017.

*Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone)

Tomeka Reid (cello)

Junius Paul (double bass)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

Tracks 12-16 (London Side) recorded @ Total Refreshment Studios,

Stoke Newington, London, UK, October 19th, 2017.

Nubya Garcia (tenor saxophone)

**Ashley Henry (Rhodes piano)

Daniel Casimir (double bass)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

Tracks 17-22 (Los Angeles Side) recorded @ Jeff Parker's house,

Altadena, Los Angeles County, CA, January 30th, 2018.

Josh Johnson (alto saxophone)

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (violin)

Jeff Parker (guitar)

Anna Butterss (double bass)

Carlos Niño (percussion)

Makaya McCraven (drums)

*Shabaka Hutchings appears courtesy of Verve Label Group

**Ashley Henry appears courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited

Recorded & Mixed by David Allen & Dave Vettraino

Artwork by Damon Locks

Insert Portrait by Fabrice Bourgelle

Insert Design by Craig Hansen

Produced by Makaya McCraven

Executive Production by Scott McNiece

Makaya McCraven - Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape) INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING 2018

1. Makaya McCraven, Joe Armon-Jones, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia - Halls 03:49

2. LeFtO (feat. Soweto Kinch) - McCraven On The Mic 03:09

3. Makaya McCraven, Joe Armon-Jones, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia - Ox Tales 06:22

4. Don Leisure (Darkhouse Family) - Suite For Artis Gilmore 03:02

5. Earl Jeffers (Darkhouse Family) - Jupiter Jawn 03:15

6. Makaya McCraven, Joe Armon-Jones, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Kamaal Williams - The Oracle 03:18

7. Makaya McCraven, Joe Armon-Jones, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia - The Bounce! 02:53

8. Ben LaMar Gay - King Drive, '86 Cutlass, No Plates 03:38

9. Makaya McCraven, Joe Armon-Jones, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia - Run 'Dem 07:27

10. Emma-Jean Thackray - Too Shy 03:02

11. Quiet Dawn - Drums&Bruk&FeelTheVibe 03:03

12. Makaya McCraven, Joe Armon-Jones, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia - Birthday Solo 01:21

13. Lexus Blondin - TRC Thank You Outro 00:43

14. Makaya McCraven, Soweto Kinch, Kamaal Williams - Where We Come From 01:11

Recorded live at Total Refreshment Centre 18 & 19 October 2017 (CHICAGOxLONDON).

Live recordings mixed at Total Refreshment Studios 20 & 21 October 2017.

Remixed live at Total Refreshment Centre 22 October 2017 (FRESH ROASTED: Live Beat-Making & Battle).

Performed by Makaya McCraven - drums; Soweto Kinch - saxophone, voice; Theon Cross - tuba; Joe Armon-Jones - Rhodes piano; Nubya Garcia - saxophone; Kamaal Williams - keys.

Remix Production & Additional Overdubs by LeFtO; Don Leisure & Earl Jeffers (Darkhouse Family); Ben LaMar Gay; Emma-Jean Thackray; Quiet Dawn; Lexus Blondin.

Mixtape Production by Makaya McCraven

Recorded & Mixed by Dave Vettraino & David Allen

Recording Assisted by Matteo Musetti

Edited by Makaya McCraven

Mastered by David Allen

Photography by Fabrice Bourgelle

Design by Raimund Wong

Associate Production by Alejandro Ayala, Tina Edwards & Lexus Blondin

Executive Production by Scott McNiece

Special Thanks: Will Savery, Steven King, Garrett Shelton, Lauren Kasper, Mark Pallman, David Burkhart, Lori Mendoza, Angel Bat Dawid, Ken Okuda, Simbad, Stella Kun, Emma Warren, Lexy Morvaridi, Oran Maneti, Will Shanahan, Kim Alpert, Junius Paul, Jaimie Branch, Tomeka Reid, Alexander Hawkins, Tina Richard, Aly Gillani, Kristian 'Capitol K' Robinson, and Gus.

Dos Santos - Logos (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING June 15, 2018)

Dos Santos is a quintet just 5 years working in Chicago but already established as one of the city’s most potent, impactful performers. A band known to be at home in a broad spectrum of venues and contexts – as proficient at nailing epic progressive arrangements for summer street festivals in the Latinx culture hub of Pilsen as they are at extended improvisational, experimental cumbia sets on the jazz-centric cabaret stage of the California Clipper, or the Chinook Lounge of The Hideout – Dos Santos’s elasticity & consistency in live performance has earned them an enthusiastic & highly diverse audience in the too-often segregated Chicago music scene. In recorded output, the sound established by their first EPs & singles garnered them wider attention for their ability to rekindle & re-present vintage sounds. But anyone with more than a distant perspective on their musicianship & aesthetics would know not to over-simplify Dos Santos as purely a psychedelic/cumbia revivalist outfit. Dos Santos have been steadily tipping forward into something more future-minded & universal this whole time, something that transcends the nationalism many of us are desperately trying to depart from, but don’t have the vocabulary to fully escape. "Logos," their International Anthem debut, is a bold & vulnerable push into this transcendence, the band’s effort to proactively poeticize the future in sound. 

“Chicago-born,” “progressive,” “boundary defying,” & “unique sounds” are all sentiments from our label’s mission statement. And though, on the surface, Dos Santos may seem like a departure in the narrative flow of our catalogue & community, this band & this album truly epitomize what we strive to cultivate & present. Over several Summer 2017 sessions at IARC HQ Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Wayward Machine Co storefront & the basement of Dos Santos drummer Daniel Villarreal-Carrillo’s home (all on the same 3200 block of Morgan Street in the Southside Chicago neighborhood of Bridgeport), the band settled into comfortable confines with The Daves (engineers Vettraino & Allen), making space to improvise, incubate & innovate. What’s heard on the ultimate product of this homegrown process (Logos) is Dos Santos laying their voices bare, at once aware of cultural context, informed by aesthetic precursors, and yet fully irreverent to expectations or how any of this might be “appropriately” employed. Whether through the balladic melodrama of “caminante,” the noir-cumbia refrains of “purísima,” the afro-psych gallup of the title track “logos” (which features the Antibalas horn section), the Tortoise on TNT-resounding guitar phrases of “coda,” or the Tame Impala-like Juno synths of “manos ajenas (touch you every day),” each composition offers a bridge into a sonic landscape that speaks to histories of migration and arts of living that have been central to everything from house music to blues, Latinx punk to salsa in the City of Chicago. Logos presents an idealized new progressive American music, as rooted in Chicago as it is communicable with the world.

1. acábame

2. córdva

3. return y regreso

4. logos

5. caminante

6. purísima

7. manos ajenas (touch you every day)

8. how far are we from here?

9. coda

10. sole party

11. (you are) my revolution

Alex Chavez - vocals, guitar, keyboards, percussion

Jaime Garza - electric bass

Nathan Karagianis - guitar, vocals

Peter "Maestro" Vale - congas, percussion

Daniel Villarreal Carrillo - drums, percussion

w/ cameos by

Ben LaMar Gay - cornet (on "return y regreso" and "caminante")

Roger Reeves - spoken word (on "sole party")

and the ANTIBALAS horn section

Martín Perna - baritone saxophone

Morgan Price - tenor saxophone

Jordan McLean - trumpet

Eric Biondo - trumpet

arranged by Nick Mazzarella (on "logos" and "(you are) my revolution")

Recorded & Mixed by Dave Vettraino & David Allen.

Edited by Alex Chavez & Dave Vettraino.

Mastered by Shelly Steffens.

Artwork & Design by Craig Hansen.

Executive Production by Scott McNiece.

Anteloper - Kudu (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING 2018)

ANTELOPER is the electric brain child of JAIMIE BRANCH (fly or die, high life) and JASON NAZARY (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes forward, swinging its horns all the while.

1. Oryx 09:10

2. Fossil Record 04:43

3. Lethal Curve 10:54

4. Ohoneotree Suite 15:21

5. Seclusion Self 09:47

recorded live at carefree studios in bk by ian hersey on june 20, 2017

all tunes written by jaimie branch (BMI) and Jason Nazary (BMI) except ohoneotree suite (pt 1) and seclusion self written by jason nazary

produced by jaimie branch & jason nazary

edited by jason nazary

mixed by dave vettraino

mastered by david allen

artwork by jaimie branch

design by craig hansen

Ben LaMar Gay - Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING May 4, 2018)

"Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun" is as much a 'greatest hits' as it is a 'debut album' for Ben LaMar Gay. It's a collection of music composed, performed & produced by the anomalous Southside Chicago-born, sometimes Brazil-residing artist, compiled from 7 albums he made over the last 7 years but never made the effort to actually release. 

With its title taken from the mantra Ben repeats across several tracks on "Grapes" (1 of the 7 aforementioned albums), "Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun" is our effort to channel the rainbow of sonic expressions, art & poetry beaming from the ark of his unreleased catalogue into a cohesive & communicable compilation. It's as good of an introduction to Ben LaMar Gay as we could fit onto a single LP. To call it "eclectic" would only scratch the surface. This music is everything.

1. Vitus Labrusca

2. Muhal

3. Music For 18 Hairdressers: Braids & Fractals

4. Jubilee

5. A Seasoning Called Primavera

6. Miss Nealie Burns

7. Me, JayVe & The Big Bee

8. Uvas

9. Galveston

10. Swim Swim 03:22

11. Kunni

12. Melhor Que Tem

13. Gator Teeth

14. 7th Stanza

15. Oh no...not again!

Compiled & Sequenced by Scott McNiece & Ben LaMar Gay

Mastered by David Allen