Alabaster DePlume - GOLD (April 1, 2022 International Anthem)

The lightning rod for Alabaster DePlume’s luminous follow up to the widely-acclaimed 2020 release To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 was personal. “Someone was going through a thing,” says the Mancunian poet-performer. “I said, ‘go forward in the courage of your love’. And then I thought 'yeah, that's what I need to hear as well’.”

Gold is a sonorous double album that celebrates the communal act of making music and the relationships that can be explored when you purposefully avoid the standard way of doing things.

It contains filmic pieces that oscillate between the otherworldly and the trenchantly grounded, rendered maximally human through the recording process. There is laughter mid-track and studio chatter. There is the music of shouting and applause generated by a handful of people who were listening from the doorframe and the corridor. Complex vocal harmonies circle the songs like small birds and there’s an undercurrent of steely toughness, necessitated by the musician’s engagement with personal vulnerability and collective politics.

In late summer 2020 Alabaster DePlume (real name Gus Fairbairn) booked two weeks of sessions at the influential Total Refreshment Centre in London, recording to tape with Kristian Craig Robinson (aka Capitol K). He invited a different set of musicians each day, who would record the same tunes at the same speed so that DePlume – who produced the record – could cut them together later, like ingredients. “They didn’t have enough preparation to be able to hide behind this piece of material or skill,” he says. “They had to look up and respond to each other, and that’s what we've recorded.”

There were two rules that were essential to the process: that musicians wouldn’t be given enough time to rehearse and that they wouldn’t listen back to the music they recorded. “The method is part of the mission. It wasn’t like school. We had mayhem. We were having fun. That’s the story and the process – and I want to live that way,” he says.

The singer and percussionist Falle Nioke’s solo on “Again” is an example of the album’s unusual and liberating recording process. The tune was planned as an instrumental but Falle sang out spontaneously, and stilled the room with his arresting contribution. “He was just one voice in the choir but he suddenly sang lead because he felt it,” says DePlume. “It’s one example of what we were able to record,” he says, “because people felt genuinely personally welcome. Their own voices were made welcome. That is what this album is made of and it’s what the best things in our society are made of. We can either make people welcome or we can make them unwelcome; unseen.”

After the recording, the artist made a map, because frankly he needed a map after recording more than 17 hours of music. The map dictated which bits of each session to pull into the orbit of the record and it was drawn on a long scroll of paper with lines drawn across it, each line representing one analog tape. The triangles, dots and colors – red for fire, pink for beauty and blue for breath – shaped what emerged. The map has since been requisitioned for a gallery exhibition, and a photograph appears on the Gold artwork.

The music that emerged ranges from sparse understated bangers “Fucking Let Them” and the hypnotic pulse of “Visitors XT8B – Oak” to skilfully soothing instrumentals which will feel familiar to the many people who found To Cy & Lee a pandemic panacea (including Bon Iver, who sampled that album’s top track, “Visit Croatia”).

Gold opens with the Portuguese-titled “A Gente Acaba” which itself opens with the hum of voices, rich and human. There are gentle strings, gently strummed. The saxophone leaves vibrating trails in the air. “The Sound of My Feet On This Earth Is A Song To Your Spirit” is beauty and breath, generating the kind of deep warmth and connection that requires no lyrical explanation.

There is circularity. One piece of music arrives and leaves repeatedly, and a phrase is repeated:

I have all I need for the glory of being. I recognise you and celebrate. I am brazen, like a baby, like the stupid sun and I go forward in the courage of my love.

“I’m Good At Not Crying” is a self-accusatory lullaby that lists out the things he excels at (not eating much, not being the bad guy) whilst plaintive and harmonically-rich singers spill and spiral around the low tones of his voice.

On “People What’s The Difference” he unpicks the selective deafness that surrounds the refugee crisis within a gentle punk-funk frame and towards the end, there’s a lament for the broken earth marked out with plucked strings and harmonies that dip in and out like sharp bells. Softness, in the hands of this Mancunian poet-performer, can be a weapon.

“The reason for To Cy & Lee was to help people have peace,” he says. “The reason to make Gold is to give people courage and love by putting myself in a situation where I had to bring courage and love. It’s how I made it, it’s what it’s about. It’s what we need next.”

This is the sound of an artist attempting full transparency and maximum relationship. It is also the sound of an artist who has achieved the sound he hoped for. This is the sound of soft power. It’s golden.

- album writeup by Emma Warren 

1. A Gente Acaba (Vento Em Rosa)

2. Don’t Forget You’re Precious

3. Fucking Let Them

4. The World Is Mine

5. The Sound Of My Feet On This Earth Is A Song To Your Spirit

6. I'm Gonna Say Seven

7. Do You Know A Human Being When You See One?

8. Visitors YT15B – Jerusalem, Palestine

9. I’m Good At Not Crying

10. Now (Stars Are Lit)

11. Again (feat. Falle Nioke)

12. Mrs Calamari

13. People: What's The Difference?

14. Visitors XT8B – Oak

15. Who Is A Fool

16. I Will Not Be Safe

17. Visitors YT15 – Krupp Steel Condition Pivot

18. Broken Like

19. Now (Pink Triangle, Blue Valley)

Alabaster DePlume – tenor sax, guitar, synths and voice

Falle Nioke – voice, percussion

Rozi Plain – guitar

Sarathy Korwar – drums, tabla

Tom Skinner – drums

Kenichi Iwasa – percussion

James Howard – guitar

Tom Herbert – double bass

Natalie Pela – voice

Rosa Slade – voice

Elly Condron – voice

Luisa Gerstein – voice

Matt Webb – double bass

Michael Chestnutt – synths

Ursula Russell – drums

Conrad Singh – guitar

Hannah Miller – cello and voice

Donna Thompson – voice

Paddy Steer – synths and percussion

Danalogue – voice and synths

Matthew Bourne – piano

Dilip Harris – Small clone and mimeophon

Produced by Alabaster DePlume.

Engineered by Kristian Craig Robison at Total Refreshment Centre.

Mixed by Dilip Harris.

Mastered by Greg Obis at Chicago Mastering Service.

Artwork by Raimund Wong.

Photography by Chris Almeida.

Scan of the map by Fabrice Bourgelle.

Layout and insert design by Craig Hansen.

Special consultation on production and mix engineer from Danalogue.

Sequencing consultation from Scottie McNiece.

Titling consultation from poet Chris Almeida.

Management consultation from Stephen Bass.

PRE-ORDER

Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer - Recordings from the Åland Islands (March 11, 2022 International Anthem)

In 2017 Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer traveled together to the Åland Islands (an archipelago that is host to around 6,500 islands) in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. They headed to the islands with the intention of helping two friends (mother/daughter duo Jannika/Sage Reed) barn raise a small inn named Hotel Svala in Kumlinge (a municipality consisting of a small group of islands and a population of about 320). The idea was that, once completed, Svala would host artist residencies and workshop programs, creating a direct link between the islands and the USA.

The concept of recording music there came about as Honer & Chiu learned more and more about the islands. They were taken by the serene and strange quality of the place. The sun doesn’t set in the summer (and barely rises in the winter). The network of miniature islands is traversed by ferry which, according to Chiu, “casts a surreal horizontal movement through space and time, with islands shifting into and out of periphery, totally still and calm, yet always in motion.”

In 2019 they were awarded a grant from the Department of Culture to return and perform a concert at the Kumlinge Kyrka, a 14th century medieval church adorned with incredible frescos. The concert was recorded and became source material – along with improvisations on viola and electronics, pipe organ, pump organ, piano, synthesizers, field recordings and voice memos, all captured across both their trips at various locations on the archipelago – from which they meticulously crafted a post-script in the form of 'Recordings from the Åland Islands'.

Easing listeners into the feeling of the place, the album’s opening track “In Åland Air” is a dream-like haze that slows time, invoking the feeling of descending by plane onto the archipelago, a place Chiu recalls as “lush with a gentle, brackish breeze...” On “Snåcko,” a track named for the island next to Kumlinge, the music becomes a transportive portrait, painting in sound “the romantic and gentle atmosphere of the forests in Åland — a place where your eyes slowly adjust to the rainbow-colored moss covering granite boulders. Walking around, you find the forest floor blossoming with blueberries, currants, and flowers...”

The longest and darkest movement in the collection, “Archipelago,” encapsulates “the experience of being surrounded in the vast network of islands” with a dense cloud of slowly modulating string layers, improvised by Honer in an empty swimming pool at Svala. “The heaviness of the track,” says Honer, “is a reference to the deep darkness experienced during the Nordic winter days.” But the plaintive atmosphere of that penultimate piece is succeeded with the triumphant final movement of the album, “Under the Midnight Sun,” which bellows forth like a vibrant chorus of melodious sighs, echoing classic sounds from Jon Hassell’s 'Vernal Equinox', or Franco Battiato’s 'Clic', or Brian Eno’s 'Another Green World'.

Just as two eyes, two ears, and two halves of a brain work together to create a memory, on their duo debut, Honer and Chiu’s collective pallet produces a vivid three-dimensional hyperreality of painterly tones and textures – bright and kaleidoscopic, but with a deeply warm, earthen resonance. The music evokes a powerful sense of place, transporting and immersing listeners in the other-world of the Åland Islands. And though they achieve this in beautifully natural, organic manner, Chiu & Honer agree this album is quite unlike anything they’ve made before, and likely unlike anything they’ll make in the future.

...about Chiu & Honer...

The combination of modular synthesizer and viola is an uncommon one, but Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer manage to create a distinctive dyad that comes together with grace and truth. They’ve accomplished this by bringing much more than their respective axes to the table. Years of collaboration, cohabitation, shared experience, and separate but equally inspired commitments to utilitarian cultural work bind their disparate timbres together into a singular aesthetic reality.

The two artists met, appropriately, as members of a large ensemble performing Terry Riley’s “In C,” for an annual concert organized by Bitchin Bajas at Chicago modern music hub Constellation. Honer & Chiu had been living and working in Chicago for a long time, both active members of the notoriously interconnected improvisational and experimental music scenes, but they were somehow previously unintroduced. Chiu’s musical CV to that point included work with bands like Icy Demons and Chandeliers, but he was mostly known for his visual and graphic design work as Some All None. Honer had primarily worked as an instructor in Chicago, as well as a member of the ensemble Quartet Datura. In 2014, a year after their first collaboration, together, they decided to migrate to Los Angeles to continue developing their respective careers and crafts in sunnier climes.

Relocation to Los Angeles has proven to be fruitful for both artists. Honer has since become a first-call session player for the likes of Adrian Younge and Beyoncé. She’s also played on recordings by Chloe x Halle, Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes, and Stanley Clarke, among others, including five recordings with Grammy nominations. Along with her session work, Honer is on the music faculty at California State University. Chiu has expanded his visual work in numerous capacities, in addition to becoming an active intersectional community organizer, and refocusing his musical practice to electronic music composition and sound art. He’s also become an Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design; has exhibited/performed at The Getty Center, LACMA, and other distinguished locales; has become a resident programmer for Dublab; and has generated a strong unit of regular musical collaborators that includes Celia Hollander, Booker Stardrum, Ben Babbitt, Dustin Wong, Takako Minekawa, and Sam Prekop. Chiu has also designed album artwork for several International Anthem releases, including Angel Bat Dawid's Transition East, Dos Santos's City of Mirrors, Jeff Parker's Forfolks, and JP's Myspace Beats. 

1. In Åland Air

2. On the Other Sea

3. Snåcko

4. Stureby House Piano

5. Rocky Passage

6. Kumlinge Kyrka

7. Voices

8. By Foot By Sea

9. Anna's Organ

10. Archipelago

11. Under the Midnight Sun

Written, performed, and produced by Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer.

Recorded in various locations on the Åland Islands.

Jeremiah Chiu – piano, organs, modular synthesizer, Crumar Performer, Juno-60, CS01, OP-1, bass guitar, and field recordings.

Marta Sofia Honer – viola, Crumar Performer, and hand chimes.

Processing on "In Åland Air" by John McEntire.

Additional field recordings on "Stureby House Piano," "Voices," and "By Foot By Sea" by Sean Pecknold.

Flute on "Archipelago" by Stephen Honer.

Edited and arranged in Kumlinge, Chama, and Los Angeles.

Mixed by Jeremiah Chiu, Dave Vettraino, and Regina Martinez at International Anthem Studios, Chicago.

Mastered by David Allen in Portland.

Cover image by Joyce Kim.

Verso images by Marta Sofia Honer.

Layout by Jeremiah Chiu.

PRE-ORDER

Jeff Parker - Forfolks (December 10, 2021 International Anthem)

Album liner notes by Matthew Lux:

Years ago when Jeff and I were in a band together, I always insisted that our records could not have any liner notes. I was enthralled with the idea that imparting any information beyond the music itself was heresy. As if whatever the sound didn't convey needed to be left to the listener. Somehow, I was able to hold this opinion while simultaneously voraciously consuming every record jacket, CD cover, cassette J card and whatever else I could get my hands on regarding any music that interested me. Many years and finally the making of my own album forced me to confront my cognitive dissonance and recognize context can help the audience find their place in the art that they enjoy. That context is especially necessary when the artist is as under-appreciated yet influential as Jeff Parker.

When I met Jeff, he was the first adult (24 years old to my 18) whose musical taste was as broad as mine and my friends. He liked Eric Dolphy, De La Soul, ‘70s Miles, and Donny Hathaway. We first played together in the living room of my parents’ apartment. We agreed to each bring a friend to round out a group. He brought the amazing and criminally under-represented Sara P. Smith on trombone, and I brought my high school band mate Chad Taylor on drums. Chad and I were certainly outclassed that day, but nevertheless we all became fast friends. A few weeks later, at our regular jam session at the Bop Shop, I told my girlfriend (now wife) to pay attention to Jeff. "He's going to be important," I said.

The Chicago that Parker had moved to was ripe with young musicians eager to push at the boundaries. There weren't many venues catering to these new attempts at mixing things up, but slowly a number of great bands coalesced out of a group of like-minded friends, mixing everyone's backgrounds whether punk, disco, jazz or whatever. I clearly remember going to see New Horizons Ensemble at the Hothouse with Jeff, then a few weeks later going to the Empty Bottle to see Tortoise. Within months he'd be in both those bands. He was instrumental in forging a link between players with different styles that helped define the sound of creative music in ‘90s Chicago.

It's a particular thing to hear Jeff play solo. He is an unusually selfless improviser, often times laying out and highlighting the contributions of his band mates. He's never been one to play three notes where none would suffice. On this recording however he is by himself, joined only by his own ideas, looped or frozen, to flesh out the music he's creating in his mind. Hearing him craft entire sound worlds on these eight selections gives us an opportunity to really see how Parker orders sound.

He has been ordering sound with an amazingly diverse array of artists and collaborators for the past three decades. While it's common for a professional musician to be versed in many styles, that normally means a succession of genre tropes deployed to ensure the listener knows exactly where they are and what's supposed to be happening. A guitarist, for example, might play a Nile Rogers type rhythm on Disco or Funk, a favorite B.B. King lick on a blues or a Wes Montgomery phrase over a standard. Parker rarely does anything this overt. While perfectly capable (Once, in the studio, at the behest of a musician we were working with, I heard him take a solo that could have been an outtake from a Steely Dan album), he eschews genre playing and chooses a painterly approach to coloring the music, maintaining a deeply personal voice without weighing down the music with obvious stylistic maneuverings. His unique approach fits so well into so many contexts precisely because SOUND is his main focus and concern. One can clearly hear the breadth of Black Music in Parker’s playing. He is part of a continuum of musicians extending back to antiquity.

The structures here challenge our preconceptions of background and foreground. ALL the layers are primary. We are presented with fully integrated sonic developments rather than accompaniment, melody, or "soloing". Often times a solo album is an excuse for an artist to display their virtuosity. The idea being, possibly, that unencumbered by other musicians, the soloist is free to ride off on flights of fancy. But a career spent in the practice of subtlety is thankfully apparent in every song here. On Forfolks, a standard of the Great American Songbook fits comfortably next to multi-layered improvisations, a Thelonious Monk tune, and several compositions of Parker’s own, dating back twenty-five years.

Monk, I find to be an apt comparison. Both men were deeply involved in some of the most progressive musical movements of their respective generations, neither gaining much renown at the time, but both kept on doing things in their own quietly iconoclastic ways until the world caught up with them some twenty years later. I was fortunate enough to recognize the first time I heard Jeff Parker thirty years ago that I was witnessing something very special. 

1. Off Om

2. Four Folks

3. My Ideal

4. Suffolk

5. Flour Of Fur

6. Ugly Beauty

7. Excess Success

8. La Jetée

Jeff Parker - electric guitar

Engineered by Graeme Gibson at Sholo Studio in Altadena, California on June 28th & 29th, 2021.

Mixed by Graeme Gibson in Cypress Park, Los Angeles, California on July 15th & 16th, 2021.

Sequenced by Scott McNiece.

Mastered by David Allen.

Photography by Lee Anne Schmitt.

Liner Notes by Matthew Lux.

Design by Jeremiah Chiu.

Produced by Scott McNiece.

PREORDER

Ben LaMar Gay - Open Arms to Open Us (November 19, 2021 International Anthem)

Prologue by Ben LaMar Gay:

Growing up, spending summers in Alabama, one of my favorite chores was feeding the pigs that were on my great Aunt Lola’s land. Sometimes while on the path to the feeding grounds, Aunt Lola and I would stand still and listen together. We would immediately become aware of winds approaching through wavering pines, quail songs and the chatter of distant cousins just up the road.

Once she told me that during a certain time of day she can hear her father hammering away in the field near the old house where she grew up. Even though her father was long deceased, she could clearly hear the rhythm and feel his presence.

This was my first conscious experience with thermodynamics and its first law that states energy can neither be created nor destroyed, just transferred. The moment, environment, memory, and open listening of my great Aunt allowed a sound from the past to resonate in the present for my 7 year old ears.

The awareness of a moment, environment, memory, and open listening are also the makings of a great improviser. With the idea of freedom being a “dangling carrot” for most, my now mature and “forever learning” ears have realized that improvisation is the one freedom that we all have access to. I remember the clarity of my great grandfather’s hammer. The silence in between each strike was what drew Aunt Lola and me in, closer. From that moment on, I’ve carried my curiosity of the world inside my front pocket at all times.

This experience is at the root of this bundle of sound, Open Arms to Open Us.

I started visualizing this music during the Spring of 2020, in the global thickness of being faced with mortality in a different way. If not mortality, faced once again with the crumbling of societal facades. Things aren’t okay. Things have never been okay, at least in this brief period of the planet where man sells and kills for ownership of the earth.

Along with brief feelings of dismay and desires of survival, I began to think about future ears and the continuation of magic with or without me. I often found myself wondering: What can I leave behind for the young people in my life? These young messengers, these young creatives, these young listeners who know me or have heard about me from their parents via stories, pictures, or sounds from the house/car stereo.

All I could think about was my nieces and nephews… blood and beyond. If they ever look back and wonder what their uncle/their messenger was thinking about during this interesting time or rotation of the earth, I want them to know that I was thinking about them, the future of this circle, the future of this curiosity, the future of this exploration. I spent my time believing in them.

Open Arms to Open Us deals with rhythm as an inheritance of information – sort of like DNA or RNA. Coping with the present-day bombardment of data and recycled ideologies from sources essentially fed by the creed “Destroy Them. Own the Earth” often leaves me with only one thing to look forward to: Rhythm. More than anything, I’d like my babies to always trust in rhythm. It’s the one trueness that travels great distances and constantly survives the crumbling of facades.

While living inside the interesting rotations of the earth, we are constantly dealing with man-made loops that often leave us with questions such as: Who constructed this loop? Who does this loop benefit? Who does this loop exploit? How can I survive in this loop? How can I destroy this loop? Maybe if we reach beyond the generic names and virtuosic execution of rhythms to better understand the dialogue between rhythms and our bodies we could release the message that has been carried for centuries inside of them. These messages sent from the ancient and future loved ones could possibly be the key to revamp, upgrade, tweak, quell, and pacify particular loops.

Open Arms to Open Us is full of rhythm or information that will assist my young folk in dealing with the repetition of things that aim to harm them or stunt their holistic progression. The title is a suggestion of a body movement that is used in many spiritual practices and is also a gesture that represents a type of understanding that leads to touch or a hug. The music is for dancing, reflecting, celebrating, bellowing, bawling, stimulation, focus and deciphering messages from loved ones here and beyond. It was the space in between the sound of my great grandfather’s hammer that made me understand that, no matter what, We Gon Win.

1. Sometimes I Forget How Summer Looks On You. (feat. Ohmme)

2. Hood Rich Happy

3. Bang Melodically Bang

4. Aunt Lola and the Quailo

5. Mestre Candeia's Denim Hat

6. Oh Great Be The Lake

7. I Be Loving Me Some Of You

8. Nyuzura (feat. Dorothée Munyaneza)

9. Slightly Before The Dawn

10. Lean Back. Try Igbo (feat. Onye Ozuzu)

11. Dress Me In New Love

12. Touch. Don't Scroll (feat. Ayanna Woods)

13. I Once Carried A Blossom (feat. A.Martinez)

14. In Tongues And In Droves (feat. Tomeka Reid)

15. S'Phisticated Lady (feat. Gira Dahnee & Angel Bat Dawid)

16. We Gon Win

Ben LaMar Gay – cornet, voice, organ, balafon, synths, temple blocks, programming, manipulations, percussion, cítara, bass synth, triangle, pandeiro, beatbox, kick drum, things

Tommaso Moretti – drums, xylophone, percussion, thangs

Macie Stewart – voice

Sima Cunningham – voice

Matthew Davis – tuba, trombone

Angela, Leia, Mina – a mother raises her daughters up to the mic (ooh Ahh AHH Ooh), voices

Johanna Brock – violin, viola, light

Tomeka Reid – cello, voice, luz

Rob Frye – flute, percussion, ears, tings and tungs

Ayanna Woods – voice, electric bass, light, ¡FreshNuss!

Adam Zanolini – soprano saxophone, oboe and swang

Xoco, Hannah, Francesca, Angela, Adam, Benjamin – Love Choir Dorothée Munyaneza – voice

Onye Ozuzu – voice, Igbo alphabet

Rain – pouring

A.Martinez – poem

Gira Dahnee – Florida version

Angel Bat Dawid – Louisville recollections

Leia, Angela, Xoco, Alyssa, Mina, Benjamin – facts

All songs composed by Ben LaMar Gay (Tobany G Sound ASCAP), except "Nyuzura" composed by Ben LaMar Gay & Dorothée Munyaneza, and "I Once Carried A Blossom" composed by Ben LaMar Gay & A.Martinez

Recorded March - June 2021 at International Anthem Studios, Chicago

Produced by Ben LaMar Gay & Dave Vettraino

Engineered & Mixed by Dave Vettraino

Mastered by Dave Cooley

Art by Ayanah Moor

Layout & Insert Design by Craig Hansen

PREORDER

Irreversible Entanglements - Open The Gates (November 12, 2021 International Anthem)

Irreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album OPEN THE GATES is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us. Let’s watch and listen, as this platter snakes through the sandy ashes of possible histories, dialogs with a nervous present, and asks to be birthed into a holographic new future. “Together in holy sound!” the band stitches patient anthems out of atmosphere. Pulling from a wider sonic vocabulary than on previous excursions, the agit-jazz found here is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalypse, as bass lurches in a tranced-out loop, horns are up in the track grooves like poltergeists playing in the streets, poetry cascades like a warrior call at a satsang, the drums both wild and refined pulse with uhuru-heart cadence. This is Irreversible Entanglements on new ground; same as the old ground.

And we need it now – the universe was awash in the sickly static veneer of anti-cosmos, of anti-nation; the halls were emptied, our shadows echoing and staining the walls of our abandoned oases – so we poured out into 2020’s wild streets. The ghosts of our labor danced around the sickness as we set fire to our old ways of thinking and moving, as we set fire to cop cars and bashed in the windows of our own rising disenfranchisement. “Open the gates!” we shouted, blessed be – we need it now!

Here come Irreversible Entanglements – Luke Stewart, the high priest on bass; Aquiles Navarro, the electric universe in human form on trumpet; Keir Neuringer, the cosmologist with the siren sound on sax; Tcheser Holmes, the griot, the myth-maker on drums; and Camae Ayewa, the Moor mother with an empyrean pen game – on this new disc with their fierce aural tectonics shifting the earth, their watery post-pangea as dirge, their punk rock ethos and crash and bang polyrhythmic super-sonic sound synesthesia in the form of OPEN THE GATES – here it comes, my Brothas and Sistas, here it comes.

1. Open the Gates

2. Keys to Creation

3. Lágrimas Del Mar

4. Storm Came Twice

5. Water Meditation

6. Six Sounds

7. The Port Remembers

Camae Ayewa - voice, synth

Keir Neuringer - saxophone, synth, percussion

Aquiles Navarro - trumpet, synth

Luke Stewart - double bass, bass guitar

Tcheser Holmes - drums, percussion

Recorded on January 5th, 2021, at Rittenhouse Soundworks, Philadelphia. Mixed in April, 2021, at International Anthem Studios, Chicago. Mastered in May, 2021, at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles.

Produced by: Camae Ayewa, Keir Neuringer, Aquiles Navarro, Luke Stewart, and Tcheser Holmes.

Recorded by: Michael Richelle.

Mixed by: Dave Vettraino.

Mastered by: Dave Cooley.

Cover Photo by: Cyrus Moussavi.

Back Cover & Liner Photos by: Bob Sweeney.

Liner Notes by: Alex Smith.

Design & Layout by: Craig Hansen.

Executive Production by: Scott McNiece & David Allen

PRE-ORDER

Jamire Williams - But Only After You Have Suffered (October 29, 2021 International Anthem)

'But Only After You Have Suffered' is a densely layered and deeply personal new work from multidisciplinary artist, composer, percussionist & producer Jamire Williams.

Conceived as a spiritual, autobiographical artistic statement, Jamire applies sound collage practice to modern jazz composition, beat production, MC/vocalist features, and his uniquely impressionistic drumming style – making an album as akin to minimalist painting as an art-house film soundtrack or a classic hip-hop mixtape. A “self-reflective, almost testimonial work” that swiftly cycles across a vast spectrum of styles, it's the culmination of his five-year musical journey to the outer reaches of his own sound. It’s the album he has always wanted to make.

To do so he engages his faith and the friends and family that shaped him, working with a host of close collaborators in a free and spontaneous manner. The shared musical, communal, and spiritual sensibility gives the album its sense of unity. “It’s a whole work,” Jamire explains. “It flows seamlessly, and it’s meant to keep playing until you really understand all the messages, prayers, and cries.”

Across twelve multi-faceted tracks, he brings together artists from his hometown of Houston (vocalists Corey King, Lisa E. Harris, Fat Tony, Jawwaad Taylor), those he became close to over several years living in LA (Sam Gendel, Zeroh, Mic Holden, Josh Johnson, fellow International Anthem artist Carlos Niño), and other creative partners from his life-long journey in sound (Chassol, Svet, Kenneth Whalum).

As such, 'But Only After You Have Suffered' builds its own world from the pull between Jamire’s jazz heritage - eleven years as a drummer in NYC recording with world-renowned musicians like Jason Moran, Christian Scott, and Dr. Lonnie Smith - and the experimental, narrative art-pop of his more recent work with Solange, Moses Sumney, and Blood Orange.

Its origins can also be traced to his 2016 solo percussion album '/////// Effectual' (released by Leaving Records) - a turning point for Jamire, who has since embarked on a process of stripping back and breaking down his musical identity, creating a new sound from the fragments that most speak to his experience as a musician and a person.

Rooted in his faith, Jamire opens the album with “Hands Up,” a devotional hymn cut against the stark reality of the modern world that sounds like an apocalyptic middle-grounding of Kendrick Lamar’s 'To Pimp A Butterfly' and Merry Clayton’s “Gimme Shelter.” Whether in the rousing, spiritual “Just Hold On” or the fluid verses of Fat Tony on “Safe Travels,” the music exists in the tension between higher realms and social realities - what Jamire calls the “duality of a personal thing and what I’m seeing in my community, in the Black community, as a Black man.”

The album reaches its climax on “Pause In His Presence,” which features a chilling operatic performance from Lisa E. Harris, recorded in one take off the back of a single conversation and a shared vision between the two artists. “Every time I hear that song, I cry,” Jamire says. “It’s so real.”

Having recently moved back to Houston, the release of 'But Only After You Have Suffered' marks a moment of Jamire coming full circle. A literal homecoming and his arrival as an undeniably multi-faceted artist in his own right. 

1. Hands Up

2. Bow (feat. Corey King)

3. Ugly (feat. Mic Holden)

4. Just Hold On

5. Take Time Look Up (Jawwaad Speaks)

6. Safe Travels (feat. Fat Tony & Zeroh)

7. C'est Un Mot

8. For The Youth (feat. Corey King)

9. Pause In His Presence (feat. Lisa E. Harris & Sam Gendel)

10. No One Knows

11. When It Gets Dark (feat. Kenneth Whalum)

12. And Then The Anointing Fell

Jamire Williams – drums, vocals, drum programming, samplers, mellotron, synthesizer, sequencer, electric piano

Brandon Owens – bass guitar

Burniss Travis – bass

Carlos Niño – percussion

Chassol – keyboards, synthesizer, programming

Corey King – vocals

Daniel Aged – bass guitar

Fat Tony – vocals

Flash Gordon Parks – turntable

Jason Arce – bass clarinet

Jason Moran – piano

Jawwaad Taylor – vocals

Joelle Corey – vocals

Josh Johnson – mellotron, synthesizer, programming

Kenneth Whalum – vocals

Lisa E. Harris – vocals

Matthew Stevens – lead guitar

Mic Holden – vocals

Mike Haldeman – guitar synthesizer

Paul Cornish – midi strings

Peter Lee Johnson – strings & string arrangement

Sam Gendel – guitar synthesizer, alto saxophone

Svet – vocals

Zeroh – vocals

Produced by Jamire Williams.

Recorded & Mixed by Jake Viator at Stones Throw Studios in Los Angeles, CA.

Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters, Los Angeles, CA.

"Safe Travels" contains a sample of the recording “I Need Your Love” performed by Skip Mahoaney & The Casuals, courtesy of The Numero Group. Written by Skip Mahoaney & James Purdie. Published by Dust Index (BMI). Used with permission. All rights reserved.

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Dos Santos - City of Mirrors (October 15, 2021 International Anthem)

This album is an assemblage…

…glimpses of tradition

…reflections on our collective present

…luminous echoes between love and solitude.

hope and absurdity.

euphoria and mourning.

This album grapples with and transgresses these binaries because we have/and continue to cross borders. Yet, for us, the border is no metaphor—too much real staring back at us.

We embody the border.

We (our families) have crossed it.

We (our stories) are coated with its residues.

And so… we cross the border of self through our art—out of necessity.

This album was imagined while touring the country as families were corralled in cages.

We then fled the wildfire of a nascent pandemic poised to (especially) ravage our communities as we recorded in Los Angeles.

And our sonic journey concluded in Chicago while the country rebelled against the murderous consequences of policing in the U.S.

Through this cascade of tipping points and tragedy, we summoned melody and verse to sound out verdant technicolor dreams of freedom and desire, mirroring the vortex of our time.

And borders were at the center of these struggles.

Borders—of nation, of belonging—are the struggle.

And so, this album is a set of dispatches from that wondrous journey…

…our journey across and into a sunburst surreal.

…our astral meditations on loss and triumph.

…our sonic trek across a landscape of trauma and effervescence.

…The border divides and defines places—yes. But it is equally a place unto itself—a borderland.

It is the forbidden place where we dwell.

The enchanting space where we are at home.

The bustling city where we reflect.

Look into our mirror. See us in you. 

1. A Shot in the Dark

2. Alma Cósmica

3. A Tu Lado

4. City of Mirrors

5. Glorieta

6. White. Lies.

7. Palo Santo

8. Crown Me

9. Ghost. Me.

10. Soledad

11. Cages and Palaces

12. Jaguar de Rosas

13. Lejos de Ti

Alex Chavez – vocals, keyboards, guitars

Jaime Garza – electric bass

Nathan Karagianis – guitars, sampling, programming, keyboards, vocals

Peter “Maestro” Vale – congas, percussion

Daniel Villarreal – drums, percussion

Elliot Bergman – baritone saxophone (track 2), clarinet (track 4), upright bass (track 13)

Martín Perna – baritone saxophone (track 4), flute (track 5)

Produced by: Elliot Bergman

Recorded and Edited by: Michael Craver & Elliot Bergman

Mixed by: Michael Craver

Mastered by: Dave Cooley

Original Artwork by: Amara “Rebel Betty” Martín

Additional Artwork by: Estudio Pneuma

Design by: Jeremiah Chiu

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Carlos Niño & Friends ||| Jeff Parker solo guitar from International Anthem / Live Stream Ticket + Digital Album

Date

July 11, 2021

Start time

5:00 AM GMT+2

Producer/percussionist Carlos Niño celebrates the release of his new International Anthem LP 'More Energy Fields, Current' with a quartet performance featuring friends Surya Botofasina, Efa Etoroma Jr, and Pablo Calogero.

The night opens with a special solo guitar set by Jeff Parker.

DJ sets before & between by heavyweight selectors - in from Chicago - Ayana Contreras and King Hippo.

Presented by International Anthem & Gold Diggers

Includes unlimited streaming of More Energy Fields, Current via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Buy Now  $9 USD or more 

This live stream is hosted on Bandcamp, and requires a free Bandcamp fan account to view.

A replay of this stream will be available for 24 hours

In Republic of Jazz

Angel Bat Dawid - Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology (June 2021 International Anthem)

1. Corn=Rowzz 04:11

2. Negro Hamlet 01:53

3. Sunday Meeting of Colored People in Chicago 04:10

4. 'Goree, ' or Slave - Stick 02:12

5. Heathen Practices At Funerals 05:56

6. Black Family, Beaufort, South Carolina, 1862 03:10

7. Jumping the Broom 06:33

8. El Quitrin - The Joy of Livin 02:21

9. Mama Bet 03:59

10. A Young Negress, Studying The Game Of Ouri 03:31

11. Husband Of The Queen Of Walo, Wolof 03:17

12. Negroes Leaving Their Home 03:43

All instruments, vocalz, and synths performed, produced, recorded, arranged & mixed By Angel Bat Dawid.

Mastered By Najee-Zaid Searcy.

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Jaimie Branch - Fly or Die Live (May 21, 2021 International Anthem)

Full flight capture of the full Fly or Die suite, parts 1 & 2 compounded & flawlessly communicated in a singular epic of raw cosmic brilliance.

Full story in the words of Piotr Orlov here:

There is a moment near the top of jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE LIVE, the new album recorded by the trumpeter’s quartet in Zurich, Switzerland on January 23rd, 2020, which feels like it bears the weight of both that specific pocket of time, and a prophecy for all that was soon to come. branch and her Fly or Die crew — cellist Lester St. Louis, double bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer/percussionist/mbira player Chad Taylor — had just kicked off the concert at Moods, with the opening tracks off their then-new studio album FLY or DIE II: Bird Dogs of Paradise, the second of which, “Prayer for Amerikkka” is among the best political songs written during the Tr*mp Era, and when the moment in question pops off.

The multi-part “Prayer” begins as a goth-blues stomp, its moaning ghosts flying around the room. A week into a European tour and after three months of constant live performance, Fly or Die is at home in this new song’s contours, messing with its internal machinery while guiding its meaning. By now, “Prayer” had gained a tough spoken-word intro, bringing the context as it slowly gearshifts the intensity: “It’s a song about America,” off-the-cuffs branch while the band seethes behind her, “but it’s about a whole lotta places — ‘cause it’s not just America where shit’s fucked up...” Then arrives the climax, at once site-specific and far-reaching: “...and it’s not always time to be neutral, do you know what I mean?”

The gathered Swiss crowd knows, understands, and responds vocally, as Taylor’s backbeats cue branch to bring the trumpet to her lips, and let out a high-pitched wail. Her horn doesn’t know what’s about to happen to our world, and yet, somehow, it does — with only the catastrophic details needing to be worked out. For the next 12 minutes, “Prayer” careens through its twists of wide-eyed racism and family separation, Ajemian and Taylor driving branch’s punk-jazz Morricone horn line. “This is a warning, honey…” cries the song, and over the ensuing 70 minutes, the band echoes its sentiment, filled with glee and terror.

Where were you in January of 2020, those last moments of the Before Times? Where was your mind, your body, your soul? Did you have plans, hopes and aspirations for the oncoming calendar trip around the sun just starting its initial turn? Were you embroiled in the turmoil continuing to roil the feeds and the headlines, or steeling yourself for the ones that we all knew were incoming during an especially contentious American election year? Maybe both. Or maybe you felt there was some hope blowing in the air.

“There was so much promise for the year,” remembers branch. A world of possibilities was certainly pending for Fly or Die leading into 2020 and that Zurich gig. The group was in their favored environment, the stage, where their individual relationships had been molded. branch and Ajemian had been playing together since the mid-’00s in Chicago, and admiring Taylor’s work with the Chicago Underground and at the city’s legendary Velvet Lounge jam-session for just as long.

When Fly or Die made its debut at Brooklyn’s Manhattan Inn in 2016, they made up three-quarters of the band. branch and St. Louis met in 2015 after jaimie first moved to New York, while St. Louis was working at the Spectrum club where branch played on occasion. (Soon St. Louis replaced original Fly or Die cellist Tomeka Reid, who departed the band to concentrate on her own myriad of commitments.) In the years since, this quartet had grown into a powerful unit, adept at conjuring musical environments that could be forceful and rhythmic one moment, and fragile the next.

“So much of what the band is about is the trust between the players and the rapport on stage,” says branch. “The trust means no one's going to drop the ball. The band is all improvisers, that's a really key thing. (A lot of people improvise, but not everybody's an improviser.) And I feel like this band especially is made up of them. So much of the music is led with the ears first.”

On Fly or Die’s sophomore album Bird Dogs of Paradise, which dropped in October 2019, branch had composed and recorded a batch of songs that showcased a political perspective and cutting sense of humor, balancing experimentalism and accessibility, party and erudition, “jazz” and the next thing. They were now headed out on the road to show off these songs — “the most touring this band would have ever done,” according to branch — integrating them in suite-like fashion with music from branch’s critically acclaimed 2017 debut. High on the work they were presenting, ready to lock into, and have some fun with it.

The late fall saw a month-long tour of Europe; December featured record release shows in LA, Brooklyn and Chicago; then in January, it was back to the EU for a two-week (no days off) sprint, of which the Thursday night at Zurich fell almost directly in the middle. The night before, January 22nd, at Oslo’s Victoria Nasjonal Jazzscene was an upbeat one — St. Louis’ partner had surprised him by flying in from the States; and branch, who earlier thought she’d lost a bag with her passport, documents and cash, had it returned by their van driver after the gig. (No reason for anyone to notice that the Coronavirus had made its debut on the front-page of the New York Times that day.)

The positive energy carried over to Switzerland. Soundcheck at Moods, “a big, nice theater in the middle of Zurich,” went well. branch had to talk the venue into the band doing one long set instead of two, but she also agreed to them making a multi-track recording of the set. “The vibe in the band was pretty high,” says Branch.

From the offset, it sounds like that’s the case on both sides of the stage. The calm before the “Prayer” storm finds Taylor’s mbira and branch’s muted horn in a gentle duet, interweaving textures and melodies. The storm’s aftermath, “Lesterlude,” is a St. Louis-bowed solo feature turn, moving the strings towards the noise. Each individual song connects to the next, performed in a continuous, no-stop style, a part of the group’s DNA on record as well as stage. By “Twenty-Three N Me,” they are beginning to stretch into free spaces, and the crowd’s timely enunciations betray the fact that the audience too is up on every note. “Whales,” an Ajemian-led interlude, brings the sound palette to the bottom of the ocean, before Taylor’s intricate, rim-heavy beat returns us to the surface and gets the debut album’s “Theme 001” rolling into a full-on dance number. Approving screams pile up. The quiet-loud/fast-slow alteration continues: Taylor solos softly (“Meanwhile”), before exploding alongside Ajemian to push branch on a supple, double-time swing (“Theme 002,” with branch in Cootie Williams mode).

Later Ajemian’s bass is joined by Taylor’s thumb-piano and St. Louis’ arco, before going on a solo stroll, upping the tempo and ending in the funky second-line swagger of “Simple Silver Surfer” (with great melodic counterpoint by St. Louis). It’s crisp and fun, the laughter in the audience answered on-stage. By the forever set-ending, self-indicting new-bar-standard, “Love Song (For Assholes and Clowns),” branch is conducting the sing-along. Then, soon, it is over.

So, how was it? At the time, Moods was just another stop on a never-ending tour. Italy next, we gotta go. The following month and a half was a blur too, amidst the increasingly dire headlines: the February Pacific Northwest dates found Fly or Die slaying PDX Jazz, but “we keep hearing whispers of this COVID stuff,” and less than 10 days after playing in Seattle, the city finds itself as the first American virus hotspot. In early March, before a gig at DC’s Kennedy Center, there’s a cancellation or two (“a little bit of gloom”). The following night at Brooklyn’s Roulette — the last gig many in attendance would see before quarantine — the bottom drops out (“six cancellations in an hour”). 

The tour ends, and everything stops. Forever — or what increasingly feels like it. Though a tape arrived from Zurich in early May, branch didn’t actually listen to it until the Fall. “I didn't want to be disappointed,” she says. Such was the headspace.

“I didn't have a memory of the show being an amazing show,” branch says. “But sometimes when you have zero memory of it being good or bad, those are the best shows. Because when you're in the zone, in those moments of channeling creativity, there isn't time for judgment. So oftentimes a memory is not created around that judgment, and that's actually a good indication.” When branch did pop the tape in, she was unequivocal: “I think this is like the best that we've ever played.”

Branch’s personal highlight of FLY or DIE LIVE also comes on “Prayer,” and it too speaks of something greater than what you’ll hear on the recordings, or that the audience at Moods is likely to have picked up on: “There’s a moment in Part Two of the song when Jason flips the bassline and there's this moment of weirdness, but nobody even stops—this is what I'm talking about with trust. So I just added half a bar more of a vocal, because I heard Jason got wonky. And then Chad added a [verbalizes a fill]. It's my favorite part of the whole record because I hear the mistake and I hear us bulldoze through it, turn the mistake into a dance — because that's really what it is at the core of all of this, music as dance.” No neutrality there either. 

1. birds of paradise

2. prayer for amerikkka pt. 1 & 2

3. lesterlude

4. twenty-three n me, jupiter redux

5. reflections on a broken sea

6. whales

7. theme 001

8. ...meanwhile

9. theme 002

10. sun tines

11. leaves of glass

12. the storm

13. waltzer

14. slip tider

15. simple silver surfer

16. bird dogs of paradise

17. nuevo roquero estéreo

18. love song

19. theme nothing

Jaimie Branch – trumpet, vocals, vibraslap

Lester St. Louis – cello, vocals, tiny cymbal

Jason Ajemian – bass, vocals, egg shakers

Chad Taylor – drums, vocals, mbira

Recorded Live at Moods, Zurich, Switzerland, 1/23/2020

Engineered by Thierry Looser

Mixed by Dave Vettraino

Mastered by David Allen

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Carlos Niño & Friends - More Energy Fields, Current (May 7, 2021 International Anthem)

'More Energy Fields, Current' is a definitive new peak in the recorded continuum of prolific producer/percussionist Carlos Niño. Featuring heavy contributions from many of the most exciting instrumentalists in the creative music constellation of Los Angeles (of which Niño’s has been a central force for over 2 decades), the album collects 10 pristine gems of collaborative communication helmed by the Southern Californian sage, elegantly presented in his unique “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage” style.

Starting with the subtle invitation of “Pleasewakeupalittlefaster, please…” (accompanied by the liner note from Niño: “We’re all in this together. I look forward to living in a much higher, much more conscious, harmonious state, here, with You, on this Magical Planet Earth.”), a gorgeously-keyed canonic infinity by pianist Jamael Dean articulates an Earth-loving, universalist ethos that imbues the entire 44 minute program. While the sonics shift and evolve, gracefully placed in patient order across subsequent track highlights “Nightswimming” (featuring Dean and Dntel on modular synth), “Thanking the Earth” (featuring multi-instrumentalists Sam Gendel and Nate Mercereau, whom Niño has been working and bonding extensively with in recent years), “Salon Winds” (featuring Jamire Williams on drums and Aaron Shaw on flute), and “Togetherness” (featuring Dean and Devin Daniels on sax), the naturalist sentiments established in the exposition remain potently present.

The album is ripe with “ambient” passages that function like open portals between moments of consonance and clarity. But even in the occasional absence of drums, there is a powerful pulse implicit in the program’s frequency of consciousness. It’s a testament to Niño’s foundations as a DJ. His distinct ability to craft kinetic, cinematic sonic experience from dozens of independent, often rhythmically-ambiguous improvisational archive memories is more fluently displayed on 'More Energy Fields, Current' than anything we’ve heard from him to date. It resonates, lucidly, with the way Niño’s mentor Iasos – who is known to the world as an original founder of New Age music – has described his work: "Real Time Interactive Imagination, Flow Texturization."

On 'More Energy Fields, Current', Niño immerses us in the watery depths of his world, spiriting us like a submarine through exotic nether-leagues of untouched sound. And when we arrive at the final, book-ending piece “Please, Wake Up.” (an extended version of the opening theme with transcendental counterpoint by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings), it’s like a return, safely to shore.

1. Pleasewakeupalittlefaster, please...

Jamael Dean - Piano and Organ

Nate Mercereau - Guitar

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing, Editing

We’re all in this together. I look forward to living in a much higher, much more conscious, harmonious state, here, with You, on this Magical Planet Earth.

2. The World Stage, 4321 Degnan Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90008

Sam Gendel - Alto Saxophone and Pedals

Jamael Dean - Piano

Randy Gloss - Hybrid Drum Set

Carlos Niño - Percussion

Recorded and Mixed by Tomoaki Soto from Sunday, November 24, 2019

3. Nightswimming

Dntel - Modular Synthesizer

Jamael Dean - Piano

Jira >< - Beats

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Sound Design, Mixing, Editing

4. Now the background is the foreground.

Adam Rudolph - Drum Machine, Multi-Instruments and Production

Aaron Shaw - Tenor Saxophone

Jamael Dean - Yamaha DX7

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing, Editing

Thanks to Silvia Bianchi and La Terraza Magnetica / Madrid

5. Thanking The Earth

Sam Gendel - Vibraphone

Nate Mercereau - Guitar Synth, Multi-Instruments and Production

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Field Recordings, Mixing

Thanks to Ishmael Butler

6. Salon Winds

Jamire Williams - Drums, Painting

Nate Mercereau - Guitar Synth World

Jamael Dean - Prophet Keyboard

Aaron Shaw - Flute and Tenor Saxophone

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing

Recorded by Jason Lader on Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Thanks to Travis Lett, Mike D and Tamara Davis

7. Ripples, Reflection, Loop

Laraaji - Zither and Voice

Jamael Dean - Electric Piano

Sharada - Voice

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Sound Design, Mixing, Editing

Thanks to Alex Kelman of Third Side Music

8. Togetherness

Devin Daniels - Alto Saxophone

Jamael Dean - Electric Piano

Carlos Niño - Synthesizer, Percussion, Mixing

9. lasos 79 ‘til Infinity

Carlos Niño - Synthesizer, Chimes and Collage

Invite them in, say, “Yes, Come.”

10. Please, wake up.

Shabaka Hutchings* - Tenor Saxophone

Jamael Dean - Piano and Synth

Carlos Niño - Percussion, Mixing, Editing

Based on a Duet by Shabaka and Carlos recorded by Andy Kravitz

at Studio 4 West on Monday, March 11, 2019

Thanks to Scottie McNiece

*Shabaka Hutchings appears courtesy of Impulse!

Produced by Carlos Niño.

Mastered by David Allen.

Photos by Todd Weaver.

Indigo by Niki Tsukamoto.

Art Direction by Nep Sidhu.

Design and Layout by Craig Hansen.

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