Earthly Measures are proud to present the release of ‘El Búho - Cumbias Imaquinarias’, this time on wax with some added remixes.
'Cumbias Imaquinarias' is an EP that flows full circle with one of El Búho’s earliest inspirations for making electronic music; digital Cumbia. It was a scene that exploded out of Buenos Aires around 2008 and went global. The scene soon saturated and fell out of fashion, but gave birth to artists like Chancha Via Circuito, Frikstailers, El Remolon and was a big inspiration for him as a young producer.
For El Búho there was always something there; the entrancing magic of the Cumbia rhythm reimagined for the electronic dancefloor. Cumbia is a music that is globally connected but also so diverse, evolving and growing into many subshoots of this one simple rhythm. This EP presents three Cumbia’s and one Porro rhythm (a derivation of the Cumbia rhythm from the Colombian Caribbean which evolved into its own style).
Joining El Búho on remix duties for this release are ARN4L2, Lagartijeando, Auntie Flo, La Jungla, Earthly Measures x Dreems, La Forasteria and Sun Sone. Each artist offering a completely unique approach and their own magic touch to this El Búho masterpiece.
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- A1: Dekalog - Nymphea
- A2: The Secret Garden Suite
- A3: Mouvements Du Desir- L'amour
- B1: Forgotten We'll Be - Letter From The Father
- B2: Damage
- B3: When A Man Loves A Woman - Homecoming
- B4: Aberdeen
- B5: The Double Life Of Veronique - Van Den Budenmayer Concerto En Mi Mineur
- C1: Twilight- Transient
- C2: The Funeral- The Waltz
- C3: The Double Life Of Veronique - Les Marionnettes
- C4: Eminent Domain
- C5: Lost And Love
- D1: Queen Of Spain - End Credits
- D2: Three Colours Blue- Song For The Unification Of Europe
- D3: Requiem For My Friend - Lacrimosa
- D4: Love Song 1980
Album "My Life - Preisner's Music is a live recording from a concert held in November 2024 in Bielsko-Bia?a, marking the occasion of Zbigniew Preisner receiving Honorary Citizenship of his hometown, Bielsko-Bia?a.
This year, on May 20th, Zbigniew Preisner will celebrate his 70th birthday, and the album is a his gift he made to himself.
The album includes 17 iconic themes composed by Zbigniew Preisner among others from Three Colours, Decalogue, The Secret garden, The double life of Veronique, Damage, When a man loves a woman, Eminent Domain, Aberdeen, Mouvements du desir, Lost and Love, but also Lacrimosa from Requiem for my Friend in the interpretation of Dominik Wania.
Few words from Zbigniew Preisner:
"For years, I've been thinking about reducing my orchestral themes to a single instrument. As a composer, I pay special attention to melody-each of my compositions always has melodic themes.
Ten years ago, I met Dominik Wania, now a jazz star and a brilliant pianist who records albums for ECM. I knew he was the perfect person to bring my idea to life.
The concert you are about to listen to is the result of our collaboration, which has given me great satisfaction. Dominik Wania's interpretation went beyond my wildest expectations. I hope you will enjoy the album."
Reviews of the album:
"When I teach the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski at Columbia University, I always mention that Zbigniew Preisner is one of the world's greatest film composers. He has many fans among my students. And now there is a new album, a haunting distillation of his movie scores into solo piano performances. It demonstrates how he is the master composer of the tritone, trill and tremolo. Listening to his compositions in their own terms - separate from the cinema screen - foregrounds his distinctive and often plaintive melodies.
Because orchestration, lyrics and narrative function are absent, the listener can focus on the richness of the "standalone" music, beautifully performed by Dominik Wania. For example, the memorable score from Kieslowski's "Double Life of Veronique" now feels more ominous than lyrical. From "Mouvements du desir," the tinkling piano sounds grow into cascading notes that envelop the listener. Whether classical (as in "When a Man Loves a Woman" and "The Waltz from The Funeral") or jazz ("The Secret Garden"), the music reigns when there is no movie screen to distract us. This is equally true of the minor-key gems like "Dekalog" and the briskly upbeat "Transient from Twilight" (which invokes for me the joy of Jon Baptiste's compositions).
In addition to Preisner's scores, the mournful "Lacrimosa" is stripped down from a public performance - which included a choir - to a more personal evocation of grief via solo piano. Finally, listening to "Lost and Love" suggests that if Frederic Chopin and Keith Jarrett had an heir together, it would be Zbigniew Preisner".
Annette Insdorf, Film Professor Columbia University
Jackie Edwards voice can be heard on 100's of Ska, R&B. Soul and Rocksteady records.
In fact all the in carnations that evolved from Reggae.
He was at the birth of Island Records and his distinctive soulful voice has rightly given him the moniker of the Original Cool Ruler.
Jackie Edwards (b. Wilfred Edwards 1938,Jamaica)was a renowned singer from the early days and by 1959 had presented future Island Records owner Chris Blackwell with two outstanding tunes.
The first a sentimental ballad 'Your eyes are Dreaming' and a Latin beat tune 'Tell me Darling'.
His song writing skills were much in so demand and his popularity of such importance that when Chris Blackwell went to London in1962 to set up his record company he took his top Balladeer Jackie with him.
This would pay dividends when a UK group Blackwell had signed called The Spencer Davis Group went on to release two of Jackie's compositions 'Keep on Running' and 'Somebody Help Me', which topped the British charts in 1966.
We have compiled some of Jackie Edwards finest songs..all cool tunes in different Reggae styles but all sung to perfection..
Hope you enjoy the set....
- The Death Of A King
- The Killer
- A Cold Morning
- Crucify Me
- My Valentine
- Losing Hand
- Loner Perpective
- Lovely Suzy
- Son Of The Atom
- After The Night
- Glamosaurus Rex
- The Farmer
- The Soldier
- Melatonine 1,9
- To Please You All
- The Pagan Truth
- Life Goes Wrong
- It's Over (The Last Dance)
Second solo album by Arthur Satan, released on Born Bad, after 'So Far So Good', his pop solo debut, which was a pleasant surprise for fans of his notthat-garage group JC Satan 'A Journey That Never Was' is so big you'll need special furniture to accommodate this unreasonable, maximalist parade, crammed full with 1960s pop influences.
The record plays with heritage like a kid would unabashedly plan for a birthday party. No stupid treasure hunt, we're bowling with the heads of our foes, guitars are literally bleeding through the mix. T-Rex burgers, fountains of chocolate choruses dripping on Brian Wilson - shaped giant cookies: let's indulge. Each song is a musical family, each verse is an album, each riff is a title. In his Christmas gift list, Arthur probably circled absolutely every toy: his taste for completism never disappoints. He played almost every instrument, mixed the album and designed a whole graphic universe to go along with it. A visual artist by trade, also made a point of drawing a monumental fresco spreading out the fantasy landscape that haunts this album.
Elliott explores the emotions of fatherhood in real time, having composed this new collection of solo piano pieces from time of anticipation in early ’23 to birth and beyond. From deep and meditative moments, to playful and whimsical waltzes Night Light is the perfect accompaniment for the journey of raising a child.
- A1: Pop's Lolly (From "Tre Notti D'amore")
- A2: Dior Dance (From "Mondo Di Notte N 2")
- A3: Mani In Alto - M16 (From "Mani In Alto")
- A4: L'assassino (Titoli) (From "L'assassino")
- A5: Autoradio (From "Una Vita Violenta")
- A6: Tre Per Una Rapina (Titoli) (From "Tre Per Una Rapina")
- A7: I Dolci Inganni - M11 (From " I Dolci Inganni")
- B1: Dea Di Un Sogno (From "Un Tentativo Sentimentale")
- B2: La Notte Brava (Atmosfera Romantica) (From "La Notte Brava")
- B3: Danza Selvaggia (From "Il Figlio Di Spartacus")
- B4: Tema Di Doni (From "Niente Rose Per Oss 117")
- B5: Tema Di Titina (From "Toh È Morta La Nonna!")
- B6: Chorus In Fa (From "L'italia Vista Dal Cielo Emilia Romagna E Marche")
- B7: Tema Favola (From "Fratello Mare")
- B8: Le Altre - M10 (From "Le Altre")
- C1: Significa Amore (From "Travolti Da Un Insolito Destino Nell'azzurro Mare D'agosto")
- C2: Per Questa Notte - M20 (From "Per Questa Notte")
- C3: Addio Alexandra - M6 (From "Addio Alexandra")
- C4: Città E Campagna (Finale) (From "Città E Campagna")
- C5: Magic Of New York (From "Lucky Luciano")
- C6: Stampe Erotiche (From "Il Comune Senso Del Pudore")
- D1: Riavanti .. Marsch! - M25 (From "Riavanti... Marsch!")
- D2: Papà Funky (From "In Viaggio Con Papà")
- D3: What Is There To See? (From "Io E Caterina")
- D4: Io So Che Tu Sai Che Io So (Titoli) (From "Io So Che Tu Sai Che Io So")
- D5: Rag Arturo De Fanti, Bancario Precario (Tema Valzer - Piano Elettrico) (From "Rag. Arturo De Fanti, Bancario Precario")
Piero Piccioni undoubtedly was the most “dandy” of Italian film music composers. The most stylish one, in art as in life. On the centenary of the composer’s birth, CAM Sugar celebrates his art with a compilation that draws from both his well-know and lesser-known works, alongside a precious handful of tracks that, surprisingly, have remained fully unreleased until today. The result is a journey of rediscovery of the unique, dazzling and unmistakable sound of the Turin-born composer. The silky, sensual and emotional “Piccioni's touch” can be detected in every single composition he happened to work on during his long career which spanned jazz, bossa nova, funk, disco, and orchestral music. It is a touch that gives harmony and coherence to a corpus of soundtracks that stands out as one of the most prestigious and important discographies in the world: eternal music destined to last forever, without ever sounding out of place, just like the timeless elegance of Italy and Piccioni.
Das Quintett Bernd Noske (Gesang, Schlagzeug), Bruno Frenzel (Gitarre, Gesang), Ulrich Klein (Keyboards), Jürgen Goldschmidt (Bass) und Stefan Linke (Gitarre) nahm im Frühsommer 1982 die Langspielplatte „BÄNG“ auf. Wohl keiner der Beteiligten ahnte damals, dass es das vorläufig letzte Werk der legendären Formation sein würde. Die Band hatte nach Jahren progressiver Vorlieben, die sich insbesondere auf „Backdoor Possibilities“ und „Increase“ auswirkten, mittlerweile ihr Faible für transparente Rockmusik wiederentdeckt. Die Rückkehr zu griffigeren, direkteren Arrangements hatte allerdings keinerlei kommerzielle Ursachen. Birth Control waren ihren eigenen Vorlieben stets treu geblieben, hatten ihr Fähnchen niemals in den Wind gehängt und taten dieses auch angesichts der hereinbrechenden ‚Neuen Deutschen Welle‘ nicht. Typisch für Hauptkomponist Frenzel besitzen zahlreiche Texte dieses Albums dennoch anspruchsvolle, streckenweise gar apokalyptische Themen, die unüberhörbar die düsteren Visionen des Gitarristen präsentieren. Besonders sehenswert ist zudem nicht nur das frech-ironische Frontcover des Albums mit der Atombombenexplosion unter dem Rock von Marylin Monroe, sondern auch die Rückseite des Artworks, der die überwiegend vorherrschende Endzeitstimmung der Frenzel-Texte auch visuell untermalt. In einer Zeit, da die Neue Deutsche Welle und der angelsächsische Techno-Pop den Ton angaben, wurde das traditionell ausgerichtete Rock-Werk von Birth Control nicht mehr zur Kenntnis genommen und stand in Deutschland nur kurze Zeit in den Plattenläden. Für die Fans jedoch ist und bleibt „BÄNG“ eine Offenbarung!Dies ist die erste Wiederveröffentlichung auf Vinyl seit dem Original von 1982, sieht man von einer französischen Pressung von 1983 ab. Auf CD ist „Bäng!“ seit 1997 nicht mehr erhältlich gewesen und wurde nicht nur durch Bonus-Single-Versionen aufgewertet, sondern auch mit zwei bisher unveröffentlichten Livetracks.
- Mama Hum
- Crystals Forming
- Hold On
- Bc I Love Ya
- Really Love
- As You Want
- Ribbits
- The Paths We Travel
- Only Time Can
- Circadas
- Safe Place
- Rainbows
((( O ))) is unveiling her highly anticipated fifth studio album, ((( 5 ))), marking the latest milestone in her visionary series of releases. Continuing her tradition of fusing music with the rhythms of the universe, she has introduced the concept of 'MoondropDISABLEDs,' which are individual pieces of audio-visual art released every full moon. These 'MoondropDISABLEDs' are then compiled into an annual collection called 'Sundrops,' released on her birthday. ((( 5 ))) represents the fifth installment in this series, offering a mesmerizing blend of genres and sonic landscapes that reflect ((( O )))'s deep connection with nature and the cosmos. Each track is crafted to resonate with the energies of the lunar cycle during which it was created, offering listeners an otherworldly experience. Looking ahead, ((( O ))) aims to complete a full collection of 12 'Sundrops' by the year 2032, creating an unparalleled anthology of art that spans a decade and encapsulates the cycles of the moon. Her work continues to inspire a global audience with its innovative blend of music, visual art, and spiritual exploration.
In the words of ((( O ))): “Each 'Sundrop' is a reflection of my journey through life, intimately connected with the rhythms of nature. With ((( 5 ))) being my first fully-produced album, I invite listeners to join me in sitting with the moments in between, with the simplicity of instrumentals from sounds that I used from my journeys living in the Philippines, celebrating the beauty and power of our cosmic connection. I needed it to create space versus taking up more space in an already overwhelming world we live in now.
Micke & Lefty feat Chef - Live On Air - Live On Airis a double live album from
Micke & Lefty feat Chef, recorded in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk radio
- Volume One, a studio live session for DLF Radio's On Stageprogram, was
recorded during the 2020 pandemic - Volume Two captures a dynamic 2023
performance at the Blues Baltica Festival in Eutin, Germany
This double live album captures the trio's electrifying and intimate performances,
showcasing their mastery of acoustic blues. Featuring 25 tracks, including originals
and blues classics, from the band's live repertoire over the years. The album also
celebrates the trio's 25th anniversary."Reaching this milestone is incredible, specially
when this all started as a spin off of my main band. We wanted to share these
recordings as a tribute to our long journey and audience. This live album is a real deal,
raw performance as live as it can be with no overdubs" says Bjorklof."Original! Lively!
Entertaining! The trio's performance is as unique as it is high-quality. Bjorklof stomps
on an old suitcase instead of a bass drum, Lefty Leppanen wields his vintage guitar
with effortless mastery, and Mr. Chef's semi-acoustic bass adds depth. This Finnish
acoustic blues is dynamic, original, and captivating." - Deutschlandfunk
RadioReflecting on this dual release, Bjorklof states: "Blues has always been my
foundation, but I've explored it's many shades over the years. WithOuttakesandLive On
Air, I want to celebrate both the electric and acoustic sides of my musical journey. I
couldn't think of a better way to markmy 60th birthday than by sharing these two very
special albums with our fans
In celebration of their 35th anniversary, Leftover Salmon, the legendary
bluegrass-rooted jam band, will be releasing their new studio album, Let's
Party About It
Let's Party About It reaffirms their status as pioneers of blended bluegrass and
showcases their unmatched musical chemistry. For the first time ever, the band wrote
the album together in a single session as a group. Longtime friend of the band and
storied songwriter Aaron Raitiere (Lady Gaga, Lukas Nelson, Ella Langley, Lainey
Wilson, Anderson East, The Lone Bellow, Trace Adkins, and more) also joined the band
for the writing session. The resulting album captures the energy and camaraderie that
have defined Leftover Salmon's three-and-a-half-decade-long career.
The album was recorded at Compass Sound Studio (formerly Glaser Sound Studio,
aka "Hillbilly Central"), the iconic birthplace of Outlaw Country, with the band joined by
special guests such as Del McCoury (vocals), Sam Bush (fiddle, mandolin), Jason
Carter (fiddle), Jeff Coffin (saxophone), and more.
- Here Comes The Black Moon
- Liftoff In Stereo
- Trial By Fire
- The Clouds Will Drop Ladders
- Triumph Of The Metal People
- Frequency Converter
- Birth To Death In Slow Motion
- Dream Scientist
- Bird Wings
- Nudists Disc
- The Landing
- Under The Mountain
- Sonar
- Mercury
- The Valium Machine
- Spies
- Inside The Static Cult
- Then, In 2060 A.d
- Alum Rock
- Interruptor
- Slower
- Excerpt From Mount Hamilton
- 96:
- Spark Collector
Just as Duster's landmark debut album Stratosphere was making its first orbit, Clay Parton, Dove Amber, and Jason Albertini tracked a largely improvised companion capsule under their Valium Aggelein alter ego. An ode to '70s Kosmische, Hier Kommt Der Schwartze Mond is a skeletal space nap for the prozac generation. Remixed and remastered from the original 16 track analog tapes, the 1998 album has been adjoined by 15 period-appropriate bonus tracks. A fuzzy masterpiece, hidden in plain sight, by the most important slowcore band of all time.
- Free The Black Man's Chains
- Slave"" I Wanna Be Free
- It's A Sad Black World
- North To The Promised Land (Big Black Man)
- Black Is Black
- Fair Skin Man
- Gone Is The Laughter With You
- Somebody Bigger Than You And I
- Love (L.o.v.e.)
- Tomorrow The Sun Will Shine
- Soul President
- We Are Here (Finale)
Comes on Black & White Marbled Vinyl, complete with a printed inner sleeve featuring insightful liner notes. CHARLY RECORDS present the first ever reissue of the sought-after cult New York, gospel street opera, Free The Black Man’s Chains. The most intriguing, and certainly the most ambitious project on the city’s GSF label (see more stunning titles on GSF exclusively from Charly). The project had its roots in a trio of singles released by the mysterious Broad Street Gang in 1971. The first, on the Cougar label called “Fair Skin Man” and its two follow-ups “L-o-v-e Love” and the title track from the album “Free The Black Man's Chains”. Celebrated musicians on the sessions were Mitchell Rowe, Bobby Eli, Len Pakula, Daryl Hall, Ron Baker, Norman Harris, The Raelettes and strings arranged by Richie Rome. A project like Free The Black Man's Chains should have been perfect for the multi-media nature of GSF. The album could have led to a film in the way that it had for Jesus Christ Superstar, but instead like so many of the label's releases, the album failed to make its mark due to a lack of promotion. GSF would barely reach its second birthday before it – and its parent company – shut down. A Black Opera…
Mucha, AKA Amanda Butterworth presents a stunning double header for Frequency Domain's tenth birthday release. But when up against one of the most thoughtful, precise, yet loose and rave inducing producers in the history of synthesisers, there was only ever going to be one opening point being made here. Surgeon's remix is typically essential for any techno fan. So while the original 'Skin' is this patient, rhythmic but beat-less slice of post- (or pre-)club stuff, full of ecstasy moods and comedown overtures, Surgeon's take refocuses us on the repetitive vocal patterns and slaps a wonderful compelling broken kick underneath to create a proper dancefloor builder. B-side 'You Make Me Go Under' goes for a neo-Bjork style IDM leaning piece, which then gets a moody, apocalyptic Datassette cut to top off an exceptionally strong package. Buy it. Buy it now.
- A1: Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)
- A2: Je Vous Aime (I Love You)
- A3: I Believe To My Soul
- B1: Misty
- B2: Sugar Lee
- B3: Tryin' Times
- C1: Thank You Master (For My Soul)
- C2: The Ghetto
- D1: To Be Young, Gifted And Black
Donny Hathaway's first studio album Everything is Everything is a significant work in the realm of soul and R&B music, released in 1970. It marked an important point in Hathaway's career and showcased his exceptional talent as a singer, songwriter, and pianist.
The album was Hathaway's first release after being signed to Atlantic in 1969. Hathaway had already built a reputation early in his life, first as a gospel singer as a child under the name Donny Pitts. Raised in St. Louis, with religious influences, his grandmother Martha Crumwell was herself an accomplished gospel singer and guitarist. After dropping out of Howard University in 1967, Hathaway moved to Chicago, his birthplace, and started working on music for Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records label where he was a songwriter, producer, arranger, composer, conductor and session player.
Everything Is Everything was produced by Hathaway and Ric Powell, who plays drums and percussion on the album; Hathaway wrote or co-wrote five of the album's nine songs. Hathaway had met Powell while at Howard University, as well as the future Impressions lead singer, Leroy Hutson, who jointly wrote the hit song that would eventually make it on the album, "The Ghetto."
The track was mostly an instrumental, except for Hathaway's vocal ad-libs and his singing of the chorus. Hathaway and Hutson composed another socially conscious song for the album, titled "Tryin' Times." Other songs were split between covers (Ray Charles's "I Believe to My Soul" and Nina Simone's "To Be Young, Gifted and Black"), spiritual affairs ("Thank You Master for My Soul") and love songs ("Je Vous Aime (I Love You)").
Released in July 1970, the album peaked at No. 73 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and No. 33 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart.
This timeless classic is now reissued in the definitive deluxe 180-gram 45 RPM 2LP Analogue Productions (Atlantic 75 Series) format.
- A1: Specimen - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (12" Version)
- A2: The Sisters Of Mercy - Alice
- A3: Virgin Prunes - Pagan Lovesong (Vibeakimbo)
- A4: Sexbeat - Sexbeat
- A5: The Birthday Party - Release The Bats
- B1: Alien Sex Fiend - Ignore The Machine
- B2: Killing Joke - Follow The Leaders
- B3: The Cramps - Human Fly
- B4: The Cure - Let's Go To Bed
- B5: Siouxsie & The Banshees - Slowdive
- C1: The Cult - Resurrection Joe (Long Version)
- C2: Christian Death - Deathwish
- C3: Theatre Of Hate - The Hop
- C4: Soft Cell - Soul Inside
- C5: Wasted Youth - I Wish I Was A Girl
- D1: Flesh For Lulu - Roman Candle (12" Version)
- D2: Xmal Deutschland - Incubus Succubus Ii
- D3: Play Dead - Propaganda
- D4: Gene Loves Jezebel - Punch Drunk
- D5: The Meteors - My Daddy Is A Vampire
- A1: Guaguanco, Conga, Columbia
- A2: Ibu
- A3: Sumu Gaga
- B1: Oñi
- B2: Rumba Callejera
- B3: Danza Del Iyon
Basing himself off the works of Cuban guitarist-composers José Angel Navarro and Hector Angulo, Italian guitarist Walter Zanetti intimately recreates sacred Afro-Cuban batá drum songs on guitar. Santería draws heavily on music for its ceremonies. This Afro-Cuban syncretic religion, sometimes called La Regla de Ocha, saw the Orisha deities of the West African Yoruba peoples codified with Catholic saints. Yoruba practitioners, brought by force to the West, continued to worship their gods under the nose of those who sought to dehumanize them by adopting their spiritual language. The chants that became Santería’s prayers were often accompanied by the beat of the batá drum. This heartbeat runs through every invocation, through every sacred song. In the same way that the shuffling chains on the feet of enslaved African peoples dancing defiantly in Colombia birthed the distinctive rhythm of cumbia, syncretism has been present in music as much as it has in religion. It has always been about challenging the odds, about creation, creativity, and heart.
- Your Reflection
- Bottleneck Blues
- Cry On Command
- Oh, Joy
- Ella Vive Sola
- Tm Joint
- Ender Neutral
- Can't Recall My Dreams
- Something Moving
- Pale Grey Light
- Just Love You
- Invasive Species
Native New Yorker, Paco Cathcart is an important progenitor of the NYC underground that birthed the likes of Water From Your Eyes, Palberta and Lily Konigsberg. Down On Them is Paco's first record by their own name after 100+ releases under the name The Cradle. "Down On Them" is about Paco's NYC homeland and living in these strange and often dark times. The record features some of the NYC's best players.
- A1: Love To All Doulas! 03 52
- A2: Some Rest For The Midwives . . . 07 19
- A3: Real Vital Organs 03 57
- A4: Surges, Expansions 02 43
- A5: In Appreciation Of Chico Hamilton's Vast Influence On The West Coast Sound 02 44
- B1: Birthworkers Magic, And How We Get Hear . . . 07 21
- B2: This "I" Was Not 02 37
- B3: Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy 09 03
- C1: Carla's Beads 01 51
- C2: Moonlight Watsu In Dub 04 34
- C3: Generous Pelvis 04 26
- C4: Bi-Location 09 08
- D1: Play Kerri Chandler's Rain" 17 32
black 2x12"[28,15 €]
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. The announcement of Placenta also comes while Carlos is in the middle of tours with André to support New Blue Sun, where Carlos wields an immense presence as music director, bandleader, and percussionist, and performs alongside many of the same musicians that are present on his recent & Friends albums, including this new one.
Placenta is announced on the 1st solar return of Moss Niño, of whom Carlos and his partner Annelise are Earth parents. Their experience of pregnancy, labor and delivery were all profoundly impactful for Carlos. Becoming a father again (a whole 25 years after the birth of Azul Niño, who has become a regular artistic collaborator for Carlos) he felt total Inspiration for this set of recordings, and hence it is perhaps the most conceptually-grounded Carlos Niño & Friends album we've yet to present–fully connected to the spirit of family, birth, and "how we get here."
In Niño’s words, Placenta is “dedicated to Mothers, Children, Babies, Aunties, Doulas, Midwives, Birthworkers...,” and a short list of track titles includes: "Love to all Doulas!," "Some Rest for the Midwives," "Real Vital Organs," and "Generous Pelvis." The centerpiece of the album, the sprawling "Placenta, Nourishment, New Home, The Galaxy," is an unbelievably vivid immersion in the sonic architecture of Niño's memory-scape...like being present in his energy field...or being present in a birthing room, or maybe even being born yourself. And it just might be the most powerful, unique piece of music Niño has ever created.
Featured artists on Placenta, in order of their entry on the album, include: Nate Mercereau, Jamire Williams, Sam Gendel, Jamael Dean, Dexter Story, Brandon Eugene Owens, Maia, André 3000, Jesse Peterson, Ariel Kalma, Surya Botofasina, Annelise, Haize Hawke, Aaron Shaw, Devin Daniels, Tiffany de Leon, Michael Bolger, Michael Alvidrez, Moss, Iasos, Photay, Deantoni Parks, Adam Rudolph, Andres Renteria, and Cavana Lee.
Legendary New Zealand-born experimental composer and sound art pioneer Annea Lockwood returns to Black Truffle with On Fractured Ground / Skin Resonance, her third release for the label. Having recently celebrated her 85th birthday, Lockwood shows no sign of slowing down in her exploration of new sound sources and collaborations with an ever-growing intergenerational pool of performers – here with Vanessa Tomlinson. Her creative vibrancy is alive as ever on the two recent works presented here, which demonstrate both her engagement with the social dimensions of sound and the deeply reflective, meditative aspect of her art.
On Fractured Ground derives from material recorded with Pedro Rebelo and Georgios Varoutsos for the soundtrack of Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon’s opera-film, History of the Present (2023). Working together in Belfast, Lockwood, Rebelo and Varoutsos made extensive recordings of the city’s ‘peace lines’, the dozens of walls erected since the beginning of the Troubles in the late 1960s to separate Catholic and Protestant areas of the city. Struck by the immensity of these barriers, ‘the brutal way they sever neighbourhoods’, Lockwood and her collaborators focused not on the sound environment of the city, but on the walls themselves, playing them as gigantic resonant instruments, using their hands and objects such as stones and leaves. Continuing to work in her studio with the material collected for the soundtrack after its completion, Lockwood composed the work presented here, occupying a space somewhere between her own extended-technique percussion music and the Cagean tradition of hyper-amplified small sounds. From deep, gong-like metallic tolling to dry scrapes and uneasy groans, the piece’s sustained attention to single sounds derived from unorthodox sources draws a line all the way back to Lockwood’s classic Glass World (1967-1970). Its spaciousness and delicacy are at odds with the dark historical background of the Troubles, creating a moving listening experience somehow haunted by the shadow of violence and conflict.
Skin Resonance is a collaboration with Australian composer and percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson. Developed through conversations in which the two discussed the idea of ‘sonic attraction’, the piece focuses on Tomlinson’s relationship to the bass drum, reflecting on the complex web of connections embodied in this seemingly simply instrument, which is at once ‘animal, wood, and metal’. Approaching the instrument in a suitably elemental fashion, Tomlinson’s performance strips away conventional technique to explore the resonance and timbral properties of skin, drum, and metal hardware, producing overlapping waves of texture that at times seem closer to wind swishing through leaves or the ocean than anything usually associated with a drum. Emphasising the symbiotic relationship between performer and instrument, Tomlinson’s voice is heard at times, exploring the field of associations and connections the bass drum suggests to her: ‘Maybe the bass drum skin is an ear as well?’
Accompanied by insightful liner notes on both pieces and photographs documenting the recording of On Fractured Ground and a performance of Skin Resonance, this LP is a moving testament to the engagement, generosity, and openness that sustain Annea Lockwood’s work, still finding new directions after more than fifty years of activity.




















