News – Page 97 – 7th Level Music

Turning Jewels into Water releases title track from upcoming album – “Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars.”

Photo courtesy of Red Bull Music New York

Turning Jewels Into Water – the duo of Haitian-born drummer, DJ, educator and electronic music artist Val Jeanty and Indian-born drummer, producer and educator Ravish Momin –announce their new album, Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars, out August 21st on FPE Records, and share the lead single/video. It follows their 2019 album Map of Absences. For Our Reflection Momin and Jeanty take their dynamic musical partnership to even greater heights and more intense depths. Imbued with the spirit of collaboration and influenced by cutting-edge sounds like South African Gqom, Our Reflection reaches across oceans and continents, connecting the ancient with the modern.

As a collaborative project, Turning Jewels Into Water began when Jeanty participated in a jam session at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn while Momin was artist-in-residence there in September 2017. Their collaboration, rooted in improvisation, evokes the esoteric realms of the creative subconscious. Drawing from the Vodun religion, Val recreates the ancient rhythms and pulse of Haiti through digital beats, while Momin, whose own musical background is rooted in Indian, North African and Middle-Eastern traditions, has developed an original blend of electro-acoustic beats, drawing together the improvisational traditions in Jazz and Indian folk music. Together, they employ cutting-edge music-technological tools such as acoustic drums outfitted with Sensory Percussion triggers, Force Sensing Resistor (FSR) drum pads and Smart Fabric MIDI Controllers, but still emphasize the ritual aspects of creating music in the digital realm.

Speaking to the collaborative approach they took to making Our Reflection, Momin explains that he and Jeanty lead an ensemble of musicians from around the world, with the end product being a challenge to the ethnic fetishizing that far-too commonly comes along with global/world music. In March 2020, Momin had already reached out to other artists for remote contributions, including Iranian singer/daf player Kamyar Arsani (based in Washington, DC) and friend Mpho Molikeng, a master musician of South African indigenous instruments (based in Lesotho). Jeanty had already set up a base in Boston (for her newly appointed position as a professor at Berklee College of Music) and was also planning on collaborating remotely. “Therefore, once mandatory quarantines went into effect across the US and the world in mid-March, it had little impact on our creative process,” says Momin. “The resulting album has elements that are at once familiar and unfamiliar, as we evoke a digital folk music from nowhere.”

Accompanying the lead single is a video created by Art Jones. “The video for ‘Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars’ explores the narrative of the Siddis – Indians of East African origin, who were merchants, sailors and even rulers of Indian territories, but have now been marginalized and have had their histories erased,” says Momin. “As the #BLM movement rightfully gains prominence across the globe, we wanted to raise awareness of the anti-blackness that is deeply embedded in other cultures as well.”

With Our Reflection Adorned By Newly Formed Stars, Turning Jewels Into Water uses forward-thinking electronic music and experimentation to tap into a continuum of folk music that is as old as time itself. Also, containing remixes from Laughing Ears, and EMB, the music here is Indian, African, Afro-Caribbean and global all at once. By combining their unique cultural experiences Jeanty and Momin are bold enough to allow all of the tensions and commonalities to play freely and resolve themselves in the music.
Watch “Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars” Video:
https://youtu.be/YWb1D-aNrUY

Pre-order Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars:
https://turningjewelsintowater.bandcamp.com/album/our-reflection-adorned-by-newly-formed-stars

Our Reflection Adorned by Newly Formed Stars Tracklist:
1. Swirl in the Waters
2. Flower in Flames
3. Janjira in a Flash
4. Our Reflections Adorned by Newly Formed Stars
5. Whispers under Dal Lake
6. Kerala in My Heart
7. Crushed Petals and Stones Fall on My Drum
8. Crushed Petals and Stones Fall on My Drum (Laughing Ears Remix)
9. Flower in Flames (EMB Remix)

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Hannah Georgas’ “Dreams” is indeed dreamy.

Earlier this year Toronto’s Hannah Georgas shared a pair of singles “That Emotion” and “Same Mistakes,” — the first released in early March just before the scale of our pandemic crises had become clear, the second a month ago at the height of quarantine. The first sampling of a forthcoming collaboration with producer Aaron Dessner of The National, the singles received a rapturous response from outlets like The FADER, Stereogum, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, American Songwriter, BrooklynVegan, Exclaim, World Cafe and Consequence of Sound who dubbed her “a new generation’s Feist.”

Today, Georgas is announcing of her new album All That Emotion, a full length collaboration with Dessner that is due out September 4th on Brassland & Arts & Crafts. and sharing her new single “Dreams.” LISTEN to “Dreams” here“I have been thinking about what this album represents to me and it is resilience,” says Hannah. “It’s about finding hope and a way out the other side of tough situations. The hardships we go through make us grow into stronger people. The album is about healing, self reflection and getting up again at the end of the day.”

Of newly released single “Dreams” she writes: “In my past, I have let my insecurities play into relationships and have pushed people away because I have felt like I’m not deserving of love. This song explores the idea of breaking down those barriers of insecurity and being more open.”——Hannah Georgas began creating the album ALL THAT EMOTION about a year after the release of her celebrated 2016 album FOR EVELYN—starting with an intensive process of writing and demoing songs in her Toronto apartment, and finishing with a month long retreat in Los Angeles. She began the record making process in the middle of 2018 when she traveled to Long Pond, the upstate New York studio & home of producer Aaron Dessner of The National.

“Before each session, I would make the long drive from Toronto to Hudson Valley in Upstate New York.” Says Hannah. “It was really special getting the opportunity to work in such a remote space with Aaron and Jon and I was always itching to get back whenever we had breaks. At the same time, I appreciated the space in between and coming back with fresh ears.” Hannah continues, “Aaron and I agreed the production needed to bring out the truth in my voice. During these sessions we musically found a new depth and, vocally, a delivery that was more raw and expressive, allowing the emotional texture of each song to shine through.”

The writing of the album found Hannah creating her most personal album to date. “ALL THAT EMOTION’s album cover is an old family photo,” says Hannah. “I love the image because it captures this calm confidence. It looks like people are watching a performance and it seems like he’s diving in without a second thought. Similarly, I find that it parallels the approach needed within art. The calm confidence of expressing yourself without the thought of consequence, regardless of anyone watching.”

On the album, you’ll hear about bad habits and prayerful families—right and wrong love—mistakes and moving on—casual cruelty and most of all, change. Plotting the boundaries of where to place this music it’s emotionally fraught but warm & fuzzy. “An indie-minded avant-pop artist” was the Boston Globe’s formulation for her charms. Think of Fleetwood Mac meets The National; Kate Bush-sized passion with the earthiness of Cat Power or Aimee Mann. The album grows inside you and sticks to your insides. The songs are big tent anthems, rough at the edges but relatable.

Hannah continues: “I still have long conversations with my friends over the phone, talking about love and relationships, pain and heartbreak, our upbringings and the hardships that come along with that.” In an era of social media quips and hollow memes, maybe it’s this kind of one-on-one contact a form of communication worth getting back to?

“In this way, I get a lot of lyrical inspiration through the individuals I interact with in my everyday life,” she says. “Then music becomes the forum where I work out these feelings, embrace and express pain and love, joy and anger, frustration and fear and hope. It’s where I can be uncensored, not hold back, and say what I want to say. In that way, making music is a cathartic and cleansing process. It’s always the best feeling when someone tells me my music has helped them out in some way. That keeps me going.”All That Emotion will be released September 4, 2020 on Arts & Crafts/Brassland. It is available for preorder here.

Track List
1. That Emotion – video
2. Easy
3. Dreams – video
4. Pray It Away
5. Someone I Don’t Know
6. Punching Bag
7. Same Mistakes – video
8. Just A Phase
9. Habits
10. Change
11. Cruel

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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]

The Beths’ new single literally and figuratively is “Out of Sight.”

The Beths share “Out of Sight,” a new single from their highly-anticipated sophomore album, Jump Rope Gazers, out July 10th on Carpark Records. The band performed the single on their “Live From House 3” live stream last night. It follows previously released singles “I’m Not Getting Excited” and “Dying to Believe.”

“Out of Sight” is tender and shoegazing. It reckons with the distance that drives people apart and how those who love each other inevitably fail each other. The best way to repair that failure, in The Beths’ view, is with abundant and unconditional love, no matter how far it has to travel.

Elizabeth Stokes says, “The band playing on ‘Out Of Sight’ is more fragile than we usually allow ourselves to be. We are trying to listen more deeply and be more open ended, it was confronting to do and sometimes even frustrating. But it came out great, Ben’s bass playing especially is beautifully melodic and gives the song a unique texture.”

The accompanying video directed by Ezra Simons was filmed on Super 8 film and shows the band birdwatching amongst the brush. Archival footage of birds native to New Zealand are woven throughout. Simons says, “The goal was to create a nostalgic and timeless roadtrip video where the band goes off in search of native birds, but instead finds each other.”

Watch “Out of Sight” Video

The Beths are Elizabeth Stokes (vocals/guitar), Jonathan Pearce (guitar), Benjamin Sinclair (bass), and Tristan Deck (drums). Jump Rope Gazers is the follow-up to Future Me Hates Me, “one of the most impressive indie-rock debuts of the year” (Pitchfork). The album received glowing praise and appeared on many year-end lists including Rolling Stone, NPR, Stereogum, and more.

Jump Rope Gazers tackles themes of anxiety and self-doubt with effervescent power pop choruses and rousing backup vocals, zeroing in on the communality and catharsis that can come from sharing stressful situations with some of your best friends. Touring far from home, The Beths committed to taking care of each other while simultaneously trying to take care of friends living thousands of miles away. That care and attention shines through on Jump Rope Gazers, where the quartet sounds more locked in than ever. Jump Rope Gazers stares down all the hard parts of living in communion with other people, even at a distance, while celebrating the ferocious joy that makes it all worth it.
Watch “Out of Sight” Video

Watch “I’m Not Getting Excited” VideoWatch “Dying to Believe” Video

“Live From House” live streams

Pre-Order Jump Rope Gazers

The Beths Tour Dates (tickets):
Sat. July 11 – Auckland, NZ @ Power Station
Sun. Nov 8 – Perth, WA @ HBF Park*
Wed. Nov. 11 – Melbourne, VIC @ Marvel Stadium*
Sat. Nov. 14 – Sydney, NSW @ Bankwest Stadium*
Tue. Nov. 17 – Brisbane, QLD @ QSAC Stadium*
Fri. Nov. 20 – Dunedin, NZ @ Forsyth Barr Stadium*
Sun. Nov. 22 – Auckland, NZ @ Mt Smart Stadium*
Tue. March 30 – Southampton, UK @ The Loft
Wed. March 31 – Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Thu. April 1 – Manchester, UK @ Club AcademyFri. April 2 – Glasgow, UK @ Saint Luke’s
Sat. April 3 – Dublin, IE @ The Workman’s Club
Mon. April 5 – Bristol, UK @ SWX
Tue. April 6 – Birmingham, UK @ Castle and Falcon
Wed. April 7 – London, UK @ O2 Kentish Town
Thu. April 8 – Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
Fri. April 9 – Paris, FR @ Point Éphémère
Sat. April 10 – Lyon, FR @ Marché Gare – Hors les murs
Sun. April 11 – Milan, IT @ BIKO
Tue. April. 13 – Düdingen, CH @ Bad Bonn
Wed. April 14 – Lausanne, CH @ Le Romandie
Thu. April 15 – Munich, DE @ Kranhalle
Fri. April 16 – Vienna, AT @ B72
Sat. April 17 – Prague, CZ @ Underdogs’ BallroomSun. April 18 – Belin, DE @ Lido
Tue. April 20 – Copenhagen, DK @ Vega Ideal Bar
Wed. April 21 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow
Thu. April 22 – Cologne, DE @ Artheater
Fri. April 23 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Noord
Sun. April 25 – Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique

*w/ Green Day, Weezer and Fall Out Boy

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Khruangbin’s “Pelota” is another lovely new single from their forthcoming album.

“Through textures of funk, disco and Middle Eastern avant-garde, ‘Mordechai’ is a nostalgic LP that explores human memory. ‘Dearest Alfred’ lionizes the letters that Lee’s grandfather would write to his twin brother, and ‘If There Is No Question’ recalls the gospel songs Speer and Johnson would perform in church. On ‘Shida,’ the album’s sultry closer, Khruangbin turns its attention to the early 1980s, bringing elements of Sade to mind, with gentle vocal sighs floating along the fringes and ethereal guitar chords pinned to the back of the mix.” — The New York Times

“From the French New Wave sounds to ’70s get-down grooves like ‘So We Won’t Forget,’ it looks to be further evidence of the group’s restless creative muse paying off.”
— The A.V. Club, “albums we can’t wait to hear in June”

“Travel and discovery through music has always been at the center of what Khruangbin creates, and Mordechai promises to be another step in the voyage.”
— Paste, “The 10 Albums We’re Most Excited About in June”

Khruangbin – the trio of Laura Lee Ochoa (bass), Mark Speer (guitar), and Donald “DJ” Johnson (drums) – present new single, “Pelota,” alongside its accompanying video, directed by Hugo Rodrigues Rodriguez, written by Alvaro Sotomayor and produced by Glassworks Creative Studio. The track is off of their highly-anticipated new album, Mordechai, out next Friday, June 26th on Dead Oceans in association with Night Time Stories. “Pelota” follows the “bright, soothing” (Rolling Stone) “So We Won’t Forget” and lead single “Time (You and I).” “A Texan band with a Thai name singing a song in Spanish, loosely based on a Japanese movie,” says Khruangbin of the track, which opens with a flurry of guitar and Ochoa, Speer, and Johnson’s sun-tinged unison vocals.

Watch Khruangbin’s Video for “Pelota” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UULIfPLMuDw

Mordechai comes two years after the release of Khruangbin’s beloved and acclaimed breakthrough, 2018’s Con Todo El Mundo, and was preceded earlier this year by Texas Sun, the group’s collaborative EP with Leon Bridges. As a first for the mostly instrumental band, Mordechai features vocals prominently on nearly every song. It’s a shift that rewards the risk, reorienting Khruangbin’s transportive sound toward a new sense of emotional directness, without losing the spirit of nomadic wandering that’s always defined it.

In conjunction with the upcoming release of Mordechai, Khruangbin have also relaunched AirKhruang, their popular flight playlist generator tool that gives fans a platform to enjoy their music curation when travel is not possible. “Shelter In Space” sends listeners on a musical voyage from the safety of their homes by utilizing Spotify’s music attributes to generate custom playlists set for a user-chosen activity and duration.

Watch Video for “So We Won’t Forget” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo4KMGiy–Y

Watch Video for “Time (You and I)” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc50wHexbwg

Book A Playlist Curated By Khruangbin Via AirKhruang –
https://space.airkhruang.com

Pre-order Mordechai –
https://khruangbin.ffm.to/mordechai

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[Thanks to Sam at Pitch Perfect PR.]

“The Longest Day” charity compilation for the Alzheimer’s Association features Moby, Beach Slang, Anna Calvi, TR/ST, and more.

As part of the Alzheimer’s Association‘s yearly fundraiser, The Longest Day, Mon Amie Records announces a benefit album to be released on CD, vinyl, and digitally with 100% of profits going to the organization. The album will be released on June 19^th and features previously unreleased material from Anna Calvi, Moby, Algiers, Daniel Avery, Sad13, Cold Specks, Rhys Chatham, Rituals of Mine, M83 alumni J. Laser, and Wolfmanhattan Project (comprised of legends Mick Collins,Kid CongoPowers, and Bob Bert).

It is also the first time the Extended Mix of New Order‘s “Nothing But A Fool” will be released on vinyl. Hayden Thorpe and Jon Hopkins‘ haunting cover of “Goodbye Horses” was originally released in 2013 but hasn’t been available for over 5 years. See below for the full track listing.

The compilation is now available for pre-order, and those who order a physical format will have the option to include a name of a loved one affected by dementia in the liner notes. The artwork features photographs by acclaimed photographer Ebru Yildiz, who documented her mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s.

MORE ABOUT DEMENTIA & THE ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION: Currently every 65 seconds, someone in the US develops Alzheimer’s or a form of dementia. At the current rate, 1 in 4 people will develop the disease, and this rate is increasing at an alarming rate. It is currently the 6^th leading cause of death in the US and the #1 cause of death in England. The disease doesn’t just affect those who are diagnosed. Caregivers provide over 18.6 billion hours, valued at $244 billion in unpaid care. The physical and emotional stress on caregivers is so severe that they are reported to die at a 63% higher rate than people the same age who are not caring for someone with dementia. The Alzheimer’s Association is the #1 resource for anyone dealing with dementia. They offer care and support for all those facing the disease, including a 24/7 free help line, referrals, and support groups. They are currently investing $185 Million toward treatment, prevention and a cure. They also speak up for the needs and rights of people with Alzheimer’s via government advocacy.

MORE ABOUT THE LABEL: Mon Amie Records is a one-woman operation out of Brooklyn, NY. Founded in 2010 by Mona Dehghan who utilizes her experience from working at major indie labels Sub Pop, Domino and Mute to release personal passion projects. Her most notable releases so far include two reissues of Q Lazzarus’s “Goodbye Horses.” Mona’s father was diagnosed with dementia in February of 2019, and her grandmother passed from the disease in 1998. Having been closely affected by the disease twice, she’s using her skillset to raise funds and create awareness in the hopes of not facing this devastating disease a third time. Also, research suggests that listening to music can provide emotional and behavioral benefits for people with dementia. Musical memories are often preserved in Alzheimer’s patients because key brain areas linked to musical memory are relatively undamaged by the disease. Studies also show music helps decrease anxiety in those living with dementia.

TRACKLIST: Anna Calvi – Adélaïde / Rituals of Mine – The Only Way Out Is Through / Daniel Avery – JXJ ‘ Cold Specks – Turn To Stone / TR/ST – Destroyer / Shadowparty – Marigold / Beach Slang – Under the Milky Way / New Order – Nothing But A Fool (Extended Mix 2) / HAAi – Drumting / J. Laser – Dreamphone /Sad13 – Who Goes There / Algiers – There Is No Year (Remix) / Astronauts, Etc. – The Border / Wolfmanhattan Project – Friday the 13^th / Hayden Thorpe & Jon Hopkins – Goodbye Horses / Moby – In Between Violence / Rhys Chatham – For Bob – In Memory (2014) for flute orchestra.

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[Thanks to Mon Amie Records.]

New Fries’ newest single is a funky cut for freaky times.

New Fries are sharing their latest single, the mind-bending, genre-defying, tongue-twisting “Arendt / Adler / Pulley Pulley Pulley Pulley“, the second single from their new album Is The Idea Of Us. Out on August 7th through Telephone Explosion, it is the band’s first new material since 2016’s More, which saw them team up with Holy Fuck‘s Graham Walsh.

LISTEN: to New Fries’ “Arendt / Adler / Pulley Pulley Pulley Pulley” on YouTube

On the new track, the band offered, “Something about the women obscuring their gender and traditional roles (intentionally or otherwise) to do their work without interruption or expectation. Being contrarians, shrill. Seeking truth without taking care of emotions. Often their work is forensic, razor-sharp, and bright with clarity.“.

The Toronto-based experimental No-Wave inspired band are one of the best kept secrets in the city, and with their new album they delve deeper into their unconventional, ever-changing sound. They worked closely withCarl Didur (Zacht Automaat, formerly U.S. Girls), resulting in a new direction, focusing more on space and repetition, finding the in-between and reflecting on it, examining that transition. Is The Idea Of Us is anxious in its repetitions and unsure of genre, a reflection of musicians and non-musicians making music together; New Fries insist on doing it differently.

Is The Idea Of Us is out on August 7th on Telephone Explosion. It is available for pre-order here.

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Tricky asks us to “Fall Please” on his new single.

ricky announces his 14th studio album, Fall To Pieces, out September 4th on his own label False Idols, and shares its lead single/video, “Fall Please.” The legendary producer might be over three decades deep into his music career but he’s currently on an especially prolific run. In the last year, he dropped the enchanting 20,20 EP and put out an acclaimed autobiography, Hell Is Round The Corner.

Watch Tricky’s Video for “Fall Please”

“Fall Please,” a song which Tricky likens to Washington, D.C. Go-go, has a strange and twisted accessibility that surprised even the man who wrote it. “With most of my stuff, there’s nothing else like it around,” he says. “But with ‘Fall Please’ I’ve managed to do something I’ve never been able to before, which is that everyone can feel it – even people who don’t know my music. It’s my version of pop music, the closest I’ve got to making pop.”

Fall To Pieces was recorded in Tricky’s Berlin studio in late 2019. Tricky is keen to point out that the tracks on the record can be deceptive; often short, ending abruptly and moving on to the next without warning. Although instrumentation varies from bursts of tense synths, distorted dial tones, and samples, the song’s lyrics can be dark and dense. Tricky’s music has always enlisted female vocalists to carry his ideas: the majority of tracks on Fall To Pieces, including “Fall Please,” rely on Marta Złakowska, the singer he discovered during a European tour when he was left without a vocalist on the opening night. She saved the tour from disaster. “I can tell when someone is humble and down to earth,” says Tricky. “Marta doesn’t care about being famous, she just wants to sing.”

The past year in creative flurry has no doubt been a distraction for Tricky, but it’s also been a period of reflection and reassessment. Struck down with grief, he had to ask himself a question: do I fight, or go down with the ship? “You’ve gotta fucking get up and fight,” he concludes. “Right now I’m in fight mode. And I feel really good. I do.”

Pre-order Fall To Pieces

Fall To Pieces Tracklist:
1.Thinking Of
2. Close Now
3. Running Off
4. I’m In The Doorway
5. Hate This Pain
6. Chills Me To The Bone
7. Fall Please
8. Take Me Shopping
9. Like a Stone
10. Throws Me Around
11. Vietnam

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[Thanks to Brid at Pitch Perfect PR.]

The Death Wheelers crush us with “Divine Filth” on their new single.

Canadian heavy rock instrumentalists The Death Wheelers share a video single for the title track to their forthcoming album Divine Filth via Metal Injection. Watch and share the B-movie ode “Divine Filth” HERE (or on YouTube.) Hear & share the single via Bandcamp.

From beyond the gutter, The Death Wheelers bring you their second album, the soundtrack to the fictional bikesploitation flick that never was: Divine Filth. Drawing inspiration from instrumental rock, proto-metal, punk and funk, the band embalms the listener in their sonic world of decay, groove and debauchery. Surfing the line between Motörhead, The Cramps and Dick Dale, the Canadian quartet uncompromisingly blends rawness and power in their riff fueled compositions. Recorded entirely in 48 hours in a live setting just like in the good old days, this second opus is a testament to what the band stands for: a no BS attitude spiked with a heavy layer of crass. Just like their previous offering, the album is devised to serve as a soundtrack loosely based on a plot synopsis of a B-movie:

It’s 1982. Spurcity is run-down. The crime rate is up and so is drug use. A new kind of kick has hit the streets and it ain’t pretty. DTA, a powerful and highly addictive hallucinogenic drug, is transforming its loyal citizens into undead trash. Its users experience an indescribable high, but it leaves them rotting away within days, craving human flesh. No one knows who is dealing this new potent drug, but rumour has it that the motorcycle cult, The Death Wheelers, is behind this concoction. Could this be the end of civilization as we know it? What is motivating this group of psychotic individuals?

The cycle of violence indeed continues with this sordid slab of sounds. So hop on, and enjoy one last ride with The Death Wheelers.

Divine Filth will be available on LP, CD and download on September 11th, 2020 via RidingEasy Records. Pre-orders are available at RidingEasyRecs.com.

On The Web: ridingeasyrecs.com

facebook.com/thedeathwheelersband

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[Thanks to Riding Easy Records.]

Fusilier puts a timely new spin on “Dancing in the Street.”

WATCH: Fusilier’s “Dancing In The Street” video on YouTube

Gothamist once described Blake Fusilier’s sound as “something you’d hear in a nightclub at the end of the world.” Last week that narrative shifted with the release of a meditative, deeply felt drone-ballad “Upstream.” NPR Music praised it as a “slow core revival” and Paste Magazine called it a “sweeping, minimal R&B-pop song led by awe-inspiring strings,” and one of the best songs of May, while The Line of Best Fit in the UK named it “Song of The Day.”

Now the nightclub at the end of the world returns with Fusilier’s re-imagining of the Motown classic “Dancing In the Street.” Fusilier’s version turns the song into a queer indie punk fever dream coincidentally released at the kick off of Pride Month.

Says Fusilier in a blistering critique of what the LGBTQ month of remembrance, Pride Month, had become in the pre-pandemic era: “Pride is so boring. A protest-cum-celebration of marginalized people has become a mirror for the existing hierarchies of society. The people who now need uplift and recognition are the people who ‘Gay’ movements hide. They’re women, they’re queer, they’re trans and non-binary, they’re poor, they’re HIV positive, they’re Black. They’re the ones who aren’t going to bank with Santander because they’re issuing debit cards decorated with rainbows. We should get back to our riotous roots.”

Of the song & accompanying video, Fusilier and his collaborator Kevin Alexander call upon a very different activists and artists who inspire him including Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Toni Morrison and, least known of these, Black gay minimalist composer and vocalist Julius Eastman and his composition “Gay Guerrilla”. Eastman was a major presence on New York’s ‘downtown’ scene of the 70s & 80s who died tragically before the age of 50. Now experiencing a major revival, Fusilier connects to Eastman’s legacy of pro-Black and pro-gay provocations which did not eschew a potential for radical political violence.

Thirty years after Eastman’s death, Fusilier recalls one of the few times on record where we hear the deceased artist speak—literally transcribing Eastman’s words across his own likeness at the video’s climax. Says Fusilier, “In 1980, Julius Eastman once introduced one of his most popular works, ‘Gay Guerrilla,’ to an audience at Northwestern University on what we now know as the first day of Pride month. This is how he closed his introduction:

“A guerrilla is someone who is, in any case, sacrificing his life for a point of view. And if there is a cause, and if it is a great cause, those who belong to that cause will sacrifice their blood. Because without blood there is no cause. So, therefore, that is the reason that I use ‘Gay Guerrilla,’ in hopes that I might be one if called upon to be one.”

The video for “Dancing In The Street” is an expression of my subconscious. It’s a collection of imagery that I keep in mind when I make music. It’s an acknowledgement that there’s a legacy of Black, trans and queer voices that was largely disappeared to history and a reminder that the people who they opposed are still in power.”

Fusilier’s Upstream EP is out now via Brassland and is available on Bandcamp here.

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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]

Near Death Experience’s “Conquer” is a solid throwback to 60’s psychedelic garage rock.

Good old Indie Rock, Funk and Soul is what do best. Wow, what a treat they have given us here with their latest release ‘Conquer’.

Formed in 2016 in London, Near Death Experience have taken the best from the greats of yesteryear and induced their own unique style to create something truly unforgettable. Their new single, “Conquer,” boasts an unspoiled psychedelic vibe with heaps of nostalgia, but yet it stays authentic in the modern scene too, which is remarkably refreshing.

Killer guitar hooks and a sublime vocal from Manchester-born frontman Ian Whiteling are all over the track. Taking influence from the likes of The Doors, T-Rex, Bowie and Roxy Music, the group have put together a solid modern rock track with a strong 60’s influence.

Twitter – @neardeathexperienceuk

Spotify – https://spoti.fi/300HH4k

YouTube – https://bit.ly/3eIfsf4

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[Thanks to James and Global Sound Group.]