TWO PRE-ORDER EXCLUSIVES! NEW SINGLE from guitarist Jules Reidy! & Tour Dates announced
Weekly newsletter January 16, 2025
SUMAC & Moor Mother make their first album together
BIG|BRAVE create a new instrument - deliver a surprising new release
SUMAC & Moor Mother - The Film
What happens when you combine SUMAC: a band that uses the volume, distortion, and guitar-centric approach of metal to make music that has the malleability of jazz and textural exploration of noise with Moor Mother: a poet and sound artist that has deconstructed hip hop to a point where it's less about rhyme and rhythm (though obviously both are present in her work) and more about oratorical cadence and power? The Film is an album that takes attributes of both artists' work and finds common ground in shifting musical patterns, and expressive force. The record is a musical thumbing of their noses at the more traditional approaches of their respective fields, an innovative, powerhouse of an album.
The Film’s moniker speaks to the fact that it is conceived and delivered as a complete album, a full story or narrative. Moor Mother puts it best: “The idea is to create a moment outside of the convention. This is a work of art. Thinking about the work as a Film, instead of an album or a collection of songs. This task is impossible in an industry that wants to force everything into a box of consumption. You won't understand or get the full picture until the artwork is completed. This work is developing and is requesting more agency within the creative process.”
The Film does have clear themes running throughout – again Moor Mother expounds: “the themes are universal in nature - land - displacement - the climate - human rights and freedoms - war and peace - the idea of running away from the many violent forces and horrific systems of man and empire.” Heavy, holy, hypnotizing – beyond existence, beyond the fettered constraints of normality, past the false notions of the indoctrinated disguised as the organic, planets form; the detritus of cosmic stuff merges into galaxies, into something that can sound like it’s populated by suns. The Film is just such a work, a nebulitic collaboration between SUMAC and Moor Mother.
The Film was recorded at Studio Litho in Seattle with Scott Evans. The album includes appearances by guest vocalists Kyle Kidd, Sovie, and Candice Hoyes. SUMAC and Moor Mother will be playing select dates worldwide together, including a performance at Roadburn Festival just ahead of album release. This double album is packaged in a custom obi designed by Aaron Turner featuring paintings by Turner and art concepts by Moor Mother.
This double LP is cut on ocean blue vinyl and available in deluxe packaging featuring artwork by Aaron Turner and in-studio photos.
Listen to the first single only on our site and grab a copy before anyone else, for now this is only available from ThrillJockey.com
BIG|BRAVE - OST
BIG|BRAVE’s preternatural instincts and depth of skill as musicians are on full display on their most naked and austere record to date, OST.
The trio entered the studio with broader concepts and themes in mind, but no preconceived music. The overarching concept was to make a film score for a film that had yet to be created, to use minimal instrumentation, or more specifically not their standard band instruments, and to improvise within these parameters.
“Although this record could stand on its own, we envisioned it being paired with moving images, which introduced a fresh and exciting way of working,” notes guitarist Mathieu Ball.
In addition to forgoing their usual instrumentation, they notably built their own. Ball created a stringed instrument using piano strings simply called “The Instrument”. This instrument ended up becoming a central figure to the OST’s sound. Guitarist/vocalist Robin Wattie adds: “The strings Mathieu used for his instrument came from a discarded piano thatch that had been laying around in the hallway of my tattoo studio for ages.” The Instrument’s presence is felt throughout the record as a conductive element amplifying the album’s earthly, grounded nature.
OST was fully written and recorded in the studio. The band was free to enter the live room and record a take with whatever instrument was at hand. Once they had a good foundation for a song, Ball, Wattie, drummer Tasy Hudson and even engineer/producer Seth Manchester would each build on it, layering takes, from instrumental improvisations to abstract vocals, until they felt it was a completed piece. Wattie’s voice seamlessly blends with the instrumental flourishes made from “The Instrument”, a Wurlitzer, prepared piano, synths and a very limited amount of electric guitar. Additionally, there is a sprinkling of flute by Melissa Guion (MJ Guider). The performances of each player are tactile and ardent, even at their most subtle and effected.
Following OST’s completion, BIG|BRAVE contacted director/visual artist Stacy Lee to visually score the record. Director Lee and BIG|BRAVE, having previously collaborated, had established an artistic understanding which allowed BIG|BRAVE to give Lee no instruction, no limitations: the creative process synthesized across film and music. Select screenings with live performances are in the works.
BIG|BRAVE will be touring In US and Europe throughout the Spring.
OST is available on limited white LP on the Thrill Jockey website only. Listen to the first single now and grab the limited white LP - they will not last….
Jules Reidy transmutes earthly emotions through transcendental guitar traditions on celestial new single “Breaks”
Reidy’s breathtaking, expansive new solo album Ghost/Spirit coming Feb. 21st
Following the announcement of new solo album Ghost/Spirit, due out February 21st, luminary guitarist and composer Jules Reidy shares shimmering new single “Breaks”. Conceived during a period of significant change for Reidy - a transformational shift in their own identity and the dissolution of a major relationship, “Breaks” explores weighty emotions with raw honesty and striking vulnerability in one of Reidy's most direct and affecting pieces to date.
The innovative “Breaks” employs traditional guitar skills such as Reidy's spiralling fingerpicking within a minimalist song architecture, evoking the emotional turmoil and isolation at the end of a relationship.
"This is one of my favourite songs I've written," notes Reidy, "it's very stripped down musically and lyrically, a very direct translation of what I was feeling when I wrote it".
These emotions are further delivered with Reidy’s haunting vocals.
Jules Reidy’s sublime music maps the human experience in glittering constellations of sound. Reidy finds resolution through exploring these experiences, commenting "I understand and experience practice as being an expression of my relation to life’s display and as a tool for transcending it.”
Reidy’s breathtaking recordings and magnetic performances offer a truly futuristic, singular vision of guitar music. Explorations of microtonal mysticism and alternate tunings drawn from transcendental folk and minimalism color Reidy’s playful experiments with smudged pop melodics and sampling. A wide-eyed imagination combined with technical mastery guide each work. Their unique voice on the guitar has led to collaborations with claire rousay, Oren Ambarchi, Andrea Belfi and Sam Dunscombe as well as commissions from the JACK Quartet and Zinc & Copper. Reidy’s inimitable skill as a guitarist, producer and composer is on full display on Ghost/Spirit, and when combined with the intensity of experience, the resulting album is a remarkable work of art.
Jules Reidy tour dates announced:
Jan. 18 - Melbourne, AU - Northcote Social Club w/ CS + Kreme [tickets]
Jan. 21 - Sydney, AU - Phoenix Central Park
Jan. 25 - Perth, AU - Goolugatup
Jan. 27 - Yogyakart, ID - Theater Garasi
Mar. 5 - Berlin, DE - Silent Green - Ghost/Spirit album release show [tickets]
Mar. 6 - London, UK - Cafe Oto - Ghost/Spirit album release show [tickets]
Mar. 7 – Newcastle, UK – Cobalt Studios
Mar. 8 – Glasgow, UK – The Glad Café [tickets]
Mar. 25 - Brooklyn, NY - Pioneer Works w/ Astrid Sonne, Tarta Relena [tickets]
March 26 – Washington D.C. – Rhizome DC [tickets]
Mar. 28 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival [tickets]
Mar. 30 - Chicago, IL - Constellation [tickets]
Cratediggers: Jules Reidy
Week 2 of Jules’s playlist — listeners listen if you have yet to do so! This playlist got a lot of love last week!
mark hollis - watershed (mark hollis)
judith hamann - study for cello and humming (music for cello and humming)
andreas dzialocha - I (for always)
cloistral sorrow - petals are blue (cloistral sorrow)
catherine christer hennix - equal temperament fender mix (selected early keyboard works)
ludwig wandinger - blue blood (spiritual decay)
amnesia scanner + freekatet - AS over (HOAX)
weston olencki - vernon, L.M (verd mont)
ellen arkbro + johan graden - close (i get along without you very well)
marta forsberg - part 1: echo (sjunger for varandra)
léo duplex - resonant tree i (resonant trees)
elliott smith - can't make a sound (figure 8)
david behrman - on the other ocean (on the other ocean)
Jules Reidy’s sublime new album Ghost/Spirit out Feb. 21st, grip the limited-edition white LP now.
OUT NOW:
For nearly 30 years Radian have been subverting what is expected when three musicians get together to record.
They amplify the quiet and minimize the loud, delight in tension and contradiction, sound and silence, improvisation and composition — & they just announced 3 new shows, including Jazz Offensive Essen’s JOE Festival.
Feb 06, 2025 - Munich, DE at Import Export
Feb 07, 2025 - Essen, DE at JOE Festival
Feb 08, 2025 - Weikersheim, DE at Club W71
Radian is Martin Brandlmayr (drums, electronics), Martin Siewert (guitar, electronics) and John Norman (bass)