This week the improvisational pianist Tigran Hamasyan turns from the Armenian folk tradition to embrace jazz standards by the likes of Richard Rodgers, Charlie Parker, and Jerome Kern. Heavee returns to Hyperdub with a mutant strain of footwork drawing impetus from the ebb and flow of video game battle sequences. And from Moscow the duo of Flaty and OL reunite for the third in the SERWED series, self-described as a postmodern world ‘where the orbital space is just another littered parking lot, neural networks are appreciated mostly as a source of absurd imagery, and delivery drones are used as designer drug mules’.
Hikaru Utada enlists Sam Shepherd and the violin skills of her six-year-old son on the opener to her eighth studio album, which finds the J-pop superstar exploring the mutability of identity through bilingual vocals over a sound palette of Balearic house and silvery city pop. Endgame of the London collective Bala Club and the Príncipe member DJ Narciso unveil a rippling blend of kuduro music for the Shanghai label SVBKVLT. The self-released spiritual jazz of the Los Angeles quartet Phi-Psonics gets remastered on Gondwana Records, while for Leaving Records the devotional musician Francesca Heart shifts mythological realms by drawing inspiration from the Oceanids.
LEYA parade their new mixtape in the company of Okay Kaya, Vince Staples deconstructs the art of magic with bars and beats from the producer Mustard, and Kurt Vile takes a psychedelic mind trip accompanied by the transformative tenor of the Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist James Stewart. The Noir Age label head Richard Vergez melds incidental sounds with the existential cosmos of the clarinet on a suite of songs intended for the performance artist Ana Mendez. Nilüfer Yanya navigates other lives and afterlives, Tomberlin views the accidental nature of relationships from up close and afar, while tracks by Tinashe, Sally Shapiro, and Yves Tumor complete the roundup.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Tinashe – ‘Naturally’
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Francesca Heart – ‘L’Inno delle Oceanine alla Bellezza e alla Fortuna’
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Yves Tumor – ‘Secrecy Is Incredibly Important To The Both of Them’
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Kurt Vile – ‘Like Exploding Stones’
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Night Foundation – ‘Double Edge’
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Sally Shapiro – ‘Dulcinea’
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Heavee – ‘Watch Yo Step (Feeling Myself)’
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LEYA – ‘Win Some’ (feat. Okay Kaya)
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Vince Staples – ‘Magic’ (feat. Mustard)
