With a ritual for every season, Laura Cannell armed with her signature overbow violin reunites with her fellow medievalist André Bosman, who conjures strains of American primitivism, Appalachian sprawl, coronach, and the Donegal tradition through his distorted brand of back porch fiddle. Here playing amplified fiddle with rebec bow and bass guitar, the longtime collaborators throw down their nightcaps at the end of a collection of Christmastime songs with a bristling rendition of the lesser-known ‘Shropshire Carol’. The Columbus sound collage and experimental hip hop artist Quinn drops another sick beat tape, and the pianist Hanakiv bridges elements of electronic, ambient, and Estonian classical music on her debut single in collaboration with the smudged saxophone of Alabaster DePlume.
Duval Timothy dedicates Studio Richter Mahr with a new composition for piano, strings, and sub-bass. A studio for the future co-created by Max Richter and Yulia Mahr, powered by solar and heat pump technology and set within 31 acres of Oxfordshire woodland, the first record from the project will also feature contributions from Hannah Kendall, Chaines, Cktrl, Robert Ames, Ben Corrigan, and Coby Sey. With a title borne from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which begins ‘All human beings are born free and equal’, proceeds from the inaugural volume will go to Médecins Sans Frontières and their work combatting disease, disaster, and displacement in zones of conflict.
From Johannesburg fronted by Siyabonga Mthembu, who sings lead vocals for Shabaka and the Ancestors and curated last year’s collection of South African improvised music Indaba Is, the six-piece jazz ensemble The Brother Moves On draws inspiration from the words of the revolutionary Thomas Sankara through a set of sweet paeans and screeds in the name of food sovereignty and land rights. Between the cities of Valdivia and Santiago in Chile, the improvisational trio of Nichunimu featuring Benjamin Vergara on trumpet, Nicolás Carrasco on synths, and Matías Mardones on percussion explore circularity and repetition as they split the difference between free jazz, ritualism, noise, minimalism, and krautrock.
The Peruvian producer Nicolás Prado unspools a dizzying array of drum and bass, breakcore, intelligent dance, and video game music, laying bare the tremulous static and delirious decay of life alongside modern technology while exploding the genre limitations of webcore. As they reminisce over college towns and their come up in the rap game, the cracked delivery of DJ Lucas and worldwise Wiki give voice to silent meetings over a sparkling instrumental from Subjxct 5. The day draws in and gasoline fumes pall the dinette as Nicole Dollanganger languors in her ’78 motorhome, as Jessica Moss, Katatonic Silentio, Kamil Kukla, and Lisa Lerkenfeldt complete the latest roundup of tracks.
Playlists: Spotify · Apple Music · YouTube
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Laura Cannell & André Bosman – ‘The Shropshire Carol / This is the Truth Sent From Above’
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Katatonic Silentio – ‘Dans Le Cadre Du Relief’
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Hanakiv – ‘No Words Left’ (feat. Alabaster DePlume)
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quinn – ‘lean tears on her snow beach’
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The Brother Moves On – ‘Puleng (Extended)’
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Wiki & Subjxct 5 – ‘Silent Meeting’ (feat. DJ Lucas)
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Jessica Moss – ‘Light Falls On Every Door’
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Lisa Lerkenfeldt – ‘With water up to her knees’
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