Two weeks is too long to wait for this CD!! Am dying to hear the rest of this, so far sounds like killer Mats/Morgan at their absolute best. Super groovy, super ethereal and super jazzy

the whole record is a masterpiece!!! GREAT!!!

I´m so happy that Mats/Morgan Band still exist! Cant wait for more!

Keyboardist Mats Öberg and drummer Morgan Ågren have worked together for nearly 3/4s of their lives. Both were childhood prodigies who have grown into adults who are considered absolute masters of their instruments and they have continued to work together since meeting over 30 years ago in 1981. The presentation of their music has evolved greatly over these years, from early duo experiments to a Zappa cover band to actually meeting and performing with Frank Zappa and band, to a quintet lineup of their band, to a keyboard/bass/drums trio and now, with their 1st studio release in nearly a decade, they are back to a duo line up. 

Their music itself has also greatly changed over the years; for musicians who are both best known for being absolute virtuosos, over the last decade or so, their music has gotten more easily absorbed and even more contemporary, with the duo being greatly influenced by the currents of electronica, and adding that sound to their jazz/rock, complex rock, avant-garde roots. 

The dizzying mix of sounds that whirls its way through Schack Tati (with typically wry humor, the title is a pun on the Swedish word for "chess" and one of the duo's favorites, the French filmmaker Jacques Tati) was years in the making. Morgan discloses, "In 2006 I moved to a house in the Swedish archipelago. Our garden had a little house in it, which I rebuilt as a studio. This was a fantastic chance to have a good studio nearby. So I spent endless hours building it up, changing gear, testing a million microphones, preamps, etc. After quite some time, I had a really good studio. It is also the first time that I’ve had access to a studio that close to where I live. During the last four-five years, I also spent a lot of time recording for others.... But all the rest of the time, I spent recording for myself." 

The tracks Mats and Morgan toiled over in that rather idyllic setting have an air of endless possibility to them, making possible the disparate stylistic strands of the band's sound to wind together with nary a tangle. From a Terry Riley-plays-Eurodisco stomp to glitchtronica-gone-fusion , languid-then-complex ambient jazz-into- 21st century classical, to Zappa-in-a-meat-grinder intensity -- it's hard to envision another set of circumstances under which Schack Tati could have come together. 

Yet for all of the album's eclecticism, there's an odd kind of coherence to the whole thing. Morgan light-heartedly observes, "This one is more focused -- my wife says -- but it is. We got a bit older. And our sound got better. Everything got better maybe!" Musical maturation is probably one piece of the puzzle, and the indefinable essence of the archipelago is another. But at the core of what makes Schack Tati tick, you'll find two titanic talents. Morgan is a world- class musician, a "drummer's drummer" who has played with everyone from prog-metal master Devin Townsend to electronic innovator Squarepusher in addition to his achievements under the Mats/Morgan banner. And Mats is a sui generis artist -- he's the only one around who can do what he does, let alone understand how its done, melting genres into each other at will and alternating between fleet-fingered solos and richly atmospheric textures. Ultimately, then, Schack Tati is about friendship, magic, individuality, and a willingness to wander wherever the muse might lead.

Mats/Morgan, "Rubber Sky" from '[schack tati]' (out now on Cuneiform Records)

The Velvet Hands had just returned to England after playing a sold out gig at Supersonic Paris when they watched Tarantino’s DeathProof. They instantly fell in love with April March’s 1990 version of Chick Habit which features in the film and started working on their own version. Knowing that they wanted the track to be sung in both English and in French, they reached out to feminist witchy grunge rockers Pythies who were the perfect band to be involved. 

The Velvet Hands play Supersonic Paris on April 18th and Omeara London on April 26th. Pythies will be supporting The Velvet Hands on both shows.

Chick Habit

wurd as written

everybody could be a stranger
On the 1st glance
It takes a minute
To find the common
Fair
Congruent similar shares
Audacity to play truth or dare
I'm takin my time on my stairs
I could gallop and scale 
And exude big as a whale
Wag the dogs tails
It's just sum fears that
Hold the dawg still
I saw the kitten takin
Sickly
The dog was fed Hershey
As dishes
But it strengthen the tissue 
Thru the misuse of birthright
The Padawan ain't had to fly
A kite
Stick in the middle of the affairs and types
His life
A flight of cares
Becomes resistance 
Keeping this revolution in remission
I'm tipsy off the platonic sexual tension
Sum folks is rooted by the abstract
I hope I'm worth the static
These niggas out here
Holdin magic but can't
Get passed the status
I played sum archetypes I could be
Cast In the obvious
But that's obviously not
What entertains me
Shamelessly a product 
Of a slain beast
These a hunch
On the block
Underneath the much
I think we need to touch
I think we need to tough
It's not sus if I think we
Need to touch
Call my bluff 
I'm stuffed with guts
I think we need to touch 
Do I got good luck
Oh u in control of bus
I think we need steer dis
In a direction of us
Standing next to each
Other enough
Just enough to touch 
It's pure like the preacher said
Stop all cuss
Co creators gods
Forget the passed days lunch
In days when the crown is in a funk
Yesterday's words might leave me
Keep me in the space
Not tapered by cults
Exposing who u love
The most 
Is it me or sumbody or nobody at all
Last call roll and it's silent as 
An abandoned car wash
Beside a church and store
The very things I see
When I'm thinking of feelings
That been brought
By narrative thats bought
Lendin ears till they get Tyson'd
By the dread of a brand nu likeness 
What's the meaning of a connection
So mighty
Wit a result of a reflection so Brightly
What's so gracious gud about tension
Nobody wanna sleep in the kitchen
Walls is fortified and beginning to bust
Cause the ways of the wind
Is twirling twistin around us
And I think that's it best
If we just touch
Nothing strange In the mind
Of a son
He's especially aquatinted with the jump
He wants to dive into the trunk
Will he survive this once
Twice he tried in a month
Days never really end
So time dont really cost
Too much
When they gonna touch ?

prod. ariesfoolmoon 

Touch (a song for...)Prod by ariesfoolmoon

Lectern is the first single from Rosie Tee's new mini-album, 'Night Creature' out on 26 April via Kikimora Records.

Watch the visualiser here: https://youtu.be/kLHWaA0KkeA
Pre-order the mini-album: https://kikimorarecords.com
Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rosietee

www.rosietee.uk

Night Creature

Lectern

La Ruée

The Duo Ludwig Wittbrodt, that‘s Emily Wittbrodt on cello and Edis Ludwig on laptop and drums. The two develop a thicket of sounds and melodies that absorbs us in a completely unpretentious way and fills us with associations and warmth. We are reminded of the achievements of both Krautrock and Neue Musik, of early electronic music as well as Drone and Ambient.

At first glance, Emily and Edis seem to be an unequal couple. She has an academic background as a cellist, he is self-taught with his main instrument being computer and programming. She is active in Free Jazz, he drums with the rock band Düsseldorf Düsterboys. On the other hand, both have been active in the Free Improv scene in the german Rhine-Ruhr region for years - for example in ensembles such as The Dorf or Hilde (Emily) and Nasssau or Transport (Edis).

This is from the duo‘s second album, Schleifen.

Schleifen

Ludwig Wittbrodt - Tulpen

S W 241223

Zonah

Crash

Funeral

MOLI - Funeral

Dead Romance

Cuneiform Records is an independent record label releasing adventurous, boundary-bursting music by artists from around the world. Founded in 1984.

Mats/Morgan, "Rubber Sky" from '[schack tati]' (out now on Cuneiform Records)

Cuneiform Records

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simonayton

Stefan Hilger

Scendrag KD 1979-1984

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