New Album 'Environments' Out Now On ANTI- Records. https://rafiqbhatia.ffm.to/environments

NEW ALBUM
out oct 14, on Brainfeeder
https://louiscole.lnk.to/qualitySC

Mandolin virtuoso and composer Chris Thile, a multiple–Grammy Award winner and a MacArthur Fellow, has long been known as an audacious improviser and a tireless collaborator whose work has incorporated bluegrass, folk, rock, jazz, and classical elements. Besides his brilliant bandmates in Punch Brothers, his fellow travelers have also included pianist Brad Mehldau, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, guitarist Michael Daves, and double bassist/composer Edgar Meyer, among others. But this time Thile has taken on perhaps his greatest musical challenge all by himself with Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1, which comprises three works written for solo violin: Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001; Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002; and Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003. While Thile has often included pieces by Bach in his live repertoire, alongside his own work and his interpretations of work by artists ranging from Bill Monroe to Radiohead, this disc, produced by his friend and mentor Meyer, fulfills a long-held dream to create studio recordings of these pieces rendered on mandolin. Thile says the recording sessions were an opportunity “to interact with the greatest musician who ever lived."

Sam Amidon thought he had a pretty good idea what direction his new album Lily-O was going to go. Then he started recording it. Due Sept. 30 on Nonesuch Records, what turned out to be a collection of distinctive, enveloping songs rooted in folk music didn’t begin that way at all. 

In fact, the Vermont-born singer, guitarist, fiddler and banjo player had initially envisioned an album based more on the improvisational material he and jazz guitar great Bill Frisell developed together a couple of years ago while touring New England as a duo.

“I thought it was going to be a much more instrumental, weird album of fiddle stuff and snatches of melodies and a little bit of singing, but really strange,” Amidon says. “I didn’t set out for this album to be as much of a songs record as it ended up being.” 

There are 10 songs on Lily-O, to be exact, and they include bright banjo and clickety-clack percussion on opener “Walkin’ Boss,” the mournful interplay of fiddle and guitars on “Blue Mountain” and glimmers of Frisell’s electric guitar framing Amidon’s plainspoken vocals on “Maid Lamenting.” 

属 Belonging, Ian Chang’s first full-length album, is like a cyborg - part purring mechanism, part animate bio-mass rising from primordial ooze. 

In nine concise, largely instrumental pop songs, Chang conjures a personal cosmos: the listener feels as if we might reach out and touch 属 Belonging's jagged and tender aural sculptures. At every level, his music sings with earnest and deceptive simplicity. The album's melodies are intimate, its rhythms rewarding, and yet, just beneath the surface glimmers innovation, as if the neurons firing in each melodic idea have become audible.

When Chang describes his creative process, the phrase "third culture” keeps coming up. Born in the colony of Hong Kong in 1988, Chang has lived a nomadic life. Stationed out of New York for 10 years, he built an impressive roster of progressive pop collaborators such as Moses Sumney, Joan As Policewoman, and Matthew Dear, among others, all while performing internationally and recording as a member of Son Lux and Landlady. Now relocated to Dallas, Texas, Chang's discovered an inquisitive confidence that can only come from newfound isolation. Between tours, he dedicated himself to developing his international musical language, facilitated by a home studio and a burgeoning relationship.

属 Belonging is set for digital release April 24th, 2020 and physical release May 29th, 2020 via City Slang, with the new singles "Audacious" featuring Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead and "舞狮 Lion Dance" out now.

- Written by Ross Edwards

Singer/Songwriter - Pittsburgh/Brooklyn
Pre-order 'Hoax' out March 22nd: https://kevingarrett.ffm.to/hoax

Ryan Lott is a composer, producer, and performer. Founder of experimental trio Son Lux, Lott's latest venture with the band was scoring the A24 Best Picture film Everything Everywhere All at Once (March 2022), featuring new collaborations with Mitski, David Byrne, Randy Newman, and Moses Sumney, among others. His feature film scores also include The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2014), Paper Towns (2015), and Mean Dreams (2017), and arrangements for several others, most notably Looper (2012), for which Lott was also pianist and instrument designer.

An avid collaborator, Lott has worked with choreographers Stephen Petronio, Gina Gibney, and Jodie Gates, along with Ballet de Lorraine, National Dance Company of Wales, and BalletX. He is frequently commissioned by new music ensembles, including eighth blackbird (Lott contributed to their GRAMMY-winning 2015 release Filament), GRAMMY winners Third Coast Percussion, and yMusic, who enlisted Lott to compose their entire 2017 release First. Other recent commissions include an arrangement of "Peace Like A River" for Paul Simon, and a new orchestral work, "The Swift & the Storm," for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has several releases under his own name, including the learning structures cycle and the original Tell My Why game soundtrack, heralded as "the new gold standard for trans characters in games."

From the start, Son Lux has operated as something akin to a sonic test kitchen. The Academy Award® and BAFTA-nominated band strives to question deeply held assumptions about how music is made and reconstruct it from a molecular level. What began as a solo project for founder Ryan Lott expanded in 2014, thanks to a kinship with Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia too strong to ignore. The trio strengthened their chemistry and honed their collective intuition while creating, releasing, and touring six recordings, including Brighter Wounds (2018) and triple album Tomorrows (2021). The result is a carefully cultivated musical language rooted in curiosity and balancing opposites that largely eschews genre and structural conventions. And yet, the band remains audibly indebted to iconoclastic artists in soul, hip-hop, and experimental improvisation who themselves carved new paths forward. 

Distilling these varied influences, Son Lux searches for equilibrium of raw emotional intimacy and meticulous electronic constructions. Son Lux scored A24’s Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once for which they were nominated for two Academy Awards and a BAFTA. The full score album features new collaborations with Mitski, David Byrne, Randy Newman, and Moses Sumney, among others.

Isaac So is following