Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1940, of mixed Nigerian and Ghanaian parentage, Tony Allen taught himself to play by listening to records made by the American jazz drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. He began working as a professional musician in 1960, gigging around Lagos and variously playing highlife and jazz. Today living in Paris, Allen has long been acknowledged as Africa’s finest kit drummer and one of it's most influential musicians, the man who with Fela Anikulapo Kuti created Afrobeat - the hard driving, James Brown funk-infused, and politically engaged style which became such a dominant force in African music and whose influence continues to spread today.

Allen had to overcome strong parental opposition to realise his dream of
becoming a professional musician. “My parents were…not keen. Back then, in Lagos, musicians were more or less thought of as beggars, or worse. But I just put it in front of them. I was an electrical technician, but I wanted to make a change. My mother was never happy about it, but my father, who was an amateur musician, eventually agreed.”

Allen started out as a jazz drummer. “Art Blakey was my big influence, and before that, before I started club crawling, it was Gene Krupa. When I started, I tried to play like Gene Krupa. Then I discovered Blue Note Records and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers - it opened up another style to me. Max Roach was important too. I studied some lessons he wrote in Down Beat magazine about how to play high-hats. Most drummers in Lagos never used them, they were just a decoration on the kit,and I’d always thought that was something incomplete.”

WinDoW & oRAngE is the mostly song-poem draft project of some mostly human Leora in Brooklyn. Some of the songs are written out, nearly complete demos recorded with stellar friends and some are improvised, sung alone in hush to her phone while everyone else is sleeping. 

Instruments:
Vocal harmonies, alto and baritone ukuleles, mini harp, guitar, electronic beats, banjo, field samples 

Inspirations and comparisons: Joanna Newsom, The Microphones, Bjork, Regina Spektor, Fiona Apple, Angel Olsen, Diane Cluck, Hop Along, Sufjan Stevens, Josephine Foster, Trespassers William, Modest Mouse, Sylvan Esso, Mountain Man, Mirah, Laura Veirs, Laura Gibson... 

Poetry-breathed experimental pop with a touch of ambient. Love songs and prayers in an age of tyrants.

In 1998, songwriting & production duo Emily Haines & Jimmy Shaw formed what would become Metric and left Toronto for NYC in search of like-minded artists. In 2001/2002, they were joined by drummer Joules Scott Key & bassist Joshua Winstead, and found themselves at the center of the city’s burgeoning alt-rock scene alongside bands like LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, TV On the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and more. Unlike their peers, Metric resisted major label offers, releasing albums that pushed boundaries on their own terms.

Metric’s relentless pursuit of timeless songwriting and fiercely independent ethos have cemented their place as one of the most essential and ahead-of-the-curve bands of the last two decades. By constantly upping themselves across nine unpredictable and adventurous studio albums, the trailblazing Toronto outfit founded by Emily Haines & Jimmy Shaw is proof that you can amass an untouchable catalog without signing to a major label or changing your lineup. Their latest LP, Formentera II, out October 13 via their label MMI & Thirty Tigers, is a testament to their singular purpose. It stands among their best and most genre-defying work and closes the 18-song cycle started by 2022’s critically acclaimed Formentera

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