Flute, congas, bass, drums, guitar and clavinet; this unconventional arrangement of instruments intertwine to form the debut album by Badge Époque Ensemble - a group of creative improvisers assembled to perform new, largely instrumental compositions by Maximilian ‘Twig’ Turnbull (formerly Slim Twig).

Badge employs an eclectic cast of characters from the Toronto underground music scene, whose combined experience would take pages to spell out. It includes stints accompanying songwriters Andy Shauf and Marker Starling, outfitting heavies Blood Ceremony and Biblical, and respective careers spent gigging Django-jazz and the classical cannon. Badge’s distinctive sound arises from the diversity of these musical exploits, creating a palpable chemistry well captured on the live-tracked songs that form the group’s self-titled debut.

Part of this crucial chemistry can be attributed to the fact that four of the six players in the Ensemble have been at the core of the live, U.S. Girls band, a group that has scorched stages internationally over the past year and was hailed by Paste magazine as the best live band of 2018. Since 2015, when Turnbull released his final record as Slim Twig for DFA, he has largely concentrated his efforts as a producer and writer on the U.S. Girls project, together with making contributions to the theatrical rock outfit, Darlene Shrugg and the psychedelic jazz-funk collective, The Cosmic Range. Badge’s set of songs is yet another 180-degree turn for an increasingly collective-minded bandleader, who is singularly disdainful of any genre orthodoxy.

The record is a collection of densely packed grooves, arranged by committee. Dank set pieces culminate in album standout, ‘Undressed In Solitude’, which features the otherworldly r ’n b of guest vocalist, James Baley. Over 11 simmering minutes, the track defies the contemporary fixations of automated music to convincingly combine sensual and cerebral textures. While it may call to mind an improbable collision.

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Badge Époque Ensemble

Badge Époque Ensemble - Undressed In Solitude (ft James Baley)

Voy coleccionando sonidos, los cuales después utilizaré remezclandolos para crear nuevos arreglos.
Comparto lo que me encuentro en cualquier momento y en todo lugar, para que funcione a su vez como una memoria sonora de mi vida.
Espero utilicen estos sonidos también, los remezclen y los comenten; para que este ejercicio se convierta en una bola de nieve de captura y remezcla de sonidos cotidianos, que espero me puedan ayudar a bautizar en el futuro.

I collect sounds, that I will remix in the future to create new arrangements.
I share what I find at any time and place, so this can work as a sonic memory of my life as well.
I hope you use these sounds too, remix them and comment them; so this exercise can grow bigger as a snowball made of capture, collection and remixing of everyday-life sounds, that I hope you all can help me name in the future.



Badge Époque Ensemble - Undressed In Solitude (ft James Baley)

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