Unreleased version of "Simbi" by Haitian guitarist/composer Franz Casseus. 

Chicago Underground Trio:
Jeff Parker - guitar
Noel Kupersmith - bass
Chad Taylor - drums

Recorded at Überstudio, Chicago, 1999. Engineered by Bundy K Brown.

Simbi

We are excited to premiere the ethereal electronic grooves of "Mahi Mahi" by Moonfish, the duo project of pianist & composer Maria Chiara Argirò and drummer, pianist & composer Ricardo Chiaberta.

For Moonfish, Maria and Ricardo combines piano, keyboards and synths with drums, bass synth and electronics. Both musicians are an integral part of the London jazz and electronic community, appearing and recording individually with artists such as Rosie Turton, Kinkajous, Liran Donin, Bruno Heinen, Kettle of Kites and These New Puritans.

A lush dialogue between synths and drums/bass synth, their third single features a mesmeric melody underpinned by layers of ethereal electronics and a solid, beat-driven groove. Drawing on mutual influences including Kneebody, Aaron Parks and Thom Yorke, this single is the last in a series of three singles from the duo, offering a new perspective on the piano/synths and drums duo. 

"Mahi Mahi" draws on both jazz and electronic influences to create an dreamy and mesmerising soundscape and an infectious groove. The key to this duo's sound is their ability to apply a sophisticated musical understanding and ability to bear on a beat-driven electronic project, without losing the power of the groove to any temptations to noodle.

"Mahi Mahi" is released on Cavalo Records on July 23rd. You can follow Moonfish on the links below.

https://www.instagram.com/moonfish_music/
https://www.facebook.com/musicofmoonfish
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK5cvZ2YlTpSOYfUvP_meIQ

Pre-Order

Exclusive Premiere: Moonfish "Mahi Mahi" (Forthcoming on Cavalo Records)

THE JOHN LURIE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA
"FLUTTER"
from the album, THE INVENTION OF ANIMALS
Available January 21, 2014 on AMULET RECORDS

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THE JOHN LURIE NATIONAL ORCHESTRA 'THE INVENTION OF ANIMALS' 
A COLLECTION OF OUT-OF-PRINT AND UNRELEASED LIVE RECORDINGS 
TO BE RELEASED JANUARY 21 ON AMULET RECORDS

The John Lurie National Orchestra featuring John Lurie, Billy Martin and G. Calvin Weston 

Available on Digital Formats and Limited Edition 180 Gram Vinyl

Billy Martin's Amulet Records have announced the January 21, 2014 release of The Invention of Animals by The John Lurie National Orchestra. The archival compilation assembles seven previously unreleased live and out-of-print studio recordings by the acclaimed musician, actor and visual artist John Lurie leading his early 1990s' trio with percussionists Billy Martin and G. Calvin Weston.

"The three of us got together to try and write stuff for my band The Lounge Lizards, but what happened between the three of us was magical. After about a year of playing live it really came together," says John Lurie. "There is something so unique and beautiful about this music. I don't think there is anything else like it."

Billy Martin adds: "John and I share the idea that this is like someone discovered a field recording of a lost civilization. Some strange and beautiful tribe unlike any other known to man."

The Invention of Animals opens with "Flutter," one of four National Orchestra performances culled from the soundtrack of John Lurie's 1991 television series, Fishing With John. Also drawn from that same soundtrack are "The Beast," "Little" and "Ignore The Giant." The additional studio recording included here is the title track to the only official John Lurie National Orchestra album Men With Sticks released in 1993. Rounding out the collection are two previously unreleased live recordings. "I Came To Visit Here For Awhile" was preserved at the Threadwaxing Space in New York City on May 7, 1993. The album's centerpiece and title track, "The Invention of Animals," running at 19-minutes-plus, was captured by highly regarded sound engineer Claudia Engelhart from a performance on February 12, 1994 in Thessaloniki, Greece. 

John Lurie first became known for his work in the late '70s leading the band The Lounge Lizards, which went on to make music for 20 years.  During this time, Lurie recorded 22 albums and composed scores for over 20 movies, including Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Mystery Train, Clay Pigeons, Animal Factory and Get Shorty, which earned him a Grammy nomination. Lurie also starred in three films directed by Jim Jarmusch, as well as a host of other films.  He wrote, directed and starred in the aforementioned cult classic Fishing with John, a series that is now part of The Criterion Collection. Lurie is also responsible for the incredible music of Marvin Pontiac. Lurie emerged onto the art scene in the spring of 2004, when he had his first painting exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery. Since then Lurie’s work has been exhibited in esteemed galleries throughout the world.  His solo museum exhibits include P.S.1. Contemporary Arts Center in New York, Musee Des Beaux-Arts De Montreal, the Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxembourg and the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, who gave their entire museum over to the presentation of Lurie's work. Both the Wadsorth Athenaeum in Connecticut and The Museum of Modern Art in New York have acquired his work for their permanent collections.

The Invention of Animals by The John Lurie National Orchestra features a painting by John Lurie as its cover art. It will be released on digital formats, as well as limited pressing, collector's edition 180 gram vinyl.

Buy from Amulet Record

Flutter | The John Lurie National Orchestra

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. Modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, Hall’s Canto Ostinato expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting.

Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups NOMO, Wild Belle, and his own songwriting moniker In Tall Buildings. He has composed music for feature films, and as a producer/engineer he has shaped records for Natalie Bergman and Western Vinyl labelmates Lean Year. In a 2020 creative pivot, he chose to reinvent composer Steve Reich’s monumental contemporary classical masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians as a solo undertaking, applying the piece’s score to the familiar keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers in his studio. “At the time I think I was working through my identity as a musician and an artist,” Hall explains, “and on a level there was some sort of exorcism of a long held pop spirit.” The album was celebrated for being “freshly thrilling” and “legible in history but assertive of the moment” (Pitchfork) and “beguiling, meditational, and magical” (Electronic Sound). It won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and it quickly joined the canon of the piece’s quintessential recordings.

“There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a longform piece that’s built on repetition,” Hall says. “Every stage— from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record— requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I’ve always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive.”

An apt second chapter, Canto Ostinato is inherently vast, and its score gives great creative license to the performer. Comprising 106 sections, complete freedom is given to repeat each one as many or as few times as desired. Additional leeway is given with regard to dynamics, articulation, and even instrumentation. On the heels of his previous, rather maximal arrangement, Hall chose to limit this album’s palette to three foundational keyboards of his studio: a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his family-heirloom 1910 Steinway grand piano. “This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven’t maintained in earnest since I was a teenager,” he admits. The ensuing five-note rhythmic motif— the piece’s primary building block— is steady and workmanlike, forgoing virtuosic flare for depth, texture, and resonance, and eventually giving way to the stunning gratification of a gorgeously lyrical left turn.

As with Music for 18 Musicians, Hall employed no loops nor quantization nor any programmed or sequenced instruments of any kind. Every part was performed live in a room and captured with microphones, one at a time, each informed by, and reacting to the last. In this way the record breathes with interplay and an organic humanity, complete with flaws, noise, and the faint sound of turning pages. The recording quality is nonetheless toneful and saturated, characteristic of Hall’s production style and straying from the usual transparency of classical albums by using gear with tubes, transformers, and various stages of compression in the signal path. Always there is unmistakable realism and the feeling of being present in the room, sitting among the keys, hammers, and tines.

Ten Holt said: “Time, patience and discipline are the prerequisites for making a genetic code productive." His landmark composition provides Hall once again with a wondrous space in which to reverently embody this sentiment and deftly convey the elegant beauty of this music.

Erik Hall - "Canto Ostinato - Sections 17 - 30"

From the forthcoming compilation "Joan Bibiloni - El Sur" 2014 © Music From Memory

Joan Bibiloni - Sa Fosca (7:02)

Budakhan Mindphone

Iambic 5 Poetry

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Mark Saddlemire is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer from Philadelphia, PA. He is passionate about creating instrumental compositions from a blend of acoustical and electronic sounds using analog techniques. As an electrical engineer by trade, he's customized and repaired much of the vintage gear used for his recordings. 'Sound-in-the-Round' is his debut single, entirely produced, composed and arranged by Mark with unique and rare analog instruments from the 1960s to the 1980s. His music is deeply inspired by the golden Library Music sounds, especially the Italian scene from the 1970s and 80s.

Out on New Tape label - September 2023
℗&© Sonor Music Editions

Semi Tori no Hi (セミ取りの日)

Yasuaki Shimizu

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