Arca has today confirmed details of his second full-length album for Mute. Titled Mutant, the album will be released on 20 November It will be available on CD, download and as a double LP, and again features artwork from long-time collaborator and friend Jesse Kanda.
Where Arca’s previous release Xen (2014) was introspective, Mutant is outwardly emboldened. Dedicated to and coloured by the important people in Arca’s life, Mutant illustrates the continuing mutations catalysed by loved ones: friends, family, acquaintances. Arca morphs for them and because of them. Both releases are contortionist shape-shifters, but where Xen asked us to meet her in her world, Mutant comes out to meet us in the light. Mutant is suggestively agape, embracing multiple sensualities with refreshing softness. Jesse Kanda’s organic cover art, luminous where Xen’s was shrouded, is a reflection of this.
In the artist’s words: ‘Mutant is about sensuality and impulsiveness as escape routes out of rigidity. Softness as a weapon when the mind attacks itself.’ Mutations in the records’ textures parallel the malleability of identity; tension is harmonised by openness and the inclusiveness of transformation. Pride is taken in deformity, innocence, distortion and vulnerability: traits often ostracised as undesirable. Themes that have animated Arca’s work – tension, polarities, playfulness, eroticism, mutability – have been refracted into newer, more nuanced shades. Fluctuation, in-betweenness, intimacy and chaos are celebrated.
The title track softens the space between abrasion and enlightenment, morphing from snarling aggression to elusive vapour, the atmosphere shifting at unexpected moments. Its impulsive video consists of an unchoreographed first and single take of Arca dancing. The attached self-portraits of Arca are comparably raw. ‘Anger’ is celebratory and carnival-esque, while ‘Faggot’ concludes with rhythmic allusions to the title track from Xen. The dripping sounds of ‘Umbilical’, fused with the title’s connotations of birth, clash with digital static. ‘Enveloped’ is a label suggestive of overwhelming but comforting containment, yet the track itself feels liberated, with warped strings crawling from the uniform rhythm in the piece’s latter moments. ‘Vanity’, ‘Snakes’ and ‘Soichiro’ are personal and intimate sweltering rainforests of sound. Buds open as tracks unfold, petals of the darkest reds and most vivid blues bloom. Deep roots of bass crawl through the earth beneath the record, anchoring each organism. The only essential consistency between the tracks is a refusal to sit still.
The constant liminality of Mutant is hard to pin down; something seen out of the corner of one’s eye that has moved elsewhere in the time it takes to bring it into focus.
SKIP&DIE are back with a great new single from their exhilarating new album, entitled Cosmic Serpents - luring their audiences into a landscape somewhere between paradise, the apocalypse and beyond. With its re-imagining of global music, irresistible rhythms and beats, acoustic instruments, field recordings and spacey synths, SKIP&DIE’s latest album, Cosmic Serpents, reveals a poetic sonic collage that toys with ideas of transient life, looming death, and the notion that our collective DNA coils throughout eternity like a cosmic serpent.
Earlier this year they were (ao) already at AB, but on October 22 they will shake up the VK !
Cold War Night Life (www.coldwarnightlife.com), the online magazine of electronic music and culture, has announced the planned release of a tribute to Rational Youth. Called Heresy, the vinyl and CD package features many of the Canadian synth pioneers’ best-known songs, interpreted by contemporary artists from the UK, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Germany and Canada.
Included in the release will be the premiere of a new track from Rational Youth. “This Side of the Border” is in the classic Rational Youth style and is certain to please existing fans and win new admirers.
Spanning two vinyl LPs and a 12” EP, with two accompanying CDs mirroring the vinyl, all contained in a triple-gatefold sleeve, Heresy will be issued only in physical form – no Spotify, no iTunes, no Google Play. This reflects Cold War Night Life’s philosophy that albums are to be touched, read and heard.
The album is expected to be released close to the New Year.
The featured artists and tracks are:
Rational Youth – “This Side of the Border”
Candide – “City of Night (CET Mix)”
Rossetti's Compass – “Coboloid Race”
Johan Baeckström – “Saturdays in Silesia”
Psyche – “Ring the Bells”
Kord feat. Annie Gylling – “Dancing on the Berlin Wall”
Independent State – “Beware the Fly”
Den Där Killen – “In Your Eyes”
Procedure – “Close to Nature (No TDM Mix)”
Parralox – “I Want to See the Light”
John Costello – “Holiday in Bangkok (Direkt Mix)”
Diskodiktator – “Talk to Me (I'm Only Human)”
Mars TV feat. Robert Enforsen & Karin My – “Just a Sound in the Night”
Project Grudge – “Beware the Fly”
Technomancer feat. Angst Pop – “I've Got a Sister in the Navy”
Machinista – “City of Night”
Rekk feat. Robert Enforsen & Karin My – “The Man in Grey”
Datafreq vs The Beautiful Spies – “Everything Is Vapour (Future Spy Remix)”
Touching the Void – “Ring the Bells”
For information, please contact Simon Helm (simon@coldwarnightlife.com).
JOHN WETTON is the lead singer of ASIA, UK and the “Red” era of KING CRIMSON, with an extensive solo catalogue, which now includes “Live via Satellite”
This 2 CD set collects together both of John Wetton’s acoustic solo concerts for radio broadcasts. The XM radio broadcast was only available for sale via his website over 10 years ago and has never had a commercial release.
The Swedish radio broadcast (previously unreleased) was thought lost in a fire, until a duplicate of the master tapes was found thanks to a long and tireless search by John Wetton’s fans.
Of the release, John Wetton said: “Both of these shows are from the same time period, but come from very different sources. The first, a Circus tent-like venue in a funfair in Stockholm: the second, a state-of-the-art facility in Washington DC, so the repertoire is similar, but venues could not be more different. Recording production is superb on both, it's a document of a slice of my life.”
As a lead singer, bassist and songwriter, John Wetton initially rose to fame with King Crimson and after that Wetton co-founded UK. In the early 1980s he was the frontman of the super-group Asia, his biggest commercial success. ASIA’s self-titled debut album was the biggest selling album in the world in 1982 and the band continues to this day.
He later formed the duo Icon with Geoff Downes (YES and The Buggles) and has had a successful solo career releasing a large number of studio and live albums, including the recent compilation The Studio Recordings Anthology.
John Wetton's “Live via Satellite” will be released 9th October 2015 and is part of the ongoing release schedule of his own Primary Purpose label, working via Cherry Red.
DISC ONE
1. THE CIRCLE OF ST. GILES
2. HEAT OF THE MOMENT
3. BOOK OF SATURDAY
4. BATTLE LINES
5. ARKANGEL
6. THE SMILE HAS LEFT YOUR EYES
7. EASY MONEY
8. EMMA
9. 30 YEARS
10. HOLD ME NOW
11. RENDEZVOUS 6:02
12. THE NIGHT WATCH
13. YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE
14. STARLESS
DISC TWO
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE CIRCLE OF ST. GILES
3. HEAT OF THE MOMENT
4. MONDRAGO / BOOK OF SATURDAY
5. THE SMILE HAS LEFT YOUR EYES
6. 30 YEARS
7. HOLD ME NOW
8. ARKANGEL
9. EMMA
10. SOLE SURVIVOR
11. RENDEZVOUS 6:02
12. THE WATER IS WIDE
13. STARLESS
14. BATTLE LINES
15. THE CELTIC CROSS
Soulsavers will release their new album ‘Kubrick’ through San Quentin on 4th December. Self-produced and recorded at various studios around the world, including Sunset Sound, Real World and Air Studios, the album will be available on vinyl, CD and as a download. ‘Kubrick’ follows the release this month of a second collaboration with Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan. Entitled ‘Angels & Ghosts, the album is released through Columbia Records on 23rd October.
“Like a lot of people, I have phases of obsession, whether it’s about albums, musicians or film directors”, admits the quietly laconic Rich Machin, one half, alongside Ian Glover, of esteemed production duo and orchestral rock combo Soulsavers. “A while ago, I quite casually started revisiting some of Stanley Kubrick’s films, and pretty soon I was watching them all. I found myself really relishing Kubrick’s amazing attention to detail and how each film had it’s own completely unique mood. I’d wanted to make an instrumental record for ages… I found I could draw on these different moods as starting points for the music.”
Thus was born ‘Kubrick’, an extraordinarily poignant, unashamedly beautiful instrumental Soulsavers album whose sumptuous strings, opulent woodwinds, resonant drums and soaring organ, piano and guitar melodies offer an often subtle, sometimes epically cinematic seduction. Each of the album’s eight, dextrously arranged essays is named after a different character from the iconic oeuvre of maverick moviemaker Stanely Kubrick, but, Machin is keen to point out, the album is not so much a musical homage to the director’s films as a journey into the kinds of emotional landscape and all-embracing atmosphere the great auteur delighted in creating.
‘Kubrick’ is an album whose sonic luxury is matched by its intensity of feeling and the immediacy and raw emotion of Machin’s writing and arrangements. “With classical or orchestral music, I think there can sometimes be too much of a sense of perfectionism; it can be sonically amazing but rather sterile and lifeless to listen to”, says Machin. “We wanted to capture the spirit and immediacy of a rock’n’roll or band record, and not try to overwork everything. We didn’t want to Pro-Tools it to death… If a take had some minor technical flaws but had the right feeling, we’d use it anyway. I actually like human noises and textures in music. I like it when you can hear the viola player breathing…”
Designing bespoke, uniquely immersive recording experiences has been Soulsavers’ calling for a decade and a half, now. Their story begins at the turn of the millennium, with Messrs. Machin and Glover teaming up as a production and remix unit before embarking on their own material. Their 2003 debut album, ‘Tough Guys Don’t Dance’, expanded their remit into song, with vocals from Josh Haden, of slow-core combo Spain, while the ensuing, critic-enchanting ‘It's Not How Far You Fall, It's the Way You Land,’ from 2007, wedded gospel, rock, jazz, country and more into a uniquely simmering stew, topped off with saturnine vocals from erstwhile Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, alongside contributions from The London Community Gospel Choir, Will Oldham and Doves' Jimi Goodwin.
‘Broken’ followed in 2009, cementing the band’s reputation and garnering widespread encomium as Mark Lanegan once again fronted the songs, alongside Will Oldham, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce, Faith No More’s Mike Patton, Richard Hawley and the Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes. 2012’s gleamingly produced ‘The Light The Dead Sea’ offered another departure, with Lanegan’s frontman baton being handed on to Depeche Mode vocalist, and avowed Soulsavers fan, Dave Gahan – the two combos having toured together in 2010.
Aside from the albums, Soulsavers’ music has been, and continues to be, regularly aired on prime-time television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, CSI: NY, Lie To Me, Mercy, Eastbound & Down, In Treatment and Friday Night Lights, among many others.
