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.
Here is the newest clip by IAMX, check below for tickets for their Belgian concert at the AB.
IAMX stelt zijn zesde album ‘Metanoia’ live voor in de AB op 7 november
‘Oh Cruel Darkness Embrace Me’ is de eerste single
Chris Corner is terug met zijn soloproject IAMX. Met de albumteaser 'Happiness', wist hij online heel wat buzz te creëren deze zomer. De Engelse singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist en producer kondigt bovendien de nakende release van ‘Metanoia’ aan, vergezeld van een nieuwe Europese tournee die op zaterdag 7 november ook bij ons in Brussel halt houdt!
Midden jaren ’90 leverde Corner al baanbrekend werk als oprichter van de band Sneaker Pimps. Tien jaar later stampt hij ook zijn solo-project uit de grond. Zijn eerste plaat ‘Kiss+Swallow’ komt uit in 2004. Het succes is meteen van de partij, wat leidt tot een vliegende start voor zijn carrière. Beschouwd als een grote underground-naam, en als aanstoker van de unieke ‘Glam Noir’-sound, leverde hij sindsdien nog vier cultalbums af, met ‘The Alternative’ (2006), ‘Kingdom of Welcome Addition’ (2009), ‘Volatile Times’ (2011) en ‘The Unified Field’ (2013).
2015 staat voor hem dus in het teken van zijn zesde plaat, ‘Metanoia’, die op 13 November in de rekken ligt (via Orphic/Caroline/Universal). Na Londen en Berlijn settelde de artiest zich deze keer in Los Angeles om zich helemaal onder te dompelen in nieuwe invloeden en inspiraties. Deze verandering van omgeving schemert opnieuw perfect door in de elf nieuwe tracks, die getuigen van een grote maturiteit en de grenzen van de electro nog verder aftasten.
“Bloc Party started with just Kele and I, and we used to write the songs together, and we found other people and grew from that. It feels like that’s happened again,” says Russell. They started writing together, just the two of them, in 2014, and were joined at various stages by the two new members who have made Bloc Party a four-piece again: bassist Justin Harris, whom the band met in his previous guise as part of the Portland indie rock band Menomena, and drummer Louise Bartle, a 21-year-old that the pair discovered on YouTube, and who “blew us away. It’s good to have someone bringing that energy of doing it for the first time. It’s made us all excited about going forward.”
As the title suggests, the fifth Bloc Party record is about faith and devotion, but it is not, Kele insists, a religious epiphany. “I grew up in a religious house so I’m fully aware of the imagery, but I’m not Christian. It’s not something I subscribe to.” Instead, the concept came to him after seeing the author Hanif Kureishi, whom Kele has admired since he was at school, talk at the Southbank Centre in London. The author of My Beautiful Laundrette and Intimacy was discussing evangelical art and how unfashionable it has become. “And that point stuck with me because it seemed like for me music had originated in a religious place. The first music I ever heard was hymns at school. I started to think, if I was going to make music that had a spiritual dimension, that was sacred to me and to the things that I held important, how would I do it?”
The result is a record that sounds like a band growing and changing, pushing new sounds via new approaches, and resulting in more free, less constricted Bloc Party. HYMNS marks a departure for the band sonically, too, with Kele and Russell trying sounds and approaches that they have never previously explored.
“It’s still a very live record,” says Russell. “Everything has been played, though it doesn’t necessarily sound like that. We take a lot of influence from electronic music, for example, and then try to bring that into a completely different environment.” Kele is astounded at the results. “What Russell is doing now is completely blowing my mind. He’s using the guitar as an instrument of white noise, as well as a melodic tool. I’m super-excited about getting this music in front of people.”
In August Bloc Party played two sold out shows in the US at The Glass House, Pomona, and The Roxy, Los Angeles, before an acclaimed appearance at FYF Fest, where they headlined The Lawn stage. They are confirmed to headline the Hostess Club Weekender in Japan, and Falls Festival in Australia this winter, and play a run of sold out intimate European shows in November-December. All dates are below; see www.bloc.party for full details:
09 November - O2 ABC, Glasgow, UK
23 November - Hostess Club Weekender, Studio Coast, Tokyo, JP
27 November - Paradiso, Amsterdam, NL - SOLD OUT
28 November - Live Music Hall, Koln, DE - SOLD OUT
29 November - Astra Kulturhaus, Berlin, DE - SOLD OUT
01 December - Alhambra, Paris, FR - SOLD OUT
02 December - Cirque Royal, Brussels, BL - SOLD OUT
03 December - Albert Hall, Manchester, UK - SOLD OUT
04 December - St John at Hackney, London, UK - SOLD OUT
30 December - Falls Festival, Lorne, AU
30 December - Falls Festival, Marion Bay, AU
01 January - Falls Festival, Byron Bay, AU
05 January - Forum Theatre, Melbourne, AU
07 January - Enmore Theatre, Sydney, AU
10 January - Southbound Festival, Perth, AU
Bloc Party are:
Kele Okereke (vocals, guitar), Russell Lissack (guitar), Justin Harris (bass) and Louise Bartle (drums).
On Saturday March 5th 2016 it s all about electronic music at the Turbinenhalle Oberhausen. The E-tropolis festival is in for a hell of a ride with a real electro-invasion of top–class bands. There will be something for every taste, future pop, EBM, industrial, electro…., so fasten your seatbelts for bands like, AND ONE , HOCICO , SUICIDE COMMANDO (vintage set), WINTERKÄLTE, DIORAMA , THE CASSANDRA COMPEX…..and many more
Last year with over 4,000 visitors the E-Tropolis festival set a new visitor record, and this edition will even be better. So all you dark electronic lovers, please mark this day in your calendar
Below you can see some highlights from last year’s edition. More info about line up or tickets can be found at their website.
Click here for a review of the 2015-edition.
Many new dates added in tour-list and now you can check out when the band will be near your place. Right now AMBASSADOR21 working in studio on the new album. Lots of new material already recorded and the band will play new tracks on the next live shows.
The album scheduled to be released in early Fall 2016.
22-24.10.15 - PRSPCT RVLT Festival / Rotterdam, NL
27.11.15 - Boccaccio / Monza (Milan), IT
28.11.15 - Next Emerson / Florence, IT
04.12.15 - Wave / Rimini, IT
05.12.15 - DalVerme / Rome, IT
23.01.16 - Malá Amerika / Brno, CZ
02.04.16 - Freaked Studio / Reims, FR
09.04.16 - Supamolly / Berlin, DE
09.04.16 - ILLEGAL TRADE @ Supamolly / Berlin, DE
15-17.04.16 - Bangface Weekender / Southport, UK
