Welcome to our latest ‘Between The Cracks’. You can read a bit about each album and play it on the website via the Bandcamp player. As always, please support the artists by purchasing their music. We hope you enjoy reading and listening!
Albums
Klein Zage – Feed The Dog
Klein Zage veers away from dance music and into a world of innovative alt-pop, trip-hop and shoegaze with an emotional portrayal of fondness, detachment and monotony. Sage Redman (aka Klein Zage) has moved from Seattle to South East London and now finds herself in upstate New York. On Feed The Dog, Zage is a musical chameleon who has kept close to a desire to reinvent herself as an artist against this backdrop of ever-changing scenery.
Earth Room – Earth Room
Earth Room is a trio of acclaimed musicians joining forces for the first time. With synth drones and free jazz percussion rubbing elbows with Krautrock grooves and woodwinds, the trio occupies the borderlands of improvisation, ambient/drone, and kosmische music. It’s six tracks of celestial creativity from Ezra Feinberg, Robbie Lee and John Thayer. Tip.
Lucrecia Dalt – ¡Ay!
With her eighth studio album, ‘Ay! ‘, Lucrecia Dalt explores the musical influences of her childhood in Colombia. Bolero, mambo, salsa, cumbia and merengue elements form the backdrop of Dalt’s experiments, which connect delicately to her sci-fi sound design and soft tones. Futuristic sound effects trickle through the tropically inspired soundscape, but Dalt’s golden tones stand out above anything else. Its first breath to its last is mesmerising.
Ami Dang – The Living World’s Demands
Ami Dang is back, enticing us with new music. Following the serenely beautiful and poignant Parted Plains album, Dang has unveiled The Living World’s Demands. Created with a keen ear for detail, Dang weaves together swirling sitars, delicate Indian percussion, dreamy synths and addictive alt-pop hooks, with vocals in both English and Punjabi. Utterly gorgeous.
Contour – Onwards!
London label Touching Bass continues to push the envelope regarding fresh soulful music. Next up on the imprint comes Contour with Onwards!’ — an evocative, twelve-track journey through past and contemporary black art with soul, electronics and archival material at its core. It is definitely an album that rewards repeated listening, offering plenty for those who love music rich in soul and expanding his songwriting ability, lyrically and thematically.
The Brother Moves On – $/He Who Feeds You…Owns You
The Brother Moves On started as a performance art collective that slowly morphed into a band. On their fourth album, the Johannesburg sextet continues to live and breathe the city’s energy through their music. They are rooted in protest music with songs that uplift, heal, and empower us to make the changes that are needed right now. $/He Who Feeds You… Owns You is an impressive body of work. In a brilliant display of grace, power, and groove, it connects South African music with fearless lineages of resistance worldwide. I love it.
Franck Biyong – Kunde
Immersing himself in sound all over, the new Frank Biyong album is 360 Reality Audio meets vintage old-school vibes. His latest album is very different from anything we’ve heard from Biyong before, and it never quite settles into a consistent rhythm (which is a good thing). Drawing on King Crimson and Tangerine Dream, this is a Krautrock-inspired cosmic voyage that binds electronic Afro meditation set against towering synths, a sinister wall of distortion, hard-hitting rhythms and melodic moods.
Don Kapot & Fulco Ottervanger – Un peu live
Setting sail on their lifeboat of free jazz, afrobeat and krautpunk, the trio of Giotis Damianidis (bass), Viktor Perdieus (baritone saxophone), and Jakob Warmenbol (drums) bob up and down uninhibited, flaws and wobbles intact.
Edrix Puzzle – Coming of the Moondogs
This unique and complex album from Edrix Puzzle leaves me feeling different every time I listen to it. Led by producer, multi/instrumentalist and drummer Nathan “Tugg” Curran, they put influences from Mwandishi-era Herbie Hancock in with space-weight electronics, classical violin and instrumental analogue noir and created an impressive album. A band rarely achieves its lofty ambitions so well. Coming of the Moondogs is truly adventurous listen and well worth your time.
Ben Lamar Gay – Certain Reveries
Originally performed and filmed for EFG London Jazz Fest’s 2020, ‘Certain Reveries’ is a long-form composition by Ben Lamar Gay with percussionist Tommaso Moretti. The music on this album is a beautiful and highly musical stew of jazz fusion, improv, and cosmic freakout.
