International Anthem: S/D

Yeah, really like that Tom Skinner album.

Just catching up on some recent releases, both the Tom Skinner and Dezron Douglas albums are really great. The latter is the most "traditional" sounding thing I've heard from this label in a long time, but it still really works.

Agreed on the Douglas "oh! this is 'normal' jazz" reaction. I'd love to see that group live.

I've listened to the Skinner twice and would say it's very good but it also faded from memory quickly (possibly a result of my listening to too much [old] jazz lately though).

International Anthem musicians: They're Just Like You update:

Spotted M McCraven behind me in line at Target today!

only time i ever saw him in public, I started approaching him to tell him how much i loved his music and he gave me a clear "please don't talk to me" look
i dunno, i probably caught him at a bad moment

I’ve seen him 3x now — twice at the restaurant where I work and this once at Target. I didn’t say anything about being a fan any of those times but did get to make limited small talk when I delivered his drink once.

I met him at the Green Mill once. He wasn't playing, just there for the after-hours jam the night that Anderson Paak was playing at the theater next door and so Kamasi Washington and everyone from the band was in the house. The drummer was late and I was 'joking' that he should play the first tune, but he was off the clock. Super nice though.

Saw him again at a very intimate club with a (guitar) trio, incredible show.

Daniel Villarreal brought the house down last night at the venue attached to my workplace. I caught a tiny bit of it (I was working) and could only wish I was not working so i could see the whole show. People were raving on their way out.

Ooh very jealous!

Thanks for reminding me how much I listened to that earlier this year. Need to pull it out again.

the new / upcoming Angel Bat Dawid album is incredible.

Chain Around The Spirit!!!

https://i.imgur.com/L6vaN8wl.jpeg

saw tortoise in portland last night and dan bitney was wearing a fly or die shirt <3

<3

I wish the rest of this Rob Mazurek album was less free and more like the first track, I had high hopes

Angel Bat Dawid album felt corny as hell to me but I stopped after five tracks

same

She can be a bit much. I think Damon Locks does something similar to her but a whole lot better.

I like The Oracle a lot, but I couldn't get into the choral stuff on this one. Plus I still need to see The Cry of Jazz, so that reference is lost on me

My first take, when a friend sent it to me recently (the gist: I got more into the second half on first listen)

Tue, Mar 28, 3:21 PM (4 days ago)
to John

Dammmm---gonna take me a while to wrap my head around all of that---at first, was put off/distracted, in my secular way by extended, layered, ornate use of themes otherwise recalling spirituals (chorales not her specialty) as associated, in less pressing way, with Ra, and Ellington, for that matter, also somewhat distractingly, though the notes warned me, w The Cry of Jazz/Ed Bland's insistently polemical POV---but the second half pulled me in more, as often happens, maybe takes my brain that long, but also got more into reeds, strings, some electronics, perceived in more of a prominent, supportive partnership with chorale--also emerging w for inst klezmer-associated motifs, also dig the early New Orleans groove of another track, and of course Marshall Allen and Knoell Scott get into thee penultimate performance--I like how these live sections are mutable, without going on too long--will take some more listening, but some great stuff here, obviously------she pulls off a much more concise collage ov speculative fact and effects here, a trip : https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/hush-harbor-mixtape-vol-1-doxology On this latest, she incl. some fellow members of the Monuments Ensemble; they all have some bracing urban offroad excursions here: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/now

I have to say the new Angel Bat Dawid is a rare miss from this label. I love her other stuff, but this really feels like an event you needed to see in person to appreciate. On the recording, it comes across as really stilted and episodic, it rarely coheres in an engaging way and I wonder if the stage spectacle would have helped with that. I don't think it's corny at all and appreciate what she was trying to do, it just doesn't hold up as an album.

*announcing* IARC0066 jaimie branch -
Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))
LP, CD, Digi album out August 25th, 2023

LINK: https://t.co/itzFirAMIs pic.twitter.com/9jsXJpGkR7

— 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 (@intlanthem) June 20, 2023

Pre-ordered my copy already.

amazing cover imo, can't wait to hear it!!

Surprised not to be seeing much about the new Asher Gamedze, Turbulence and Pulse. I know it's not as forward looking as some of the other stuff these guys put out, but I think it sounds great!

it's really good

finally getting around to the Gamedze today, and, yeah, it's excellent

Not IA, but of related interest:

Hi everyone,

Infrequent Seams keeps at it, releasing an astounding amount of astoundingly creative music. I wrote to y'all about this last week, but today's the day we announce the debut recording from Chicago's Mad Myth Science, to be released 8/25.

It's been four years since Elaine Mitchener put together her brilliant Vocal Classics of the Black Avant Garde playlist for The Wire* and if she reprised it today, I have to believe Mad Myth Science would be a top contender for inclusion. Julian Otis's beautiful, fragmented, passionate poetry and vocalizations thread together these shimmering and forward-thinking improvisations, helping to elevate what was already exceptional to something beyond.

Texture and timbre are central to this work. Mad Myth Science finds power in nuance, in sensitive and subtle –– if not always gentle –– interplay between the idiosyncratic mix of instruments: flute, saxophone, cello, harmonica, vibraphone ... the pre-Don Moye era Art Ensemble of Chicago might come to mind here, with good reason.

For years I used to attend Umbrella Music's jazz night at the Hungry Brain in Chicago every Sunday and frequently visited Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge. Mad Myth Science reminds me of the very best of these evenings; it feels like a distillation of many things memorable and powerful about avant garde jazz and creative music, definitely recommended for fans of Angel Bat Dawid, Matana Roberts, Jeanne Lee, Irreversible Entanglements, and the aforementioned Vocal Classics of the Black Avant Garde playlist.

Please share news of this forthcoming release and share "We Instruments."

Peace,
mark at clandestinepr dot com
SINGLES & RELEASE CALENDAR

JULY 19 _ album announce + "We Instruments" single release
AUG 25 _ full-length release

LIVE

AUG 11 _ Lafayette, IN at Spot Tavern

AUG 13 _ Chicago, IL at The Hungry Brain
with Keefe Jackson / Julian Kirchner / Fred Lomberg-Holm trio

LINKS
Mad Myth Science Instagram
Infrequent Seams Bandcamp

ALBUM CREDITS
Molly Jones: saxophone, flute, toys (Untoward Sound LLC)
Julian Otis: voice, electronics
Wilson Tanner Smith: cello, harmonica, bells & whistles
Ben Zucker: cornet, vibraphone, percussion (ASCAP, Ben Zucker Sounds)

*https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/elaine-mitchener-selects-vocal-classics-of-the-black-avant-garde

And speaking of vocals, excerpts of Clifford Jordan's previously unreleased Drink Plenty Water, recorded in 1974, incl. cosmic chorales and bent-nose spoken words in ways that suggest Sun Ra and Mingus, as reviewer Kevin Whitehead notes here:
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/19/1188651008/newly-unearthed-1974-session-by-clifford-jordan-is-a-striking-one-of-a-kind-albu

This is exciting—a new track from Resavoir with the promise of an album in the future: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/inside-minds

ooh yes

Daniel Villarreal Announces New Album Lados B
Out Oct. 6 2023
Featuring Jeff Parker & Anna Butterss
Releases Video for Lead Single "Sunset Cliffs"
Fall US Tour Dates

On October 15th and 16th, 2020, drummer Daniel Villarreal was joined by guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss for two afternoons of recording in the backyard of Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles. For all three musicians, it was the first ensemble recording session they’d done in-person since the pandemic locked the world down just seven months prior. Some choice moments from these sessions made it onto Villarreal’s critically-acclaimed 2022 album Panamá 77, but most of the music remained unreleased.

Lados B is a deep dive into the high-level spontaneous music made by Villarreal, Parker, and Butterss across those two days in 2020. Villarreal is heard leading the group through various rhythmic modes and structures for improvisation – flow as informed by the Latin funk of Fania Records as it is by the otherworldly humanity trance of Brain Records – while Parker and Butterss draw on their extensive experience playing free together (as heard on Parker's recently-released Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, and the LA side of Makaya McCraven's 2018 LP Universal Beings) to build harmonic buoys for their spontaneous melodicism. The result is a beautifully vivid illustration of context, creativity, and collective composition from a particularly rich moment in history.

DANIEL VILLARREAL ON "SUNSET CLIFFS"

This song brings me back to when I used to visit my daughters down in Ocean Beach, San Diego. It has a total cruiser vibe as we used to drive up and down the shore as a family and go to these lookout points at the cliffs and enjoy magnificent sunsets colors by the ocean and watching the waves crashing into the rocks.

US TOUR DATES

Wednesday, October 18th - Public Records - Brooklyn NY -
Friday, October 20th - Solar Myth - Philadelphia PA -
Saturday, October 21st - Solar Myth - Philadelphia PA -
Friday, October 27th - Jack London Revue - Portland OR -
Saturday, October 28th - Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts - Beverly Hills CA -
Monday, October 30th - Yoshi's - Oakland CA -

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/lados-b

Yeeeeessssss I saw him play recently at my workplace and it was fantastic!! I love his whole vibe and the folks he plays with are also all top notch.

Finally got around to hearing the Mazurek/Locks thing and, I hate to say it, but man that is disappointing. If there were more of "Twilight Shimmer" type moments it would have been great, but this was kind of a letdown.

got a promo of that Villareal album, it is fannnnnnntastic

super stoked for that and the new Fly or Die

i just saw DV perform recently and -- as usual -- he was great! i extra enjoyed the extended solo. his band was absolutely smokin too.

the bass player in particular but all of them were really fun to watch. he played two shows at the venue attached to my workplace and they were not esp well attended but that's everyone else's loss. lots of people don't know what they're missing.

this Jaimie Branch record, wowwwww

Listening now, sounds great. I was so bummed out by her death. This must have been recorded just like a month after I saw her play.

Finished listening and immediately started it again. Hot damn. I realize I'm in the buzz of first listen, but serious AOTY contender. All the parts of it work. She was so great, and what a band.

sleeve and tipsy otm, listened to this loud in the car on a long ride home yesterday, what a blast!

I love the way that Meat Puppets song is folded in there. I'd have to think a bit to articulate exactly why it fits, but it really does.

this Jaimie Branch record, wowwwww

yes indeed! Take Over The World!!

IA alumni, Irreversible Entanglements new album on Impulse! is also getting a lot of plays this week.

The new Alabaster DePlume record is really lovely, much better than the 'main' companion album the sessions came from imo

very much looking forward to the Bex Burch album

I’m ok admitting I’m in love with the Jaimie Branch record — so great to hear her vocal and trumpet voice, hear body music with an improvisational bent, and I just love the whole thing.

Finding myself wondering who tf is Bex Burch?

Looking forward to that one as well, not familiar but the preview tracks sound great

IE are great and anything with Moor Mother rules, I forgot this group had been on International Anthem. Also love to see DC guy Luke Stewart get recognition and acclaim.

Open the Gates might be my favorite IE release I've heard.

My first encounter with Moor Mother was Art Ensemble of Chicago's We Are On The Edge: a cast of thousands, but she stood out among the standouts. Fave IE is still Who Sent You?, but haven't heard the latest yet.