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GIL SCOTT-HERON WE’RE NEW AGAIN A REIMAGINING BY MAKAYA MCCRAVEN
In February 2010, the late, legendary musician, poet and author Gil Scott-Heron released his thirteenth, and last, studio album. First conceptualised in 2005, and ultimately produced by XL Recordings head Richard Russell during New York recording sessions that commenced in January 2008, I’m New Here was Scott-Heron’s first album in thirteen years and found him sounding as vital and insightful as ever before. It was, and still is, a record that reveals something unexpected at every turn; one that found Scott-Heron pushing, probing and testing the limits just as he always had; always looking forward, still challenging conventions and expectations.
To mark the tenth anniversary of I’m New Here’s release, XL Recordings will release a unique re-imagining of the album by the acclaimed Chicago-based musician Makaya McCraven, whose work Russell first discovered after hearing McCraven’s “Above & Beyond,” from 2017’s Highly Rare album. Equally renowned and revered as a musician, drummer, sampler, beat-maker and producer, McCraven is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and original voices in modern jazz via a run of records that were at once genre-defying and redefining such as Universal Beings, Highly Rare and Where We Come From (CHICAGOxLONDON mixtape) for the highly influential Chicago label International Anthem. As the New York Times states: “Makaya McCraven has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.”
On We’re New Again – recorded and produced in the main at his Chicago home studio with a host of close-knit musicians – McCraven fuses the kind of killer, improvised live musicianship and electronic, sample-based approach to recording he’s renowned for with that vocal – the deep, stop-you-in-your–tracks, worldly-wise voice of Gil Scott-Heron – to enormously powerful effect. The resulting record is a sonically rich, totally original yet deeply respectful accompanying piece to Scott-Heron and Russell’s original work and is the latest stage in the evolution of a record that was previously remixed by Jamie xx in 2011 for the ground-breaking collaborative album We’re New Here.
LÅPSLEY RELEASES NEW TRACK Ligne 3
In anticipation of Friday’s release of her incredible new ‘These Elements’ EP, Låpsley today debuts a second song from the record.
Titled Ligne 3, it’s a profound love song about one specific day in Montpellier, France (the track is named after part of the city’s tram system) that saw the breakup of a longterm relationship.
Alongside lead EP track ‘My Love Was Like the Rain’ (and its accompanying Camille Summers-Valli directed video), it further cements Låpsley’s standing as an equally gifted artist, songwriter and producer, and is another enticing glimpse of what fans can expect from ‘These Elements’, and from her highly-anticipated second album, due in 2020.
Låpsley’s ‘These Elements’ EP will be released this Friday 6th December via XL Recordings; her first new music since the release of her acclaimed debut album Long Way Home over three years ago.
The EP finds Låpsley leaving behind her teenage years and entering adulthood with a whole sense of newfound confidence, clarity and self-awareness. Four years; four elements; four songs. In Låpsley’s own words: “Emotional love, physical desire, depression and self-worth. Everything I’ve gone through in the last four years is in these four songs.” A powerful statement on womanhood, ‘These Elements’ begins to establish Låpsley as a captivating voice of her generation.
JACK PEÑATE RELEASES ‘LOADED GUN’ LIVE VIDEO
On the eve of the release of his highly-anticipated third album After You (out 29th November via XL Recordings), Jack Peñate today releases a stunning live video of one of the album’s undoubted highlights, ‘Loaded Gun’.
Directed by Daniel Castro Garcia and filmed at north London’s legendary The Church studios, the intimate black and white live recording sees Jack stripping back the song to just piano and vocal to beautiful effect.
Featuring the singles Prayer and Murder’ their accompanying Eddie Peake-directed videos), After You is Jack’s first full length record in over a decade.
It’s already been met with widespread critical acclaim, described by the Sunday Times as “so effortless-sounding, so brimming with riches, you wonder what took the Londoner so long” while Q Magazine added it’s “Nick Drake by way of actual Drake… It’s a surprise to have him back, but on the strength of After You, a more than welcome one”
Soak covers The National's Bloodbuzz Ohio
SOAK—aka Derry, Ireland’s Bridie Monds-Watson released her tender solo rendition of The National’s “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” from their 2010 LP High Violet.
“Bloodbuzz Ohio” is SOAK’s second cover this year, following her take on Sleater-Kinney’s “Modern Girl.”
“Matt Berninger is one of my favourite lyricists,” says Monds-Watson. “There’s something so special about the imagery The National manages to create within their music and I often catch myself imagining each song as its own movie trailer.”
SOAK’s latest album Grim Town, released in April via Rough Trade Records, saw the young talent make her national TV debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers and earned her glowing reviews and coverage from Pitchfork, The Guardian (4/5 stars), BUST (5/5), NPR Music, Queery, Under the Radar (8/10 stars), The Line of Best Fit (8/10), AllMusic (4/5 stars), Exclaim!, and more.
Grim Town follows the success of SOAK’s multi-prize-winning 2015 debut album Before We Forgot How To Dream, and an extraordinary period of invention and self-discovery for the still just 23-year-old artist.
THE NATIONAL RELEASE JUICY SONIC MAGIC MINI-DOCUMENTARY
The National has released Juicy Sonic Magic, a 10-minute mini-documentary in conjunction with their Black Friday Record Store Release of the three-cassette box set entitled The National: Juicy Sonic Magic, Live in Berkeley, September 24-25, 2018.
Directed by David DuBois, the film tells the story of late, great concert taper Mike “The Mike” Millard and an homage to his work that was undertaken by archivist and producer Erik Flannigan, who attempted to recreate the legendary taper’s methods by using the same vintage cassette deck and microphones Millard employed in the ’70s to record The National at two Greek Theatre concerts last year.
Millard became a legend for his high-quality bootleg recordings of artists like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and many others made in and around Southern California in the ’70s and ’80’s by sneaking his equipment into concerts hidden in a wheelchair. The film features animation by illustrator Jess Rotter and Eben McCue, plus interviews with Matt Berninger (lead singer of The National), producer/archivist Erik Flannigan and Mike Millard’s friend Jim Reinstein, who pushed Millard and his wheelchair into dozens of shows.
Flannigan explained the idea behind using The Mike Millard Method in the cassette’s liner notes, saying:
The most celebrated audience taper of the period, Mike Millard, recorded in and around Southern California beginning in 1974 and continued into the early ’90s. Millard’s legend is built in part on the cunning and subterfuge he used to get his nearly 15-pound cassette deck and microphones into venues like the The Forum, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and The Roxy.
For years I have pondered what made Millard’s recordings so good, and eventually I had an idea: What if you recorded a concert today with the same equipment Millard used in 1977? Would it sound like his tapes? Would it tap into his Midas touch?
The National was kind enough to let us test the Millard Method for two concerts at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California last September. These live recordings were made with vintage AKG 451E microphones and a restored Nakamichi 550 cassette deck which are identical to those used by Millard circa 1975-81. The idea was to see if we could recreate what Matt Berninger calls the “juicy sonic magic” Millard captured in his 1970s field recordings.
Together with my friend and filmmaker David DuBois, we also produced a short documentary about Millard, his recording methods, and our attempt to recreate his work at the National shows in Berkeley, a venue that is utterly unchanged since the ’70s.
With the advent of smartphones, thousands of people routinely record part of the show when they attend a National concert or any other performance. Forty years ago, when nobody would dare do that, one man made it his life’s work to preserve legendary concerts on tape.
Tracklist for The National: Juicy Sonic Magic, Live in Berkeley, September 24-25, 2018:
NIGHT 1 – Sept. 24th 2018
• Nobody Else Will Be There
• The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness
• Walk It Back
• Guilty Party
• Don’t Swallow the Cap
• Bloodbuzz Ohio
• I Need My Girl
• Green Gloves
• Brainy
• Slow Show
• All the Wine
• I’ll Still Destroy You
• Dark Side of the Gym
• Day I Die
• Carin at the Liquor Store
• Graceless
• Rylan
• Fake Empire
ENCORE
• Light Years
• Mr. November
• Terrible Love
• Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
NIGHT 2 – Sept. 25th 2018
• Light Years
• The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness
• Walk It Back
• Guilty Party
• I Should Live in Salt
• Don’t Swallow the Cap
• Afraid of Everyone
• I Need My Girl
• This Is the Last Time
• Wasp Nest
• Born to Beg
• Sorrow
• Apartment Story
• Pink Rabbits
• England
• Day I Die
• Rylan
• Fake Empire
• About Today
ENCORE:
• Lemonworld
• Mr. November
• Terrible Love
• Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
