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This is The Kit share 'Was Magician' and live video
This is The Kit are sharing a new single “Was Magician” and a live performance video of the track from her upcoming album Off Off On, out on Rough Trade Records on October 23rd, 2020.
The video was recorded and filmed by Lyon Sound and Vision at L’Epicerie Morderne in France and remotely directed from NYC by Marisa Gesualdi.
“Was Magician” is both a wander through the books of author Ursula K. Le Guin and a meditation on the gifts and powers that people have, and what happens when they are underestimated. This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables explains, “Often it’s children who have underestimated powers. They have an understanding and wisdom about things that we think beyond their abilities, they are often leaps and bounds ahead of the ‘adults’. People like Greta Thunberg - the young people who we have borrowed the earth from and who we have to give it back to, and hope that they will take better care of it than we have.”
Stables worked on Off Off On with producer Josh Kaufman, New York-based member of Bonny Light Horseman & Muzz, who has also collaborated with The Hold Steady, The National and most recently Taylor Swift. The two first met when working with Anaïs Mitchell on a cover of the Osibisa song “Woyaya”, their paths later crossing at the PEOPLE residencies in Berlin and Brooklyn.
“We were on the same page about a lot of musical ideas, as well as doing things I wouldn’t do musically,” Stables explains of working with Kaufman. “It was a lovely mixture of ‘you’re exactly in my brain and exactly at the opposite end of my brain.’” The band, completed by Rozi Plain (bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), Jesse D Vernon (guitar, keyboards), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums/vox) recorded Off Off On in Wiltshire, UK’s Real World Studios, finishing just in time for everyone to get home before lockdown began in March.
“Was Magician” is the third single to be released from the upcoming album, following earlier tracks This Is What You Did and Coming to get you Nowhere.
Mdou Moctar signs to Matador Records, shares Chismiten
Matador Records is thrilled to announce the addition of prodigious Tuareg guitarist and songwriter Mdou Moctar to its roster.
A once-in-a-generation artist backed by an unstoppable rhythm section, Mdou’s music has roots in both traditional Tuareg melodicism and Eddie Van Halen’s daredevil majesty.
Today we offer you Chismiten, the white-hot ripper that will kick off an expansive new full-length due to hit down next year. “The song is about how people in a relationship lose their sense of self, they become jealous and envious of others”, explains Mdou. “It is not about one specific person, but about all people in the world. I turn to Allah for guidance not to be that person”.
The song is accompanied by a video that blends illustrations by artist Robert Beatty with animation and cellphone footage shot in Niger, capturing wedding performances by the band, their friends and family, the markets in Niamey and Agadez, and the famous Agadez Mosque.
It’s possible that you’re already familiar with Mdou via his leading role in Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai, the first Tuareg language film – a retelling of Prince’s Purple Rain. Otherwise, you may have spent time with last year’s monumental Ilana: The Creator, the guitarist’s first true studio album recorded alongside his live band. Indeed, it was this album and the band’s explosive concerts that brought them to Matador’s attention.
Mdou and his group – bassist and producer Mikey Coltun, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim, and rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane – have toured ceaselessly throughout the world, evolving into a ferocious ensemble that can rock a Tuareg wedding as easily as they can scorch a festival stage.
At present, their live energies are unparalleled and their range immense, capable of evoking both the mesmeric boogie of Masters of Reality-era Black Sabbath and Black Uhuru’s sublime electrified grooves. “At our concerts we never talk about the music we are going to play, never write out a setlist, it’s whatever comes to my head that I’m feeling”, says Mdou. “My band is always with me listening”.
This is all evident on Chismiten’, where Mdou’s whirling riffs embroider and illuminate the band’s hypnotic grind, kicking up a noise that is at once elemental and undeniably transcendent
Future Islands release new single and video. As Long As You Are Listening, Together Launch This Wednesday
Ahead of the release of their sixth album As Long As You Are this Friday, Future Islands have shared a new single ‘Born In A War’.
To accompany the song is a stunning animated video created by award-winning American artist Wayne White and his son Woodrow White, which takes its visual cues from Samuel T. Herring’s potent lyrics centred on America, consumption and capitalism – “Life’s more than Cash and Carry – all your guns to your grave.”
The band say, “We first met with Wayne White back in 2014 to discuss collaborating on a music video. We’ve been wanting to work with him since then. We’re stoked that we were finally able to work together on the video for Born in a War. We love the puppets he created and his unique interpretation of the song.”
With current events separating us from friends and loved ones, Future Islands want to recreate the communal moment of sharing music together. From 10am EST on Wednesday 7 October, the band will launch the As Long As You Are listening, together website offering fans the opportunity to hear the album early.
Available to fans worldwide, the website will detect a person’s geographic location and, once enough people from the same area are online at the same time, the album stream will be unlocked.
Fans can listen together in real-time, sharing stories and initial impressions via the chat-box.
Sign up now to be notified when it launches
Future Islands will perform their only show of 2020 this Friday, on As Long As You Are‘s official release day. The Baltimore group have been road warriors for over a decade, touring extensively every year without fail, but 2020 is the first year the band will not hit the road since 2008.
Instead, for their 1,235th live show, the group will move online for a one-off global livestream event on 9 October. A Stream of You and Me will be filmed in Maryland and feature a bespoke one-off light show created by light artist Pierre Claude (The Strokes, Phoenix, Gesaffelstein). The broadcast will be directed by Michael Garber (Phoenix, Bon Iver, Kamasi Washington).
Marti shares new single 'Mothers & Fathers'
Washington-based vocalist and songwriter Marti today shares her new single Mothers & Fathers.
On ‘Mothers & Fathers’, Marti imagines a utopia for her chosen family. “This song and video are about the freedom of youth. The freedom to simply exist,” Marti explains. “We often find ourselves in a complex or “forbidden” love as one of our first experiences of romance, with all the desire to rebel and pressure to conform. I wanted to paint that story here.”
Born of a desire to create a film that celebrates black joy without using race as the central theme, the ‘Mothers & Fathers’ video presents an Americana teenage dream summer starring Marti and her friends. “Our blackness is a huge piece of who we are in the diaspora,” she explains. “But we are multidimensional beings and we do not have to center that in every piece of it just because society has. It’s okay to just “be” no matter what that “be” may actually be.”
‘Mothers & Fathers’ follows the release of Marti’s most recent single Lust. Released through Onlyfans, the single and video served as a celebration of sex workers and a defiant statement on their rights and freedoms. Revenue from tips on the video was distributed between two DC-based sex worker rights organisations. Described by i-D Magazine as “a seductive, enrapturing slow burn of a song about fantasy fulfilment and secret-sharing” the single established Marti as one of R&B’s most exciting new voices.
After spending her early twenties travelling the world as a model and ingratiating herself into local music and art scenes, Marti became a fixture in downtown NYC and DC nightlife. Her captivating performances led to collaborations with artists including Duckwrth, Kojey Radical and Dev Hynes who invited her to guest on his acclaimed 2018 Blood Orange record ‘Negro Swan’. Now, with the innovative release of her debut single, Marti is setting the tone for her rise as one of 2020’s most exciting new voices.
Adrianne Lenker Releases New Song, ‘dragon eyes’
Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker will release two new albums, songs and instrumentals, on 23 October. Today, she shares a new single, ‘dragon eyes’, which follows lead single ‘anything’.
Throughout ‘dragon eyes’, Lenker’s sweet voice moves over guitar like wind rustling through autumn leaves. Her lyrics refer to tangible feelings – hot sand, cold air, and cool hands – and more mystical images – a “dragon with silent eyes.” Each stanza ends with a differing refrain that’s as pleading as Lenker’s vocal inflections: “I just want a place with you // I just want a place.”
