News

Yes, the sun is setting - but a new day's already on the horizon, with the latest song from Alasdair Roberts og Völvur! Sung by Völvur’s saxophonist, Marthe Lea, this Norwegian spiritual is an ancient traditional melody, but the band's capacious sense of sound breaths fresh air through the centuries-old song.

Live on tape from their Norwegian homeland, Völvur's solo rendition of their arrangement of "Nu solen går ned" demonstrates their sympathy for the syncretic visions of Alasdair Roberts. It should be noted that ... (read more)

A meetings of minds and cultures well-suited to Alasdair Roberts’ syncretistic nature, The Old Fabled River melds Celtic and Scandinavian intuitions of culture and music.

Responding to the invitation of Norwegian fiddler Hans Kjorstad, Alasdair made an almost preternatural connection with a group of musicians well-versed in folk, jazz and free-playing. The diverse musical backgrounds deeply inform this collection of Roberts’ originals and Scottish and Norwegian traditional song. Nicking a spiritual conceit off Saint Teresa, "Orison of Union" notes love’s human frailty,... (read more)

Today, alongside Joan Shelley and Nathan Salsburg, Matt and Bonny present the “Watch What Happens” b/w “Stay On My Shore” digital single. On their rendition of Superwolves’ “Watch What Happens,” Joan and Nathan slip inside the skin of the tune, adapting the original’s noirish air into a thorny folk classicism and communicating the message of self-reliance with equal parts wonder and stoic, wind-strewn beauty, streaming like nature intended from their hands and mouths. For “Stay On My Shore,” Bonny and Matt unfurl one of... (read more)

On two instruments rarely used in tandem, Joshua Abrams and Chad Taylor evoke a new fusion of genres meant to open the mind to new mental connections. Music comes from, and goes to, everywhere. With this in mind, and with the Moroccan guimbri and the Zimbabwean mbira in hand, they move through foundational playing fields – traditional, jazz, ambient – to create something truly diverse in nature, blending the essence of all the roots with inspiration, spun out in the rhythms of dance and meditation,... (read more)

Trading the crushed harmonics of their basement tapes for studio-grade mics, overdubs in the mix, and only slightly less-bruised melodies, Birds of Maya's roiling essence not only survives, but thrives, non-stop, on Valdez, stuttering, screaming and stomping through six circuitous numbers. With their undulated and unfettered riffage mutated into raw power, Birds project their sound to burst through the basement and spill into the streets.
 

"Please Come In" is pulled from way back in early pre-Mayan consciousness, and... (read more)

2020's done come and gone; a fuzzy void of lost time and lost opportunity. But just when you thought you were safe, 2020 is back, in the form of a long-awaited repress of Magik Markers' all-new album from last fall. 2020 offers proof positive that work born of uncertain times can transcend the untethered ether of those dark days. The Markers built 2020 in this same timeless fashion they've always worked in - fighting like fungi through the cracks in the sidewalk of the past 50 years. A... (read more)

In January 2019, at the invitation of fiddler Hans Kjorstad, Alasdair Roberts traveled from his home in Glasgow, Scotland to Oslo, Norway, where the two men convened with five additional Scandinavian musicians at Riksscenen, Oslo’s centre for Norwegian traditional arts and music. The group was named Völvur (The Seeresses), a reference to the ancient Icelandic apocalyptic text Völuspa (The Prophecy of the Seeress).

The musicians who make up Völvur — Marthe Lea, Fredrik Rasten, Andreas Hoem Røysum, Egil Kalman, Jan Martin Gismervik and the aforementioned... (read more)

Seeking refuge from the assailing world deep within their music, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Chad Taylor wield, respectively, the guimbri and mbira, instruments from diverse African states, and find a pairing that advances their reigning vision, brilliantly exposited as something new. As in: a new age of music, fusing meditation, sound and dance in convergence with listening – truly a 21st century space for Mind Maintenance!
 

"The Ladder" makes evident the inventive and symphonic reach of... (read more)

Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy present “Resist the Urge” off of Superwolves. The video was made by legendary skateboarder Kevin “Spanky” Long and photographer/skateboarder Atiba Jefferson, and features Spanky skating through a Bonny-Sweeneyscape in his inimitable style.

“Resist the Urge” was recorded at the Butcher Shoppe in Nashville by Sean Sullivan and  David "Fergie" Ferguson. Sez Bonny: “We got David Ferguson out from behind the board to play double-bass on this one. It needed the lift that only a Ferg could deliver."  It should be... (read more)

Who is E.R. Jurken? The mysterious figure looming behind dazzling layers of vocals, his own voice the instrument at center stage, stands ready at last to issue his debut full length, I Stand Corrected later this week. Meanwhile, "John Doe" is the latest single to drop from the roll, airy and fertile, its neo-saccharine sound evoking a bygone daze on its own terms.

 

It's pure pop of the lightest order, with... (read more)