OHYUNG Shares Two Reflective New Tracks “tucked in my stomach!” & “my hands hold flora!”

Today, OHYUNG, the project of Brooklyn-based musician and composer Robert Ouyang Rusli (they/them), shared two reflective and shimmering new tracks (“tucked in my stomach!” b/w “my hands hold flora!”) from their forthcoming ambient album imagine naked! out April 22nd via NNA Tapes.

Premiering via Foxy Digitalis, OHYUNG released a music video for “tucked in my stomach!” by Yasmin Adele Majeed that is composed of footage from across the U.S. (from Iowa, to New York, to Las Vegas) and from Pakistan. The video features a prose poem ruminating on grief across borders, unsaid elegies, the inheritance of loss, and the love of friendship alongside images of murmurations in the skies of Brooklyn and Lahore, the quiet of a summer prairie lush with goldenrods, and scenes of fields, rivers, and arched trees viewed from car windows.”

Pre-orders for ‘imagine naked!’ on double-cassette, CD, and digital are available now!

[Photo Credit: Acudus Aranyian]

LEYA announce new mixtape, ‘Eyeline,’ + shares “Win Some” (feat. Okay Kaya)

New York City violin and harp duo, LEYA (Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz), are set to release their new mixtape, ‘Eyeline,’ on March 4th!  The tape features collaborations with Julie Byrne, Okay Kaya, Eartheater, Actress, claire rousay, Deli Girls, James K, Sunk Heaven, and Martha Skye Murphy. Made with friends at home, ‘Eyeline’ is of the origin of sight, like seeing the one who is watching, an imperfect parade for charmed constellations.

The announcement coincides with the drunken, but amorous “Win Some” (feat. Okay Kaya) and its airy music video edited by Vanessa Castro. Sherah Shipman swirls underneath a beautiful, winding track guided by Okay Kaya’s organ-like strings that trace a somber beginning to a swirling, transcendent finish. Pre-orders for ‘Eyeline’ on cassette and digital are available now!

[Photo Credit: Jessica Hallock]

OHYUNG announces ‘imagine naked!’ + shares “symphonies sweeping!”

We are thrilled to share that musician and film composer OHYUNG will release their expansive new album imagine naked! with NNA Tapes on April 22nd. Written and recorded mostly over just a 72-hour period, imagine naked! focuses on expansion and atmospheric depth. It is a collection of loving ambient expressions of persistence, repetition, and variation — available to pre-order on compact disc, double cassette, and digital formats.

Each song on imagine naked! is titled after a line from t. tran le’s poem, “vegetalscape,” which acts as an artistic companion to the album. The poem works to spotlight little things that le imparts beauty upon despite the challenges of living with mental illness, such as a bedroom garden, or a sibling’s voice singing in the shower. OHYUNG’s engulfing, gentle landscapes take on the context of something more literary than their wordless atmosphere—each line feels as though it informs the timbre of its connected piece—and they reflect le’s poem as these snapshots of small items and instances, and brief melodies are appreciated and made beautiful beyond their size.

Lead single “symphonies sweeping!” is the extension of a breathless instant, the moment between the orchestra’s end and the recognition of applause, as notes linger and hang in the air. The accompanying self-directed visuals for the track is a personal video diary on survival, love, community, and growth—a montage of all of the small things that make up ourselves.

[Photo Credit: Acudus Aranyian]

LEYA Share New Single “Glass Jaw (feat. Julie Byrne)” + Announce Spring US Tour

LEYA—the New York City duo of harpist Marilu Donovan and violinist/vocalist Adam Markiewicz—today are sharing a delicate and dark new track “Glass Jaw (feat. Julie Byrne)” and announcing upcoming North American tour dates.

On “Glass Jaw,” strings and harp swirl in layers, stunning and sorrowful, grandiose-yet-detached in a way that recalls LEYA’s excellent late-2019 release with Eartheater, ‘Angel Lust’. Vocalist Adam Markiewicz sings low and drowsy in the first verse, followed by a revarant, ghostly refrain from Byrne and a haunting, whispery outro featuring the two together. Watery harp from Marilu Donovan punctuates and propels the short song, which tells a story of waste, a picture of destruction via indifference.

Julie Byrne shared some words she wrote down the day the collaboration took place:

3.24.2021

Ridgewood

woke up to the sight of the room

Long after becoming the sound

Spelling out the chord

The moody afterglow

The embers of the song

There are nights worth remembering

LEYA works with and against the grain of tradition, mining intensity though alternate tunings, strange harmonies, and dreamstate operative-like vocals. This experience is one of beauty but spans many imperfect worlds.

LEYA has released a steady volume of work in several years. Their two albums via NNA Tapes, The Fool (2018) and its critically acclaimed follow-up Flood Dream (2020), exist alongside a wide range of collaborations. In 2018, the group wrote and performed a full-length soundtrack to I Love You, an erotic film directed by Brooke Candy and produced by PornHub that also features the duo as actors. 2019’s Angel Lust, a collaborative EP with Eartheater, followed courtesy of experimental label PAN. In 2020, they dropped a number of shorter releases including “Antigone,” a collaborative single with American black metal band Liturgy, a remix of their Flood Dream track “Wave” by British electronic musician Actress, another remix of the album’s penultimate track “First Way” by the venerable Drew McDowall (Coil, Psychic TV), and a collaboration with Deli Girls for their new album BOSS called “barrier to love.” Composer/Filmmaker Christina Vantzou delivered a final mashup remix of Flood Dream’s “Mary” and “ABBA” in May 2021. The duo provided live scoring for a Hood by Air fashion show curated by Surf Gang member Babyxsosa in June 2021. From their releases LEYA have earned acclaim from Bandcamp Daily, Brooklyn Vegan, Consequence, Document Journal, Esquire, FACT, The FADER, i-D, PAPER, Noisey, Pitchfork, Spin, and The New York Times, among many other media outlets.

LEYA has toured extensively since 2018, with over 300 dates played across North America in two years (prior to canceling over 50 dates in 2020 due to the pandemic). They have performed at Le Guess Who?, Bowery Ballroom, Market Hotel, and recently provided live scoring to a Hood By Air fashion show curated by Surf Gang rapper Babyxsosa. The group also held a recording residency at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works in July 2020.

Tour Dates

February 24 @ Market Hotel, Brooklyn, NY
March 4 @ Collision, Pittsburgh, PA
March 5 @ Cafe Bourbon St., Columbus, OH
March 6 @ The Burl, Lexington, VA
March 7 @ The Sinkhole, St. Louis, MO
March 9 @ Cult Love House, Tulsa, OK
March 10 @ Opolis, Norman, OK
March 11 @ Dallas Theater, Dallas, TX
March 13 @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, Denton, TX
March 15-19 @ SXSW, Austin, TX
March 22 @ How Bazaar, Gainesville, FL
March 23 @ Timucua Arts, Orlando, FL
March 25 @ Center For Subtropical Affairs, Miami, FL

March 26 @ Hooch and Hive, Tampa, FL
March 28 @ Down the Hatch @ Underground ATL, Atlanta, GA
March 29 @ Static Age Records, Asheville, NC
March 30 @ Joe 2, Baltimore, MD

New Albums Out Now from Dear Laika and JJJJJerome Ellis 🕊

Dear Laika’s NNA Tapes debut ‘Pluperfect Mind’ arrived on Oct. 29! This beautiful record is a beguiling collection of vivid lyrics and celestial songs, bound together with digital glitch and field recordings. Dear Laika’s exploration of the experimental and the mystical builds something intricate and intimate that is truly unique and captivating. Links to stream and buy ‘Pluperfect Mind’ can be found here. 🌸

“Pluperfect Mind offers a distilled and developed version of Thorn’s melodramatic baroque pop.”
– The WIRE

“Each method of instrumentation opens up another until the whole sound field is a sprawling landscape for Thorn’s voice to roam.”
– Bandcamp Daily [Album of the Day]

“An arrestingly beautiful record”
– Consequence of Sound


JJJJJerome Ellis’s ‘The Clearing’ is out today. It is a multimedia examination and celebration of relationships between speech dysfluency, blackness, music, and time. ‘The Clearing’ is co-produced by NNA Tapes and the The Poetry Project, and is released in tandem with a book published by Wendy’s Subway as part of the eighth title in their Document Series, an interdisciplinary publishing initiative that highlights work by time-based artists in printed form.

Links to buy and stream ‘The Clearing’ can be found here. 🌐

“A remarkable collage of sound, ideas and music… The Clearing explores, celebrates, and connects with a history of Black music and Black experience….a stunning, compelling piece of work that will reconfigure your ideas about listening, temporality and Black expression.”
– The WIRE

“An hour-long dissection of speech and articulation over an equally thoughtful blend of piano, bass, drums, and atmospheric synths.“
– Bandcamp Daily [Album of the Day]

“A compelling thesis over sweeping ambience and trap percussion”
– Guardian

Dear Laika Shares “Guinefort’s Grave” From ‘Pluperfect Mind’ out Oct. 29

Dear Laika (the 23-year-old UK-based musician Isabelle “Izzy” Thorn) has shared “Guinefort’s Grave” from her label debut Pluperfect Mind — out October 29, 2021 via Memorials of Distinction (UK) and NNA Tapes (US & ROW). The album is a reflection on the past few years of Izzy’s life, during which she sought solitude in the North Wessex Downs while beginning her gender transition.

On “Guinefort’s Grave” Izzy shepherds the listener through a liminal space between dreamworlds and a blurry, watercoloured version of reality. We hear distant thunderclaps smudged over electronic fuzz and warbling Juno 106s synth, sparks of violin, Izzy’s ardent vocals and her poetic musings on the legend of St. Guinefort (a storied 13th-century French dog who became venerated as a saint after miracles were reported at his grave). Izzy explains further: “This song describes both the legend of his martyrdom at the hands of his own master and the folk Catholic practises that arose in France surrounding him, all from his own posthumous perspective. Mothers who believed their children had been abducted by fae beings and replaced with sickly changelings would take them to Guinefort’s grave and leave them there overnight on a bed of straw with two candles either side of their head. I imagine most children perished, either by fire, exposure, or wild animals.”

A consistent theme of Pluperfect Mind is isolation, both from other people and from parts of herself, and the intention to overcome anxieties and reconnect. Pluperfect Mind also chronicles aspects of Izzy’s own transgender experience, from the painful tedium of waiting for hormone treatment, to the elation of finally inhabiting a body that feels right. It captures the sense of being cast adrift between an uncomfortable past and an uncertain future, living outside of heteronormativity and caught in “queer time”. Izzy’s mercurial songwriting aims to suspend the perception of time, allowing the listener to inhabit an immersive half-lit world of mystical landscapes, volatile atmospheres and shifting rhythms.

Having grown up singing in church choirs and listening to classical music, those influences can still be heard in Izzy’s music now. Although she rarely listens to classical music nowadays, the rich harmonies of composers such as Messiaen, Finzi and Ravel have left an indelible mark on her own writing, and she freely mutates samples of Bach and Beethoven beyond recognition. During her transition, making the shift from baritone to alto, she was captivated and inspired by the expressive intensity of Vashti Bunyan, Kristin Hayter and FKA twigs; her own clear, keening vocals soar throughout Pluperfect Mind, breathy and otherworldly. She whispers French poetry and lilts over lines about warped memories, exploring her inner world with gentle ruminations on love, hormone therapy and dreams.

Pluperfect Mind is a beguiling collection of vivid lyrics and celestial song, built around piano (sometimes prepared with screws), strings, choirs and synths, and bound together with digital glitch and field recordings. Comparisons can be made to Björk, Tim Hecker or Bat For Lashes, but ultimately, Dear Laika’s exploration of the experimental and the mystical builds something intricate and intimate that is truly original and bewitching.

Pluperfect Mind is out October 29, 2021 via Memorials of Distinction (UK) & NNA Tapes (ROW). Read the full bio and preorder the album on digital/cassette/vinyl here.

JJJJJerome Ellis Shares New Single/Video “Stepney” From Upcoming LP & Book

Composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and poet JJJJJerome Ellis today shared “Stepney,” a new track and video from his forthcoming 2xLP and book The Clearing—a conceptual and musical tour de force that explores how stuttering, blackness, and music can be practices of refusal against hegemonic governance of time, speech, and encounter.

“Stepney” was “written as an offering to the ancestors,” says Ellis. The track begins with him vocalizing over a hip-hop beat with rumbling 808s and swirling processed saxophones. Then, Ellis sings the names of African-descended, fugitive enslaved persons (e.g. Stepney) who spoke with stutters or other speech impediments. Ellis encountered these names in newspaper archives of so-called “fugitive slave advertisements” from the 18th and 19th century. After this ceremonial invocation of ancestors, Ellis’ mentor and friend Milta Vega-Cardona reads an email she wrote to him in 2019: “I am moved to believe that your so-called stutter is a space where you transcend the limitations of lineal white-time. And how in the space of that holdtime you create a non-lineal time continuum, and access to the ancestors, both for you and the listener.” The track builds to a climax with arpeggiated synths, galloping hi-hats, and Ellis’ saxophone overdubbed in rising swells.

Find more information, read the full bio and preorder The Clearing here.

[Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin]

Dear Laika Announces ‘Pluperfect Mind’ out 10/29 🕊

Dear Laika (the 23-year-old UK-based musician Isabelle “Izzy” Thorn) today announced her new album and label debut, Pluperfect Mind, will be released October 29, 2021 via NNA Tapes and Memorials of Distinction. Pluperfect Mind is an extraordinary creation—a beautiful and singular oddity which exists in the liminal space between dreamworlds and a blurry, watercoloured version of reality. It is a reflection on the past few years of Izzy’s life, during which she sought solitude in the North Wessex Downs while beginning her gender transition.

Alongside the announcement, Dear Laika has shared the emotional zenith of the album, “Black Moon, Lilith”, a song about desire, its reckoning and its actualization from a trans lesbian perspective. “There’s a common experience among gay people of seeing someone of the same gender and questioning if you’re attracted to them or if you want to look like them. This is a psychological and emotional quandary that must be resolved,” says Izzy. Utilizing angelic vocal harmonies, slowly blossoming piano and the distinctive warmth of the Roland Juno 106s, Dear Laika poetically expresses the over-thinking and over-feeling associated with this phenomenon in an otherworldly art pop gem evocative of Kate Bush.

A consistent theme of Pluperfect Mind is isolation, both from other people and from parts of herself, and the intention to overcome anxieties and reconnect. Pluperfect Mind also chronicles aspects of Izzy’s own transgender experience, from the painful tedium of waiting for hormone treatment, to the elation of finally inhabiting a body that feels right. It captures the sense of being cast adrift between an uncomfortable past and an uncertain future, living outside of heteronormativity and caught in “queer time”. Izzy’s mercurial songwriting aims to suspend the perception of time, allowing the listener to inhabit an immersive half-lit world of mystical landscapes, volatile atmospheres and shifting rhythms.

Having grown up singing in church choirs and listening to classical music, those influences can still be heard in Izzy’s music now. Although she rarely listens to classical music nowadays, the rich harmonies of composers such as Messiaen, Finzi and Ravel have left an indelible mark on her own writing, and she freely mutates samples of Bach and Beethoven beyond recognition. During her transition, making the shift from baritone to alto, she was captivated and inspired by the expressive intensity of Vashti Bunyan, Kristin Hayter and FKA twigs; her own clear, keening vocals soar throughout Pluperfect Mind, breathy and otherworldly. She whispers French poetry and lilts over lines about warped memories, exploring her inner world with gentle ruminations on love, hormone therapy and dreams.

Pluperfect Mind is a beguiling collection of vivid lyrics and celestial song, built around piano (sometimes prepared with screws), strings, choirs and synths, and bound together with digital glitch and field recordings. Comparisons can be made to Björk, Tim Hecker or Bat For Lashes, but ultimately, Dear Laika’s exploration of the experimental and the mystical builds something intricate and intimate that is truly original and bewitching.

Pluperfect Mind is out October 29, 2021 via Memorials of Distinction (UK) & NNA Tapes (ROW). Read the full bio and preorder the album on digital / cassette / vinyl here.

JJJJJerome Ellis Announces 2xLP ‘The Clearing’ Out November 5

Today, New York based composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and poet JJJJJerome Ellis announces The Clearing, an ambitious and visionary double album releasing November 5th, 2021 via NNA Tapes, co-produced with the Poetry Project and released in tandem with a book published by Wendy’s SubwayThe Clearing is a conceptual and musical tour de force that combines Jazz with the narratives of enslaved Africans, experimental electronics with historical accounts of Black rebellion. The album centers speech but uses it as a starting point to not only depathologize dysfluent speech but to build new tools to critique anti-Blackness, linear time, culture, and power in our society.

Loops of Retreat“, the lead album preview out today and the first track on The Clearing, opens with processed saxophones leading us into a kind of sonic forest: dense, mysterious, and dynamic. Over the soundscape, Ellis speaks: “My thesis is that blackness, dysfluency [i.e. stuttering and other forms of disabled or non-normative speech], and music are forces that open time.” As Ellis reads, the forest grows into the pauses in his stuttered speech. A trap-inspired beat with stuttering hi-hats, crisp snares, and beefy kicks gradually builds as we move deeper into the forest. The track’s title references the “loophole of retreat” Harriet Jacobs describes in her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. On this track, and on the album as a whole, Ellis suggests that the looping sounds of Black music, and the looping syllables and silences of the Black stutterer, resist linear time and offer new ways of being. The track ends with fire running through the forest, clearing ground for further growth.

JJJJJerome Ellis is a blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist. Through music, literature, performance, and video, he explores blkness, disabled speech, and music as forces of refusal, possibility, reparation, and healing. His diverse body of work includes contemplative soundscapes using saxophone, flute, dulcimer, electronics, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure historical archives. JJJJJerome’s solo and collaborative work has been presented by Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project, and ISSUE Project Room (New York); MASS MoCA (North Adams, Massachusetts); REDCAT (Los Angeles); Arraymusic (Toronto); and the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), among others. His work has been covered by This American Life, Artforum, Black Enso, and Christian Science Monitor.

Find more information and preorder The Clearing here.

 

Out Now: Sally Decker’s ‘In The Tender Dream’ 🌛

NNA Tapes is thrilled to reveal ‘In The Tender Dream’ in full, today—the profound new album from the Oakland, CA based composer, performer, and writer Sally Decker. In the record’s distended drones, chattering poetry, cosmic synth work, and gentle ambiance, Decker dives back and forth between chaos and order, turmoil and respite. There are stormy feelings captured in these pieces, but there’s peace too if you’re willing to listen for it.

Decker’s first offering was “The Loss,” accompanied by a video made in close collaboration with Emily Chao in which “rephotographed landscapes emerge from the shadows in a confrontation of self.” Then came the buzzing and euphoric titular centerpiece, followed by Affirmation Pt. II”, a track about the drama and messiness of relating to another person, but also the joy and magic of falling in love.

‘In The Tender Dream’ is available now on Compact Disc, Cassette, and Digital formats.

“In The Tender Dream steps up the intensity of her mesmerizing concoctions”
–Ears To Feed

“Recognisable as a long, dark night of the soul, In The Tender Dream is alive with the elastic, unexpected results of acquiescing control to the subconscious, and trusting in process rather than result.”
–Wire

“Sally Decker switches between feedback and blissful ambiences on In The Tender Dream, as though she’s trying to echolocate the self with the sheer force of vibrant sound.”
–The Quietus

New Signing: Dear Laika • Spellbinding New Single “Phlebotomy” out now 💜

Dear Laika—the 23-year-old UK-based musician Isabelle “Izzy” Thorn—today announced signing with NNA Tapes in partnership with Memorials of Distinction in the UK. Alongside the announcement, Dear Laika shared “Phlebotomy”, a spellbinding Bach invocation about “queer time” in the context of medical transition.

“Every six months I get a blood test to check my hormone levels, requiring three vials of blood to be drawn. Most recently, I fainted for the first time in my life,” says Thorn. “Transitioning is a constant process and it takes a long time, made longer in the UK by dangerously long waiting lists. Trans people often find their lives temporarily put on hold while they wait to finally become happy with their bodies. It can be a painful, lonely experience. I’ve spent most of the past 5 years waiting. I’m still waiting. And so I have begun to process time in a different way, as if it is simultaneously standing still and stolen away from me.”

This theme is reflected by the time-stretched choir sample that forms the foundation of the song; its sound is alien, at once syrupy and vaporous, creating an intoxicating sense of melancholy calm. Dear Laika’s clear, keening vocals soar above the choral texture, accompanied by a synth bass resounding like a distant cathedral organ.

Despite full immersion in the “classical” tradition from a young age, singing and playing piano and violin prodigiously, Dear Laika at once embraces and rejects these roots in pursuit of sonic invention and beauty, electronically warping classical instrumentation and conjuring ghostly choirs in the service of non-traditional structures and sound-worlds. Through invocations of mythology, mysticism and the natural world, Dear Laika explores dreams, time, love, loneliness, and being transgender through the lens of (admittedly limited) personal experience. Two albums of this pop music exist so far: Vision of St. Cross (2017) and Rinzen (2018). There exist four other ambient/noise albums for electric guitar and violin: Twin Mythemes (2018), White Leopards (2018), Dewy Reds, Fatal Jaws (2018), and A Panther to Ephraim (2019). This discography was selected in August 2018 to be preserved in the British Library Sound Archive. Dear Laika has played live, sharing bills with artists such as Matana RobertsLoraine James, Mermaid Chunky, Mich Cota, and caroline; Dear Laika has also played violin as part of caroline in live performances.

Announced Shows Supporting caroline
October 8 @ White Hotel, Manchester
October 10 @ Future Yard, Birkenhead
October 13 @ Fusion Arts, Oxford
October 14 @ Jam Jar, Bristol

Sally Decker (FKA Multa Nox) Announces New Album ‘In The Tender Dream’

Sally Decker (credit: Nathan Kosta)

 

Sally Decker—the Oakland, CA based composer, performer, writer, and Mills College graduate—today announced her new album In The Tender Dream will release August 13, 2021 with NNA TapesAlongside the announcement comes the ominous lead preview “The Loss” which is accompanied by a video by Emily Chao, made in close collaboration with Decker. The two provide this synopsis of the video: “Rephotographed landscapes emerge from the shadows in a confrontation of self.” The video debuted earlier today via Foxy Digitalis and the track is now available to stream here.

“This song came at the brink of a new understanding around acceptance,” says Decker. “Understanding that doesn’t necessarily take place in felt experience, but at least in the glimmers of seeing an alternate reality you want to move toward. The first impulse that brought this track out of me was wanting to express the visceral pain of longing, the wound of self-abandonment, feeling the core of yourself just totally not there. The power the voice finds is through honest confrontation with the reality of what has been neglected in the shadow, what has not been fully grieved. Wishing for change, hoping for another reality (past or present) that isn’t aligned with the reality that occurred or is occurring, is a sure way to be stuck in that place of longing and helplessness. Acceptance will ultimately set you free. The voice in the song starts to understand this, and accumulates power through orienting toward this possibility.”

 

Out Today ~ Ben Seretan – ‘Cicada Waves’ [NNA-139]

It is our pleasure to release Ben Seretan’s beautiful ‘Cicada Waves’ into the world today! Listen now, wherever music streams, and own it on cassette; 2nd edition ‘Glitter Green’ tapes are still available (but going fast!) from our web store and on Bandcamp.

During an artist residency in the thick of the pandemic, tucked away in a dance studio at the base of the Appalachian mountains, Ben Seretan set out to finally make the piano recordings he had always wanted to make: pristine, clean, ringing, indeterminate. For two weeks he would be alone with an antique Steinway—a blessing that, in spite of an unexpected, globally tragic, and tremendously surreal circumstance, miraculously remained possible. 

But “silence” and even “peace and quiet” are slippery, man-made illusions that we can never quite grab hold of, and this proved to be especially true in the woods. The environs there were riotous, almost joyously noisy; the old wood creaking with rot, rain pelting the roof five times a day, rolling thunder. And then there was the breathtaking presence of critters; hissing feral cats, fiddling crickets, birds belting their songs every morning and, ever-presently, the sea of cicadas—enormous swarms of them—so loud and so multidirectional, as though they might try to lift the concert piano right off of the earth.

“It was clear the moment I hit ‘record’ that any sound I captured from the piano would always carry some other sound with it. There would be no silence whatsoever. So I gave in—I threw open the windows and let the world in.”

Cicada Waves, then, is the sound of allowance. It’s the sound of room being made, of guards being dropped, of adaptation. It’s more often than not the sound of a piano *not* being played. It’s the sound of wings or wind or water doing what they will.

These recordings are shared with as little artifice as possible; there are no edits or comped parts, no mixing, no second takes. The album is, more or less, simply and exactly the sounds that happened in the world at that moment, as chaotic and full of sound as they ought to be.

Introducing: JJJJJerome Ellis

We are beyond excited, at NNA, to announce our newest signing: composer, poet, and performer JJJJJerome Ellis.

Ellis, today, continues his pre-pandemic practice of giving live sound baths and his ongoing investigation into forms of “infinite music” with the release of “Fountain #3” — his latest piece of perpetual music.

Following “Fountain #2” (which premiered exclusively on the ISSUE Project Room website for 24 hours a day as part of his 2021 ISSUE Residency), Ellis invites listeners to visit the fountain as often as they want, for as long as they want, and he encourages them to use the music to accompany the rhythms of their lives.

JJJJJerome Ellis’ current practice explores blackness, music, and disabled speech as forces of refusal and healing. Ellis’s work has been heard at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Poetry Project, Sotheby’s, Soho Rep, and on This American Life. He’s a 2019 MacDowell Fellow, a writer in residence at Lincoln Center Theater, and a 2015 Fulbright Fellow.

Select Press
Time BanditThis American Life
Fountain #2WNYC New Sounds
“Episode 3: JJJJJerome Ellis” Black Enso Podcast
“Episode 5: It’s About Time” Christian Science Monitor
“FEELING GOOD: Howard Fishman on Jerome Ellis” Artforum
Review: Staging a Movie Melodrama in ‘The Conversationalists’Vulture
Review: Staging a Movie Melodrama in ‘The Conversationalists’New York Times

Links
jjjjjerome.com/about
twitter.com/jeromeellis
instagram.com/ellisjerome
jeromeellis.bandcamp.com/fountain-3
nnatapes.com/jjjjjerome-ellis

♥️ Kalbells’ ‘Max Heart’ is out today! ♥️

Kalbells’ new album Max Heart is out today! NNA Tapes is thrilled to release this colorful, magical album into the world on ‘Salty Pickle’ green vinyl, standard black vinyl, CD, and digital formats. ‘Red Marker’ red vinyl is also available—exclusively from indie record stores!

BUST Magazine describes the album as “psychedelic in the most mind freeing, soothing, yellow-smiley-face sense of the word—elastic funk and fluid synth-pop blurring the lines between sensual and surreal, complete with hyper-pictorial lyrics delivered so smoothly…” while Bandcamp says it “wends its way through lushly painted, fantastical worlds as an exercise in both escapism and world-building for self-care.”

Max Heart is an illustration of death and rebirth; letting go of what doesn’t serve us in order to leave space for the blessings that do. The album is the band’s most collaborative release to date, and the vibrancy of the collective is truly captured here. Read more about Max Heart, at Bandcamp.

Announcing ~ Ben Seretan ‘Cicada Waves’ [NNA-139]

Today, Ben Seretan announced Cicada Waves — the musician and composer’s first proper instrumental release since 2018’s enormous My Life’s Work (a 24-hour long album recorded over three consecutive nights, sunset to sunrise). Cicada Waves directly follows Seretan’s acclaimed album of songs, Youth Pastoral, which earned Best of 2020 accolades from Pitchfork (35 Best Rock Albums of the Year) and Paste Magazine (Best Songs of 2020, Best Albums of 2020).

In Seretan’s own words: “I’ve got a new album coming out next month! It’s a collection of serene, barely-there piano improvisations recorded last summer in the riotously noisy woods of the southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains.”

Over the next seven weeks leading up to the release, Seretan will share a new track alongside accompanying videos and essayic writing via his regular newsletter. The weekly rollout starts today with the serene album closer “Fog Rolls Out Rabun Gap”, a title which nods to the album’s remote recording location in Georgia.

The release of Cicada Waves on April 30th, 2021 will coincide with another release: the arrival of the once-every-17-year Brood X cicada, one of the world’s largest swarms of the noisy insects.

Out Now: Rachika Nayar – Our Hands Against The Dusk [NNA-136]

“As expansive as it is intimate… Magnificent music full of abstract memories and synthesized, manipulated sounds that function as a two-way mirror.”
Bandcamp (Album of the Day)

“As the song progresses, endless variations of the sample emerge and collide like particles in an accelerator, assuming unexpected forms as they build towards clarity… a meditation on the potential of interpersonal touch.”
Pitchfork (on “The Trembling of Glass”)

“Through all the wonderful textures, there’s an essence that doesn’t need to be explained, it can just be felt.”
The Quietus

“Delicate but powerful, evoking the feeling of recollection in every wavering beat.”
WIRE

 

The debut full-length from ambient-electronic musician Rachika Nayar, Our Hands Against the Dusk, is animated by the experience of “touch—not just caress, but encounters, collisions, and the point of contact between worlds. Composed over four years from digitally processing a combination of textured guitar loops, shimmering synthesizer crescendos, and orchestral strings, the album synthesizes a range of genres—modern composers, deconstructive electronic, even Midwestern emo and beyond. It’s a shifting stylistic bent that reflects a queer life woven between ever-evolving identities, discourses, and spaces as a trans-feminine Indian American.

The diverse influences are visible on longer tracks such as “Losing Too Is Still Ours,” which extends from rippling guitar figures and keening vocals to methodic, marching strings. Such titles reference a range of personal and cultural images—a Rainer Maria Rilke poem of great personal importance, an Indian mystic at whose Pondicherry ashram a family member had a moment of Hindu “darshan,” and other vivid motifs.

For Nayar, the album’s fluid but always deeply felt form is thus a way of translating that which could never be summed up with static names, words, or feelings. To that end, Our Hands Against the Dusk mines the flux and discontinuity of experience as fertile ground. Nayar’s debut invites us to join alongside it in thinking beyond metanarratives, as musical and emotional histories touch in its twilight space and refract into a multifaceted whole. In that endeavor, Our Hands Against the Dusk is an embrace and a hope.

Available through Bandcamp & our web store, and at select indie record stores.

New Video: Elif Yalvaç – “Brocken Spectre” 🏔

Elif Yalvaç (@hazalelifyalvac) had a chat with writer/editor Robert Ham for an exclusive interview about her new album ‘Mountains Become Stepping Stones,’ out now ➕ see the incredible new video for the album’s opening track, “Brocken Spectre,” by Jason Arber — Curated Doom.

Check out the interview at The Voice of Energy.

Rachika Nayar Shares Dreamlike Single/Video “Losing Too Is Still Ours” 🌀

Today, Brooklyn-based ambient-electronic composer and A/V artist Rachika Nayar (IG: @benstillerilluminati) reveals a hazily-impressionistic music video for her new single “Losing Too Is Still Ours.”

Rachika’s self-directed, dreamlike video evokes poetic imagery of interpersonal experiences, isolation, memory, mystery and transformation.

‘Our Hands Against The Dusk’ is out with NNA Tapes on March 5.

Pre-Order it Here.

Pre-order Kalbells’s Sophomore LP ‘Max Heart’ ♥️ out March 26

Incredibly happy to announce ‘Max Heart’ — the sophomore album from Kalbells, aka Kalmia Traver (of Rubblebucket), Angelica Bess (Body Language), Zoë Brecher (Hushpuppy, Sad13), & Sarah Pedinotti (Lip Talk) — out March 26 on NNA Tapes.

‘Max Heart’ is available to pre-order on standard black 🖤 & “Salty Pickle” green vinyl 💚 as well as on compact disc & digital formats. The album will be available on “Red Marker” red vinyl exclusively from local indie record stores.

‘Max Heart’ explores what happens when we let go of what doesn’t serve us in order to leave space for the blessings that do. The album’s ten vibrant and subtly layered tracks of mesmerizing psychedelic synth pop (co-engineered with Luke Temple) were birthed from the band’s practice of listening and accountability, rejoicing in their queerness, and promoting each other to be their most genuine selves. ‘Max Heart’ is a portrait of badass women harnessing their improvisational magic.

The effervescent lead single “Purplepink” is out today, and the video, conceptualized and directed by Lisa Schatz, features 3D animated rocket ships, faceless furry creatures, a 30 foot glittery hologram of Maddie Rice (Jon Batiste’s Stay Human, Saturday Night Live Band) shredding on guitar, and Kalbells as warrior space queens. 🚀

Pre-save/add/order here! > https://fanlink.to/maxheart

Rachika Nayar Announces Debut Album ‘Our Hands Against The Dusk’ out March 5th — Listen To Lead Track “The Trembling of Glass”

Today, Brooklyn-based ambient-electronic composer Rachika Nayar (formerly Rachika S.) announced her debut full-length album, Our Hands Against The Duskand shared the deeply moving lead single “The Trembling of Glass.”

On the track Nayar explains: “I arranged nearly the entire song from processing one guitar progression into a bunch of different sounds—which then reveals itself in its raw form at the end of the piece from beneath the fog of all those textural mirrors. For myself, listening to it brings to mind: Nostalgia. Memory. Pulling back the veil, and the painful clarity of seeing yourself anew.”

Our Hands Against the Dusk is a kaleidoscopic release built from textured guitar loops, shimmering synthesizer crescendos, lyrical piano, and orchestral strings — all digitally processed and threaded through multiple genres, including ambient, emo, electronic, and contemporary classical. The album’s fluid but deeply felt through-line represents Nayar’s navigation through the many musical and human communities she has been a part of as an Indian-American trans person. Written over the past four years, Nayar’s debut full-length winds through vivid personal moments — ecstasy, ambivalence, grief, and calm — via the composer’s protean musical voice.

Our Hands Against The Dusk will be released March 5, 2021 on cassette and digital formats.

Tracklist
1. The Trembling of Glass
2. Losing Too Is Still Ours (feat. YATTA)
3. Marigolds Tulsi
4. The Edges
5. New Strands
6. A Burning Plain
7. Aurobindo
8. No Future (feat. Zeelie Brown)

Listen: Elif Yalvaç shares “Freak Box” • New Album out Dec. 4

Elif Yalvaç (@hazalelifyalvac) — the Turkish electronic/ambient composer — has shared a new single, “Freak Box,” the 2nd to be released from her forthcoming new album ‘Mountains Become Stepping Stones,’ out Dec. 4 with NNA Tapes 🌄🌄🌄

“This piece represents the ‘2020 side’ of things,” Yalvaç explains. “I was locked inside a room, and sometimes it did not feel safe. There were threats that, sometimes, felt bigger than the threat of the virus. Instead of being trapped in that room, I dove into the world of Freak Box and Game Boy, and they helped me survive. “Freak Box,” is a duet between the two tools. Both are portable ‘boxes,’ but when I dive into them, I dive into a huge world. I also utilize microsound techniques in this piece — a technique I studied at MIAM — and the song’s ending connects with the rest of the album. It’s an eerie sound; the eerie side of our planet.“

♦️ Listen & pre-order here: elif-yalvac.fanlink.to/freak-box ♦️

Stephen Becker Debuts New Single/Video “Slurpee” via The FADER

New York singer-songwriter, Stephen Becker, has debuted his new single “Slurpee” alongside a Santi Slade-directed video via The FADER, which they described as “a sweet song about relentless horrors.”  Of the poetic track, Becker says: “‘Slurpee‘ juxtaposes springtime euphoria with social anxiety, icees and sandcastles with middle child syndrome and political turmoil. The pervasive kick drum represents an existential anxiety about the state of things, a brain freeze in the sun that prevents you from really enjoying the sunshine.”

Slurpee” is the second single from his forthcoming EP Nothing Sun Under the New, out October 30 on cassette and digital formats.

Watch: “Slurpee

For Stephen Becker, music is a stream of consciousness. Originally working as the Trees Take Ease moniker, the Brooklyn based artist is stepping out from under the branches and releasing music under his own name for the first time. It marks a shift, a new beginning, that initially started out as a casual bedroom project but quickly blossomed into something significant. This new chapter starts with EP Nothing Sun Under the New.

Equal parts weird and sublime, Becker resides in a sonic universe that bends into a state of oblivion and relishes the fleeting moments. This uninhibited approach creates a kaleidoscope of textures where songs about frozen drinks and old teachers exist against a backdrop of propulsive synths, screwy percussion and lo-fi guitar hooks. “I think there’s a lot of power in the right melody and the right chord progression and the right sonic environment and that to me has as much emotional weight as anything that I’m saying,” he says.

Attending concerts as a teen with his Dad and playing in jazz band throughout high school led Becker to experiment with different improvised arts, rubbing shoulders with different genres and practises. This curiosity, along with his talents, secured him a place at Oberlin college in Ohio, studying guitar performance. There, Becker witnessed performances from the likes of Deerhoof, Frankie Cosmos, Yo Yo Ma and Fred Frith that inspired him to merge his skills as a jazz musician and guitar expert and dive into songwriting.

The transition led to “art songs” and “experimental folk music” that can still be felt in Becker’s output. “I got to a place in my studying that started to feel frustrating,” he explains. “I realised that I wanted to write songs and also embody all these other things that I was excited about, whether it was improv or contemporary classical music. I wanted to synthesise everything that I love.” With inspirations including the likes of Marilynne Robinson, Werner Herzog, Olivier Messiaen, Sibylle Baier and Nels Cline, the result is a glorious mish-mash of spontaneity, where songs flow more like free writing.

Becker’s journey into music was unintentional, accidental even. While his parents are both doctors, Becker sees himself as taking after his artistic Grandparents. His Grandmother is a visual artist, watercolorist and painter, while his Grandfather built violins and collected all sorts of instruments, most of which now reside in Becker’s own closet. He never met his Grandfather in person but he finds solace in the family connection. “It’s funny when your immediate family doesn’t really do what you do or understand what you do but you feel this lineage of carrying on,” he explains. “Who knows if I’ll be that to some future generation in my family – the quirky instrument-collecting Grandpa.”

This free-spirited, almost unconscious nature sees Becker create a playground of escapism,  where snapshots of his life are exaggerated and fictionalised through an often ironic prism. He finds beauty in the in-between, where strange, abstract realms exist without the need for a clear narrative or rigid structure. Nothing Sun Under the New shines a spotlight on the beauty that can arise from a spur-of-the-moment mindset. By accessing this kind of process, Becker taps into something real and concrete, resonating through an introspective honesty. “I like to be freeform and fictional in my music, but my feeling is that within that abstraction lies a deeper truth, something more real than just the plain facts about me,” he says. “It’s a wash of sounds and lyrics, but the picture that it paints is ultimately more true and sincere than anything else.”

Bendrix Littleton Shares “Daylight Curls” from Deep Dark South, out Sep. 25

Bendrix Littleton — 📸 by Ben Davis

Today, Bendrix Littleton (@bendrixlittleton) shared his third single, “Daylight Curls,” from his upcoming solo debut, Deep Dark South, out September 25.

“Deep Dark South’s final single is both its deepest and its darkest moment yet to come to life, and it’s this taste of bitter emotion – brought to life alongside a breathtakingly beautiful instrumental outpouring – that Littlejohn’s latest work so appealing, and Bendrix Littleton a name worth committing to memory.”
Atwood Magazine

“‘Daylight Curls’ was written when I was visiting family in New England for an indeterminate amount of time,” Bendrix told Atwood Magazine for the track’s premiere. “After a while, it became apparent that I was abusing alcohol because I wasn’t used to feeling so still. The only people I know there are older adults so I spent a lot of time alone driving my mom’s car or reading at a local dive bar. Basically having to come to terms with feeling good with yourself to be able to sit still with yourself.”

Click to listen & pre-order / pre-save / pre-add ⚡️ HERE ⚡️

The Cradle’s New Album ‘Laughing In My Sleep’ is Out Now 🌙

The Cradle
Laughing In My Sleep
By: Paco Cathcart

I recorded Laughing In My Sleep two years ago, Spring 2018, and the songs really come out of experiences in 2017 and early ‘18, which was a dense time with some healthy personal upheaval and a lot of traveling. April ’17’s month long Megabus/Greyhound tour was crucial and left me enamored with the idea that I could do a full solo tour without a car, and with the act itself of traveling around by bus (the song “Society of Men” came directly out of a bus station experience from that tour). That September we got pushed out of our house on Prospect Place in Crown Heights where we’d been consistently putting on shows for a few years (as a venue it was called “Bottom Bell”), and where a ton of music was written, practiced and recorded, (including every Cradle album from “Basketball is Beautiful” through “Bag of Holding”).

I was considering not settling back down in New York, thinking about moving or trying to tour and travel indefinitely, but ultimately I got lucky and found a room in November around the corner with friends. I think a lot of this album comes out of that happy coincidence that allowed me to keep living and making music in Brooklyn. The perspective of wonder and curiosity in songs like “End of the Day” or “Children” is involved with a kind of renewed, deepening appreciation for the breadth and wondrousness of the city I grew up in.

Early ’18 saw more traveling and also slowly detangling a longtime romance, and there are admittedly some pained anti-love songs on this album like “Eyes So Clear” and “One Too Many Times”. Hopefully these bluesier feelings are balanced out by the celebration and joy in songs like “Parasite” or “I’ll Walk”, songs about letting go and feeling free.

Form-wise, Laughing in my Sleep was supposed to be a summary album of sorts that would give someone listening to my music for the first time a little taste of everything. Previously, I had been particular when recording about making each project it’s own coherent and distinct sound-world, either through consistent instrumentation or a consistent recording process, but Laughing in My Sleep was the opposite. The drum-machine songs (“I’ll walk” or “See if it Lasts Longer”, for example), were recorded lo-fi on cassette, while the acoustic-guitar ballads were recorded hi(er)-fi on half-inch tape. Some of the songs are voice memos recorded on a cell phone that were supposed to be turned into proper songs later, but which, in retrospect, contained so much feeling and sense of place that I never rerecorded them. I wanted the album to give something different on each listen and give something different to each listener. I wanted there to be many landscapes, some near and some far, and many lenses to see them through, some blurry, and some clear.

— Paco Cathcart

Watch “Smoke” by Bendrix Littleton, ‘Deep Dark South’ out Sep. 25

Today Bendrix Littleton shares his music video for “Smoke” — the second single from his upcoming solo debut, Deep Dark South, releasing September 25.

The video was directed and shot by Hovvdy’s Will Taylor at and around his family’s farm in Gustine, TX. Inspired by a mortician he held a conversation with at a bar in Dallas, “Smoke” is a nostalgic meditation on appreciating a relationship only after it’s gone.

Listen to the track here, and pre-order it on cassette from our shop or at Bandcamp.

Hear Actress Remix LEYA’s “Wave” via The FADER

British electronic musician Darren Cunningham, better known as Actress, has lent his expansive vision to “Wave,” the second track from the LEYA’s acclaimed March 2020 release, Flood Dream“When I heard and saw the video for “Wave” by LEYA I experienced one of those rare moments when time stood still outside of my own practice,” Actress told The FADER over email for the track’s premiere. The previously cyclic and lilting tune is stretched into an 8-minute landscape in Cunningham’s hands, a trickling, groaning, subterranean ebb that eventually opens skyward while never straying from the thread-like meditation that is a defining theme in LEYA’s work. The result is one of subtle grandiosity that remains grounded in liminal, slowly-unfolding movement. Listen to the track here (available to download).

Harpist Marilu Donovan and violinist/vocalist Adam Markiewicz are NYC-based group LEYA.
 The two work with and against the grain of tradition, mining intensity through alternate tunings, strange harmonies, and dreamstate operatic-like vocals. The resultant visceral experience underlies beauty but spans many imperfect worlds. LEYA has released a steady volume of work in several years. Their two albums via NNA Tapes, The Fool (2018) and its follow-up Flood Dream (2020), exist alongside a range of collaborations. In 2018, the group wrote and performed a full-length soundtrack to I Love You, an erotic film directed by Brooke Candy and produced by PornHub featuring the duo as actors. 2019’s Angel Lust, a collaborative EP with Eartheater, followed courtesy of legendary experimental label PAN. In 2020 they released “Antigone, a collaborative single with Liturgy and the first of a number of shorter releases for the year. Taken together, these recent works represent a distinct but wide-ranging perspective on underground movements in pop music and indicate myriad possibilities for the group moving forward.

Over a decade of releases Actress has built a reputation as a fine creator of cerebral abstract techno or R&B concrète; crafting pulsing kickdrums, jittering percussion and chopped sample loops into churning, rumbling tracks soaked in static. Earlier this month, Actress surprise released his new album 88 for free on Bandcamp and announced his next full-length with Ninja Tune called Karma & Desire. In 2018, Actress collaborated with London Contemporary Orchestra for LAGEOS, an album which sought to create a synergy between both live electronic and acoustic components, not just in the harmonies but in the way the traditional instruments were spliced into new hybrid instruments. As part of the process, Actress and LCO augmented traditional piano and created sounds from objects as varied as temple bowls and plastic bags. His most recent solo studio album was 2017’s AZD, a chrome aspect journey into a parallel world. One of the most prominent and singular voices in electronic music, in addition to his recorded work, Actress has been photographed by Wolfgang Tillmans, and the late celebrated photographer Lord Snowden. Other collaborative projects include White Cube artist Eddie Peake, Mehdi Lacoste, Dan Emmerson and Belgian visual artist Pierre Debusschere, as well as fronting campaigns for fashion brands Acne and Cav Empt.

Bendrix Littleton (ex-Bent Denim) Announces ‘Deep Dark South’ out Sep. 25

Today, Bendrix Littleton (ex-Bent Denim) announced his debut album Deep Dark South (Sep. 25) and shared a video for the contemplative lead single and title track “Deep Dark South,” which is a compilation of iPhone clips shot around the time of the record’s creation and edited together by Will Taylor (from rock duo Hovvdy whose latest album, Heavy Lifter, was produced by Littleton).

On “Deep Dark South,” Bendrix Littleton conjures the feeling of looking up at the Southern night sky — “and realizing how big and full of wonder it is down here,” he says. Built on a foundation of steady, elegant piano chords, Bendrix’s gently-picked guitar loops create a lush soundscape, making space for his hazy, solitary voice to ponder solitude and time.

Deep Dark South is available to pre-order on cassette and digital formats from our shop & on Bandcamp.

〰️ 〰️ 〰️ 〰️

Bendrix Littleton is the writing and recording project of Nashville-via-Dallas musician Bennett Littlejohn. The project’s namesake, Maurice Bendrix—the protagonist of Graham Greene’s 1951 novel The End of the Affair—is described by enotes.com as “sometimes an unreliable narrator, for he is so consumed by jealousy, self-pity, self-hatred, and bitterness, that he measures everyone else by himself…[and] confesses that from time to time ‘a demon’ takes possession of his brain.” It’s an appropriate moniker for the self-aware, malaise-filled songs of Bendrix Littleton’s debut, Deep Dark South, due out September 25 from NNA Tapes. While in the album is imbued with the contradictions and painful beauty of the modern American South (as opposed to Greene’s WWII-era London), the hazy, solitary narrative voice remains.

Formerly one half of the “NyQuil-Pop” duo Bent Denim (dissolved in the summer of 2018), Littlejohn sought a fresh outlet that was more individual and freed from any preconceived artistic notions. During this time Littlejohn began taking on significantly more studio work, including production credits on Hovvdy’s Heavy Lifter (out now on Double Double Whammy), new material from Katy Kirby (out on Keeled Scales), and forthcoming work from Sinai Vessel. While production on this music was deeply rewarding, it was nonetheless work that was beholden to someone else’s vision. And it was out of this craving for artistic autonomy that Bendrix Littleton was born. Deep Dark South has provided a space for Littlejohn to experiment, collage, write, and record in a completely independent manner—a long-awaited and welcome zone of unfettered creation.

On the singular writing and recording process of Deep Dark South, Littlejohn states:

The initial spurt of songwriting was directly correlated to a vintage Harmony H162 acoustic guitar I found at a flea market in Kentucky, near the Tennessee border. This guitar would’ve been sold at Sears in the early 60’s. I strung it up with all of the higher pitched strings from a 12-string acoustic set and got to writing. A lot of rich, burnt-out musicians affectedly claim that there are ‘songs in guitars’ to justify their ever-growing guitar collections, but I do feel there is an ounce of truth in this. The way something feels, or the faults of a certain instrument indeed can bring out something unique and new.

Once the basic bedrock of the record had been tracked, I realized that the songs were too slow, my voice was too low…a spark was missing. My brother had just sent me my old Tascam four track cassette recorder. So, I spent a little time with that, and ended up committing these songs in their unfinished states to fixed tracks on this old tape machine—no editing, no panning, no volume changing. Driving the cassette tape hard and speeding the songs up (which also raises the pitch), gave this album that special aspect I had been looking for, and also provided a completely fucked up and new sonic foundation for me to start layering on top of.

And on the themes and sensibility of the album itself, Littlejohn says:

Throughout the record I deal with the common tropes of alcohol/drug abuse, malaise, ennui, regional junk, and the dissolution of relationships. It’s well-trod ground, but I’d rather write what feels genuine rather than something foreign for the sake of novelty. It feels ridiculous enough to put out something in 2020…so much noise to break through. But I feel like these are common enough things. I wouldn’t say these things are universal, but they’re not far from it.

The Cradle Announces ‘Laughing In My Sleep,’ Shares “One Too Many Times”

Truly beyond excited to announce ‘Laughing In My Sleep’ — the new 21-track album from singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Paco Cathcart, aka The Cradle.

Available August 21 on standard black and limited edition cream vinyl, compact disc, and digital formats. ⭐️ The first 50 physical pre-orders will receive a chapbook handmade by Paco. Order from our shop & on Bandcamp.

Check out the lead single “One Too Many Times,” featuring Lily Konigsberg (of Palberta) on backing vocals. “It’s a lament about miscommunication, and the difficulties of being vulnerable and clear with one another,” Cathcart explains. “It’s about feeling desperately apart from the “vanguard,” that is, those who are fearless and true with their language, politically and personally.”

 

The Ah Shares New Track “Watermelon Tears” + ‘Mere Husk’ out Jan 31

We’re excited to announce our first cassette release of 2020 — a new album from the unique sound world of NYC-based musician Jeremy Gustin, aka The Ah. Mere Husk is now available for pre-order (available January 31), and we’re thrilled to share the lead single with you today.

On “Watermelon Tears, humor and unpredictability are put to good use, giving the track a candy-coated quality that’s steeped in colorful psychedelia. Gustin says, “Watermelon tears are the kind of tears you get when you laugh really hard… the sweet tears.”

The release of Mere Husk will be celebrated in conjunction with Gustin’s forthcoming photography book Foundscapes (being released with 11A Records) at Brooklyn NY’s Step Bone Cut on February 1st.

♫ Listen to “Watermelon Tears.”

» Click here to order from our Shop.
» Also available on Bandcamp.

LEYA Share New Single “Weight” + Announce New Album

NNA is thrilled to announce the forthcoming sophomore LP from LEYA — Flood Dream — out March 6, 2020. Flood Dream includes a few tracks from their feature-length score of Brooke Candy’s queer pornagraphic film “I Love You” (made for PornHub’s Visionaries Director’s Club) and follows their debut album, The Fool, which caught the attention of NoiseyFACTSPIN and more.

“Weight” is available now for listening on your preferred streaming platform:
♫ Listen on Spotify.
♫ Listen on Apple Music.

‘Flood Dream’ is available now for pre-order on Standard Edition Vinyl, Compact Disc, and Digital formats – out worldwide on Friday, March 6.
» Click here to order from our Shop.
» Also available on Bandcamp.

~ ~ ~

Framed within a network of outlying artists whose experiments sketch out far-flung deviations from aboveground movements, the work of New York-based duo LEYA stands out as an anomaly that exemplifies the idiosyncratic impulses of the avant fringe. Harpist/vocalist Marilu Donovan and violinist/vocalist Adam Markiewicz seem from a sidelong perspective to approximate the languages of neo-classical performance and post-minimalist exploration in their austere, meticulously rendered compositions. In truth, the duo’s own self-perception casts their project closer to the axes of noise and punk than conventional refinement.

As formally educated composers acutely aware of the traditions and conventions into which their instruments fit, Donovan and Markiewicz exploit preconceptions and confound expectations by pursuing the most transportive and emotional means of communication with their audience. Just as their peers warp systems of electronics or tropes from the pop and rock traditions, LEYA channel the surface signifiers of orchestral music and 20th century classical composition into deeply personal works that encompass bursts of raw dissonance alongside moments of spectral beauty. The duo’s performances shift the spotlight from the authority figure looming over an ensemble of players to those planted in the corner of a dimly lit basement populated with freaks who can’t help but fall into silence when confronted with the duo’s bewildering stimuli.

LEYA’s album Flood Dream follows the acclaimed The Fool (NNA, 2018) and their soundtrack to PornHub-exclusive short film I Love You directed by Brooke Candy. The Fool presented the project both in densely plotted duo pieces and joint efforts with New York luminaries like Eartheater, PC Worship, and Sunk Heaven. Though guests from LEYA’s wide social environment appear on Flood Dream, including vocalist/producer GABI, flautist/synthesist John Also Bennett of Forma, and bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause, the album pares back the presence of external artists as full co-writing collaborators to highlight the raw core of the duo’s practice. Flood Dream plays out as a decadent feast of the senses struck through with the disturbed influence of intrusive thoughts.

The album’s pieces each follow their own sinuous narrative arc, building from empty expanses of detuned harp arpeggios and languid smears of violin into climaxes draped in Markiewicz’s impassioned vocal lines. LEYA generate tension with their darkly operatic sense of drama, conveyed in weeping melodies and the desolation of solitary notes against blank backdrops, as they dole out fragments of resolution or momentary triumph before sinking back into uncertainty. Their arrangements bridge instances of baroque ornamentation and blocks of harmonic density with stretches of fugue state-inducing confusion built over dreary standing tones and repeated dissonant intervals.

In an industry obsessed with precise classification, how do we make sense of the ambiguous shadow LEYA casts over the landscape? The duo reject the tenets of the new music establishment and thrive within a scene of noise transgressors and electronic auteurs. In all of its indulgence and emotional upheaval, their music adapts as easily to the context of arthouse pornography as to a late-night bill populated with no wave acts and performance artists, without ever coming off as a harsh juxtaposition. LEYA’s music reveals that the boundaries between these disciplines aren’t boundaries at all — that everything pours from the same well into different vessels that might be carried off in opposite directions, but that will always returned to a shared source.

GRID Release New Single Feat. Lydia Lunch

Photo Credit: Jasmine Hirst

 

GRID — the New York based noise-jazz trio of Matt Nelson (saxophone), Tim Dahl (bass), and Nick Podgurksi (drums) — have released a new single today, featuring the legendary singer, poet, and self-empowerment speaker Lydia Lunch.

« Order “Stranglehold : The world according to Herbert Huncke” from Bandcamp.

On “Stranglehold : The world according to Herbert Huncke, Lunch summons the spirit and philosophy of the original beat writer Herbert Huncke, who inspired Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac. Her performance is hypnotic, seductive, and haunting.

GRID have also announced a European tour, beginning Monday, Nov. 3, at Cafe OTO in London, and a new, limited edition live cassette will available only at shows. All dates are listed below.

GRID EU Tour 2019
11/4 | London | Cafe OTO
11/5 | Lille | CCL
11/6 | Amsterdam | Occii
11/7 | Leipzig | Villa Plagwitz
11/8 | Gdansk | Jazz Jantar Festival
11/9 | Berlin | Villa Kuriosum
11/10 | Stuttgart | Container City
11/11 | Geneva | Urgence Disk Records
11/12 | La Chaux-De Fonds | ABC Theatre

* Lydia Lunch Will Not Be Appearing with GRID on Tour *

Guerilla Toss – ‘What Would The Odd Do?’ EP – Out Today

Guerilla Toss – Photo Credit: Vanessa Castro

 

‘What Would The Odd Do?’ — the new EP from Guerilla Toss — is out today!

« Order ‘What Would The Odd Do?’ from Our Shop.
« Order ‘What Would The Odd Do?’ from Bandcamp.

A portion of the proceeds from the album will go to the Harlem Harm Reduction Clinic, in an attempt to further our reach in the opiate crisis battle.

Don’t forget: Kassie will be answering questions on Reddit (r/indieheads) TODAY (10/18) at 9am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm BST. Follow along here.

Tour Dates:
10/19 | Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive | TICKETS / RSVP
10/22 | Salt Lake City, UT @ Diabolical Records | RSVP
10/23 | Boise, ID @ Neurolux Lounge | TICKETS / RSVP
10/24 | Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall | TICKETS / RSVP
10/25 | Vancouver, Canada @ Fortune Sound Club | TICKETS / RSVP
10/26 | Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project | TICKETS / RSVP
10/27 | Eugene, OR @ Sam Bond’s Garage | TICKETS / RSVP
10/29 | Arcata, CA @ Outer Space Arcata | TICKETS / RSVP
10/30 | San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel | TICKETS / RSVP
11/01 | Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place | TICKETS / RSVP
11/02 | Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater | TICKETS / RSVP
11/03 | San Diego, CA @ The Casbah | TICKETS / RSVP
11/05 | Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room | TICKETS / RSVP
11/06 | Tucson, AZ @ Wooden Tooth Records | TICKETS / RSVP
11/07 | Albuquerque, NM @ Town Hall – ABQ | RSVP
11/09 | Austin, TX @ Levitation | TICKETS / RSVP
11/10 | Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio | TICKETS / RSVP
11/11 | Norman, OK @ Opolis | TICKETS / RSVP
11/16 | Ridgewood, NY @ Trans-Pecos | TICKETS / RSVP (EP Release Show)
12/30 | Kingston, NY @ BSP Kingston | TICKETS / RSVP *
* with Rubblebucket

New Single From Guerilla Toss: “Future Doesn’t Know”


Guerilla Toss – Photo Credit: Vanessa Castro

 

Guerilla Toss have shared the second single from their impending ‘What Would The Odd Do?’ EP — out Oct. 18 on standard and special edition vinyl, compact disc, and digital formats.

“Future Doesn’t Know” premieres at FLOOD, and is available now for listening on your preferred streaming platform. FLOOD calls the track “A triumphant look forward… Recalling the chiptune power pop of their peers Crying as much as the godfatherly wonk of Deerhoof.”

« Listen to “Future Doesn’t Know”
« Order ‘What Would The Odd Do?’ from Our Shop.
« Order ‘What Would The Odd Do?’ from Bandcamp.

“When I got sick it felt like I was right there, on the edge of death and there was no time to test fate. It took getting there to realize I would disintegrate and cease to exist unless I started making decisions that benefited my own personal recovery from depression. So often we look to others for the meaning of life or what to do next, but really the only answer is within.”
— Kassie Carlson

A portion of the proceeds from the album will go to the Harlem Harm Reduction Clinic, in an attempt to further our reach in the opiate crisis battle.

Tour Dates:
10/19 | Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive | TICKETS / RSVP
10/22 | Salt Lake City, UT @ Diabolical Records | RSVP
10/23 | Boise, ID @ Neurolux Lounge | TICKETS / RSVP
10/24 | Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall | TICKETS / RSVP
10/25 | Vancouver, Canada @ Fortune Sound Club | TICKETS / RSVP
10/26 | Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project | TICKETS / RSVP
10/27 | Eugene, OR @ Sam Bond’s Garage | TICKETS / RSVP
10/29 | Arcata, CA @ Outer Space Arcata | TICKETS / RSVP
10/30 | San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel | TICKETS / RSVP
11/01 | Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place | TICKETS / RSVP
11/02 | Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater | TICKETS / RSVP
11/03 | San Diego, CAThe Casbah | TICKETS / RSVP
11/05 | Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room | TICKETS / RSVP
11/06 | Tucson, AZWooden Tooth Records | TICKETS / RSVP
11/07 | Albuquerque, NM @ Town Hall – ABQ | RSVP
11/09 | Austin, TX @ Levitation | TICKETS / RSVP
11/10 | Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio | TICKETS / RSVP
11/11 | Norman, OK @ Opolis | TICKETS / RSVP
11/16 | Ridgewood, NY @ Trans-Pecos | TICKETS / RSVP (EP Release Show)
* with Rubblebucket

New Single from Guerilla Toss: “Plants”

We’re thrilled today to finally unveil the lead single from ‘What Would The Odd Do?’, the upcoming EP from Guerilla Toss“Plants” is a disco-post-punk-prog epic about the perceived psychosis of the fictional protagonist, Lara. Based off the books, What A Plant Knows and The Hidden Life Of Trees, the song combats the anti-spiritual western notion that plants are devoid of all communication, when, in fact, there is an entire language of which we are “blissfully unaware.” The track also explores the old-fashioned idea of a woman being crazy, when, in reality, she simply isn’t being heard. Stephen Cooper’s driving bass line propels a force that is somewhere between Hawkwind and Giorgio Moroder, while Sam Lisabeth’s exploratory synth explosions create one of GT’s most blissful and sentimental tracks to date. With additional drum production and sound design by Catskill, NY synth wizard, MaZmiTh, the track moves into a psychedelic oblivion.

For Kassie Carlson, singer, songwriter, and bandleader of Guerilla TossWhat Would The Odd Do? is unarguably the groups most personal release in their impressive history as a music-making collective. After open heart surgery in 2017 to remove a dangerous blood clot caused by a severe opiate addiction, Carlson has found a new joy in life. She has since moved to Upstate New York with her partner and Guerilla Toss drummer, Peter Negroponte, and has never felt more inspired.

What Would The Odd Do? is a further exploration into new territories, while still remaining true to the band’s fringe sound. A portion of the proceeds from the album will go to the Harlem Harm Reduction Clinic, in an attempt to further our reach in the opiate crisis battle.

“Plants” is available now for listening on your preferred streaming platform:
♫ Listen on Spotify.
♫ Listen on Apple Music.

‘What Would The Odd Do?’ is available now for pre-order on Standard and Special Edition Vinyl, Compact Disc, and Digital formats – out worldwide on Friday, Oct. 18.
» Click here to order from our Shop.
» Also available on Bandcamp.

Photo credit: Vanessa Castro

New track from Lea Bertucci: Listen to “Warp and Weft”

It is with great pleasure today that we announce the first audio offering from Lea Bertucci‘s upcoming full-length album ‘Resonant Field’. On “Warp and Weft”, Bertucci slowly builds increasingly dense clusters of whirling saxophone improvisations, captured inside the cavernous Marine A Grain Elevator at Silo City in Buffalo, New York. As harmony and dissonance blur together as one, Lea unlocks the cerebral, trance-like microtonal effects of the frequency spectrum, reminiscent of the great pioneers of minimalist composition such as La Monte Young and Lou Harrison. Field recordings emerge and dissolve through the waves of overlapping sax improvisation, as does the growling low end of bowed double-bass, played by long-time collaborator James Ilgenfritz. You can listen to “Warp and Weft” now courtesy of NPR Music’s All Songs Considered: Viking’s Choice, as well as on electronic music news source Resident Advisor. Also available for streaming listening on Bandcamp and Soundcloud below.

“like a spinning top that doesn’t so much end, but seeps into our spiraling consciousness.”
–Lars Gotrich, NPR Music

“[a] 12-minute journey, layered with celestial drones and basked in a warm glow.”
–Andrew Ryce, Resident Advisor

‘Resonant Field’ is available NOW for pre-order on Special Edition Vinyl & Digital formats.
» Click here to order from our Shop.
» Click here to order from Bandcamp.
Available worldwide on July 19th, 2019.

 Special Edition Vinyl version comes packaged in a hand-screen printed jacket with silver metallic ink, plus an insert booklet containing photographs, drawings, and liner notes by the artist. The first 100 copies come pressed on Translucent Smoke with Black & Ice Splatter vinyl, first come first served at no additional charge.

Album Release Concert:

Thursday, July 11th 2019
at Outpost
1665 Norman St
Ridgewood NY 11385

featuring:
Lea Bertucci with James Ilgenfritz
C. Lavender
LEYA

8pm | $10
» Purchase Tickets
» Facebook Event Page

ANNOUNCING: Lea Bertucci ‘Resonant Field’

It is our honor today to announce the long-awaited new album from composer, performer and sound designer Lea Bertucci‘Resonant Field’ is coming July 19th to NNA Tapes. It’s been a little over a year since her critically-acclaimed full-length ‘Metal Aether’ made it’s debut, and Lea has been diligently busy across a wide array of musical platforms ever since. In the last year, she has toured the globe, debuted her composition Mass Of Dissolution for percussion trio Tigue (commissioned by the American Composers’ Forum), unveiled the piece Acoustic Shadows, a site-specific performance for brass ensemble inside the hollow body of a bridge in Koln, Germany, formed a new duo with Amirtha Kidambi, and so much more. Now, with ‘Resonant Field’, Lea returns to her exploration of site-specific acoustic phenomena. This new album is centered around recordings of alto saxophone played inside the cavernous concrete structure of the Marine A Grain Elevator, located at Silo City in Buffalo, New York. Lea was able to beautifully capture the haunting resonances that Silo City possesses, and brought them back to the studio to transform them into four stunning electro-acoustic compositions of saxophone, field recordings, tape manipulation, and additional collaborative instrumentation.

‘Resonant Field’ will be available on Special Edition Vinyl, featuring screen printed jackets containing an insert booklet featuring liner notes, drawings, photographs by the artist, plus schematics of the Marine A Grain Elevator silo. Presented in a limited edition of 400 copies packaged with a digital download coupon, along with a standard Digital edition.

» Available now for pre-order in our Shop.
» Also available for pre-order on Bandcamp.
» Officially available worldwide on July 19th, 2019.

★ The first 100 LP copies will be pressed on Translucent Smoke with Silver & Black Splatter vinyl – first come first served, no additional charge. The remainder of the edition will be pressed on black vinyl.

PLUS – We’re happy to announce a fantastic album release concert:

Thursday, July 11th 2019
at Outpost
1665 Norman Street
Ridgewood, NY 11385

featuring:
Lea Bertucci with James Ilgenfritz (5 string double-bass)
C. Lavender
LEYA

8pm | $10

Tracklist:
1. Wind Piece (4:54)
2. Warp and Weft (12:53)
3. Resonant Field (17:32)
4. Deliquescence (2:26)

New Single/Video from Alice Cohen & The Channel 14 Weather Team: “Plastic Paradise”

We’re thrilled today to finally unveil the debut single from ‘Artificial Fairytales’, the upcoming album from Alice Cohen & The Channel 14 Weather Team. “Plastic Paradise” is a prime example of Alice Cohen’s cultivated sound, with funky, danceable rhythms, juicy synths, and incredibly catchy songwriting. For the music video, Alice teamed up with the director/cinematographer duo of Gabrielle Muller and Alice Millar to create a dreamy tale set in the crusty seaside utopia land of Wildwood, New Jersey. It depicts the fantasy life of a barmaid who works at a local sailor bar, and dreams of escaping her mundane existence. Eventually, she finally works up the courage to leave her waitress job, and joins the Channel 14 band onstage to bring the party to the people. Many thanks to Harley Brown and our friends over at Billboard for hosting the video premiere, along with a great write-up and an interview with Alice herself – click here to watch and read. Also available on our YouTube channel.

“Plastic Paradise” is also available now for listening on your preferred streaming platform:
Listen on Spotify.
Listen on Apple Music.

‘Artificial Fairytales’ is available now for pre-order on Vinyl, Compact Disc, and Digital formats – out worldwide on Friday, May 31st.
» Click here to order from our Shop.
» Also available on Bandcamp.

★ The first 100 LP copies will be pressed on Lavender & Slate Blue swirl vinyl – first come first served, no additional charge. The remainder of the edition will be pressed on black vinyl.

Video credits:

Director: Gabrielle Muller
Cinematographer: Alice Millar
Assistant Camera: Swelee Joseph Millar, Wonnie Shen
Editing: Fay Gartenberg Featuring Alice Cohen, Gabrielle Muller, Adrian Knight, David Lacker, BJ Rubin, Zach Phillips, Max Zuckerman, Bryce Hackford, Dominika Mazurova, Grace Chang, Nicole Louie, Hanna Lea Novak, Tom Henry and Mikel Durlam
Hair: Megan Morganweck
Color Correction: David Carson
Shot in Wildwood, NJ and at Magick City, Brooklyn.

ANNOUNCING: Alice Cohen & The Channel 14 Weather Team ‘Artificial Fairytales’

We’re thrilled today to announce a brand new full-length from an NNA newcomer, and our 2nd vinyl release of the year. Alice Cohen & The Channel 14 Weather Team’s ‘Artificial Fairytales’ is officially available now for pre-order on Vinyl, CD, and Digital formats. Alice may be new to NNA, but she is no stranger to the world of music. Having been immersed in music since childhood, Cohen has been writing songs, performing, and playing live since age 14 in her hometown of Philadelphia. Traversing through the realms of soul, funk, disco, new wave, and grunge, Alice has since settled in New York City, working diligently on her solo work in the modern art pop underground. ‘Artificial Fairytales’ is her sixth solo full-length, joined now by The Channel 14 Weather Team (Adrian Knight and David Lackner) to build upon her sound, presenting us with 9 fresh tracks of rhythmic electronic synth pop goodness. She has recently expanded her live band to include NNA family Ryan Power on drums, and Zach Phillips (Blanche Blanche Blanche, OSR) on bass. This album is a truly special addition to our discography, and we’re so excited to bring this album to life in the true NNA spirit of audio-visual artist collaboration.

Alice is also a talented visual artist, working primarily in stop-motion collage video. We’re happy to share this teaser video made by the artist herself, giving a sneak peak of what’s to come. Watch below or on our YouTube page.

‘Artificial Fairytales’ is available now for pre-order in our Shop.
Also available for pre-order on Bandcamp.
Officially available worldwide on May 31st, 2019.

★ The first 100 LP copies will be pressed on Lavender & Slate Blue swirl vinyl – first come first served, no additional charge. The remainder of the edition will be pressed on black vinyl.

Tracklist:
1. Keep On Keeping On (4:31)
2. Plastic Paradise (4:50)
3. Thank You (4:39)
4. Broken Bubbles (2:23)
5. Hourglass (4:01)
6. Hidden Staircase (5:09)
7. Faces In The Rain (4:29)
8. Ravers At Dawn (3:27)
9. Bubblegum Heart (6:18)

The Cradle “New Organ” Music Video + Tour Dates

We’re psyched today to share “New Organ,” the first official single, and accompanying music video, from ‘The Glare Of Success,’ the upcoming new album from The Cradle. Much like the “A Thought That Deletes” music video from The Cradle’s previous album ‘Bag Of Holding,’ “New Organ” is another creative audio/visual collaboration between Paco Cathcart (The Cradle) and Anina Ivry Block (Palberta). Video art and music combine to create an abstract and intimate whole, genuinely capturing the unique spirit of Paco Cathcart’s work. Watch below, or visit our YouTube page for more content from The Cradle, plus tons of others. Also available for listening on Bandcamp and Soundcloud.

 

 

‘The Glare Of Success’ is available worldwide on April 12th, 2019 on Cassette & Digital formats.
Available now for pre-order in our Shop. Also available on Bandcamp.
Cassette edition includes a double-sided color insert featuring the original ‘Bag Of Holding’ cover art, plus a complete lyrics sheet.
★ NNATapes.com Exclusive: Order the Cassette + Vinyl LP Bundle and receive ‘The Glare of Success’ PLUS The Cradle’s previous NNA album ‘Bag of Holding’ together for one low price.

 

We’re also happy to share some fresh tour dates, which conclude with a special album release concert in Paco’s home town of New York City. He will be heading south and back with Holy People for a week of shows – dates below.

 

 

The Cradle + Holy People “Fool’s Errant Tour” April 2019
4/5: Baltimore, MD at The Aquarium w/ Mems
4/6: Asheville, NC at Static Age Records
4/7: Nashville, TN at Betty’s Grill w/ Cherry Blossoms
4/8: Birmingham, AL at The Firehouse w/ Minerals
4/9: Athens, GA at The Mill
4/12: Philadephia, PA at Magic Pictures w/ Alex Tatarsky & House of Fear
4/14: New York, NY at Flowers For All Occasions (Album Release Concert)

ANNOUNCING: The Cradle ‘The Glare of Success’

We are psyched today to deliver some great news – new music from The Cradle is here. Following up the acclaimed 2018 NNA debut ‘Bag of Holding,’ we are now happy to officially announce that ‘The Glare of Success’ is coming April 12th, 2019 on Cassette & Digital formats. For this release, The Cradle’s Paco Cathcart has taken an innovative approach to a follow-up album by extracting the isolated orchestral and vocal elements from his ‘Bag of Holding’ full-length, and used them as source material to create an entirely new song cycle. The sounds of Sammy Weissberg‘s lush orchestral arrangements and Palberta‘s vocal harmonies are recycled and remixed, using the sonic essence of dub music as inspiration to create a new set of rhythmically-driven electronic compositions. Cathcart’s natural talents in the mixing and editing process are on full display on this recording, creating a perfect companion album to the largely acoustic worlds of ‘Bag of Holding.’ Check out a sneak preview of the track “Giving Dub” on the album teaser below:

‘The Glare of Success’ is officially out on April 12th, 2019 on Cassette & Digital formats.
»Click here to pre-order from our Shop.
☆NNATapes.com Exclusive: Order the Cassette + Vinyl LP Bundle and receive ‘The Glare of Success’ PLUS The Cradle’s previous NNA album ‘Bag of Holding’ together for one low price.
Also available for pre-order on Bandcamp.

Cover artwork by the artist.

Tracklist:
1. Victorious Dub (4:48)
2. Call Out Dub (3:01)
3. The Name of Willis Reed (2:20)
4. Dub of Holding (2:36)
5. When We Forget Each Other’s Names (1:11)
6. New Organ (3:31)
7. Day’s End Dub (4:46)
8. Poison Mushroom (2:10)
9. Intro (0:38)
10. I’ll Give Dub (5:42)

New from Tredici Bacci: “Felicity Grows” Single & Music Video

NNA is thrilled today to unleash another single from ‘La Fine Del Futuro,’ Tredici Bacci‘s masterful upcoming full-length. “Felicity Grows” is another vivacious Simon Hanes original, with a delicately simmering samba rhythm that erupts into a robust, dynamic orchestral chorus, full of cascading strings, fierce saxophones, and a poignant piano backbone. The song also features another amazing performance from lead vocalist Sami Stevens, who once again shows her dazzling range and classical adaptability with her superb voice. “Felicity Grows” is composed by Hanes in collaboration with JG Thirlwell (Foetus; “Archer” and “Venture Bros.” original soundtracks), who also wrote the lyrics. Thirlwell has been a longtime friend and collaborator of the band since 2016’s ‘Amore Per Tutti,’ and also lent his unmistakable vocals to ‘La Fine Del Futuro’s debut single “Emmanuelle.”

» Listen to “Felicity Grows” on Spotify – now streaming.

To accompany this colorful tune, we’re also excited to share a complementary music video, directed by the bandleader Simon “Luxardo” Hanes along with Chris “Mr. Transylvania” Shields. Tastefully filmed and edited in classic black & white, Sami and the orchestra audition for the Maestro himself, but will they make the cut? Watch below to find out…

Available on our YouTube channel – subscribe for more exclusive NNA audio/visual content.

‘La Fine Del Futuro’ is available now for pre-order on Vinyl, CD, and Digital formats.
Click here to order from our Shop – including an exclusive 2 LP bundle that includes both Tredici Bacci full-length albums: ‘Amore Per Tutti’ and ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ together for one low price.
Also available for purchase on Bandcamp.

Available worldwide on March 8th, 2019.

Tredici Bacci “In The 1970s” Music Video

It is our pleasure today to share a brand new music video from Tredici Bacci! “In The 1970s” is the second single from the upcoming full-length album ‘La Fine Del Futuro,’ following the previous yuletide single “Emmanuelle” which we shared on Christmas Eve. “In The 1970s” is a perfect example of a new musical direction from Tredici Bacci, locking into the essence of orchestral pop hits of yesteryear, calling to mind the mastery of Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, The Carpenters, classic showtunes and more. With Sami Stevens’ opening lines “everything was  so much better in the 1970s,” one could even say this is Tredici Bacci’s manifesto. The video, directed by Zachary T. Scott with cinematography by Taylor Camarot, tells the story of an oddball murder mystery involving a psychedelic backyard barbeque orgy gone wrong, complete with a vixen-led sex cult and some questionable police officers. Huge thanks to our friends at Tiny Mix Tapes for sharing the video, which you can watch on their site here complete with nice write-up. Also available on our YouTube channel below.

» Click here to listen to “In The 1970s” on Spotify.

‘La Fine Del Futuro’ is available NOW for pre-order on Vinyl, Compact Disc, & Digital formats.
Click here to order from our Shop, also available on our Bandcamp page.

Available worldwide on March 8th, 2019.

Tredici Bacci ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ Album Release Concert
with Jazzboy
Thursday, February 14th at Mercury Lounge
217 E Houston St, New York, NY 10002
» PURCHASE TICKETS
» Facebook Event

ANNOUNCING: Tredici Bacci ‘La Fine Del Futuro’

It is with utmost thrill and pleasure that we announce today a brand new full-length album from one of NNA’s nearest and dearest artists, Tredici Bacci! ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ is officially available NOW for pre-order on Vinyl, Compact Disc, and Digital formats. Following up the band’s debut EP ‘The Thirteen Kisses Cassetta’ way back in 2014, up through 2016’s masterful full-length Amore Per Tutti,’ we’re honored now to present ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ as our first LP/CD release of the new year. ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ hones in on the classic Bacci sound, while expanding their palette and influences with a full orchestral line-up of extremely talented musicians. You’ll hear plenty of Simon Hanes‘ original compositions and arrangements, plus covers, collaborations (one with Hanes’ cohort JG Thirlwell, and one with NNA’s own Ryan Power), and the unbelievable vocal prowess of Sami Stevens.

The first 50 LP copies ordered will come pressed on Giallo & Pink Split vinyl, and the second 50 LP copies ordered will come pressed on Solid Pink vinyl in the usual first-come-first-served fashion. The remainder of the edition comes on standard black vinyl.
We’re also offering a special 2x Vinyl Bundle that includes both ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ PLUS Tredici Bacci’s previous full-length album ‘Amore Per Tutti’ together for one low price.

Click HERE to pre-order from our Shop – officially available on the March 3rd, 2019 street date.


Video & Animation by Peter Nichols.

We’re also pleased to announce a special Valentine’s Day album release concert!

Tredici Bacci ‘La Fine Del Futuro’ Album Release Concert
with Jazzboy
Thursday, February 14th at Mercury Lounge
217 E Houston St, New York, NY 10002
» PURCHASE TICKETS
» Facebook Event

Listen to the first single from the album, “Emmanuelle (feat. JG Thirlwell)”

» Click here to listen on Spotify.

 


Cover artwork by Phyllis Ma.

Tracklist:

1. Titoli Di Testa (3:22)
2. In The 1970s (4:23)
3. Minimallissimo (3:30)
4. Barbarians (3:52)
5. Emmanuelle (feat. JG Thirlwell) (4:29)
6. Felicity Grows (3:09)
7. The Calvary (feat. Ryan Power) (4:05)
8. Promises, Promises (2:27)
9. Impressioni (4:13)
10. Ambulette (3:50)
11. The Liberty Belle (3:56)

A gift for Christmas: Listen to Tredici Bacci’s “Emmanuelle (feat. JG Thirlwell)”

In honor of Christmas Eve, NNA artists Tredici Bacci release a new track “Emmanuelle,” a rearrangement of the Christmas favorite “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” featuring JG Thirlwell on vocals.
♫ Listen on Spotify.

 “Tredici Bacci keeps the collaborative spirit alive with their track “Emmanuelle,” a deranged, gun-slinging take on a yuletide classic featuring vocals from Simon Hanes’ partner-in-crime JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Venture Brothers). This creative rearrangement of a 12th Century hymn turns a Christmas favorite into a sinister Spaghetti Western anthem as Thirlwell’s guttural sneer weaves a menacing tale of good versus evil.”
Stay tuned for more Tredici Bacci news in early January, and Happy New Year from NNA Tapes!
Artwork by Hugues Micol.

ANNOUNCING: S. Araw Trio XIII ‘Activated Clown’

NNA is extremely excited today to announce our inaugural release for the new year, ‘Activated Clown’ by S. Araw Trio XIII. The “Trio” is a new configuration of the Sun Araw Band, the live-action collaborative branch of Sun Araw (brainchild of Los Angeles artist Cameron Stallones). Sun Araw has been steadily active for a full decade now, pushing their own flavor of psychedelic music to it’s limits, initially as a solo project, then expanded to a full band, and now also active as a special “Trio” formation with a rotating lineup. Trio XIII, consisting of Cameron Stallones, Jon Leland, and Tomo Jacobson, is dedicated to live improvised electronic music, performed in various locales around our Earth sphere. Following their first two digital releases ‘Antwerp’ and ‘Warsaw’ on Stallones’ own Sun Ark Records, ‘Activated Clown’ brings us two long-form pieces recorded live during a residency at Grnation in Braga, Portugal. These two pieces, performed with Fender Rhodes, guitar, synthesizers, Vdrum, and ribbon controller (to name a few), achieve enlightened headspaces through a unique language of deep-fried MIDI jazz, making tasteful and expert use of pace, texture, melody, and telepathic connection. We’re so psyched to kick off 2019 with such a special cassette release. Check out the official album announcement & preview from Resident Advisor here for more information.

‘Activated Clown’ is available now for pre-order on Cassette and Digital formats, with an official release date of January 11th, 2019. The Cassette edition features a deluxe translucent acetate J-card, and comes packaged with a digital download coupon.
» Click here to order from our Shop.
» Click here to order from our Bandcamp page.


PLUS, we’re offering a special Cassette + T-Shirt combo package (exclusive to nnatapes.com), featuring an Ash Grey shirt with a two-color silkscreen print, designed by Cameron Stallones himself. Check out our Shop for more details.

Listen to an excerpt from Side A – “Hermeto’s Tume”

 

Cover artwork by EMOJI_ONLINE

Booker Stardrum ‘Temporary etc.’ Full Album Stream on Noisey

We’re elated to report today that ‘Temporary etc.’, the brand new full-length album from percussionist Booker Stardrum, is now available for streaming in it’s entirety courtesy of our friends over at Noisey. Writer Colin Joyce gives an in-depth listen and analysis of the new record, as well as sharing some insight from the artist himself via email correspondence. ‘Temporary etc.’ is a truly stimulating and refreshing listen as a complete entity, with one track flowing seamlessly into the next to create a fluid, singular experience. Many thanks to Colin Joyce for the intelligent write-up, and to Noisey for hosting and supporting adventurous new music. Click here to read and listen.

‘Temporary etc.’ is officially out this Friday, October 26th. Pre-orders are shipping now. The first 100 copies of the LPX Series LP come on limited edition Sea Blue w/ Diamond White Splatter vinyl, first come first served while supplies last. Click here to order from our Shop, or from our Bandcamp page. Tour dates (including two record release concerts in LA and NYC) and more can be found below.

10/25: Baltimore, MD – Solo @ 2640
10/26: Philadelphia, PA – Solo @ Jerry’s on Front
10/28: Brooklyn, NY – Solo @ Union Pool
10/29: Chicago, IL – Solo + trio w/ Dave Rempis + Beth McDonald @ Experimental Sound Studio
10/30: Chicago, IL – Trio w/ Katie Young + Matt Mehlan @ Comfort Station
11/11: Joshua Tree, CA – Solo @ Beatnik Lounge
11/14: Los Angeles, CA – Solo @ Zebulon
11/15: San Francisco, CA – Solo + w/ Sontag Shogun’s Braided Sound @ The Luggage Store Gallery
11/17: Los Angeles, CA – Duo w/ Andrew Bernstein @ Coaxial
11/18: San Diego, CA – Solo @ SDCP 

Video and posters by Miranda Javid.

ANNOUNCING: Booker Stardrum ‘Temporary etc.’ LP

NNA is thrilled to announce a brand new vinyl release for the fall season – Booker Stardrum ‘Temporary etc.’ is officially available now for pre-order. It’s been 3 years since Stardrum’s 2015 NNA debut ‘Dance And,’ and we’re honored to present a new full-length album of the Los Angeles-based percussionist/composer’s unique and otherworldly music. Having spent the better part of the last decade recording and performing with a variety of artists and groups, including Cloud Becomes Your Hand, VaVatican, Lee Ranaldo, Weyes Blood, and Nels Cline, ‘Temporary etc.’ further hones Booker’s distinct vision for the melding of percussive and electronic worlds, exploring electro-acoustic spaces and pan-tonal / pan-rhythmic musical concepts. Recorded, engineered, and mixed with Deerhoof’s John Dieterich, ‘Temporary etc.’ collects nine tracks that flow seamlessly together as one organic entity, ranging from scattered, frenetic drumming to droning, churning minimalism.

‘Temporary etc.’ is the third installment of NNA LPX, our Limited Edition Vinyl LP series, featuring boutique packaging that utilizes locally-sourced manufacturers & small businesses from our hometown of Burlington, Vermont USA. Each LPX record is hand-assembled, numbered, and stamped to ensure limited edition authenticity. The vinyl, silkscreen-printed jackets, and stamps are all produced here in Burlington in order to support & sustain our local creative community. The LP is limited to an edition of 350 copies, with the first 100 copies on custom colored vinyl available on a first-come first-served basis while supplies last. The remainder of the edition will be pressed on White vinyl.

We’re thrilled to share an official trailer video today featuring an excerpt of the track “Swimming,” with video and animation by the inimitable and brilliant Peter Nichols. Check it out below or on our YouTube page:

‘Temporary etc.’ is available NOW for pre-order in our Shop on Vinyl and Digital formats. Click here to order and for more info. Also available on our Bandcamp page. Officially available worldwide on October 26th, 2018.

Cover artwork by Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir.
Portrait photograph by Emma Rae Norton.

Booker Stardrum September/October Tour Dates:
10/25: Baltimore, MD – Solo @ 2640
10/26: Philadelphia, PA – Solo @ Jerry’s on Front
10/28: Brooklyn, NY – Solo @ Union Pool
10/29: Chicago, IL – Solo + trio TBA @ Experimental Sound Studio
10/30: Chicago, IL – Trio w/ Katie Young + Matt Mehlan @ Comfort Station
11/10: Joshua Tree, CA – Solo @ TBA
11/14: Los Angeles, CA – Solo @ Zebulon
11/15: San Francisco, CA – Solo + w/ Sontag Shogun’s Braided Sound @ The Luggage Store Gallery 11/17: Los Angeles, CA – Duo w/ Andrew Bernstein @ Coaxial
11/18: San Diego, CA – Solo @ SDCP 

Brand new: Kalbells NPR Tiny Desk Concert

Super exciting news to share today – NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series with Kalbells is now live! Kalbells, the solo music of Kalmia Traver (Rubblebucket), made their debut on NNA last summer with the acclaimed full-length album ‘Ten Flowers,’ and have since been touring and performing all across the US with an amazing full band. They recently stopped by NPR headquarters in Washington, DC to meet up with Bob Boilen and the Tiny Desk crew to record a live performance in the outstanding Tiny Desk tradition. Click here to watch!

“The band makes life-affirming music that Kalmia created over the past few years, filled with the triumph of being cancer free. The joie de vivre is palpable.” –Bob Boilen, NPR Muisc

Kalbells ‘Ten Flowers’ is available NOW from NNA on Vinyl, CD, and Digital formats.
Click here to purchase from our Shop.

THRDCOAST Premieres LEYA “Cats” Official Music Video

Our friends at THRDCOAST recently premiered a new music video from experimental violin/harp duo LEYA. “Cats,” directed by Corbin Ordel, creates a stunning and intimate setting for LEYA’s unique, otherworldly sound. Click here to watch & read a write-up by Gerard Marcus. Also available on our YouTube channel.
Here’s what director Corbin Ordel has to say about the video:

“I wanted to film Marilu and Adam from two places; the first would be outside, brightly lit, and loud, the second would be inside, dimly lit, and peaceful. These locations are a true representation of what their music does to me, both live and recorded. It’s a full on grounding machine, a peacemaker, music to make a pin drop audible inside your own head. I get chills when their natural holding of court makes every room they play completely silent, and how incredibly loud it gets with applause in their between songs. You feel the energy and blissful tension build up and you feel the release after the final notes are played. I wanted to represent this on film, in one shot, in a close up and personal way. The idea in my mind was to put a sheet of glass between us and the band, so as to keep our eyes directly on the musicians.

We walked out and cast our microphones to catch the sounds of the street, and the train, and the people, and their footsteps, and kept it rolling as we retreated inside to see Leya transform into performance, transitioning from talking to singing, walking to plucking, light to dark, everything to nothing, nothing to everything. We focus the light on the sounds of Adam and Marilu. These concepts cover our reason for filming in a place that is a very familiar setting for everyone involved in this video, outside is everything and on the inside is focus.”

LEYA’s debut album ‘The Fool’ is available NOW from NNA on Cassette & Digital formats.

Proudly presenting our 100th release: V/A ‘Centennial’ 6CS Box Set Compilation

It is with very proud hearts today that we can formally announce a true milestone for our label. A long, long time in the making, the time has finally come to present ‘Centennial’ to the world. Two of the most important things that keep us going are working with all of our talented artists, and the spirit of collaboration. This monumental box set encapsulates both of these ideals to us. For its arrival to also fall on our 10-year anniversary only makes it that much more special. Infinite thanks to all of the artists involved, and our dear friend Brian Raymond for making it a reality. Without further ado, here are the official details:

Over the past decade, NNA Tapes has had the privilege of working with an incredibly diverse, hand-picked selection of artists and musicians from all corners of our planet. With the advent of the 100th catalog number in our discography, we knew we wanted to celebrate this personal milestone with a special release that went back to our roots in the limited edition cassette tape medium, and that also encompasses the unique variety of music that our label has been able to touch upon throughout the years. We reached out and reconnected with the artists who contributed their talents to our label from our first release up to our 99th, asking them to participate in an epic scale project that celebrates not only our 100th official release, but our 10-year anniversary as well. We are very proud to finally announce the culmination of these efforts – ‘Centennial’ is here. This special compilation contains nearly six hours of music, with 66 tracks spread across six professionally duplicated cassette tapes, housed in a 10×10” hand-made brushed aluminum box, adorned with an embossed NNA logo. The box also contains a full-color poster insert featuring original artwork by Robert Beatty, as well as a digital download coupon. Featuring unreleased, exclusive tracks from:

Sun Circle, Pregnant Moon, Duane Pitre, Pink Desert, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Toby Aronson, Caboladies, Harmonizer, Jeff Astin & Raymond Reitano, Time Life, Nonhorse, Driphouse, Pulse Emitter, Ryan Garbes, Hobo Cubes, Headboggle, WANDA GROUP, Hubble, Ken Seeno, Aguirre, Dog Lady Island, Mike Shiflet, Drainolith, Innercity, Quicksails, Hex Breaker Quintet, Co La, Rale, Lieven Martens Moana, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Ryan Power, Le Révélateur, PHORK, Decimus, Belarisk, Howard Stelzer, Transcendence Orchestra (with Anthony Child & Daniel Bean), Blanche Blanche Blanche, Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier, Jason Lescalleet, Ahnnu, Astral Social Club, Migrations In Rust, Banny Grove, Guerilla Toss, Tredici Bacci, Battle Trance, Sediment Club, Kid Millions & Sarah Bernstein, Wei Zhongle, Olivia Block, Patrick Higgins, Booker Stardrum, Jake Meginsky, AJ Cornell, Nerftoss, Fox/Soper Duo, die Reihe, Max Eilbacher, GRID, Lea Bertucci, and Wren Kitz.

Professionally duplicated by National Audio Company.
Original artwork by Robert Beatty.
Mastered by Matthewdavid McQueen.
Brushed aluminum boxes fabricated by Brian Raymond with assistance from Cold Hollow of Burlington, Vermont.
Limited edition of 125 hand-numbered copies.

Pre-orders are available NOW in our Shop, as well as our Bandcamp page. Officially available worldwide on August 17th, 2018.

We are also offering some special deals, exclusive to nnatapes.com – purchase a package deal of either Centennial + any NNA vinyl LP, or any two NNA vinyl LPs, for only an extra $5.00 per record. Head to our Shop for more information.



 

New single from The Cradle: “Cell Games and Beyond”

We’re very excited today to share the second official single from ‘Bag Of Holding,’ the upcoming full-length album from The Cradle. “Cell Games and Beyond” is set against a tender foundation of Paco Cathcart’s gorgeous acoustic guitar playing, weaving a lyrical tale of a sci-fi-tinged modern love triangle with his candid and imaginative writing. Like the first single “Sweet Dreams,” this song features beautifully punctuated vocal harmonies from Palberta‘s Anina Ivry-Block and Lily Konigsberg that accentuate the lyrics in all the right places. The talents of collaborator and friend Sammy Weissberg are featured prominently as well, as the song breaks down into an orchestral suite of strings and wind instruments, with emerging melodic motifs that add to the song’s woefully romantic sentiments. Listen below via our Soundcloud page:

Pre-order your copy of ‘Bag Of Holding’ on Vinyl & Digital formats in our Shop, as well as our Bandcamp page. Officially available worldwide on July 27th. The first 100 copies of the LP version will come pressed on limited edition Translucent Smoke with Red Splatter vinyl, available on a first-come-first-served basis at no additional charge. The vinyl version also comes packaged with a complete lyrics sheet and digital download coupon.

PLUS, we’re happy to announce The Cradle Northeast US tour dates with Eyes Of Love!

July 25th: Portland, Maine @ The Apohadion Theater (link)
July 26th: Boston, Massachusetts @ Dorchester Art Project (link)
July 27th: Brooklyn, New York @ Sugarlife Lounge (link)
July 28th: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania @ Tundradome (link)
» Facebook Event Page

Announcing: The Cradle ‘Bag Of Holding’ LP + First Single “Sweet Dreams”

We’re honored today to officially announce our sixth release of 2018 – ‘Bag Of Holding’ by The Cradle is available now for pre-order on Vinyl and Digital formats. The Cradle is the solo music of NYC-based artist Paco Cathcart, a member of the bands Big Neck Police, Shimmer, and Climax Landers, and also a talented recording engineer, writer, and much more. His newest full-length album ‘Bag Of Holding’ takes Cathcart’s distinctive style of homespun folk/pop music and elevates it to the next level of refinement through it’s brilliant production and collaborative nature. For this album, Cathcart enlisted the help of close friends and like-minded artists to add new layers of depth to his recordings, both through the luscious orchestral string & wind arrangements of Sammy Weissberg (a longtime collaborator of The Cradle), plus the harmonic vocal assistance from Lily Konigsberg, Nina Ryser, and Anina Ivry-Block (Palberta). The result is a collection of songs that are both moving, intricate, poignant, and unique, with new details emerging from each listen.

We’re super happy today to share the debut single from ‘Bag Of Holding’ entitled “Sweet Dreams,” which is also the album’s opening track. Huge thanks and gratitude to our friends at Stereogum for hosting the premiere of this song – click here to listen and read the full article.

‘Bag Of Holding’ is available NOW for pre-order in our Shop on Vinyl and Digital formats
officially available worldwide on July 27th, 2018.

Now Streaming: Tsembla ‘The Hole In The Landscape’ via The Wire

Exciting news today – we’re very pleased to share that ‘The Hole In The Landscape,’ the brand new full-length album from Tsembla (Marja Ahti), is streaming now courtesy of The Wire Magazine. Ahti also gives some excellent insight into the album’s sonic creation, having used field recordings from her personal travels to weave into the electronic tapestry. Click here to read the full article and listen to the album in it’s entirety. Many thanks to our friends at The Wire for sharing this brilliant album.

‘The Hole In The Landscape’ is the second release in our new LPX Limited Edition Vinyl Series, which utilizes local businesses and craftspeople from our hometown of Burlington, Vermont to create it’s boutique packaging. Each record is hand-numbered, stamped, and assembled by Toby & Matt of NNA here in Burlington to ensure limited edition authenticity. These records feature silkscreen printed jackets inside a resealable poly sleeve, as well as a protective poly disc sleeve to keep the vinyl out of harm’s way. Digital download coupons are also included inside each copy. The first 100 orders will receive a limited edition colored vinyl version on sublime Pink & Blue Swirled vinyl, first come first served. The remainder of the edition is pressed on White vinyl. These records came out beautifully and we’re excited for folks to finally see, hear, and hold these. ‘The Hole In The Landscape’ is officially available worldwide this Friday, May 25th – pre-orders have already begun shipping.
Click here to order your copy from our Shop. Also available from our Bandcamp page

LEYA ‘The Fool’ Album Stream + “666 (feat. Eartheater)” Music Video

We’re excited to share today that ‘The Fool,’ the debut album from avant-garde harp/violin duo LEYA is now streaming in it’s entirety courtesy of Noisey. Writer Colin Joyce picks the brains of LEYA’s Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz through an email interview in order to explore the origins and processes behind their hauntingly beautiful sound. The article also debuts the voyeuristic new music video for “666 (featuring Eartheater),” directed, edited, and shot by Eartheater’s Alexandra Drewchin. Read the full story, listen to the album, and watch the video here.

“They occasionally indulge the celestial glissandos you might imagine, but more often they embrace a more complicated tonality and melancholic pace—the predominant moods seem to be confusion, uneasiness”

‘The Fool’ is officially available tomorrow, Friday May 11th, on Cassette & Digital formats.
Visit our Shop to purchase your copy – pre-orders are shipping now.

Northside Festival 2018 x NNA Tapes Showcase (2 Nights)

As part of our ongoing celebration of 10 Years of NNA Tapes (2008-2018), we’re thrilled to formally announce our two-night NNA Tapes Showcase at this year’s Northside Festival in Brooklyn, New York! Also celebrating their 10-year anniversary, Northside Festival is graciously hosting two nights of 100% NNA music at their annual arts & music festival in the heart of New York City. Our first show is on Thursday, June 7th at the infamous Union Pool and features live performances from Tredici Bacci, Ryan Power, Erica Eso, and Kalbells. Night 2 is the following day on Friday, June 8th at Film Noir Cinema and features live performances from Lea Bertucci, Qasim Naqvi (of Dawn of MIDI), Marilu Donovan (of LEYA), and Jake Meginsky. Plus, each artist will be performing live with projected cinematic accompaniment, featuring works by a diverse lineup of artists and filmmakers. We’re so excited and honored to have such diverse, comprehensive NNA representation at Northside this year, and we can’t wait for the festival.

Tickets are on sale NOW:
Purchase Tickets – Night 1
Purchase Tickets – Night 2

Northside Festival 2018 Official Website
NNA Showcase: Night 1 – Facebook Event
NNA Showcase: Night 2 – Facebook Event

See you there!

Poster by Sarah Letteney

Poster by Daniel Munzing

Tigue “Triangle” Official Music Video

We’re excited to share new sights and sounds from Tigue! The official music video for the track “Triangle” makes it’s exclusive debut on ThrdCoast today.

» CLICK HERE TO WATCH «

Tigue on their latest video:
“We shot this video over the course of a weekend in a 50+ year old gymnasium in Brooklyn. Originally we were planning to hone in on the sculptural nature of our performances — how the arrangement of our instruments can influence how we play and how we write — so we captured performances of the track in a couple different configurations. Simultaneously we spent a lot of the weekend talking about dreams and “strange paradise” and eventually found imagery that seemed to capture the experience in dreams where surroundings feel familiar but are clearly something else.”

Matt Evans — Editor, Producer
Steven Reker — Director
Ty Flowers — Director of Photography, Colorist
Dan Foley — Production Designer, Lighting Designer
Grace Chang — Wardrobe

Tigue’s upcoming full-length album ‘Strange Paradise’ is available now for pre-order on Vinyl LP in our Shop – officially available everywhere on Friday, April 27th. The first 100 copies come on limited edition Golden Yellow vinyl, first come first served. CD & Digital editions available from New Amsterdam Records.

PLUS:

Join us on April 27th for the Strange Paradise’ Album release concert!

LPR Presents:
Strange Paradise Album Release Concert
Friday, April 27th 2018 at Elsewhere Zone 1
599 Johnson Ave, Brooklyn, New York
with LEYA and Operator Music Band
» Click here to purchase tickets
» Facebook event page

Poster by Devra Freelander.

Waking Windows Festival 2018: NNA Tapes Showcase

Today we’re proud to announce our annual showcase for Vermont’s greatest music festival, Waking Windows 2018! The folks of Waking Windows have been bringing massive amounts of live music, art, food, live comedy, and good times to downtown Winooski, Vermont for nearly 8 summers now, and we’re thrilled as ever to present a special 2018 showcase show with a 100% NNA Tapes lineup. Join us on May 4th, 2018 at Lucky Cloud on 13 E Allen St in Winooski, VT for live performances from:

» TREDICI BACCI
» RYAN POWER
» WREN KITZ
» ERICA ESO
» KALBELLS

Click HERE to purchase tickets now. Music starts at 9PM, with tons of great stuff to check out around town all day beforehand. View the complete Friday schedule here, and check out the complete festival lineup here. Official festival website: http://www.wakingwindows.com/home

Facebook Event Page

See you there!

Announcing: LEYA ‘The Fool’ + “Sister” Official Music Video

Today we’re extremely excited to announce our first cassette release of 2018, the debut album by LEYA entitled ‘The Fool.’ LEYA is the new duo of Adam Markiewicz (violin, voice) and Marilu Donovan (harp, voice). Markiewicz and Donovan are New York City-based musicians who have collectively collaborated with a diverse array of forward-thinking music projects, including The Dreebs, PC Worship, Eartheater, GABI, and many more. Their recorded debut ‘The Fool’ is a collection of eight haunting tracks that experiment with alternate tunings of the violin and harp, and the unsettlingly beautiful effects that result in combining vocals with their string-based compositions. ‘The Fool’ also features three collaborative tracks that combine their sound with like-minded artists: Eartheater, PC Worship, and Sunk Heaven. Pre-orders and more information can be found here in our Shop.

We’re happy to share the first single, “Sister,” in the form of a music video directed by Kathleen Dycaico. Many thanks to our friends at SPIN Magazine for premiering the video and for the thoughtful write-up. Click HERE to check it out.

‘The Fool’ is up NOW for pre-order on Cassette & Digital formats in our Shop.
Available everywhere on May 11th, 2018.

Stereogum Premieres New Erica Eso Single ‘House That’s Always Burning feat. Angelica Bess’

Today we are thrilled release the 3rd and final single from NYC avant-pop outfit Erica Eso.  “House That’s Always Burning” features sultry vocals from Angelica Bess (also of Body Language + Kalbells) and is augmented by aggressive rhythms from an alchemy of both live and electronic drums and relentless arpreggiated synth melodies.

Thanks to Stereogum for the premiere.

The Band will also embark on Spring Tour to celebrate the release of ‘129 Dreamless GMG’

Tour Dates: 

3/15 Brooklyn Record Release w/ Horse Lords and the Dreebs @ Alphaville

3/22 Baltimore, MD w/ Wume, Shinji, Agar Agar @ The Crown

3/23 Athens, OH “w/ NosawwasoN and Valley Girls @ The New Happiness

3/24 Chicago, IL w/ Ono, Toupee and Malci @ Observatory Studios

3/25 Madison, WI w/ Julian Lynch and Tippy @ Mickeys Tavern

3/26 Live Facebook Daytrotter Broadcast at 12:15 PM

3/27 Toronto, ON w/ Bernice and Trya @ Baby G

3/29 Montreal, QC w/ Bernice @ l’Escogriffe Bar Spectacle

3/30 Boston, MA w/ Nakedly and Rune @ The Lilypad

‘129 Dreamless GMG’ is out March 16, 2018 on NNA Tapes.

Pre-orders are available NOW in our Shop – click here to order.

 

 

Announcing: Tigue ‘Strange Paradise’ Vinyl LP

Today we’re thrilled to announce that ‘Strange Paradise’ by Tigue is available now for pre-order on Vinyl LP. ‘Strange Paradise’ is the brand new sophomore full-length album from New York City-based composer/performer percussion trio Tigue, who have been diligently performing and recording since their widely-acclaimed debut album Peaks (2015). Their percussion-based sound integrates elements of minimalism, art rock, electronic music, ambient, and so much more. On ‘Strange Paradise,’ Tigue have designed an album for extended listening where radiant phrases of tone, texture, and rhythm flow through one another in constant motion, creating dynamic shifts that as a whole provide a transcendent, ecstatic sound environment. We’re excited to team up again with our friends at New Amsterdam Records, who will be issuing the CD/Digital edition of the album.

Pre-orders are available NOW in our Shop – click here to order.

Plus, join us on April 27th for the Strange Paradise’ Album release concert:

LPR Presents:
Strange Paradise Album Release Concert
Friday, April 27th 2018 at Elsewhere
599 Johnson Ave, Brooklyn, New York
with Operator Music Band
» Click here to purchase tickets
» Facebook event page

Album art by Devra Freelander and Gregory Wikstrom.

Subtle Degrees ‘A Dance That Empties’ Full Album Stream

Exciting news today – our friends at (le) poisson rouge are hosting a full album stream of ‘A Dance That Empties,’ the upcoming full-length debut album from Subtle Degrees (Travis Laplante (Battle Trance) & Gerald Cleaver). We’re so happy to collaborate with our friends at New Amsterdam Records to share this brave new work for saxophone and drums. Click here to listen and read more.

You will also find full details for the official album release concert at Union Pool in NYC on March 4th with special guest Ruth Garbus. Coincidentally, 2018 marks the 10 year anniversary for not only New Amsterdam and (le) poisson rouge, but NNA Tapes as well. Come share this special event with us! Subtle Degrees will also be embarking on a US tour later this week – full dates can be found on our Live page.

PopMatters premieres Erica Eso “Love-gun” Official Music Video

Today we’re happy to share that PopMatters has premiered the brand new official music video for Erica Eso‘s second single “Love-gun” from their forthcoming album ‘129 Dreamless GMG’! Directed by Theo Cote, the slow-tempo dreaminess and tag-team vocal delivery of “Love-gun” gets progressively messier (in a good way) as the song progresses… read the full write-up by Sarah Zupko and watch the video here. Erica Eso’s Weston Minissali gives some great insights into the song’s creative songwriting and lyrical ambiguity.

‘129 Dreamless GMG’ is available now for pre-order in our Shop on Vinyl, CD, and Digital formats – officially available everywhere on March 16th, 2018. The first 100 Vinyl copies will come on Translucent Deep Purple vinyl – first come, first served.

Lea Bertucci’s ‘Metal Aether’ Streams in Full at The Wire Magazine

Lea Bertucci‘s highly anticipated full-length ‘Metal Aether’ is streaming in full at The Wire Magazine – click here to listen.

‘Metal Aether’ is available NOW for pre-order in our Shop, as well as on our Bandcamp page, on Limited Edition Vinyl, Compact Disc, and Digital formats. Available everywhere on February 9th, 2018.

This LP is the first installment of our new vinyl series, NNA LPX. LPX Series Limited Edition Vinyl LPs feature boutique packaging and utilize locally-sourced manufacturers & small businesses from our hometown of Burlington, Vermont USA. Each LPX record is hand-assembled, numbered, and stamped to ensure limited edition authenticity. The vinyl, silkscreen-printed jackets, and stamps are all produced here in Burlington in order to support & sustain our local creative community.

Announcing: Subtle Degrees ‘A Dance That Empties’

We are excited to announce a new LP from Travis Laplante’s (Battle Trance) new project Subtle Degrees – a duo between himself + magnificent drummer Gerald Cleaver.

Pre-order ‘A Dance That Empties’ from NNA Tapes.

A Dance that Empties’ is a vibrant demanding recording that evokes everything from contemporary classical music, avant garde jazz, minimalism, technical metal, and sacred world music.

Announcing: Lea Bertucci ‘Metal Aether’ Limited Edition Vinyl

Today we’re very excited to announce brand new music from NNA Tapes artist Lea Bertucci. Following up her 2017 cassette release ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air,’ we’re thrilled to present Lea’s new full-length album ‘Metal Aether’now available for pre-order on Limited Edition Vinyl in our Shop. ‘Metal Aether’ develops a language of extended technique for alto saxophone that is based on a spectral, psychoacoustic, and non-linguistic approach to the instrument. Much like the recordings of her previous NNA release, the work continues to explore Lea’s acute interest in the nature of acoustics and the harmonic accumulation of sound, with its four pieces having been recorded in Le Havre, France in a former military base, and in New York City, at ISSUE Project Room.
Available everywhere on February 9th, 2018.


With the release of ‘Metal Aether,’ we’re also proud to debut our new LPX Vinyl Series. LPX Series Limited Edition Vinyl LPs feature boutique packaging and utilize locally-sourced manufacturers & small businesses from our hometown of Burlington, Vermont USA. Each LPX record is hand-assembled, numbered, and stamped to ensure limited edition authenticity. The vinyl, silkscreen-printed jackets, and stamps are all produced here in Burlington in order to support & sustain our local creative community.

In addition, its our pleasure to collaborate with ISSUE Project Room to announce a record release concert for ‘Metal Aether’ featured the incredibly talented Drew McDowall (of Coil) and NNA Tapes alum Olivia Block. This special event will take place at 8pm on Saturday, February 10th at ISSUE Project Room at 22 Boerum, Brooklyn, New York City. Official press release:

Saturday, February 10th, ISSUE presents an evening of site-responsive solo performances with composer Olivia Block, electronic artist Drew McDowell, and composer (and 2015 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence) Lea Bertucci. The evening observes each artist’s individual approach to presenting new work in ISSUE’s theater space, applying the room’s unique acoustics to inform their independent performative methods.

Olivia Block performs a new multiple speaker composition, continuing an ongoing investigation into the properties of wind and its related sounds and symbolic themes. Using a microphone and her breath, small fans, and other small objects on its surface, Block creates aural patterns and “currents” in the room, processing and moving sounds live on her laptop. At certain times, these currents, respond to the architecture and resonance of the space, swirling and flowing around the listeners in particular directions — as in the cold or warm currents of air over the oceans. At other times, all evidence of space and built shapes are erased, as microphone distortion obscures, then reveals additional sounds — voices, organ and piano — buried underneath the wind, settling in various locations in the room. The resonance of the room colors the wind sounds over time, as more tones enter into the mix.

The evening also features stalwart industrial and experimental pioneer Drew McDowall
presenting new works which will become the basis of an album to be released on Dais Records in the Fall of 2018, following his previous releases Collapse (2015) and Unnatural Channel (2017) with the label. For this performance, the pieces make use of a quadraphonic array and are informed by and respond to the acoustics of the space. This proves to be a focused opportunity to hear new work from McDowall, known for his crucial contributions to legendary British avant-pop act Coil, Psychic TV, and numerous collaborative and solo projects that have been foundational to the development of meditative drone and abstract sound.

In addition, for her return to ISSUE, Bertucci celebrates the release of Metal Aether, her second album on NNA Tapes (following 2017’s All That Is Solid Melts Into Air), by presenting recent works for alto saxophone and tape that appear on the record, as well as a new composition that is directly informed by the particular acoustic qualities of 22 Boerum Place.

Birthing Hips ‘Internet’ Music Video Premieres on NPR

Boston, Massachusetts-based Birthing Hips releases a music video to the track ‘Internet’ which NPR calls “Beautifully Deranged”.  The video was directed by Mood Killer & feature monstrous hands, stark lighting and food fights.

Thanks to our friends at NPR Music for the premiere.

Use coupon code NNA2017 at check out to receive 25% off of Birthing Hips ‘Urge to Merge’ as part of our Year End Sale!  Only until January 1st.

 

Announcing our 2017 Year End Sale

We’ve breached the final month of the year, which means it’s time again for our annual Year End Sale! 2017 was an incredibly prolific, refreshing, and productive year for new NNA music, and we’re honored and humbled to have worked with such talented artists to release eleven forward-thinking, progressive new music titles. To celebrate the closing of another year, and to welcome in another, we’re offering 25% OFF all of our 2017 releases (with the exception of Ahnnu ‘Special Forces’) for the month of December only. Simply use the code NNA2017 upon check-out to receive the 25% discount. This includes the following titles:

» GRID (Nelson, Dahl, Podgurski) Cassette
» Lea Bertucci ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ Cassette
» Wren Kitz ‘Dancing On Soda Lake’ Cassette
» Multa Nox ‘Living Pearl’ Cassette
» Kalbells ‘Ten Flowers’ Vinyl/CD
» Matthewdavid’s Mindflight ‘Ophiuchus’ Cassette
» Patrick Higgins & Josh Modney ‘EVRLY MVSIC’ Cassette
» Ryan Power ‘They Sell Doomsday’ Double Vinyl/CD
» Birthing Hips ‘Urge To Merge’ Cassette
» The Ah ‘Common Bliss’ Cassette

Sale ends January 1st, 2018. Thanks, as always, for your continued support.

Ahnnu ‘Special Forces’ Full Album Stream + Interview courtesy of Noisey

We’re excited to share today that Ahnnu‘s latest album ‘Special Forces’ is now available for listening in it’s entirety courtesy of Vice’s Noisey. Accompanying the stream is an excellent write-up and interview with Leland Jackson courtesy of writer Colin Joyce, giving some deep insight into Jackson’s musical philosophies and creative practices. Listen & read here.

‘Special Forces’ is available everywhere TOMORROW, December 1st. Order now to secure a copy on limited edition Translucent Red w/ Black Splatter vinyl (moving quickly), or pick up the T-Shirt Package which comes with a limited edition t-shirt featuring the album’s cover art, available exclusively at nnatapes.com – check it out here via our Shop.

Dig Boston premieres Birthing Hips ‘Urge To Merge’ Full Album Stream

Today we’re happy to share that Birthing Hips brand new full-length album ‘Urge To Merge’ is streaming NOW in it’s entirety, courtesy of our friends over at Dig Boston! Click here to listen and hear for yourself why Dig Boston’s Nina Corcoran asserts that “Urge to Merge is arguably the tightest Birthing Hips have ever been.” We’re so happy to release the final album by one of Boston’s most exciting, talented new bands. Order your copy of ‘Urge To Merge’ here from our Shop, officially available everywhere tomorrow, November 17th on Cassette and Digital formats.

The Ah debuts new music video “I Changed Colour”

Today we’re happy to debut a brand new music video from The Ah – the solo project of drummer Jeremy Gustin. “I Changed Colour” was directed by Jared Bulmer and presents a beautiful, hypnagogic visual accompaniment to the unique sound world of The Ah. Many thanks to our friends at Tiny Mix Tapes for sharing the premiere.

The Ah’s debut release ‘Common Bliss’ is available NOW for pre-order in our Shop – officially available everywhere on Friday, November 17th.

Announcing: Ahnnu ‘Special Forces’ LP + Music Video

Today we are thrilled to announce our final release of 2017 – and what a tremendous way to end the year. Ahnnu ‘Special Forces’ is available NOW for pre-order on Vinyl & Digital formats. We’re honored to welcome Los Angeles-based producer Ahnnu, aka Leland Jackson (Cakedog), back to NNA with a brand new full-length album. Following up 2013’s ‘Battered Sphinx,’ Jackson returns to push his sound collage expeditions further into the deep beyond by excavating fragments and ethos from music history’s past and infusing them with the electronic frequencies of a future landscape. ‘Special Forces’ continues the experimental & ever-evolving nature of the Ahnnu sound world, stripping the compositions further down to their core to reveal a hypnotic, alien minimalism that seems to transcend time and space.

We’re also happy to debut a music video for the track “Return of Junkman” featuring the computer animation of our comrade Peter Nichols. Check out the exclusive premiere from our friends at Tiny Mix Tapes here.

Photo by Daniel Bashin

‘Special Forces’ is available now for pre-order in our Shopofficially available everywhere December 1st. and we’re also offering an LP+Shirt Bundle containing a vinyl copy of the album along with an exclusive limited edition t-shirt featuring the cover artwork by Leland Jackson. PLUS, the first 100 LP copies will come on Translucent Red w/ Black Splatter vinyl – first come first served, no additional charge.

Birthing Hips Announce New Release + New Single “Droplet”

NNA Tapes is very excited to welcome Boston, Massachusetts-based Birthing Hips to the family.  Their 2nd release, ‘Urge to Merge’ is record full of blistering noise rock + virtuosic performance.  Pre-orders are available now in our Shop – officially available everywhere on November 17, 2017.

Post-Trash premiered the first single “Droplet” and call ‘Urge to Merge’ a “noise rock masterpiece.”

The Ah Announces New Release ‘Common Bliss’ + Shares Music Video for “High Low”

Today we’re pleased to announce new music from The Ah, the solo project of NYC-based musician Jeremy Gustin. Perhaps best known for his talents on the drum set with groups like Delicate Steve, David Byrne, Albert Hammond Jr., & Rubblebucket to name a few, The Ah is a different world altogether, conceived by Gustin as the product of collaboration with his own imagination and the world around him. It’s tough to describe The Ah’s sound with words, but one listen to Gustin’s electronic collages will leave you curious and craving more.  Pre-orders are available now in our Shop – officially available everywhere on November 17, 2017.

Paste Magazine just premiered the music video for the track “High Low” featuring a beautiful music video of found footage by Gustin himself.

NEW Ryan Power single “The Cavalry” + Album Release Concert

It is a truly special day when a new Ryan Power track is released, and this one is particularly excellent. The Cavalry takes a slight step back from the more electronic flavors of Ryan’s recent work, and opts for classic smoothness and melodic beauty, giving a nod to soft rock favorites. Take a listen and read some nice words from our friends at Stereogum.

You can also listen to “The Cavalry” on Spotify, along with the previous single “Empty the Jewels.”

We’re also happy to announce:

THEY SELL DOOMSDAY Album Release Concert
featuring Tredici Bacci and Matt Mitchell

Friday, October 27th, 2017
at The Owl Music Parlor
497 Rogers Ave, Brooklyn, NY
7:30pm Doors | 8:30pm Music
Facebook Event Page

$10 Entrance
* $15 Entrance + Compact Disc
* * $28 Entrance + Double Vinyl

Act I – 8:30pm
Ryan & Matt Mitchell

Act II – 9:30pm
Ryan & Tredici Bacci

Over the last 1.5 decades, Vermont-to-Brooklyn based songwriter/producer Ryan Power has tirelessly embarked on the quest to write the definitive song-based music, full of accuracy, refinement, deliberation, and perfectly-placed shifting harmonic puzzles. This show will be in celebration of his new NNA release: They Sell Doomsday. Ryan will perform two sets: one with Matt Mitchell, one with Tredici Bacci. Ryan is looking forward to this.

Pre-order ‘They Sell Doomsday’ Here.

 

Kalbells NEW Music Video + Tour Dates with And The Kids!

Today we’re thrilled to share the second official music video from Kalbells‘ debut album ‘Ten Flowers’! “Alonetime” was created and directed by Kalmia Traver herself, featuring lyrics translated to Chinese, Russian, German, and Spanish. Many thanks to Paste Magazine & Robert Ham for spreading the love. Check out their post here, or watch the video below:

We’re also very happy to announce that Kalbells will soon embark on their Fall 2017 Tour around the USA supporting And The Kids! Two very amazing live bands, be sure to check them out when they roll through your area. Dates below:

 

The Wire Magazine streams Patrick Higgins & Josh Modney’s ‘EVRLY MVSIC’

We are excited to see Josh Modney & Patrick Higgin’s debut release streaming in full over at The Wire Magazine.

‘EVRLY MUSIC’ presents an incredibly original fusion between ancient European musical history and distinctly American experimentalism, hinged on the nexus between improvisation and chamber music, and fueled by a deeply personal musical alliance.

Pre-orders are available in our Shop – officially available everywhere on September 22nd, 2017.

Ryan Power announces NEW double-album & NEW single

It is with tremendous pleasure that we announce ‘They Sell Doomsday,’ the third full-length NNA album from acclaimed songwriter & producer Ryan Power. Nearly four years since his incredible previous album ‘Identity Picks,’ Ryan is back with a 15-song behemoth of a record – and perhaps his most complex and refined work to date. This is also a landmark release for NNA as it is our first Double LP, and the first 100 copies will come on decadent green & purple vinyl. Pre-order your copy here on CD, Vinyl, or Digital – officially out everywhere on October 20th.

Listen (and dance) to the debut single “Empty the Jewels” below:

Check out the album trailer, made by Ryan himself:

And thanks to our friends at The Line Of Best Fit for spreading the word!

Photo: Annakalmia Traver

 

Announcing NU GROUND: A Celebratory Showcase of Live NNA Music

In the 21st century, operating a music label dedicated to releasing progressive, boundary-pushing music on physical media can be challenging within our modern music industry. With NU GROUND, NNA has joined forces with our diverse roster of musicians to present a night of eclectic new music, with financial proceeds going to help advance our work and vision as a label. These talented artists will gather in one place for one night to celebrate NNA’s continued efforts in bringing great works of art into the world.

NNA Tapes & Brooklyn Bazaar present…

NU GROUND: A Celebratory Showcase of Live NNA Music

featuring:

Lea Bertucci 
Kalbells
Erica Eso
Ryan Power
Tredici Bacci
Patrick Higgins
Birthing Hips
Wren Kitz

+ DJ Sets by Ambient Church
+ NNA Pop-Up Shop w/ special deals

Wednesday, October 4th 2017
at Brooklyn Bazaar
150 Greenpoint Ave.
Brooklyn, New York City, USA

$12 Advance / $15 Day of show
Pay an extra $5 at the door and receive 3 FREE LP’s from the bin at the door!

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE 

New music & visuals from Matthewdavid’s Mindflight

Today we’re extremely excited to announce a new Cassette/Digital release from one of the masters of Modern New Age – Matthewdavid’s Mindflight. His latest release, ‘Ophiuchus,’ presents two long-form electronic works intended to promote elevated consciousness through active listening. Pre-orders are available now in our Shop – officially available everywhere on September 22nd, 2017.

FACT Magazine just premiered the official music video for the title track “Ophiuchus” featuring expansive, radiant, and mind-altering visuals by Los Angeles-based video artist Adam Ferriss.

Kalbells ‘Ten Flowers’ Available NOW

Today we are overjoyed to release Kalbells ‘Ten Flowers’ into the world. This record has been a long beautiful organic process that birthed music filled with joy, wonder + the human spirit. We get to hear the collaboration between Rubblebucket’s front woman Annakalmia Clark Traver and producer + NNA Tapes artist Ryan Power as musical worlds collide to produce a record that hopefully everyone can find a moment within to enjoy.

Continue reading Kalbells ‘Ten Flowers’ Available NOW

Lea Bertucci Tour Dates Announced

Lea Bertucci has some really exciting shows planned for this summer and Fall and stay tuned for a European tour in November !

July 22nd – Solo @ Knockdown Center for Sontag Shogun’s record release party

July 28th – Solo and Cage Shuffle performances at The Walker Museum, Minneapolis, MN

August – Silo City Artist-in-Residence, Buffalo NY (I’ll be writing a saxophone quartet specially designed for resonant space)

September 23-24, El Nicho Festival, Mexico City

September 30th – Solo at The Renaissance Society, Chicago

Kalbells Interviewed on Bandcamp

A glorious interview with Annakalmia Clark Traver of Rubblebucket on her debut solo record, “Ten Flowers”. Kal talked the origins of the record, battling cancer, working with NNA artist Ryan Power + the joy of writing music.

“Writing the album was a big part of my healing, because the record is so much about detoxing and letting your body and your cells express what they need to. That period of writing was pretty transformative for me.” – Annakalmia Clark Traver

Rachika Nayar

Rachika Nayar is a Brooklyn-based musician whose music has been featured in venues and publications including The New York Times, Pitchfork, New York Magazine, the Berlinale International Film Festival, and The Shed in Hudson Yards.

On her debut, Our Hands Against the Dusk, from NNA Tapes, Nayar used her guitar as the primary source for sound design, mutating the instrument beyond recognition through layers of digital processing and combining the contorted textures with shimmering synths, orchestral strings, and piano. Soon after, the album’s companion EP, fragments, on RVNG Intl’s imprint Commend, demonstrated the types of raw guitar-playing that would be transfigured into those grander compositions—miniature genre sketches that touched upon everything from post-rock to Midwestern emo. With these two 2021 releases, Rachika resculpted the limits of guitar and electronic music and placed her at the forefront of various contemporary music scenes in New York City and more broadly amongst the likes of Claire Rousay, Tim Hecker, Julianna Barwick.

Nayar’s new album on NNA Tapes, Heaven Come Crashing retains her mangled guitar stylings but expands the color palette by looking not so much to the fretboard, as to the dance floor and the silver screen. With its M1 piano stabs, supersaws, and glimpses of Amen breaks, the album charts a luminescent space between 5 a.m. warehouse raves and the urban freeways of its cover image—romantic, nocturnal, and reckless in its velocity and emotional abandon.

OHYUNG

Brooklyn-based, Asian American musician and composer OHYUNG’s music is continuously shifting, investigating, and deconstructing the possibilities of form. Written and recorded mostly over just a 72-hour period, OHYUNG’s first album on NNA Tapes, the immersive and mesmerizing, imagine naked! focuses on expansion and atmospheric depth. It is a collection of loving ambient expressions of persistence, repetition, and variation.

Each song is titled after a line from t. tran le’s poem, “Vegetalscape,” which acts as an artistic companion to the album. The poem works to spotlight little things that le imparts beauty upon despite the challenges of living with mental illness, such as a bedroom garden, or a sibling’s voice singing in the shower. OHYUNG’s engulfing, gentle landscapes take on the context of something more literary than their wordless atmosphere—each line feels as though it informs the timbre of its connected piece—and they reflect le’s poem as these snapshots of small items and instances, and brief melodies are appreciated and made beautiful beyond their size.

The music of imagine naked! is full and complex, each track using its time to articulate an entire spectrum of lived emotion with remarkable elegance and simplicity. Some of the songs revel in quiet magnificence: lead single “symphonies sweeping!” is the extension of a breathless instant, the moment between the orchestra’s end and the recognition of applause, as notes linger and hang in the air; “my hands hold flora!” begins as a low tone over a bleak, crackling background, but that gives way to something more bright and shimmering; the joyful and effervescent “i’m remembering!” is a kind memory, like recalling the details of a loved one’s face—an exuberance brought by clarity.

Other pieces seem to notice discomfort, like on “tucked in my stomach!,” which plays like a harsh self-reflection, emphasizing sharp, piercing tones. The melancholic piano notes on “yes my weeping frame!” fall over one another like a waterfall or a stream of tears. The title track, “imagine naked!,” is unencumbered by any additions, with somber drones that capture the vulnerability of being bare.

The final three songs close the album with a calming, sustained exhale. “philodendrons trail!” feels fresh and clean, and “oxalis unfold!” opens incrementally towards a warm light. The serene grand finale of “releases like gloves!’ (not included on the CD version) is entirely a world of its own—orange and purple sky, soundtracked by far-off refrains and the pressure of worry hissing away like steam.

On this album, OHYUNG shifts again, deliberately moving away from the experimental, electronic, hip-hop, and noise influenced work of their previous records, Untitled (Chinese Man with Flame), PROTECTOR, and GODLESS, and expanding on the space found in their work as a composer on films like Bambirak, which won the 2021 Short Film Jury Award for International Fiction at Sundance Film Festival, and the Gotham Award-nominated Test Pattern. By focusing on longer, more drawn-out, and textural compositions as an exercise in patience and as a means to cope with the difficult, oscillating new experience of time brought on by the pandemic, OHYUNG has found yet another new way to consider reality and feeling.

imagine naked! is humanist music that seeks to explore the mundane strangeness that defines our everyday and that breathes air, or purpose, or just some kind of color into ourselves and the people and the environment around us.

JJJJJerome Ellis

JJJJJerome Ellis is a blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist. Through music, literature, performance, and video, he explores blkness, disabled speech, and music as forces of refusal, possibility, reparation, and healing. His diverse body of work includes contemplative soundscapes using saxophone, flute, dulcimer, electronics, and vocals; scores for plays and podcasts; albums combining spoken word with ambient and jazz textures; theatrical explorations involving live music and storytelling; and music-video-poems that seek to transfigure historical archives. JJJJJerome’s solo and collaborative work has been presented by Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project, and ISSUE Project Room (New York); MASS MoCA (North Adams, Massachusetts); REDCAT (Los Angeles); Arraymusic (Toronto); and the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), among others. His work has been covered by This American Life, Artforum, Black Enso, and Christian Science Monitor.

On November 5, JJJJJerome Ellis will release his new album The Clearing—an ambitious and visionary double LPco-produced by NNA Tapes & the Poetry Project, and released in tandem with a book published by Wendy’s SubwayThe Clearing is a conceptual and musical tour de force that combines Jazz with the narratives of enslaved Africans, experimental electronics with historical accounts of Black rebellion. The album centers speech but uses it as a starting point to not only depathologize dysfluent speech but to build new tools to critique anti-Blackness, linear time, culture, and power in our society.

Learn more about The Clearing, and pre-order the album on Standard Black Vinyl, Limited Edition Clear Vinyl, and as part of a Bundle including a book published by Wendy’s Subwayat this link.

jjjjjerome.com/about
twitter.com/jeromeellis
instagram.com/ellisjerome

Select Press
Time Bandit” This American Life
Fountain #2” WNYC New Sounds
“Episode 3: JJJJJerome Ellis” Black Enso Podcast
“Episode 5: It’s About Time” Christian Science Monitor
“FEELING GOOD: Howard Fishman on Jerome Ellis” Artforum
Review: Staging a Movie Melodrama in ‘The Conversationalists’” Vulture
Review: Staging a Movie Melodrama in ‘The Conversationalists’” New York Times

Dear Laika

Dear Laika is 23-year-old UK-based musician Isabelle “Izzy” Thorn living in relative seclusion in North Wessex Downs. Despite full immersion in the “classical” tradition from a young age, singing and playing piano and violin prodigiously, Dear Laika at once embraces and rejects these roots in pursuit of sonic invention and beauty, electronically warping classical instrumentation and conjuring ghostly choirs in the service of non-traditional structures and sound-worlds. Through invocations of mythology, mysticism and the natural world, Dear Laika explores the loss of faith, identity and love through the lens of (admittedly limited) personal experience. Two albums of this pop music exist so far: Vision of St. Cross (2017) and Rinzen (2018). There exist four other purely ambient/noise/drone albums for guitar and/or violin: Twin Mythemes (2018), White Leopards (2018), Dewy Reds, Fatal Jaws (2018), and A Panther to Ephraim (2019). This discography was selected in August 2018 to be preserved in the British Library Sound Archive. Dear Laika has played live, sharing bills with artists such as Matana Roberts, Loraine James, Mich Cota, and caroline; Dear Laika has also played violin as part of caroline in live performances.

Sally Decker

Sally Decker has been learning to let go. When working on the pieces that make up her new album In The Tender Dream—her first under her own name—she worked heavily with feedback, a tool that helped her learn it was okay to not be in control. By their nature, feedback systems are unwieldy and unpredictable, but over time, she came to see resonance and meaning in the wavering static and unruly drones. Learning to work with these systems became a metaphor for the way she was learning to move through the world. She was beginning to understand how to embrace change, to find stability in a turbulent internal landscape.

“Being in that space of the unknown was terrifying in a lot of ways,” Decker explains. “But it felt important. I felt drawn to it.”

In the record’s distended drones, chattering poetry, cosmic synth work, and gentle ambiance, Decker dives back and forth between chaos and order, turmoil and respite. Prickly, pointillist pieces like the title track give way to more restful moments like the centered, self-assured “Affirmation,” a balance that echoes Decker’s realizations about feedback. There are stormy feelings captured in these pieces, but there’s peace too if you’re willing to listen for it.

The ideas behind In The Tender Dream first took shape when Decker moved to Oakland to attend Mills College. Drawn, in part, by the communitarian nature of the program, she went through an intense period of personal and artistic growth. Challenged by mentors to experiment and delve deep, she found her way to these feedback systems, and to new ways of making art that felt intensely personal. Exploring the ache of codependency, straining deeply for self-worth on her own terms, she crafted pieces that helped her process her most intimate feelings.

In a way, In the Tender Dream is an extension of the work Decker has done all along, including the meditative electronic pieces she made as Multa Nox. Her full-length debut Living Pearl, released in 2017 on NNA Tapes, was itself a dreamy, internal record, revealing the vibrant, varied emotional potential of her slow-moving music. In the Tender Dream again finds her inhabiting this contemplative space, but the work feels more human, more present. “I used to try to track the narrative of an emotion in a piece,” she explains. “Now it’s like, how can I work out this emotional thing in the process of sculpting the sound itself?”

It was a big shift, in part because her time at Mills lent her a new understanding of performance, improvisation, and the potential of generative systems within electronic music, but also because, for the first time, she’s foregrounding the human voice. Decker has often slipped snippets of her voice into her compositions, but there are a series of text-sound meditations on In The Tender Dream that lay bare the emotional content of the record. Working with vocalists Briana Marela and Emily Cardwell, she puts face to the shifting emotions—a voice rising from the thick mist of her feedback-laden compositions. Drawing on her background as a writer, she put words to the feelings that for so many, for so long, remain shapeless and unsettled. Taming the feedback is an emotional journey of its own, but coupled with these lucid monologues and affirmations, In The Tender Dream feels vulnerable and intense, like locking eyes with a stranger across a room, taking a breath, and staring deeply.

Ben Seretan

During an artist residency in the thick of the pandemic, tucked away in a dance studio at the base of the Appalachian mountains, Ben Seretan set out to finally make the piano recordings he had always wanted to make: pristine, clean, ringing, indeterminate. For two weeks he would be alone with an antique Steinway—a blessing that, in spite of an unexpected, globally tragic, and tremendously surreal circumstance, miraculously remained possible. 

But “silence” and even “peace and quiet” are slippery, man-made illusions that we can never quite grab hold of, and this proved to be especially true in the woods. The environs there were riotous, almost joyously noisy; the old wood creaking with rot, rain pelting the roof five times a day, rolling thunder. And then there was the breathtaking presence of critters; hissing feral cats, fiddling crickets, birds belting their songs every morning and, ever-presently, the sea of cicadas—enormous swarms of them—so loud and so multidirectional, as though they might try to lift the concert piano right off of the earth.

“It was clear the moment I hit ‘record’ that any sound I captured from the piano would always carry some other sound with it. There would be no silence whatsoever. So I gave in—I threw open the windows and let the world in.”

Cicada Waves, then, is the sound of allowance. It’s the sound of room being made, of guards being dropped, of adaptation. It’s more often than not the sound of a piano *not* being played. It’s the sound of wings or wind or water doing what they will.

These recordings are shared with as little artifice as possible; there are no edits or comped parts, no mixing, no second takes. The album is, more or less, simply and exactly the sounds that happened in the world at that moment, as chaotic and full of sound as they ought to be.

Stephen Becker

For Stephen Becker, music is a stream of consciousness. Originally working as the Trees Take Ease moniker, the Brooklyn based artist is stepping out from under the branches and releasing music under his own name for the first time. It marks a shift, a new beginning, that initially started out as a casual bedroom project but quickly blossomed into something significant. This new chapter starts with EP Nothing Sun Under the New.

Equal parts weird and sublime, Becker resides in a sonic universe that bends into a state of oblivion and relishes the fleeting moments. This uninhibited approach creates a kaleidoscope of textures where songs about frozen drinks and old teachers exist against a backdrop of propulsive synths, screwy percussion and lo-fi guitar hooks. “I think there’s a lot of power in the right melody and the right chord progression and the right sonic environment and that to me has as much emotional weight as anything that I’m saying,” he says. 

Attending concerts as a teen with his Dad and playing in jazz band throughout high school led Becker to experiment with different improvised arts, rubbing shoulders with different genres and practises. This curiosity, along with his talents, secured him a place at Oberlin college in Ohio, studying guitar performance. There, Becker witnessed performances from the likes of Deerhoof, Frankie Cosmos, Yo Yo Ma and Fred Frith that inspired him to merge his skills as a jazz musician and guitar expert and dive into songwriting. 

The transition led to “art songs” and “experimental folk music” that can still be felt in Becker’s output. “I got to a place in my studying that started to feel frustrating,” he explains. “I realised that I wanted to write songs and also embody all these other things that I was excited about, whether it was improv or contemporary classical music. I wanted to synthesise everything that I love.” With inspirations including the likes of Marilynne Robinson, Werner Herzog, Olivier Messiaen, Sibylle Baier and Nels Cline, the result is a glorious mish-mash of spontaneity, where songs flow more like free writing. 

Becker’s journey into music was unintentional, accidental even. While his parents are both doctors, Becker sees himself as taking after his artistic Grandparents. His Grandmother is a visual artist, watercolorist and painter, while his Grandfather built violins and collected all sorts of instruments, most of which now reside in Becker’s own closet. He never met his Grandfather in person but he finds solace in the family connection. “It’s funny when your immediate family doesn’t really do what you do or understand what you do but you feel this lineage of carrying on,” he explains. “Who knows if I’ll be that to some future generation in my family – the quirky instrument-collecting Grandpa.”

This free-spirited, almost unconscious nature sees Becker create a playground of escapism,  where snapshots of his life are exaggerated and fictionalised through an often ironic prism. He finds beauty in the in-between, where strange, abstract realms exist without the need for a clear narrative or rigid structure. Nothing Sun Under the New shines a spotlight on the beauty that can arise from a spur-of-the-moment mindset. By accessing this kind of process, Becker taps into something real and concrete, resonating through an introspective honesty. “I like to be freeform and fictional in my music, but my feeling is that within that abstraction lies a deeper truth, something more real than just the plain facts about me,” he says. “It’s a wash of sounds and lyrics, but the picture that it paints is ultimately more true and sincere than anything else.”

Elif Yalvaç

At an early age in her homeland of Turkey, Elif Yalvaç taught herself to play a hard-to-find guitar. Surrounded by an exciting variety of music, she found herself as fascinated with sound as with song. That fascination never diminished, eventually earning her a masters in Sonic Arts from Istanbul Technical University (after a BA in Translation and Interpretation), and it has been woven into the compositions on her debut EP Cloudscapes (2016), her debut album L’appel du Vide (2018), and now her sophomore release Mountains Become Stepping Stones, out December 4 on NNA Tapes.

On Mountains Become Stepping Stones (Yalvaç’s first release with NNA Tapes), the electronic/ambient artist leads listeners on a transformational journey through outer landscapes and inner feelings. Inspired by her travels to Nordic countries far from home, especially by Iceland and Norway, Mountains Become Stepping Stones reflects the raw vitality of nature: its danger and intensity, as well as its beauty. The record also draws deeply on Yalvaç’s inner world, and it reflects her conscious choice to keep creating in difficult times such as these, despite challenging personal circumstances. Using a vast array of instruments, including electric guitars, synthesizers, and a Game Boy, as well as field recordings from Iceland, Yalvaç’s compositions embrace opposites: microsound glitches with slow intense builds; celestial beauty with abrasive energy.

In September 2019, Yalvaç returned to Iceland–one of the countries across Europe that she has performed in–to reconnect with its magic and redefine her relationship with the landscape and her experiences there. Each piece on Mountains Become Stepping Stones is infused with a yearning for escape, whether outside or inside, and a desire to grow beyond limitations and pain, creating intense musical experiences that others can identify with.

The album’s lead single and opening track, “Brocken Spectre,” is named after the natural phenomenon: “When I was flying to Iceland for the first time from Bergen, Norway,” Yalvaç says, “it was magical to see a glory: seeing the aircraft’s shadow within a halo of a rainbow.” On this piece, Yalvaç introduces the Game Boy as a musical instrument, incorporating its soft sounds into ambient layers. “I wrote so much about Game Boy in my master’s thesis; it was now time to make music with it.” Rainbows also return elsewhere on the album on “Bifröst,” which is named after a small settlement in Western Iceland, as well as the burning rainbow bridge in Norse mythology. “Bifröst was a pick-up and drop-off point for me in my journeys to other parts of Iceland. It was a bridge for me in Iceland, and this piece also makes a bridge in the album sequence.”

“Under The Aurora 1” and “Under The Aurora 2” were composed after a life-changing experience beneath the magical northern lights: “I had some memories in Reykjavik that hurt me, but I picked up an e-bike and cycled for 15 km to a tiny natural footbath hot spring there, where I sat for hours, lost, with my eyes on the skies. I cycled back under the Aurora in the middle of the night.”

The value of the natural world also extends to birds on Mountains Become Stepping Stones. “Painted In Pitch Black” channels the flapping wings of a Phoenix rising from black ashes and “Huginn and Muninn,” is an ode to Ravens. “In some cultures, these birds are sometimes associated with ill or dark things, symbolizing that something bad might happen. To me, however, these are brilliant animals. I have seen more in Iceland than in any other place and they are so beautiful. To me, they sing beautifully.”

The album’s centerpiece, “Black Sand Beach,” features layers of electric guitars, field recordings (made in collaboration with Magnus Bergsson), and the sound of Yalvaç’s breathing. “The sand is the color of volcanic explosions. On one side you have sea stacks and basalt columns, and a cave. On the other, you have the North Atlantic ocean with extremely strong and dangerous waves. When you stand between the two, the sounds of the waves are very powerful. You feel small in the face of a powerful planet that is very much alive and changing.”

The last piece on the album, “Kintsugi,” references the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by reconnecting the pieces with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Translated to “golden joinery,” this piece represents a healing journey for Yalvaç: the process of being bent and broken into a better shape.

With Mountains Become Stepping Stones, we move with Yalvaç as she creates new memories and connections to her surroundings. “It is a celebration of individuality and uniqueness. We’re defined by our flaws, and something broken can become even more beautiful,” she says.

Bendrix Littleton

Bendrix Littleton is the writing and recording project of Nashville-via-Dallas musician Bennett Littlejohn. The project’s namesake, Maurice Bendrix—the protagonist of Graham Greene’s 1951 novel The End of the Affair—is described by enotes.com as “sometimes an unreliable narrator, for he is so consumed by jealousy, self-pity, self-hatred, and bitterness, that he measures everyone else by himself…[and] confesses that from time to time ‘a demon’ takes possession of his brain.” It’s an appropriate moniker for the self-aware, malaise-filled songs of Bendrix Littleton’s debut, Deep Dark South, due out September 25 from NNA Tapes. While in the album is imbued with the contradictions and painful beauty of the modern American South (as opposed to Greene’s WWII-era London), the hazy, solitary narrative voice remains.

Formerly one half of the “NyQuil-Pop” duo Bent Denim (dissolved in the summer of 2018), Littlejohn sought a fresh outlet that was more individual and freed from any preconceived artistic notions. During this time Littlejohn began taking on significantly more studio work, including production credits on Hovvdy’s Heavy Lifter (out now on Double Double Whammy), new material from Katy Kirby (out on Keeled Scales), and forthcoming work from Sinai Vessel. While production on this music was deeply rewarding, it was nonetheless work that was beholden to someone else’s vision. And it was out of this craving for artistic autonomy that Bendrix Littleton was born. Deep Dark South has provided a space for Littlejohn to experiment, collage, write, and record in a completely independent manner—a long-awaited and welcome zone of unfettered creation.

On the singular writing and recording process of Deep Dark South, Littlejohn states:

The initial spurt of songwriting was directly correlated to a vintage Harmony H162 acoustic guitar I found at a flea market in Kentucky, near the Tennessee border. This guitar would’ve been sold at Sears in the early 60’s. I strung it up with all of the higher pitched strings from a 12-string acoustic set and got to writing. A lot of rich, burnt-out musicians affectedly claim that there are ‘songs in guitars’ to justify their ever-growing guitar collections, but I do feel there is an ounce of truth in this. The way something feels, or the faults of a certain instrument indeed can bring out something unique and new.

Once the basic bedrock of the record had been tracked, I realized that the songs were too slow, my voice was too low…a spark was missing. My brother had just sent me my old Tascam four track cassette recorder. So, I spent a little time with that, and ended up committing these songs in their unfinished states to fixed tracks on this old tape machine—no editing, no panning, no volume changing. Driving the cassette tape hard and speeding the songs up (which also raises the pitch), gave this album that special aspect I had been looking for, and also provided a completely fucked up and new sonic foundation for me to start layering on top of.

And on the themes and sensibility of the album itself, Littlejohn says:

Throughout the record I deal with the common tropes of alcohol/drug abuse, malaise, ennui, regional junk, and the dissolution of relationships. It’s well-trod ground, but I’d rather write what feels genuine rather than something foreign for the sake of novelty. It feels ridiculous enough to put out something in 2020…so much noise to break through. But I feel like these are common enough things. I wouldn’t say these things are universal, but they’re not far from it.

Deep Dark South is out on September 25 from NNA Tapes.

Kalbells

Kalbells’s sophomore album Max Heart (NNA Tapes, 2021) opens with the process of regeneration. “I’m rotting and I’m never coming back the way you knew me then,” Kalmia Traver sings with a combination of buoyancy and resilience on the opener “Red Marker.” From the beginning, Max Heart is an illustration of death and rebirth; letting go of what doesn’t serve us in order to leave space for the blessings that do. With Max Heart as their next chapter, central to Kalbells work is the process of creativity giving space for vulnerability and radicalism–continually practicing decolonization work and fighting against white supremacist, heternormative, and patriarchal models. Take their pre-show vocal improv practice of tintinnabulation (introduced by sometimes-drummer and honorary member Dandy McDowell) which Traver explains is “more about listening than it is about vocalizing; it’s more about creating that ecosystem together of trust and respect and interplay and play and joy. I think that that practice is definitely at the center of our work together.” Angelica Bess, Zoë Brecher, Sarah Pedinotti and Traver used this collection of ten tracks to embody prosperity and reciprocity.

Kalbells began as a side project for Traver, who also contributes to the joyous, rocking chaos of Rubblebucket. Three years after the debut album Ten Flowers, a more ambient invocation of untapped self-creativity, the sophomore LP was designed to maximize the synergy that Bess, Brecher, Pedinotti, and Traver manifest. Over the course of 2019, Traver planned several week-long intervals of writing a song a day, and, surprising herself, she was writing a lot of love songs. That year she experienced acute heartbreak, but her heart organ “felt bigger than it had ever been.” Similar to energy conservation, it seems that the lost love that influenced Traver’s writing was transferred elsewhere. Rather she invested in the formidable love with her touring band turned bandmates, and they birthed songs that capture the vibrancy of their collective.

A prime example of Kalbells furthering their sum energies is the effervescent funk of “Purplepink.” Co-written between Bess, Pedinotti, and Traver, a hyper synth bass darts around elongated keyboard sighs. Although the three recorded their vocals in their bedrooms between 2019 and 2020, Bess remembers the day when the lyrics and rhythm came in sync. “I came over to Kal’s house with my bass, she had a cluster of lyrics scattered. I sort of mushed them together and came up with a melodic hook for the verse. The chorus we wrote was based off a run Kal took that day. I also remember coming up with a part of the chorus bass line and Kal took the bass from me and finished it. We kinda just came in there and boom a song was made.”

At the beginning of 2020, the band escaped to Outlier Inn for two weeks in upstate New York to record songs with the studio assistance of the prolific Luke Temple. Kalbells crafted and co-produced ten bright, layered tracks of psychedelic synth-pop. It was also Traver’s first time mixing an album. The result is a prismatic display of experimental pop. From the soft flute touches on opener “Red Marker” to the fluttering saxophone on “Flute Windows Open In The Rain,” each song holds a delicate surprise. Brooklyn-based rapper and multimedia artist Miss Eaves hops on “Pickles” for witty wordplay. On the elastic closer “Max Heart,” sprinkles of piano and bouncing percussion lock into each other. Brecher reveals that the band was grooving so hard that she felt like she wasn’t even drumming. “I was just watching us move along with the beat. It was kind of trance-like. Of all the songs on the album, this, to me, was the most fun to record.”

Traver’s visual songwriting is part of what gives Max Heart its whimsy.  On “Bubbles,” Traver envisions that one’s fears  “take flight on a destination vacation” where later they’re fed peaches beside a fire.  Later, we’re invited into her subconscious on “Diagram Of Me Sleeping.” Her voice is low and sleepy with sand as she sings, “I woke up with a fishtank in my hips/tropical clouds of neon floating little dreamy fish.” Traver’s image-focused lyricism is a way of tapping into her emotions. “I feel like the visual for me is really generative,” she says.  “That’s just a way to get me talking about my feelings more, and I think it can be hard to talk about your feelings. The little visual things are little entry points.”

Max Heart is a portrait of these badass women harnessing their improvisational magic. They dispel any sexist assumption about jamming. “When we play grooves together it’s like some spiritual experience. It’s really empowering,” Traver says. “I think, there’s an unspoken thing that women don’t groove. That men groove and women are the singers and that our groove would be not viable or not as cool,” Traver explains. “Once we’re all together it’s like frickin sparks fly.” Common groove language is a rare medicine to happen across, which is why, as a group, playing with each other has been not only exciting, but restorative. “Kalbells is a living, breathing, healing, grooving movement,” Pedinotti beams. Max Heart harnesses this magnetic power for a collection of songs that are packed with inspired tension and daring surreality.