Shall we write a new editorial? Oh the endless demand and who needs a damn editorial? No time for editorials, let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing again, another five (or so) slices of musical things that have passed our way recently and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of lemons and here comes the intro. Don’t be flippant she said, how could it ever be flippant? I can’t remember why she said that now, in one ear, out the other, we have a bad attitude here apparently, no respect for those who work in the music industry, well no poop Sherlock, have you only just worked that one out? We’ve been showing (and getting) zero respect since the last century, zero flips given.
Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying rabbits out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake oil? Everything must go and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, skip this bit, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us?
Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start somewhere in Berlin
1: Naked in the Zoo – Now this is good! This is big, this really is something! The only track you can hear right now from the forthcoming Naked in the Zoo album Gehirnschubladen, due out at the end of January on Edelfaul Records (the label that brought you I Am Chainsaw). More soon (hopefully, don’t want to tempt anything)
“We are Naked in the Zoo, poetry carved into stone, holes cut into the borders that surround our bodies and our consciousness, strong and sensitive, unpredictable. More than ever, in the age of permanent snapshots, we are aware that, like animals, we are much more naked in the zoo – in the spotlight – in the cities, than in nature. If you desire to open a drawer and put us inside, you could call it art brut. surrealist noise. concrete music”
2: CocoRosie – Yes we have shared this video/single before, but hey, on a dull grey rainy December day like today we’re sure you don’t mind it being shared again. Their highly anticipated 8th record is hopefully out in the Spring of 2025. Today they have announced a rather long European tour that takes in a couple of UK dates in Bristol and Brighton,
May 22, 2025 – Bristol at The Marble Factory. May 23, 2025 – Brighton at Concorde 2. Go here for the full list of mainland Europe gigs.
“With a committed global fanbase stretching across Europe, the United States, South America and beyond, CocoRosie has consistently released cutting-edge studio records and performed to sold out concert venues for two decades. Recording artists most recognized for their masterful poetry and timeless harmonies accompanied by lo-fi toy folly, classical instrumentation and genre-defying rhythms, sister duo CocoRosie continue to elevate their sound and art with each recording project.
Sierra Casady is a classically trained Opera singer and stage actor and Bianca Casady is a published poet, theater director and accomplished visual artist. Together the sisters utilise music, theatrical practices of movement and character study, fashion and contemporary art to create a body of work which reflects the beauty and sorrow of our collective experience.
Through radically subversive and highly developed conceptual art, CocoRosie utilises irreverence and play to stand up for human rights and question social norms, often playing with taboos. Widely celebrated, often misunderstood, and always unwavering, CocoRosie is a rigorously structured art and music project spanning two decades.
CocoRosie has released seven studio albums to date and will release their highly anticipated 8th record in the Spring of 2025: Put The Shine On (2020), Heartache City (2015), Tales of a Grasswidow (2013), Grey Oceans (2010), The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (2007), Noah’s Ark (2005), and La maison de mon rêve (2004). In addition to CocoRosie tours and festival performances worldwide, CocoRosie has composed original scores for four full-length theatrical works by acclaimed director Robert Wilson; Peter Pan, Pushkin’s Fairy Tales, Edda, and Jungle Book – with another project underway.
CocoRosie has also worked with the Kronos Quartet at their Jazz Festival in San Francisco for two seasons, creating a new collection of songs that will become a collaborative album with Kronos.
As a visual artist, Bianca Casady has mounted solo art exhibitions internationally, including at Deitch Projects (2007) and Cheim & Read Gallery (2012). As an experimental theater director, Bianca has created several plays, including NightShift (2012) at Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany, Mother Hunting (2015) at the National Theater in Oslo, Norway, and The Angel Show (2017) at the National Theater Academy in Norway. Bianca hosts an ongoing experimental poetry course titled Remembering The Miracle and in 2023, the artist published her first poetry book, Au bord du ciel: Heaven bound. Sierra Casady has arranged and performed music globally, including with the Symphony Orchestra of Amsterdam, The ICA in London and The Sydney Opera House and created “Soul Life,” an Opera staged at the Donau Festival in Krems”.
Here’s a old one….
3: Will Stratton – I Found You is the rather beautiful first single from Points of Origin, the eighth album from Will Stratton, coming out in March 2025 on Bella Union worldwide and Ruination Recording Co. in the United States.
4: Stereocilia – A first taste of next year’s new album Phases, an album set to be released on Echoic Memory on 7th February 2025. Here’s the Bandcamp. Stereocilia is Bristol based guitarist and composer, John Scott. John uses his guitar and live looping techniques to create dense, rich layers of sound that rather speak for themselves…
5: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Peter Harris & Fritz Catlin – First taste from upcoming album Mercy, out February 2025 on Dash The Henge Records.
Dash The Henge, the South London venue, shop and label, is to release a posthumous experimental vinyl album by Lee “Scratch” Perry, maverick artist and musical outlier Peter Harris (pictured above) and 23 Skidoo drummer and co-founder Fritz Catlin. More about the album here
“The Reggae Poison video was edited by film maker and photographer Hugo Glendinning whose past art collaborations include Matthew Barney, Martin Creed and Yinka Shonibare MBE. This video features animated art works by Lee “Scratch” Perry and Peter Harris created between 2014- 2015 at Perry’s Ark studio in Switzerland. The film footage is from some of their art and music sessions in that studio. The themes in the animated drawings from the ‘Powers Bible: Genesis to Revelation’ are Perry and Harris’s Old Testament take on an updated Bible for our corrupted age. Fire, blood and brimstone and righteous judgement are exacted on wicked bankers, the IMF, presidents and prime (crime) ministers. Evil slave masters with the faces of money whip the oppressed poor as the middle classes are force fed a fast food diet of iPads, porn, cars and mortgages.”
THE ORGAN 