★International Anthem Recording Company
Certain Reveries
*222 copies limited release* In the tradition of toddler crayon scribbles on perfectly painted bedroom walls, multi-freshness composer Ben LaMar Gay expands on the teachings of Alabama star spirits and presents a collection of work involving sound, fabric, movement, rivers, shadows, Lagosian memories, light and listening.
'Certain Reveries' is a long-form composition by Gay, performed in duo with percussionist Tommaso Moretti. It was originally filmed by Chris Strong for EFG London Jazz Fest’s 2…
In These Times
In These Times is the new album by Chicago-based percussionist, composer, producer, and pillar of our label family, Makaya McCraven. Although this album is “new," the truth it’s something that's been in process for a very long time, since shortly after he released his International Anthem debut In The Moment in 2015. Dedicated followers may note he’s had 6 other releases in the meantime (including 2018’s widely-popular Universal Beings and 2020’s We’re New Again, his rework of Gil Scott-Heron’s …
Voices of Bishara
The title of Tom Skinner’s first release under his own name is a reference to cellist Abdul Wadud’s ultra-rare 1978 solo album ‘By Myself’, which Skinner listened to repeatedly during lockdown. Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and whilst Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this common Arabic name, they both have the same intention or meaning: it translates as ‘good news’, or ‘the bringer of good news’. This is a classic-sounding record that conne…
An Offering
Flowing water is an essential element of Earthly existence, a living force, a process of nature, a path-making which combines infinite sources mixing imperceptibly into a singular energy. It’s also a potent metaphor. A childlike wonder at flowing water’s presence and power, all the impressions it makes and creative neurons that it fires, happens to be a personality trait shared by Evan Shornstein (aka Photay) and Carlos Niño. The two producers/musical connectors may have grown up and reside a co…
Atalaya
*Limited edition of 555 copies.* Atalaya is new work by bassist Dezron Douglas, and it is alive. That is, ‘alive’ in all the ways that jazz is at its best – as a pure and personal expression of Black Music channeled through time-honored traditions by a group of musicians who practice sonic coherence through musical unity. As Dezron puts it in the opening statement of his liner notes for the album: “Mysticism, Magic, Faith, Love, Power, Discernment! These are words that embody the creative proces…
Step On Step
International Anthem is proud to present 'Step on Step', a double LP collection of home recordings marking the de-facto eponymous debut album by enigmatic producer, arranger, and composer Charles Stepney (1931-1976). The music that makes up Step on Step was created by Stepney alone, in the basement of his home on the Southside of Chicago, sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before his untimely death in 1976. A Chicago born and bred arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter…
Extra Presence
Extra Presence is a 90 minute, 17-track collection showcasing Los Angeles modern music scene pioneer Carlos Niño’s unique, highly developed, self-described “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Collage” sound, and featuring an incredible cast of collaborators (including Jamael Dean, Nate Mercereau, Shabazz Palaces, Deantoni Parks, Sam Gendel, Laraaji, Jamire Williams, Iasos, and more). It's an expanded edition of a 10-track suite called 'Actual Presence' that Niño self-released exclusively via his …
Now
** 2022 stock. Limited Edition* 140-gram color vinyl LP inside a reverse-board jacket (artwork by Damon Locks), with Eastside IARC obi strip, 17"x22" folded broadsheet insert (with liner notes, photos, and illustrations), and dome patterned inner-sleeve ** Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble’s new album "Now" was created in the final throes of Summer 2020, following months of pandemic-induced fear & isolation, the explosion of social unrest, struggle & violence in the streets, and as the cert…
Pink Dolphins
“We’re improvisers first and we’re bringing “moment music” into these other zones of hip hop and electronic music, drum-machine music, sound-system culture… Acoustic musicians sun-kissed by electro-magnetism, flowing out into everything. This is the shit that we want to be playing on big ass systems. Omnivorous, energy space time, mosh pit dance-music. Get it in the subwoofers so you can feel it hit, cuz the music has to begin in the body!” – jaimie branch jaimie branch and Jason Nazary are Ante…
Panama 77
Panamá 77 – a vibrant and verdant suite of multi-textural, jazz-laced psychedelic instrumental folk-funk – is the debut album by Panamá-born, Chicago-based drummer and DJ Daniel Villarreal.
Gold
* Digipack CD* The lightning rod for Alabaster DePlume’s luminous follow up to the widely-acclaimed 2020 release To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 was personal. “Someone was going through a thing,” says the Mancunian poet-performer. “I said, ‘go forward in the courage of your love’. And then I thought 'yeah, that's what I need to hear as well’.” Gold is a sonorous double album that celebrates the communal act of making music and the relationships that can be explored when you purposefully avoid …
Recordings from the Åland Islands
*2023 repress* In 2017 Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer traveled together to the Åland Islands (an archipelago that is host to around 6,500 islands) in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. They headed to the islands with the intention of helping two friends (mother/daughter duo Jannika/Sage Reed) barn raise a small inn named Hotel Svala in Kumlinge (a municipality consisting of a small group of islands and a population of about 320). The idea was that, once completed, Svala would host art…
Kudu
Anteloper is the electric brain child of Jaimie Branch (fly or die, high life) and Jason Nazary (little women, helado negro, bear in heaven). Branch and Nazary have been playing together as trumpeter and drummer for years, since meeting at the New England Conservatory of Music in 2002, but in this duo both musicians include synthesizers to push further into the spectral space ship ether. With deep rhythmic passages, telepathic improvisations and effortless melodic negotiations, Anteloper pushes …
Forfolks
"It's a particular thing to hear Jeff play solo. He is an unusually selfless improviser, often times laying out and highlighting the contributions of his band mates. He's never been one to play three notes where none would suffice. On this recording however he is by himself, joined only by his own ideas, looped or frozen, to flesh out the music he's creating in his mind. Hearing him craft entire sound worlds on these eight selections gives us an opportunity to really see how Parker orders sound.…
Fly Or Die Live
Capturing a pre-Covid performance (just weeks before the pandemic really hit) in Switzerland, composer, trumpeter and singer Jaimie Branch has just released an incredible live album via International Anthem. Recorded in January 2020 at Moods in Zurich, and features live versions of tracks from Branch’s Fly Or Die Live I and II, compounded & flawlessly communicated in a singular epic of raw cosmic brilliance. It sees Branch on trumpet and vocals, Chad Taylor on drums and mbira, Lester St. Louis …
JP's Myspace Beats
* Edition of 777. Vinyl only! Limited edition! No digital, no represses * Two *limited edition* 160-gram TOM BLUE color vinyl LPs (pressed by Smashed Plastic in Chicago) inside a heavyweight reverse-board single-pocket jacket with poly-lined inner-sleeves."Jeff Parker's a man with many talents – not just a fantastic jazz guitarist, but a musician who's had his hands in many pies over the years – as you'll hear with this very enigmatic set! The music is dated a bit by the Myspace reference in the…
More Energy Fields, Current
'More Energy Fields, Current' is a definitive new peak in the recorded continuum of prolific producer/percussionist Carlos Niño. Featuring heavy contributions from many of the most exciting instrumentalists in the creative music constellation of Los Angeles (of which Niño’s has been a central force for over 2 decades), the album collects 10 pristine gems of collaborative communication helmed by the Southern Californian sage, elegantly presented in his unique “Spiritual, Improvisational, Space Co…
Where We Come From
Makaya McCraven’s mixtape is the product of an activist’s intuition, bringing together the brightest stars of the time between Chicago and London. How do we explain this meeting of two cities’ scenes if not via the buzz around each? Host to the locals on their turf, Makaya McCraven was surrounded by young English treasures (Joe Armon-Jones, Nubya Garcia, Theon Cross, Kamaal Williams, Emma Jean-Thackray) for two concerts at the TRC. Once recorded, they then placed the Chicago drummer in his curr…
The Oracle
Composer, clarinetist, singer and spiritual jazz soothsayer Angel Bat Dawid descended on Chicago's jazz and improvised music scene just a few years ago. In very short time, the potency, prowess, spirit and charisma of her cosmic musical proselytizing has taken her from relatively unknown improviser to borderline ubiquitous performer in Chicago's avant-garde. On any given night you can find Angel adding aura to ensembles led by Ben LaMar Gay, or Damon Locks, or Jaimie Branch, or Matthew Lux, or e…
Live
**CD Edition** Live was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel Bat Dawid and her band Tha Brothahood – which includes Deacon Otis Cooke, Viktor Le Givens, Xristian Espinoza, Norman W. Long, Dr. Adam Zanolini, and Asher Simiso Gamedze – it was the first stop of their first European tour. Forty-eight hours before the show, Angel and members of the band were on their way to the airport in Chic…