★International Anthem Recording Company
Heritage of the Invisible II
"Heritage of the Invisible II" follows Navarro and Holmes’s rise to prominence as members of free jazz collective Irreversible Entanglements. In March of 2020 in "The Nation" writer Marcus J. Moore said "Irreversible Entanglements’ fearless music takes to task the police, American politics, capitalism, and racism." The revolutionary ethos that drives Irreversible Entanglements is no less present in Navarro and Holmes’s duo work, though their duo finds them much more wholeheartedly and jubilantly…
Dimensional Stardust
Marfa TX-based multidisciplinary abstractivist Rob Mazurek has made an indelible impact on creative music over the past 30 years. Emerging from the musical nexus of the 1990s Chicago scene, he’s written more than 400 compositions and is featured on more than 70 recordings (including International Anthem’s very first, IARC0001, "Alternate Moon Cycles"). He’s led or co-led many ensembles – including the Chicago Underground (Duo, Trio, Quartet & Orchestra), Isotope 217 (alongside members of Tortois…
Universal Beings E&F Sides
A new project by Chicago-based drummer / producer Makaya McCraven. An addendum to his critically-acclaimed 2018 release Universal Beings, which The New York Times said "affirms the drummer and beatsmith's position as a major figure in creative music," Universal Beings E&F Sides presents fourteen new pieces of organic beat music cut from the original sessions, prepared and produced by Makaya as a soundtrack to the Universal Beings documentary film.Directed by Mark Pallman, the Universal Beings do…
Chicago Waves
In process of stocking. In late November of 2018, long-time collaborators (and life-long Los Angelenos) Carlos Niño and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson flew to Chicago to participate in the album release performance of Makaya McCraven’s Universal Beings. Just 11 months prior, Carlos and Miguel were part of recording the ‘Los Angeles Side’ of Universal Beings at Jeff Parker’s house in Altadena, California, and this performance in Chicago would be the first time that all of the musicians reunited to re-lea…
Tour Beats Vol. 1
In process of stocking. Anteloper is a duo of psychedelic sonic compatriots starring a pair of raggedy celestial sound warriors: trumpeter Jaimie Branch and drummer Jason Nazary. These longtime friends and collaborators met as young explorers and consider their electronic duo a continuous experiment into the unknown sonic abyss. Recent results have come back as mind-bendingly abstract head boppers, improvised organisms guided by a unique desire to hear what hasn’t been heard before. This is musi…
Transition East
"Transition East" features two new pieces of music created by Angel Bat Dawid in response to Emma Warren's 2019 book "Make Some Space" – i.e. the book that chronicles the history of London DIY music institution Total Refreshment Centre. Angel Bat Dawid, who first met Emma Warren at Total Refreshment Centre in 2017, composed & recorded "Transition East" alone in her space on the Southside of Chicago, originally to be accompaniment for the audiobook version of "Make Some Space." Angel conceptualiz…
Who Sent You?
A sprawling meditation for afro-cosmonauts, a reminder of the forms and traumas of the past, and the shape and vision of Afrotopian sounds to come
To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1
In the words of Emma Warren: Alabaster DePlume is not doing things properly, and this makes him very happy. DePlume is a Manchester-born, London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator. He’s a resident at the legendary London creative hub Total Refreshment Centre, a recording artist for the off-grid, Scottish Hebridean island label Lost Map, and now the latest arrival into Chicago-based International Anthem’s growing family of progressive musical explorationists. Whilst mu…
Where Future Unfolds
Where Future Unfolds is a new work spirited by Chicago-based sound & visual artist Damon Locks. Starting as a solo sound collage piece (where Locks pulled samples from Civil Rights era speeches and recordings to create an improvisational pallet for performance on his drum machine), over 4 years the project has blossomed into his 15-piece Black Monument Ensemble – featuring musicians (including Angel Bat Dawid on clarinets and Dana Hall on drums), singers (alumni of the Chicago Children's Choir),…
The New Breed
Heavyweight old-style tip-on jacket with IARC obi strip and dome pattern inner-sleeve. Album insert includes production credits and vintage portraits of Jeff's father Ernie Parker. Best known as a multi-instrumental member of Tortoise and a pillar of the Chicago jazz and experimental music scene, Jeff Parker has been incomparably prolific over the last 20+ years while merely producing 5 albums as a “lead artist” (just 2 since 2005, including 2016’s duo recording with Rob Mazurek on Rogue Art). “…
Suite For Max Brown
Deluxe tip-on Stoughton jacket plus insert sheet with self-portrait photo and credits, IARC obi strip and dome-patterned inner-sleeve. The label behind Angel Bat Dawit’s amazing debut present a glorious side from persistent jazz innovator Jeff Parker (Tortoise), melding deeply soulful charm with naturally explorative leanings operating at similarly loose but focussed levels of intuition and dextrous freedom across his swirling ‘Suite For Max Brown’, but with plusher recording and production valu…
Max Brown, Pt. 1
Tortoise mainman Jeff Parker throws down the lissom, balmy jazz-fusion of ‘Max Brown’, the final track of his ‘Suite For Max Brown’ album as a tease for the promising full LP “I’m always looking for ways to be surprised,” says composer and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Parker as he explains the process, and the thinking, behind his new album, Suite for Max Brown, released via a new partnership between the Chicago–based label International Anthem and Nonesuch Records. “If I sit down at the piano or…
Ism
"Head-spinning and heavily arresting free jazz cyclones and meditative downstrokes from American jazz bassist Junius Paul, following from Angel Bat Dawit’s incredible LP The Oracle on Chicago’s International Anthem Recording Company.“Polychromatic low tone poems, free form funk flight & Great Black Music turn the page to a brand new chapter in the Chicago sound.” Ism opens audaciously with the spiritual mic-check You Are Free To Choose, a track that features Junius Paul alongside Vincent Davis (…
Fly Or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise
Fly or Die II. Bird Dogs of Paradise is the much-anticipated follow-up to composer, trumpeter, and (now) singer Jaimie Branch's debut Fly or Die, which was dubbed one of the “Best Albums of 2017” by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, NPR Music, WIRE, Stereogum, Aquarium Drunkard, and more. Written (mostly) while on her first European tour with Fly or Die in November 2018; and recorded (mostly) in studio at Total Refreshment Centre and live at Café OTO in London UK at the end of that tour, Bi…
In the Moment - Deluxe Edition
**New 3LP Deluxe Edition** Makaya McCraven's early 2015 offering In The Moment was pared from nearly 48 hours of live, improvised performance recorded at 1 venue over 12 months and 28 shows. Working with instrumental contributions from an array of Chicago jazz players (including Jeff Parker, Joshua Abrams, Marquis Hill, and Matt Ulery), Makaya culled, cut, rendered and remixed the mass of sounds into 19 potent pieces of organic beat music for the original 80-minute, 2xLP issue.At the close of a …
Universal Beings
Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In the Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced and re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation and experimentation In the Moment established a procedural blueprint that …
Highly Rare
Highly Rare is a new mixtape produced & arranged by Makaya McCraven. It’s titled Highly Rare not only for the format of its initial release (a limited-edition run of cassettes packaged in screen-printed, string-sealed, firecracker red envelopes), but foremost for the context of the source material’s capture. The sounds were recorded to four track cassette tape at a DIY show packed into the confines of Chicago dive Danny's Tavern, a place definitely not known for having live bands, let alone…
In the Moment E & F Sides
Makaya McCraven's In The Moment E & F Sides contain 40 minutes of additional music from the original In The Moment sessions. These 9 pieces of organic beat music were sampled concurrently, but not fully completed, with the 19 that comprised the January 2015 release. Slowly refined by McCraven and mastered in November 2015 by Daddy Kev (founder of Low End Theory, Alpha Pup Records), the In The Moment E & F Sides demonstrate McCraven's further actualization as a unique composer/producer in an…
Rob Jacobs
Rob Jacobs, known in the DIY scene for his group Wei Zhongle, released his S/T solo album on February 10th through Chicago progressive label, International Anthem.Jacobs’ eponymous album flirts with Eastern folk, psychedelia, avant-garde, and lyrics that “surface out of the waters of the subconscious.” Just as surprisingly, it even evokes Western pop music. ‘Wordless Incantation’ wryly introduces listeners to the album. Listeners may not know what to expect, and the song only leads them deeper i…
Arrebato
On Arrebato, Asheville's Ahleuchatistas embellish their trademark intensity with a more pensive and existential amble. These six pieces channel recollections of a natural kinship the band struck up with a number of communities they played to on an Iberian tour in early 2014. The resulting story threads together a suite of lyrical instrumentals showing a deepening meticulousness for structure—elastic and labyrinthine.
Spanish for "passionate outburst," Arrebato aptly evokes a rapturous rising fro…