KLOF Mag Regular
New Mixtape, Ian Humberstone, The Ancients (Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker), Alex Rex, Iona Lane, William Tyler, Alabaster DePlume and more.
Our latest KLOF Mixtape features Ian Humberstone, Scatter, L Con, Laura Gibson & Ethan Rose, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet (ft Anna Butterss, Jay Bellerose, Josh Johnson), Matthew Halsall, ganavya, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Martin A. Egan, Claire Rousay & M. Harper Scott, Joe McPhee, Matthew James Noone, Patrick Shiroishi, La Cozna, Matmos, and Natalia Beylis.
Highlights
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Ian Humberstone – Midsummer Tideline
In 2023, the Edinburgh-based musician Ian Humberstone completed his PhD thesis on the subject of ritual language in Shetland’s fishing communities. Since then, he has been busy curating and contributing to the Ceremonial Counties tape series on Folklore Tapes, a label he helps to run. He may not be the first academic to turn his skills as an ethnographer to musical ends, but his combination of experimental folk and deep immersion in his chosen subject is uniquely compelling. It’s a direction Humberstone has been hinting at for a while: his 2017 album under the Tissø Lake pseudonym, Paths to the Foss, was a song suite directly informed by the time he spent living by a Norwegian waterfall. It was a beautiful piece of work, rooted in hard-won knowledge and genuine love for a landscape.
Midsummer Tideline feels like the synthesis of that approach. The songs were written over several years while Humberstone was researching his thesis in a remote part of Shetland, not far from the UK’s northernmost reach. They tap into landscape and seascape and the liminal, nebulous zones in between.
The Ancients (Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker) – The Ancients
Meanwhile, over at the space observatory, a new asteroid has been discovered and is coming in to land on our planet in the early weeks of 2025. The Ancients are, on the face of it, a fairly conventional free jazz trio being served up fresh on the Eremite label. Closer inspection shows them to be a multi-generational unit made up of some significant old guard and younger genre-busting bodies. These are firstly, on tenor sax, Isaiah Collier, a young firebrand of a player from Chicago whose ‘The Almighty’ album from 2024 was noted favourably by the New York Times. On bass, we have William Parker, who is hailed as one of the greatest bassists in the history of jazz, not to mention a multi-instrumentalist, composer and notable name on a discography that has amassed around six hundred entries over more than fifty years. Finally, there is drummer William Hooker, a player of massive free ebullience who has been swinging and crashing down walls since his self-released 1976 double LP opus ‘Is Eternal Life’. Anyone familiar with the work of Tony Williams should feel the primal force that is Hooker, he completes the Ancients line up and adds to the sense of gravitas this debut offering presents. Eremite Records made their name around thirty years ago in the free jazz universe, so when this new sighting, comprising four LP side-length improvisational recordings, emerged into view, it was obviously something we jazz heads needed to take a closer look at.
KLOF Mag Debut: Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra – a comic by Madi Marston
Noodle and Forest Party, two albums by Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra, were jointly released at the beginning of February. Accompanying the release is a comic book which debuted on KLOF Mag.
Matt Hsu on the comic book:
I met comic illustrator Madi Marston (@madimarston) through a good friend (fellow artist Ash Djokic) when we nearly became housemates. We didn’t end up living together, but became co-workers in the children’s section of an art gallery, bike-riding buddies, and most importantly, good friends! We geek out about Ghibli, food, cute trinkets, and she has the perfect manga recommendations; right now, it’s a very calming slice-of-life manga called Hirayasumi.
While I was putting the finishing touches on the two albums Noodle and Forest Party, I approached Madi to create designs for shirts (they’ll be really cute!), and she did one better, springing up the idea of also making a comic about Obscure Orchestra! Naturally, we’ve now released the album as a comic, as well as a sticker pack and soon vinyl. So chuffed!
I love this way of working, this multi-arts goodness. For me, cartoons, books, screen, theatre, dance, or just well-told stories all percolate in the making of music — and vice-versa, I struggle to imagine favourite shows like Hey Arnold, Avatar: The Last Airbender or Lupin III feeling quite the same without each of their thoughtfully crafted soundtracks.
I’ve always quietly thought that Obscure Orchestra isn’t just a group of musicians but a group of artists in every sense of the word, and in that noodle thread, Madi and Ash as much part of Obscure Orchestra as someone near a microphone, so much so that they appear on the Forest Party album cover. And from my experience, ‘music projects’ are never just the musicians but communities of artists, partners, friends, and local businesses that keep music alive.
So, here is the digital debut of Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra: a comic by Madi Marston — to enjoy as you listen to our anti-racist alt-orchestra. Enjoy!
Video Premiere: Iona Lane – Torus
Highlands-based songwriter Iona Lane recently announced her second full-length album, Swilkie, due for release on May 2nd. She has just released her new single Torus, inspired by humans’ changing historical relationship with basking sharks.
Iona Shared:
This song is inspired by the history humans have had with basking sharks across the years. In a lot of folklore, you read about sea serpents who were feared by sailors. It’s thought that these sea serpents were actually basking sharks, floating at the surface feeding away – a massively understood animal at the time. So, the song starts with a sense of fear. Then we move to the 1900s when basking sharks were culled for the oil in their liver. Fisheries popped up all across the west coast, and the sharks were wiped to near extinction. Now, they have made a resurgence and they’re a treasured part of our ecosystem.
Alex Rex (Trembling Bells) announces new album ‘The National Trust’
Alex Neilson has announced that his new album, The National Trust, will be the final studio album to be released as Alex Rex.
The National Trust, was written in the wake of the sudden death of Neilson’s younger brother, Alastair; the album is a poignant reflection on loss, love, and renewal, deeply rooted in the landscape of Carbeth—a cabin community in the Scottish countryside that Alastair called home. For Neilson, the cabin became a physical and emotional project, symbolising restoration and reconnection.
Neilson shared:
“For the first four years after Alastair died, his cabin lay empty and exposed to the remorseless Scottish weather. It came to look like a rotten tooth in a beautiful mouth. Cladding was dropping off its veneer, the ashen baubles of dead wasps’ nests clung to the rafters, all his possessions were just as he’d left them but eaten by mice, moths and time. Ashtrays still carried the crushed centimetres of his old tab ends. The cabins are so joyfully animated by their host’s specific personality and this one looked like a haunted house. Guilt, unrealised hopes and encroaching nature yoked together in a wandering sadness. Combined with the fact that I didn’t know the right way round to hold a hammer made the project of its restoration seem hopeless.”
Neilson gradually began chipping away at the task, determined to transform the cabin into something he hoped would resemble “a National Trust site occupied by a psychopath,” with a little help from some friends, including Lavinia Blackwall and Marco Rea.
“They poured love into the cabin and helped restore Alastair’s original vision. The project also helped restore my relationship with Lavinia, which had fractured after Trembling Bells broke up in 2017. Alongside long-term Rex lieutenant Rory Haye, we applied the same intensity of dedication that we did in renovating the cabin, into creating The National Trust.”
The National Trust will be released on March 28th via The Barne Society.
Stranded Horse with Boubacar Cissokho – Right No Wrongs with No Arms
Taken from their forthcoming new album, watch the latest video from Stranded Horse and Boubacar Cissokho for their vibrant new single ‘Right No Wrongs with No Arms’. It was also our Song of the Day.
Watch the surreal new video for Alabaster DePlume’s “Invincibility”
Alabaster DePlume shares the video for his latest single, Invincibility, in which filmmaker Niall Trask transforms him into a beloved family dog…it doesn’t end well.
Niall Trask said: “Alabaster was one of the first people I met when I moved down to London; a collaboration has been a long time coming. He gave me total freedom to write on one of three tracks, and I returned his trust by choosing to euthanise him to the score of ‘Invincibility.’ On a personal level, there has been a fair share of tragedy in recent years, and finding the absurdity/humour in it all is always my go-to remedy. The treatment was ambitious, and I’m grateful to everyone who helped bring this to life (whilst putting a dog to sleep). I really tried my best to visually punctuate the sounds of a special soul!”
William Tyler Annoucnes New Album ‘Time Indefinite’ and shares three new tracks
Nothing like the present: as well as announcing his new album today, Time Indefinite (April 25th via Psychic Hotline), Nashville-based guitarist/composer William Tyler has also shared three lead singles and videos. The logic behind this generous gesture, which will be welcomed by many, is that all three tracks form a suite of sorts: “Cabin Six,” “Concern,” and “Star of Hope.” There’s also quite a personal slant to the short films accompanying these pieces, as they were all compiled from Tyler’s old family home movies.
More soon…