Alto saxophonist Steve Lehman still remembers his first encounter with alternative rapper-producer High Priest. It came as a result of a 2003 recording that Priest’s partners in Antipop Consortium released with progressive jazz pianist Matthew Shipp. “That was where I got turned on,” Lehman recalls. “So then I went back through the catalog, starting with Tragic Epilogue.”
Over the course of our conversation, Lehman runs through nearly every other project in which High Priest has been involved. “As a solo artist, as HPrizm, as Airborne Audio … he definitely informs the way I think about texture [and] everything. I’m a big fan.” So it was something of a foregone conclusion that the two would eventually end up working together. The result of the collaboration is a new group called Sélébéyone—a Wolof word meaning “intersection”—with Senegalese rapper Gaston Bandimic, saxophonist Maciek Lasserre, drummer Damion Reid, bassist Drew Gress, and keyboardist Carlos Homs. The idea for a new group was born after Lasserre—Lehman’s one-time student—introduced him to Senegal’s vibrant hip-hop scene. Lehman and Priest were impressed with Bandimic’s ability to integrate melodic singing with complex rhyme patterns. From there, group members began trading audio files back and forth online. A grant from the French-American Jazz Exchange allowed the members of Sélébéyone to work in person, rehearsing for their first live performance in May 2015. Priest was introduced to Gaston’s style through this project and, “was just consistently blown away on stage hearing him.”
“There’s all these great artists and musicians in France, but they’re just never portrayed anywhere, because they’re kind of odd compared to the normality so enforced upon us. You’re not allowed to be a freak in France.”
These words were spoken to me last year in an interview with Laetitia Sadier, cofounder and leader of the legendary band Stereolab. The topic came up when I asked her about La Souterraine, a French music collective that released a compilation on which she appeared. Founded by Benjamin Caschera and Laurent Bajon, precisely to give a voice to all those “freaks,” La Souterraine’s now-extensive catalog documents the French underground (it’s name literally means “the underground”) through smooth variations on classic French pop, tweaked with odd arrangements. Lo-fi recordings rub up against elegant, precise performances; solo projects sit side-by-side on the label with avant-garde groups. The one constant is that all lyrics are written and sung in French. (One of my favorite recent discoveries was listening to one of the label’s releases and realizing the artist was delivering a melodramatic version of “Hotel California”—in French, of course.)
You don’t have to speak with Homeboy Sandman long to realize how engaging he is. The Queens MC has such a unique style of storytelling, you’re instantly drawn in. So it only felt natural to give Boy Sand his own Bandcamp column. This is the first installment.
Generally considered a weapon of mass destruction, the odorless and colorless liquid sarin can kill a human in under 10 minutes, causing a death that erupts from within as the body collapses in defeat. The music of Emad Dabiri, a/k/a SΛRIN, may not be quite as deadly, but it’s just as severe, full of explosive, militaristic beats and icy synth patterns. It seethes with an urgency and severity that reflects its ’80s old school industrial predecessors, while also perfectly suited to the current ominous atmosphere of dark techno dance floors. SΛRIN’s work builds a bridge between industrial and techno, a romantic pairing between two parties that have been tiptoeing around one another for decades.
“It’s easy to make a dark album,” says producer/multi-instrumentalist Anders Trentemøller. “It’s actually more of a challenge for me to go in the opposite direction and find a little bit of hope and light, so it doesn’t get too heavy. That’s also how my own life is. I’m not sitting in my apartment and crying all day.”
In addition to letting in more light, the other big change in Trentemøller’s songwriting, in the decade since his absorbing debut album The Last Resort, has been a concerted move away from the studio and toward the stage. While most of his music is written and recorded solo, behind closed doors in Copenhagen, years of touring with a live band—including dates with Depeche Mode—have turned the knob twiddler into more of a mute frontman.
In most cases, at least: Trentemøller’s new record, Fixion, is his most focused effort yet, abandoning the loaded guest list of his last LP, 2013’s Lost, in favor of a handful of more-than-capable hands (recurring collaborators Marie Fisker and Lisbet Fritze, and Savages singer Jehnny Beth). Trentemøller also steps up to the mic himself for the first time, and while his melodies are mangled beyond recognition, they cut just as deeply as anything else on the record. It’s a carefully sequenced collection that has more in common with Joy Division than the dimly-lit dance floors where Trentemøller first found his footing.
“For me, [music] is about beauty and longing,” he explains. “It can be comforting to embrace the not-so-happy vibes in life rather than be scared of them.”
We asked Trentemøller to share the stories behind the songs on Fixion, which unfolded against a heady backdrop haunted by everyone from David Bowie to Stanley Kubrick.
Bandcamp is a rock-solid platform for artists to sell their music and merchandise to their fans, and a thriving community of enlightened listeners who get that the best way to support the artists they love is by directly giving them money.
