An in-depth look at the powerhouse American label.
“A celebration of the humanity that is inherent in what you hear. A celebration of craft in musicianship. An emphasis on telling the real story of a person, and some things that happened, and how they sound. Focusing on context. How historical, communal, architectural and spatial context affects and informs musical composition and performance. The expanding and evolving nature of community and geography through sound. A celebration of community through collaboration.”
That’s how Scott McNiece defines the ethos behind
International Anthem, the Chicago based record label he founded with David Allen in 2012. The label has emerged to become a leading stable for vital, progressive, improvisational music. Despite the pandemic, 2020 was a grandstand year for the label, releasing albums by Makaya Macraven, Angel Bat Dawid, Carlos Nino, Alabaster DePlume and Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker. Originally connecting
Britt Mazurek
In 2019 a few years after relocating to Marfa from Chicago the now 55-year-old trumpeter, composer, and visual artist Rob Mazurek found himself performing in one of the most surreal venues of his life: at the bottom of the Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park. Barefoot in the mud at low tide, he started to play, imagining “a scenario of projecting sonic energy on the border line … improvising on this feeling,” he recounts over Zoom from his music studio in Marfa, where he’s bundled in a black Garza Marfa hoodie. The experience spurred him to consider how the U.S.-Mexico border the site of so much human suffering and political turmoil is ultimately a construct.
Maria Schneider (center) whose album
Data Lords was one of 2020 s most acclaimed jazz albums, performs with her orchestra at the New York City club Jazz Standard, where the group had an 16-year annual Thanksgiving week performance that was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Gulnara Khamatova / Courtesy of the artist
Originally published on January 15, 2021 11:29 am
I can think of no better summation of our shared experience over the last year than A World Lost, the title of the piece that opens Maria Schneider s
Data Lords. A slow, foreboding dirge in an oblong time signature, it instantly sets a tone of somber contemplation. Revisiting it now, as an overture to the most critically acclaimed jazz album of 2020, I hear a chronicle of pained nostalgia mindful of the unbearable losses of life and livelihood, and the more slippery deprivations of place and custom, that marked the past year. I also think of all the old rituals that knitted a constituency into a scene,
2020: The Year for Music with a Message – Reflections from Nabil Ayers, Head of 4AD KEXP
In 2020, music reemerged as a basic need that was less about tuning out and more about engaging. I spent less time streaming music on subway commutes, and more time enjoying the arcs of full album sides at home; less casual listening to distract myself during flight takeoffs and more to soundtrack my long walks.
No artist commanded my attention in the same way as SAULT, who released two excellent albums this year. I don’t know who or what SAULT is there is no band photo, no info tab on their website, their album covers are stark, black images of hands and hash marks. Throughout the 35 songs they released this year, SAULT embodied 2020 s wide range of emotions, from the stoic, persevering beat of Hard Life to the jubilant harmonies of Free. The anthemic, two-word shout to action in “Stop Dem” felt especially relevant in a year when music with a message stood at the