Straight midnight jams floating in from the little Canadian hub that is Ottawa. Troy No composes a mad, deep jardin of electronic sounds and delicate botanical details that come wrapped in a four track EP, mystically titled Autonomous that is out today via Manchester’s base for independent music and visual arts First Light. The mesmerizing Fabricated Identity is attached below, but the whole tape is well worth a spin on any given night, be it hot July or breezy November.

Oslo’s search engine optimized trio Ē just stepped out the woods with a handy debut EP that is light as a feather but has the distinct force of a group that knows just what avenues life holds, and what buttons they want to have pushed.

Their first single Afraid Of The Ocean is a steady steamer and attached below at your convenience, with the four track EP, quite thoughtfully titled ĒP, out now via Norway’s own Eget Selskap. It was mixed and mastered by Simen Hallset of Gold Celeste, while Ē are Ingvild Nærum (Are You Having Fun Yet), Chiara Cavallari (FOAMMM) and Sigrun Sæbø Åland (Hysj).

Photo credits go to Henrike Kerl and Henrike Kerl only.

People say, true love only exists between a man and his dog. Enter Bonnie, Freedom Fry‘s furry companion. With almost ten years under the belt of making music as a team, this ode to their curly canine is long overdue. It comes with a lovely video, too.

The track comes off the duo’s latest EP titled Rio Grande, which features a brilliant acoustic cover of Gorillaz’ Clint Eastwood and an all new single, also titled Rio Grande. Take a walk with me, Bonnie.

The genre crossing and technology bending ensemble Miro Shot sports a very unique approach to all things Miro. With a heavy industrial fused electronic production on the musical side, and a fully immersive VR/AR style live set to get lost in, the group is breaking traditional boundaries, both stylistically and between audiences and performers.

Their latest piece is Are We Closer, originally premiering over at Clash, and is attached below with its official visuals, best viewed vertically on the device you are quite probably holding right now. The song then tells the story of modern technology bringing people and topics together, creating weird and wonderful connections at times, or as they phrase it: “an attempt to capture the feeling of what being alive in a world with streaming walls of content and images that we are saturated with, and the way it is all thrown together, a cat gif next to rioters, a photo of someone’s lunch next to a devastated rainforest.” Their debut will be titled Servers, and is due for release on June 28.

Miro Shot’s live sets then come as a rather mesmeric experience, coming into full force through VR headsets, controlled by the band itself while playing. Miro Shot are scheduled to perform at Hamburg’s Oberhafen this weekend for VRHAM, with a line of shows from Friday June 7 through Monday June 10. After that the team is off to Paris, June 19, and London, June 25.

Keep a keen eye on it all because there are three Easter eggs hidden in the video forming a question which – if answered correctly – will get you a free ticket to the upcoming Miro Shot VR shows in either London or Paris.

Video credits

In times of instantly spreading information, prompt judgements, and quick, binary decisions needing to be made, it’s refreshing to see people actually taking the time, and sitting down to think it through and just let go and let it be nuanced. Enter Music Cities Network’s Jazz Residency at this year’s Elbjazz in Hamburg. The global collective of musically inclined cities recruited 5 rising musicians from Iceland, Denmark and Germany, and decided to put them in the prestigious Clouds Hill Recordings studio for a week and see what happens, giving them nothing but food and beverages, and the prospect to fill an hour at the festival this Saturday, playing aboard the MS Stubnitz.

Like the Avengers joining forces, the five of them each bring their own powers to the table. With Falko Harriehausen from Hamburg on bass guitar, Aarhus’ Frederik Bülow on drums, Reykjavik’s Ingi Bjarni Skulason on keys and composition, MIMRA aka Maria Magnusdottir also from Reykjavik on vocals and composition, and finally Hamburg’s Tilman Oberbeck on double bass.

The five of them plucking it out, improvising their way through days and nights for a week, creates a unique energy and sense of direction. Jazz, then, naturally, describes less of a music genre, and rather a way of life, a way to think about things. They may enter as strangers and individuals, but emerge as a group, a coherent team, being greater than the sum of its parts. The gift of collaboration, a natural force like compound interest.

And it does feel like an ultimately democratic process, too, with everybody having a voice, everybody doing his part, having his moment, getting his solo.

The five of them are scheduled to perform and play their newly written tunes on Saturday, June 1st at 17h00 in the mighty cargo holds of MS Stubnitz.

For a taste of it all, try the pure tropically loaded grooves by drummer Frederik Bulows’ band Bangin’ Bülows Nice Jazz Quartet attached below. The track Sugardating is off their third studio album Let’s Get Weird that was recorded in New York and came out in May last year.

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