{"title":"International Anthem","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-to-cy-lee-instrumentals-vol-1-vinyl-lp","title":"Alabaster DePlume - To Cy \u0026 Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAlabaster DePlume is a London-based bandleader, composer, saxophonist, activist and orator. Whilst much of his music contains vocals, this is a collection of instrumentals. The music of To Cy \u0026amp; Lee... contains naturally elegant orchestration wrapped around something visceral and primordial. The music is filled with space, inspired by computer games and Japanese animation, particularly Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack for Castle In The Sky. The record combines new compositions alongside bygone instrumentals and under-stated lullabies that feel like they’ve been picked from between the cracks of civilization. DePlume purposefully brings together players of different skill levels and backgrounds so they have to interact differently. “I wanted to destroy the idea of correct so we were playing it different ways for fun. We had a very magical time playing the tunes.” This is activism expressed through gorgeous music that breaks down barriers by encouraging that most powerful emotion: connectedness.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51813508809020,"sku":"FSLP-079","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/alabaster-deplume-to-cy-lee-instrumentals-vol-1-vinyl-lp-cover.jpg?v=1752605682"},{"product_id":"dezron-douglas-brandee-younger-force-majeure-vinyl-lp","title":"Dezron Douglas \u0026 Brandee Younger - Force Majeure Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHighlights from bassist Dezron Douglas and harpist Brandee Younger's legendary lockdown live stream brunch sessions, recorded between March and June, 2020, at their apartment in Harlem, New York.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51813508907324,"sku":"FSLP-082","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/201374733011_60c87a2c-d905-4ec9-8c4b-061a106a6d89.jpg?v=1752438484"},{"product_id":"cassie-kinoshi-s-seed-gratitude-vinyl-lp","title":"Cassie Kinoshi's Seed. - Gratitude Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn March of 2023 Mercury Prize nominated composer \u0026amp; alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London’s Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece – gratitude – for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra. Months later, Kinoshi passed the live recording to Dave Vettraino, who began the mixing process at International Anthem Studios in Chicago. Kinoshi and Vettraino then convened in November of 2024 at Livingston Studios in London to do final mixes and overdub additional sounds from members of seed.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSome know Kinoshi from her work as a former member of Kokoroko. And even beyond her work as leader of seed. (including Driftglass, the band’s critically-lauded 2019 debut on jazz re:freshed) her compositional résumé extends deeply into orchestral work for concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theatre, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. That depth of experience is on full display here, with the textural and dynamic flexibility of her large ensemble covering musical ground from groove-focused modal melancholia to anthemic brass and string themes. Striking upon first listen and even richer on repeat visits, gratitude scores the soul of contemporary Black London with philharmonic craftwork in the tradition of legendary jazz arrangers like Mary Lou Williams, Oliver Nelson, and Carla Bley.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51813509628220,"sku":"FSLP-100","price":23.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/cassie-kinoshi-s-seed-gratitude-vinyl-lp_0488e08d-7fc6-43df-8e33-32ae28511e2a.jpg?v=1752438482"},{"product_id":"jeremiah-chiu-marta-sofia-honer-different-rooms-battiato-brick-vinyl-vinyl-lp","title":"Jeremiah Chiu \u0026 Marta Sofia Honer - Different Rooms (Battiato Brick Vinyl) Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eDifferent Rooms\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esees the return of LA electronic duo Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer (collectively recorded for Beyonce, Makaya McCraven, Ariana Grande) on their\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esecond LP, following the lauded 2022 \"Recordings from the Åland Islands\" and 2024's\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ecollaboration with Ariel Kalma. Standout track \"Long and Short Delays\" features dense\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003esynthesis work from Chiu and layered string arrangements from Honer, expertly mixed\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003einto a swirl of a sonic experience.\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51813511659836,"sku":"FSLP-123","price":28.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/jeremiah-chiu-marta-sofia-honer-different-rooms-battiato-brick-vinyl-vinyl-lp-1.jpg?v=1751897161"},{"product_id":"gilles-peterson-gilles-peterson-presents-international-anthem-vinyl-2lp","title":"Gilles Peterson Presents International Anthem Vinyl 2LP","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGilles Peterson presents International Anthem\u003c\/em\u003e is a Deluxe Double LP compilation chronicling the legendary London-based radio host, DJ, label head, curator and cultural impresario's long-standing affinity for and interaction with artists and music from the Chicago-born record label International Anthem. The tracks on this compilation were chosen by Peterson via an extensive review of track lists from his broadcasts on BBC Radio 6 Music, Worldwide FM, and various syndicated radio programs. The compilation also includes a previously unreleased track recorded live on the Peterson-founded online radio station Worldwide FM. This album is released via International Anthem as part of their \"IA11\" series of releases and events – where the label celebrates their eleventh year of existence by looking back on their first ten years while establishing new standards for the next ten years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClassic Black 140g 2xLP, in a heavyweight UV-Gloss jacket, with 12\"x12\" insert booklet, with IA OBI Strip \u0026amp; printed poly-lined inner sleeves.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51887402615100,"sku":"FSLP-408","price":28.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a1055138236_10.jpg?v=1752000685"},{"product_id":"sml-small-medium-large-vinyl-lp","title":"SML - Small Medium Large Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eSML is Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, Gregory Uhlmann. \"Small Medium Large\" was engineered and recorded in stereo direct to Nagra by Bryce Gonzales at ETA, Los Angeles, CA and compiled, arranged and edited with additional production recording and studio composition by Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, and Gregory Uhlmann at home studios in Los Angeles, CA and Kingston, NY.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51887402844476,"sku":"FSLP-413","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a3892331806_10.jpg?v=1752000695"},{"product_id":"jeff-parker-the-new-breed-ia11-edition-w-obi-strip-vinyl-lp","title":"Jeff Parker - The New Breed (IA11 Edition) Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eJeff Parker’s 2016 album The New Breed was a turning point for both Parker and International Anthem, changing the trajectory of his solo career as well as drawing an abundance of attention to our fresh imprint despite our then very limited catalog. Most importantly though, the album is the first to give voice to Parker’s wholly unique take on sample-based beat construction augmented by improvisation and live instrumentation (performed in this case by the high-level crew of Paul Bryan on bass, Josh Johnson on alto saxophone and keys, Jamire Williams and Jay Bellerose on drums, Parker's daughter Ruby on vocals, and Parker himself on guitar, synths, and other instruments).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat began as Jeff’s interest in understanding his own idea of hip-hop processes (and how they related to his work in jazz) expanded into a blueprint for much of his work since then. 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The result is a rare, intimate portrait of an artist whose quietly iconoclastic path has consistently stayed ahead of its time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52010743038268,"sku":"FSLP-704","price":27.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/Jeff_Parker_-_Forfolks_Cool_Mint_Vinyl_Vinyl_LP.jpg?v=1754959008"},{"product_id":"rob-mazurek-exploding-star-orchestra-dimensional-stardust-vinyl-lp","title":"Rob Mazurek, Exploding Star Orchestra - Dimensional Stardust Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eRob Mazurek is a multidisciplinary abstractivist whose work spans electro-acoustic composition, improvisation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, and installation. A Jersey City native, he emerged from the creative nexus of 1990s Chicago, spending years there and in Brazil before settling in Marfa, Texas. Over three decades, he’s written more than 400 compositions, appeared on 70+ recordings for labels like Thrill Jockey, Astral Spirits, and International Anthem, and led or co-led ensembles including his flagship Exploding Star Orchestra, Chicago Underground, Isotope 217, São Paulo Underground, and collaborations with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Bill Dixon, and Jeff Parker. His visual art—featured on nearly all his album covers in the past 20 years—has been exhibited across the Americas and Europe, marked by the same gestural energy, dense materiality, and expressive clarity that define his music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMazurek founded Exploding Star Orchestra in 2005 as a large ensemble uniting musicians from across Chicago’s often-segregated scenes, blending Tortoise’s expansive orbit with AACM veterans and free jazz revivalists. Debuting in Millennium Park and recording We Are All From Somewhere Else soon after, ESO became, in Mazurek’s words, “the conceptual, compositional and philosophical center of all my work.” Subsequent projects expanded in ambition and scope, including a 2018 JazzFest Berlin commission that brought together Berlin and Chicago players in a 15-piece ensemble, weaving influences from Bartók to Sun Ra into tightly arranged, vividly orchestrated compositions. Reviewers praised the work’s synesthetic bursts of color and its balance of complexity and accessibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat momentum carried into Dimensional Stardust, recorded with a constellation of International Anthem artists between 2019 and early 2020 and released in partnership with Nonesuch Records. The album distills ESO’s maximalism into concise, melodic minimalism, with ensemble orchestration favored over extended solos. Jeff Parker’s guitar and Nicole Mitchell’s flute rise briefly to the foreground, while Mazurek’s piccolo trumpet appears in select, haunting moments. Damon Locks’s voice threads through as a textural element, more instrument than lead, delivering abstract narratives that culminate in the closing “Autumn Pleiades.” Throughout, the percussion section drives the music forward, as harmonic layers oscillate between frenetic chromaticism and soaring pentatonic themes. Equal parts avant-garde exploration and universal melodic pull, Dimensional Stardust is a cosmic, unifying statement—an apex in Mazurek’s ever-evolving creative journey.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52010743103804,"sku":"FSLP-705","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/Rob_Mazurek_Exploding_Star_Orchestra_-_Dimensional_Stardust_Vinyl_LP.jpg?v=1754958991"},{"product_id":"makaya-mccraven-in-these-times-indie-exclusive-ivory-vinyl-vinyl-lp","title":"Makaya McCraven - In These Times (Indie Exclusive Ivory Vinyl) Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn These Times is the long-awaited new album from Chicago-based percussionist, composer, producer, and International Anthem mainstay Makaya McCraven. While “new” on release, it’s been in the works since shortly after his 2015 label debut In The Moment. In the years between, McCraven released six acclaimed projects—including the breakout Universal Beings and his reimagining of Gil Scott-Heron’s We’re New Again—but none have so fully embodied his artistic ethos. This is the record he’s been striving toward since he began, a patient, ambitious, and career-defining statement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilt over more than seven years, the 11-track suite blends McCraven’s odd-meter originals with lush large-ensemble arrangements and the edit-heavy “organic beat music” that has become his signature. Recorded across five studios and four live spaces, with contributions from core collaborators like Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill, the project was meticulously shaped through extensive post-production at home. That he distilled its sweeping scale into just 41 minutes of deeply emotive, highly communicative music is a feat of both craftsmanship and vision—marking an evolution for McCraven the producer, and a defining moment for McCraven the composer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt once expansive and concise, In These Times is a striking new peak for an artist The New York Times has called “one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality,” and more recently, a “cultural synthesizer.” It is an elegant fusion of past, present, and future—a poly-textural, jazz-rooted, post-genre folk music for the 21st century. In pushing into uncharted territory, McCraven offers his clearest statement yet, collapsing space, crossing borders, and creating music that is as forward-looking as it is timeless.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52010743136572,"sku":"FSLP-706","price":29.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/Makaya_McCraven_-_In_These_Times_Indie_Exclusive_Ivory_Vinyl_Vinyl_LP.webp?v=1754958972"},{"product_id":"ben-lamar-gay-open-arms-to-open-us-limited-edition-dawn-cherry-vinyl-vinyl-lp","title":"Ben LaMar Gay - Open Arms to Open Us (Limited Edition Dawn Cherry Vinyl) Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eOpen Arms to Open Us traces its roots to a childhood memory on my great Aunt Lola’s land in Alabama, feeding pigs and listening together to the sounds around us—wind through pines, quail songs, distant voices. One day, she told me she could still hear her father’s hammer in the fields where he once worked, though he’d long passed. At seven years old, I didn’t know the term for it, but I was learning the first law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred. The rhythm of that hammer, and the silence between its strikes, opened my ears to a lifelong curiosity—and to improvisation as a true freedom available to us all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI began visualizing this music in the spring of 2020, when the pandemic and the collapse of societal facades made mortality and impermanence impossible to ignore. My thoughts turned to the young people in my life—my nieces, nephews, and the next generation of listeners—and what I could leave behind for them. I wanted them to know I was thinking about their futures, their curiosity, and their exploration. In Open Arms to Open Us, rhythm becomes an inheritance, like DNA: a truth that travels across time, survives the collapse of false structures, and carries messages from both ancient and future loved ones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese compositions are intended as tools for navigating life’s loops—those man-made cycles of harm, control, and exploitation. The title suggests a gesture of understanding, an opening that can lead to touch or embrace. The music is meant for dancing, reflecting, celebrating, grieving, focusing, and decoding messages from beyond. Just as the space between my great grandfather’s hammer strikes revealed something eternal, this record is a reminder that rhythm endures—and that no matter the obstacles, we gon’ win.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52010743169340,"sku":"FSLP-707","price":27.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/Ben_LaMar_Gay_-_Open_Arms_to_Open_Us_Limited_Edition_Dawn_Cherry_Vinyl_Vinyl_LP.jpg?v=1754958952"},{"product_id":"jeff-parker-eta-ivtet-the-way-out-of-easy-vinyl-2lp","title":"Jeff Parker ETA IVtet - The Way Out Of Easy Vinyl 2LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn January 2, 2023, guitarist Jeff Parker and his ETA IVtet—saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose—took the stage for another Monday night at ETA in Los Angeles, a residency they had maintained since 2016. No one knew it would be the first show of ETA’s final year. Over seven years, the group had evolved from playing mostly standards to delivering transcendent, long-form journeys into groove-oriented, painterly, polyrhythmic, and mantric improvisation, drawing ever-growing crowds until lines stretched down the block. The set that night, recorded by engineer Bryce Gonzales, would become The Way Out of Easy—a document of the band’s refined chemistry, captured across a single evening.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReturning to the same analog archive that yielded the 2022 double LP Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, Parker selected four expansive performances totaling around 80 minutes. Gonzales, known for his Highland Dynamics audio gear, recorded the session using a custom mixer designed to sit discreetly at the bar, employing just one microphone per player for a pure, transparent sound. The result is an unfiltered, intimate window into the band’s interplay: from the extended opener “Freakadelic” (first recorded on Parker’s Bright Light in Winter), to the gently shifting textures of “Late Autumn,” the psychedelic drift of “Easy Way Out,” and the spontaneously born dub groove of “Chrome Dome.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA weeknight ritual for years, the IVtet often closed with a familiar standard, but on this night they chose instead to leave the audience with a groove, a sound as much as a song. Months later, in December 2023, ETA closed its doors, and Parker’s group played there for the last time. In July 2024, they reunited at Zebulon in Los Angeles before a sold-out crowd—proof that while the venue is gone, its spirit endures, carried forward in the living vessel of the music.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52010743202108,"sku":"FSLP-708","price":34.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/Jeff_Parker_ETA_IVtet_-_The_Way_Out_Of_Easy_Vinyl_2LP.jpg?v=1754958929"},{"product_id":"chicago-underground-duo-hyperglyph-succulent-amber-vinyl-vinyl-lp","title":"Chicago Underground Duo - Hyperglyph (Succulent Amber Vinyl) Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eHyperglyph is the first new album in 11 years from composer\/trumpeter\/synthesist Rob Mazurek and composer\/percussionist Chad Taylor’s long-running Chicago Underground Duo project. Mazurek and Taylor have played music together in a multitude of formations over nearly three decades, including their ongoing partnership in Mazurek’s large-format-skyward-expressionism vehicle Exploding Star Orchestra, in the expanded Chicago Underground Trio, Quartet and Orchestra (all with guitarist Jeff Parker), as well as a plethora of other assemblages. The early albums by the Duo have proven to be embryonic blueprints for the avant-jazz \/ electronic \/ indie rock hybridizing of the time, making them majorly important moments in the articulation of the “jazz” dimensionality of the then-burgeoning \"post rock\" sound. That sound, of course, was being transmitted far and wide due to the success of these groups as well as the Mazurek\/Parker project Isotope 217, and the Chicago Underground’s frequently-intersecting collaborators in Tortoise. Just as most of the still-working projects born of that era have evolved, reconfigured, and grown, the Chicago Underground Duo has undergone a number of musical moltings, with the project always in the background of disparate individual aural investigations. 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Saul Willams uses his cut to create space for his poetry, laying out a cryto fight facism and battle oppression in a poignant and timely fashion. Heba Kadry takes \"Oganesson\" underground, with a four on the floor focus that catapults the intricate synth interplay in a reverberant dancehall classic. Patrick Carney's take is immediately active and tastefully compressed, calling attention to the the fundamentals via percussive layering and an enhanced grit of the grooving bassline. Broken Social Scene brings the tempo down, launching \"Oganesson\" into a new wave-adjacent territory, digging into the darker side of the band's instrumental arrangement to highlight it's cinematic qualities, now convincingly primed for the big screen. 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The two have been in contact since 1997 and have worked on a variety of projects together, but had never been moved to present in this way. For the occasion, Niño assembled and directed an ensemble of frequent collaborators including Nate Mercereau (Guitar Synthesizer, Live Sampling with Midi Guitar, Sample Sources), Aaron Shaw (Flute, Soprano Saxophone with Pedals, Tenor Saxophone), Andres Renteria (Bells, Congas, Egyptian Rattle Drum, Hand Drums, Percussion), Maia (Flute, Vibraphone, Voice), Francesca Heart (Computer, Conch Shell, Sound Design), and Kamasi Washington (Tenor Saxophone).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilliams’ inspired poetics both fit seamlessly and guide clairvoyantly the electro-acoustic ecosystem created by Niño \u0026amp; Friends – a constellation of deep connections and intersecting linkups from complementary sound makers. 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Built from moments of pure improvisation captured live and later reshaped through McCraven’s process of editing, overdubbing, and post-production at his Chicago home studio, the music reflects both the musicians and the energy of the rooms and audiences where it was created. Techno Logic features Ben LaMar Gay and Theon Cross, drawing from performances in London (2017), Berlin (2024), and New York (2025), tracing nearly eight years of collaboration. The People’s Mixtape is based on a 2025 live recording at Brooklyn’s Public Records celebrating the 10th anniversary of In the Moment, with McCraven joined by longtime collaborators Junius Paul and Marquis Hill as well as Joel Ross and Jeremiah Chiu. 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Known for their intricate rhythms, layered textures, and seamless interplay, Tortoise use Touch to further blur genre lines and explore new sonic territory, balancing precise musicianship with free-flowing improvisation. 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It's the place where Dante Carfagna held down a rare soul party for over a decade, where he first dropped public needles on 45s that would eventually make compilations he curated for Numero Group and Chocolate Industries. It's the place where DJ Shadow still does sets on the low when he rolls through town.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd on one highly rare night in November 2016 Danny's was the place where we invited an \"International Anthem All Stars\" type of improvising ensemble (Makaya McCraven, Junius Paul, Nick Mazzarella and Ben Lamar Gay) to play in support of DJ sets by LeFtO, who was in transit from Belgium, hitting local spots under the direction of Chicago scene sage King Hippo. Damn-near 0 degrees and just days after the death sentence of the American presidential election, the sounds the musicians conjured were thick with the bitter cold darkness that hung heavy in the air, punctuated with moments of joyful determination – the kind that can only be accessed when such impending doom triggers passionate adrenalized bursts by creators in survival mode.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCogent as the cultural context of that November night at Danny's is the compositional prowess that Makaya exercised in post to make Highly Rare the impressive final piece it is. 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These instant compositions highlight Uhlmann’s mournful fingerpicked electric guitar, Wilkes’ hybrid rhythm-lead bass chording, and Johnson’s effect-laden alto saxophone, blending improvisation with meticulous arrangement to create richly textured sonic landscapes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52217599656252,"sku":"FSLP-991","price":23.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a3549527477_16.jpg?v=1758823351"},{"product_id":"macie-stewart-when-the-distance-is-blue-vinyl-lp","title":"Macie Stewart - When The Distance Is Blue Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen the Distance is Blue is Macie Stewart’s International Anthem debut. The Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser describes the album as “a love letter to the moments we spend in-between,” realized through a deliberate return to piano—her first instrument and the root of her creative expression. Stewart crafts a cinematic and striking work through collages of prepared piano, field recordings, and string quartet compositions, creating a transient universe that traces the arc of her musical past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRenowned for her versatility, Stewart is a sought-after collaborator across genres, performing strings for Makaya McCraven and Japanese Breakfast, singing harmonies with Tweedy, arranging for Alabaster DePlume, Resavoir, Mannequin Pussy, and SZA, and co-leading the art-rock duo Finom with Sima Cunningham. On When the Distance is Blue, she unites these threads into a contemplative eight-piece song cycle with contributions from Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson (Matchesse), and Zach Moore. 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Recorded at our former Chicago HQ, Co-Prosperity, the day after Niño and Atwood-Ferguson performed with Makaya McCraven’s ensemble to celebrate the release of Universal Beings and reinterpret their contributions to its “Los Angeles Side,” the session allowed the two musicians to create and present fresh sounds to a receptive new community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis improvisational conversation between Atwood-Ferguson’s violin and effects and Niño’s percussion and soundscapes showcased a growing dialogue between International Anthem’s LA and Chicago bases. Released in 2020, Chicago Waves highlighted the unmistakable sound of togetherness—a cathartic experience amid the restrictions and social isolation of that era. 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Mazurek and Taylor have collaborated in a multitude of formations over nearly three decades, including Mazurek’s large-scale Exploding Star Orchestra, the expanded Chicago Underground Trio, Quartet, and Orchestra (all featuring guitarist Jeff Parker), and numerous other ensembles. The Duo’s early albums served as embryonic blueprints for the avant-jazz\/electronic\/indie-rock hybrids of the era, marking key moments in defining the “jazz” dimension of the then-burgeoning post-rock sound—a sound amplified by projects like Mazurek\/Parker’s Isotope 217 and the Chicago Underground’s frequent intersections with collaborators in Tortoise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLike other enduring projects from that era, the Chicago Underground Duo has evolved, reconfigured, and grown over time, always existing in the background of the collaborators’ individual musical explorations. 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Wadud’s album was privately pressed on his own label, Bisharra, and while Skinner’s title uses the more conventional spelling of this Arabic word, both share the same meaning: “good news” or “the bringer of good news.” The record channels a classic spirit, connecting back to Skinner’s 2017 Hello Skinny collaboration with American composer and Arthur Russell collaborator Peter Zummo on Watermelon Sun, linking sideways to Makaya McCraven’s beat-maker-inspired approach to jazz, and bridging musically to Sons of Kemet’s most meditative moments.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVoices of Bishara began when Skinner gathered a group of musician friends for a Played Twice session at London’s Brilliant Corners, where a classic album would be played in full and then reinterpreted live. 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The three musicians are individually rooted in deep sound exploration, multi-disciplinary composition, and all manner of cross-genre collaboration. The musical ground covered by their solo practices is correspondingly expansive, and their individual recording and performance credits read as a veritable who’s who, ranging from DIY darlings to household names of experimental avant-garde, electronic, indie rock, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe trio’s collective sound is based in improvisation—automatic, intuitive composition via their three voices and three string instruments (viola, cello, and violin, respectively). Their influences are vast—dispatched with more playful ease than a trio of string instruments is typically approached with, and just as likely to be found in the cloud-obscured mountains of Donegal, the low-rent cacophony of a midwestern basement, or the revelatory expanse of the Nurse With Wound list as in the storied halls of the academy. Touchstones and areas of interest aside, the main thing that Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart engage with in BODY SOUND is listening and reacting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Improvisation has a special capacity to facilitate a kind of sonic intimacy,” says Kohl. “We're making choices together in the moment. We're creating time together before thought enters the equation. 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And with sound, there’s always space to consider.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhere will the improvisation take place?\u003cbr\u003eHow will that space shape the sounds being made?\u003cbr\u003eHow will that sound resonate in the dim light of a small neighborhood bar?\u003cbr\u003eHow will it sound in the chromatic refractions of an ornate church?\u003cbr\u003eCan it feel different-yet-equally perfect?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart the answer to the last question is yes, definitely.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStewart: Our quest as a crew is to explore space and every iteration of what that can mean, be it physical space, emotional space, sonic space, etc. Space is an instrument.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohnson: It’s more than the acoustic properties of the recording spaces. Our bodies, emotions, and relationships show up in those spaces with affordances and limitations for the music each time. We are vibrating beings, sensitive and expressive, an amoeba of physical and psychic pressures with specific resonances in time and space.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKohl: The space we’re in always feels like a collaborator in this trio more than in other contexts. I can always feel us all responding to where we are and the resonances that live there.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn BODY SOUND, the trio worked with International Anthem engineer and album co-producer Dave Vettraino to translate the sonic specificities of three recording locations: International Anthem studios on Iron Street (Chicago), Shirk Studios (Chicago), and Boyd’s Jig and Reel (Knoxville, TN, as part of Big Ears Festival). Vettraino also brought a deep knowledge of tape manipulation and a willingness to experiment. “All it took was for one of us to say, ‘What if that was a loop?’, and he was already setting up the reel-to-reel,” says Johnson of the album’s post-production, which leaned heavily into their shared love of saturated tape sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat trust, it seems, was already there. In addition to the communal criss-cross inherent in sharing their Chicago home base, the trio worked with Vettraino on Stewart’s 2025 solo effort When the Distance Is Blue. It was her debut on International Anthem but far from her first appearance in the label’s catalog as a player. Ditto for Kohl and Johnson, whose collaboration and friendship with the label goes back years. Taken as a whole, we could argue that this most recent collaboration, the tape-manipulated fried beauty documented on BODY SOUND, has been a long time coming.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the context of this work, tape sound is much more than a mixing treatment or a production tactic. Here Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart are using variations on the medium to edit and reshape the pieces themselves, employing multiple analog tape machines to reimagine their improvised material into meticulously crafted compositions (“another layer of improvisation,” says Stewart). It’s all a response to the spaces they were originally engaged with, and the use of a highly physical medium like analog tape deepens the spatial engagement of the trio’s work to striking, playful, and organically psychedelic effect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe resultant BODY SOUND is deep, melancholy, and triumphant, coming across like a kind of lost or amalgamated folk music. It’s certainly part of an ongoing creative continuum, even boasting track titles adapted from Yoko Ono’s classic book of text scores Grapefruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album’s opener “dawn | pulse” puts a morning drone at the threshold of their sound world. This undulating slow roller is a free time drift of bowed tonal clusters respiring in long, melodic swells, and unfurling among wordless singing. Despite the time marker in the title, this piece feels suitable for any part of the day—the morning stretch skyward, the afternoon ambling respite, or the late-nite chillout. Both majorly serene and deceptively avant garde, “dawn | pulse” is a perfect entrée into BODY SOUND.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“laundry | blood” begins with a near-waltz percussive tumble created by a tape loop of Kohl’s barrette-prepared cello. Its soft and eerie triplet propels a deep and snarling viola-cello-violin drone forward à la the doomiest moments of the Berlin School canon or the repetitive outsider glory of Tony Conrad \u0026amp; Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate. It’s a darkly cinematic take on the ambient ideal for the scarcely visible slow-moving night train chug. You can almost see it roll by.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome moments feel intentionally disconnected from the performance, instead tied more closely to the concept of LP format listenership: the disintegrated melodic pumps and clomps of “chewing gum”, the body shaking radiator hiss come-apart of “snow | touch”, the otherworldly bass and sub-bass of “stone | piece”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the album’s 11 tracks, each piece manages to keep a foot in both worlds. “burning | counting (sleeping)” begins abruptly with massive bursts of heavily-bowed sawtooth strings looping in real time, creating a near-synthetic feeling. Deep stutter-step freneticism, tape-manipulated and rendered into overlapping moments of dense psychedelia give way to an oncoming long-note tranquility—an improvised cacophony evoking some long dissipated storm-paced Irish folk drone more so than a New Music exercise or a study of Kronos \/ Reich.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that seems to be the story with all of the material within BODY SOUND. It’s music with inexplicably broad appeal while maintaining a sort of mysterious outsider quality. Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart have created a stunning album—an exquisitely textured, spatially vivid, wordlessly expressive, sonically multitudinous collection—that manages to decode a slew of high level concepts while clearly and directly speaking to the human impulse. BODY SOUND is right.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52856157667644,"sku":"FSLP-1818","price":28.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a1705246381_0.jpg?v=1773338710"},{"product_id":"alabaster-deplume-dear-children-of-our-children-i-knew-vinyl-lp","title":"Alabaster DePlume - Dear Children of Our Children, I Knew Vinyl EP","description":"\u003cp\u003eDear Children of Our Children, I Knew is an EP by Alabaster DePlume, recorded during his March 2025 US tour with bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Tcheser Holmes. The instrumental recordings were captured during an off day in Brooklyn and draw on material performed from A Blade Because A Blade Is Whole. The release serves as an epilogue to that album, including the Cremisan: Prologue to A Blade EP on the B side.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52941180043580,"sku":"FSLP-1920","price":26.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a1947218949_0.jpg?v=1774982347"},{"product_id":"sml-how-you-been-vinyl-lp","title":"SML - How You Been Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eSML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their second album, How You Been, finds the supergroup of prolific composer\/producers pushing ever further into the hyperrealist, collectivist approach to music creation nascently explored on their debut Small Medium Large, which was lauded as “awe-inspiring” by Glide, “exuberant” by the Los Angeles Times, and “an exciting milestone” by Pitchfork.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHow You Been represents a breakthrough in the musical language of the group. This new work was crafted via extensive post-production of recordings from a handful of shows in a similar fashion to their debut, but whereas Small Medium Large was constructed from analog tapes of the band’s very first (and very modest) shows at bygone Highland Park LA venue ETA, How You Been was built with a higher level of self-awareness and a far deeper pool of source material.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBehind the thrust of the first album’s success, the band approached every performance in late 2024 and early 2025 as a generative opportunity to hone their sound and document their expansion across a new landscape of audiences, venues, and cities. Despite the premeditation driving their commitment to record every moment, the band started every show without musical direction, improvising intuitively, completely. Within every performance is an impressive display of the band’s total trust in one another and confidence in their own instincts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs SML has evolved and spread out in space-time, their fluencies, both as an improvising unit in performance and as a production team in the studio, have sharpened. At inception the band inspired disparate but distinctive artist comparisons like Essential Logic, Oval, Herbie Hancock’s Sextant, and electric Miles Davis, as well as assorted genre touchpoints like Afrobeat, kosmiche, proto-techno and new-jazz. With How You Been their work manages to both collapse and explode such derivatives, displaying a new, high resolution version of SML, fully-flowered into a new strain of sound, bound to incite its own copycats in due time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52988671033660,"sku":"FSLP-1956","price":25.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a2861032363_0_4f1e613c-0245-4111-b226-36d3dbc3a19a.jpg?v=1776366228"},{"product_id":"gregory-uhlmann-extra-stars-star-dust-vinyl-vinyl-lp-signed-copies","title":"Gregory Uhlmann - Extra Stars (Star Dust Vinyl) Vinyl LP (Signed Copies)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCopies Signed By \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eGregory Uhlmann\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e | \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLimit One Per Customer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExtra Stars is Gregory Uhlmann’s solo debut on International Anthem. It’s a deep and gorgeous expansion of the LA-based multi-instrumentalist producer \/ composer’s rhythmic ambient side, as nascently explored in his much-lauded duo with Meg Duffy, his trio work with Josh Johnson and Sam Wilkes, and in the gentler moments of SML (the improvising trance-jazz unit of which he is a member).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA radiant sidereal serenade, the album’s fourteen miniature infinities swirl serendipitous synthesis and measured, melody-rich song into a panoramic menagerie of sound. For a record that seldom incorporates percussion instrumentals, the music is distinctly rhythm-forward, while Uhlmann also leans heavily into swaths of pastoral beauty. Extra care was clearly poured into the kind of harmonic depth that’s often missing from vibe-only “ambient” music, making for a delightfully refreshing take on the electronic, processing-heavy quiet sound.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53009678532924,"sku":"FSLP-1976","price":28.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a0100696238_0_2d4cd0de-0a6e-4848-8396-afe55563602e.jpg?v=1777055777"},{"product_id":"jeff-parker-eta-ivtet-happy-today-vinyl-lp","title":"Jeff Parker ETA IVtet ‎– Happy Today Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eHappy Today, the third album from guitarist\/bandleader Jeff Parker’s long-running ETA IVtet, was recorded live at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on August 20, 2025. This fresh entry into the IVtet’s catalog captures Parker and the band – including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, and saxophonist Josh Johnson – on record outside of the now-shuttered Highland Park micro-club ETA for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe performance also captures a distinctly joyful night of togetherness set against the backdrop of dark times. “2025 was a very difficult year for me and my family,” Parker says. “Dealing with being displaced from the Eaton fires for eight months, and the kind of toll that that instability took on my family’s mental health and general outlook, coupled with Donald Trump being back in office and basically making life miserable for everyone… There was a lot of sadness and despair. But feeling the sense of community that we created with our concert, and later hearing the recording, seeing the beautiful footage that had been shot and the photographs of such joy to be back in that space and to be making music again: It was a very happy moment. So I called the record Happy Today. It’s meant to be a statement of joy.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat joy and camaraderie found in communal space seems to be a major catalyst for the ETA IVtet’s music. The band’s audience is, somehow, an essential part of the formula. Case in point: the show at Lodge Room was actually meant to be the cherry on top of a weekend of studio sessions by the band. Those sessions were intended to be the next album released by the group, its first ever studio record. Upon listening back, though, it was clear to Parker that the Lodge Room performance was the recording that shined brightest and felt most true to the band’s spirit, harkening back to the weekly session the four musicians held at ETA for so many years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eETA was undoubtedly more than just the namesake of the band. Part laboratory, part low-stakes proving ground, it’s where the language of the IVtet’s sound percolated and coalesced over the course of an almost mythical seven-year-long Monday night residency that yielded two critically-acclaimed records—2022’s Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy and 2024’s The Way Out of Easy—and an instantly recognizable group sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHappy Today is that sound—the IVtet's signature syntax built around long-form, minimalist improvisation—expanding confidently into a larger space while creating the same hypnotizing, deeply-tuned listening effect on visibly enraptured audiences. The album contains two sidelong pieces recorded as the band performed in the round at Lodge Room, surrounded by an audience of 400 or so deep listeners. (The venue, appropriately enough, sits on the same street and just a few hundred feet away from the storefront that used to be ETA.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe drastic change in venue size, and this document in general, is representative of an expanding demand to experience this band live that has been surging for years, starting with the release of their debut album Mondays. For the subsequent, final year that ETA was open, there would typically be a line down the block on Monday evenings, with far more people trying to catch the show than the club could hold. Even if you could get inside the building, given the limited capacity, the IVtet was a difficult band to actually see play. Couple that with the fact that before the closure of the club in December 2023, the IVtet had never played outside of Los Angeles. Access to the live experience had been extremely limited, and that has seemed to feed a sense of mystery and allure around the band’s music for the many fans of Mondays and The Way Out of Easy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn paper, the IVtet’s growing audience is something of a conundrum. After all, minimal longform improvisation is likely the precise antithesis of streaming-centered content culture. Despite that, at the show that produced Happy Today, as with any IVtet show, the audience willingly settles into and accepts the band’s pace as they iron out a story which digs deeply into every facet of an idea before investigating a new one. Here the attention economy feels lightyears away, the crowd instead surrendering to that old and very human penchant for listening. With open ears, the crowd stands ready for a big yarn, a long tale, and from the jump there seems to be a trust between performer and audience that mimics the trust between the musicians as they move from detail to detail.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“The band isn't afraid to explore static spaces,” says Parker. “It seems like the thing is to stay on one idea for a while. Really, for a long time. To kind of exhaust it. And then one person shifts and then the thing moves together.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“Everybody is constantly dropping crumbs and you can take them or you can leave them,” agrees Bellerose. “There are these little hints, these little moments, and everybody's aware of them.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“When it is time to change, it can change very quickly,” says Butterss. “If someone suggests a new idea, it can flip in an instant. Everyone's constantly ready to go with it if the moment calls for it.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“Like Swimwear,” the side-length opener of Happy Today, contains a quintessential example of this distinct IVtet move. The track gets off the ground slowly but deliberately, ramping up tension over the course of its first ten minutes without a moment of harmonic dissonance. The band, rather, steadily pulls at the corners of the rhythm. Here each member steps forward and backward in the sonic space to build a gleefully disorienting group cadence, where the repetitions of the individual overlap in such a trancelike way that even soloistic breaks from Parker’s electric guitar or Johnson’s effected alto sax never manage to snap the tension wire. Bellerose works deep into the rhythmic fascia, employing all manner of auxiliary percussion—strewn across his kit, tucked into his shoe, or wrapped around his legs—all without a hint of novelty. Every micro-choice comes from a place of both curiosity and confidence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then the shift: just as the thing is about to come unglued Bellerose opts into a smooth, low-register downbeat groove that Butterss has been auditioning for the previous minute or so. Parker swiftly kicks into an organ-like drone while Johnson and Butterss stay the course. It’s a series of decisions that could go any number of ways depending on the night, like running water pushing into fresh geography, moving from tributary to mainstream, past the levee and into the floodplain. There is no set path; if it went a different direction it would still be the cumulative result of the same water flowing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat is to say that there are no hard and fast rules to what the IVtet does. Defining the music, in fact, is something that the band takes special care not to do. Living in that mystery, it seems, helps to keep the path open, cleared to push into new and satisfying territory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“For me, the thing to protect is just where it started from, which was freedom and openness,” says Bellerose. “In the early days of the band Jeff was recognizing how we were all communicating within the structure of playing standards. He's one of the greatest producers I've ever worked with because he has this vision. And a big part of producing is casting—putting the right people in the room. So these shifts, they're completely natural within these improvised pieces that we do because the foundation was there and Jeff knew it. He had already noticed the communication within the band, but wanted to really push it further.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe key to Parker’s push lies in the generosity to step back, to allow each member an equal voice, and to de-center himself. What we hear on Happy Today is an egalitarian group sound by design, curious and intuitive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“Everybody's listening in a way where it's not always like ‘I'm going to go with you’,” says Johnson. “But it's always ‘I hear you’. And sometimes it's ‘I hear you and I'm going to stay here and allow the tension of these two things to exist for a while before maybe joining you.’ But the thing that's cool is that everybody’s hearing it. Because of the time that we've spent together there’s a maturity to the listening—a very special version of deep listening.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“The number of times that we've talked about the music is so few compared to the years and years of playing,” Johnson continues. “I think that's one of the really beautiful things about the band—how organically the way that we play together has come about and evolved over time. Definitely on brand for the music that the band makes too. Slowly evolving, long form development.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“I learned how to improvise in this band,” reveals Butterss, astonishingly. “I didn't really play improvised music before. So my whole approach to improvisation has been shaped by playing with Jeff, Jay, and Josh. It is a band and it has its own language. I think you could drop the needle on any of the recordings and people would be able to say ‘that's the quartet.’ It's very distinctive and it's developed very organically. We have never talked about it, I don't think.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e“That's our band,” says Parker of “Like Swimwear,” almost with an outsider’s sense of fascination at the recording. He seems to feel the same enchantment and surprise that the audience does while listening, despite being a primary part of the process. “That's it. I mean, that's what the ETA Quartet does.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt’s a blessing for this band to be so expertly documented in its naturally public, live context. The two sidelong improvisations from Lodge Room that make up Happy Today, as with the recordings that made up the IVtet’s first two albums, are beautifully rendered by engineer Bryce Gonzales—recorded and mixed live, direct to a Nagra tape machine utilizing a compact outboard rig that he built himself, specifically to record this band. Much like the thumbprint originality coming from the players themselves, Gonzales’ capture of the music is its own signature, his mixes a form of sound improvisation themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA major addition to this particular presentation is the full album length film by Charlie Weinmann, documenting the band's performance of Happy Today at Lodge Room, which will be released in tandem with the album. A shadow-laden, almost noirlike capture of the band in its full sprawling glory, Weinmann’s camera makes the joyful reality of seeing the IVtet at work widely accessible for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith Happy Today the reach of Parker’s IVtet extends further than ever before, but the essential formula, if there is one, remains the same. The anchor seems to be in variations on an almost alchemical communication—a feeling of connection between band members, sure, but also between the band and the audience. It’s an ongoing trust exercise, born organically in the corner of a small room in Los Angeles and flowing outward at exactly its own natural pace. It’s social music with a clear ability to move those willing to listen. Happy Today is an invitation to become part of the exchange and experience the joy of deep listening.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53009809342780,"sku":"FSLP-1978","price":27.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a0999850971_0.jpg?v=1777059766"},{"product_id":"whitney-johnson-lia-kohl-macie-stewart-body-sound-signed-copies-vinyl-lp","title":"Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart - Body Sound Vinyl LP (Signed Copies)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCopies Signed By \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eWhitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e | \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLimit One Per Customer\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart are a trio who utilize string instruments, voices, and manual tape effect processing to craft compositions from alternately tranquil and disquieting improvised music. The three musicians are individually rooted in deep sound exploration, multi-disciplinary composition, and all manner of cross-genre collaboration. The musical ground covered by their solo practices is correspondingly expansive, and their individual recording and performance credits read as a veritable who’s who, ranging from DIY darlings to household names of experimental avant-garde, electronic, indie rock, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe trio’s collective sound is based in improvisation—automatic, intuitive composition via their three voices and three string instruments (viola, cello, and violin, respectively). Their influences are vast—dispatched with more playful ease than a trio of string instruments is typically approached with, and just as likely to be found in the cloud-obscured mountains of Donegal, the low-rent cacophony of a midwestern basement, or the revelatory expanse of the Nurse With Wound list as in the storied halls of the academy. Touchstones and areas of interest aside, the main thing that Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart engage with in BODY SOUND is listening and reacting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Improvisation has a special capacity to facilitate a kind of sonic intimacy,” says Kohl. “We're making choices together in the moment. We're creating time together before thought enters the equation. It's an incredibly intimate and intuitive space to share, and feels like the heart center of this music and this practice.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe trio’s approach to improvisation is very much embedded in and informed by their Chicago music community. The city’s ongoing improvised music tradition, which can envelop every genre imaginable, is one where a working musician’s ideas can evolve at a near-constant pace and where anything can be explored in the name of sound. And with sound, there’s always space to consider.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhere will the improvisation take place?\u003cbr\u003eHow will that space shape the sounds being made?\u003cbr\u003eHow will that sound resonate in the dim light of a small neighborhood bar?\u003cbr\u003eHow will it sound in the chromatic refractions of an ornate church?\u003cbr\u003eCan it feel different-yet-equally perfect?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart the answer to the last question is yes, definitely.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStewart: Our quest as a crew is to explore space and every iteration of what that can mean, be it physical space, emotional space, sonic space, etc. Space is an instrument.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJohnson: It’s more than the acoustic properties of the recording spaces. Our bodies, emotions, and relationships show up in those spaces with affordances and limitations for the music each time. We are vibrating beings, sensitive and expressive, an amoeba of physical and psychic pressures with specific resonances in time and space.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKohl: The space we’re in always feels like a collaborator in this trio more than in other contexts. I can always feel us all responding to where we are and the resonances that live there.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn BODY SOUND, the trio worked with International Anthem engineer and album co-producer Dave Vettraino to translate the sonic specificities of three recording locations: International Anthem studios on Iron Street (Chicago), Shirk Studios (Chicago), and Boyd’s Jig and Reel (Knoxville, TN, as part of Big Ears Festival). Vettraino also brought a deep knowledge of tape manipulation and a willingness to experiment. “All it took was for one of us to say, ‘What if that was a loop?’, and he was already setting up the reel-to-reel,” says Johnson of the album’s post-production, which leaned heavily into their shared love of saturated tape sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat trust, it seems, was already there. In addition to the communal criss-cross inherent in sharing their Chicago home base, the trio worked with Vettraino on Stewart’s 2025 solo effort When the Distance Is Blue. It was her debut on International Anthem but far from her first appearance in the label’s catalog as a player. Ditto for Kohl and Johnson, whose collaboration and friendship with the label goes back years. Taken as a whole, we could argue that this most recent collaboration, the tape-manipulated fried beauty documented on BODY SOUND, has been a long time coming.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the context of this work, tape sound is much more than a mixing treatment or a production tactic. Here Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart are using variations on the medium to edit and reshape the pieces themselves, employing multiple analog tape machines to reimagine their improvised material into meticulously crafted compositions (“another layer of improvisation,” says Stewart). It’s all a response to the spaces they were originally engaged with, and the use of a highly physical medium like analog tape deepens the spatial engagement of the trio’s work to striking, playful, and organically psychedelic effect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe resultant BODY SOUND is deep, melancholy, and triumphant, coming across like a kind of lost or amalgamated folk music. It’s certainly part of an ongoing creative continuum, even boasting track titles adapted from Yoko Ono’s classic book of text scores Grapefruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album’s opener “dawn | pulse” puts a morning drone at the threshold of their sound world. This undulating slow roller is a free time drift of bowed tonal clusters respiring in long, melodic swells, and unfurling among wordless singing. Despite the time marker in the title, this piece feels suitable for any part of the day—the morning stretch skyward, the afternoon ambling respite, or the late-nite chillout. Both majorly serene and deceptively avant garde, “dawn | pulse” is a perfect entrée into BODY SOUND.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“laundry | blood” begins with a near-waltz percussive tumble created by a tape loop of Kohl’s barrette-prepared cello. Its soft and eerie triplet propels a deep and snarling viola-cello-violin drone forward à la the doomiest moments of the Berlin School canon or the repetitive outsider glory of Tony Conrad \u0026amp; Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate. It’s a darkly cinematic take on the ambient ideal for the scarcely visible slow-moving night train chug. You can almost see it roll by.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSome moments feel intentionally disconnected from the performance, instead tied more closely to the concept of LP format listenership: the disintegrated melodic pumps and clomps of “chewing gum”, the body shaking radiator hiss come-apart of “snow | touch”, the otherworldly bass and sub-bass of “stone | piece”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the album’s 11 tracks, each piece manages to keep a foot in both worlds. “burning | counting (sleeping)” begins abruptly with massive bursts of heavily-bowed sawtooth strings looping in real time, creating a near-synthetic feeling. Deep stutter-step freneticism, tape-manipulated and rendered into overlapping moments of dense psychedelia give way to an oncoming long-note tranquility—an improvised cacophony evoking some long dissipated storm-paced Irish folk drone more so than a New Music exercise or a study of Kronos \/ Reich.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that seems to be the story with all of the material within BODY SOUND. It’s music with inexplicably broad appeal while maintaining a sort of mysterious outsider quality. Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart have created a stunning album—an exquisitely textured, spatially vivid, wordlessly expressive, sonically multitudinous collection—that manages to decode a slew of high level concepts while clearly and directly speaking to the human impulse. BODY SOUND is right.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53025495286076,"sku":"FSLP-2007","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a1705246381_0_5c62ba65-28b2-4a8a-8f81-263d9f082287.jpg?v=1777561022"},{"product_id":"macie-stewart-when-the-distance-is-blue-vinyl-lp-signed-copies","title":"Macie Stewart - When The Distance Is Blue Vinyl LP (Signed Copies)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen the Distance is Blue is Macie Stewart’s International Anthem debut. The Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser describes the album as “a love letter to the moments we spend in-between,” realized through a deliberate return to piano—her first instrument and the root of her creative expression. Stewart crafts a cinematic and striking work through collages of prepared piano, field recordings, and string quartet compositions, creating a transient universe that traces the arc of her musical past.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRenowned for her versatility, Stewart is a sought-after collaborator across genres, performing strings for Makaya McCraven and Japanese Breakfast, singing harmonies with Tweedy, arranging for Alabaster DePlume, Resavoir, Mannequin Pussy, and SZA, and co-leading the art-rock duo Finom with Sima Cunningham. On When the Distance is Blue, she unites these threads into a contemplative eight-piece song cycle with contributions from Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson (Matchesse), and Zach Moore. The result is an album whose musical language sits between Alvin Curran’s Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden and Claire Rousay’s A Softer Focus.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53029624512828,"sku":"FSLP-2018","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a2784680489_0_3aaf7059-dac7-4f0d-96df-1df7345c3ac4.jpg?v=1777757308"},{"product_id":"makaya-mccraven-in-these-times-vinyl-lp","title":"Makaya McCraven - In These Times Vinyl LP","description":"\u003cp\u003eVinyl LP pressing. 2022 release. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E\u0026amp;F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature \"organic beat music\" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53052558278972,"sku":"FSLP-2038","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/Makaya_McCraven_-_In_These_Times_Indie_Exclusive_Ivory_Vinyl_Vinyl_LP.webp?v=1754958972"},{"product_id":"whitney-johnson-lia-kohl-macie-stewart-body-sound-vinyl-lp","title":"Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart - Body Sound Vinyl LP","description":"Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart are a trio who utilize string instruments, voices, and manual tape effect processing to craft compositions from alternately tranquil and disquieting improvised music. The three musicians are individually rooted in deep sound exploration, multi-disciplinary composition, and all manner of cross-genre collaboration. The musical ground covered by their solo practices is correspondingly expansive, and their individual recording and performance credits read as a veritable who’s who, ranging from DIY darlings to household names of experimental avant-garde, electronic, indie rock, and more.\n\nThe trio’s collective sound is based in improvisation—automatic, intuitive composition via their three voices and three string instruments (viola, cello, and violin, respectively). Their influences are vast—dispatched with more playful ease than a trio of string instruments is typically approached with, and just as likely to be found in the cloud-obscured mountains of Donegal, the low-rent cacophony of a midwestern basement, or the revelatory expanse of the Nurse With Wound list as in the storied halls of the academy. Touchstones and areas of interest aside, the main thing that Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart engage with in BODY SOUND is listening and reacting.\n\n“Improvisation has a special capacity to facilitate a kind of sonic intimacy,” says Kohl. “We're making choices together in the moment. We're creating time together before thought enters the equation. It's an incredibly intimate and intuitive space to share, and feels like the heart center of this music and this practice.”\n\nThe trio’s approach to improvisation is very much embedded in and informed by their Chicago music community. The city’s ongoing improvised music tradition, which can envelop every genre imaginable, is one where a working musician’s ideas can evolve at a near-constant pace and where anything can be explored in the name of sound. And with sound, there’s always space to consider.\n\nWhere will the improvisation take place?\nHow will that space shape the sounds being made?\nHow will that sound resonate in the dim light of a small neighborhood bar?\nHow will it sound in the chromatic refractions of an ornate church?\nCan it feel different-yet-equally perfect?\n\nFor Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart the answer to the last question is yes, definitely.\n\nStewart: Our quest as a crew is to explore space and every iteration of what that can mean, be it physical space, emotional space, sonic space, etc. Space is an instrument.\n\nJohnson: It’s more than the acoustic properties of the recording spaces. Our bodies, emotions, and relationships show up in those spaces with affordances and limitations for the music each time. We are vibrating beings, sensitive and expressive, an amoeba of physical and psychic pressures with specific resonances in time and space.\n\nKohl: The space we’re in always feels like a collaborator in this trio more than in other contexts. I can always feel us all responding to where we are and the resonances that live there.”\n\nOn BODY SOUND, the trio worked with International Anthem engineer and album co-producer Dave Vettraino to translate the sonic specificities of three recording locations: International Anthem studios on Iron Street (Chicago), Shirk Studios (Chicago), and Boyd’s Jig and Reel (Knoxville, TN, as part of Big Ears Festival). Vettraino also brought a deep knowledge of tape manipulation and a willingness to experiment. “All it took was for one of us to say, ‘What if that was a loop?’, and he was already setting up the reel-to-reel,” says Johnson of the album’s post-production, which leaned heavily into their shared love of saturated tape sounds.\n\nThat trust, it seems, was already there. In addition to the communal criss-cross inherent in sharing their Chicago home base, the trio worked with Vettraino on Stewart’s 2025 solo effort When the Distance Is Blue. It was her debut on International Anthem but far from her first appearance in the label’s catalog as a player. Ditto for Kohl and Johnson, whose collaboration and friendship with the label goes back years. Taken as a whole, we could argue that this most recent collaboration, the tape-manipulated fried beauty documented on BODY SOUND, has been a long time coming.\n\nIn the context of this work, tape sound is much more than a mixing treatment or a production tactic. Here Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart are using variations on the medium to edit and reshape the pieces themselves, employing multiple analog tape machines to reimagine their improvised material into meticulously crafted compositions (“another layer of improvisation,” says Stewart). It’s all a response to the spaces they were originally engaged with, and the use of a highly physical medium like analog tape deepens the spatial engagement of the trio’s work to striking, playful, and organically psychedelic effect.\n\nThe resultant BODY SOUND is deep, melancholy, and triumphant, coming across like a kind of lost or amalgamated folk music. It’s certainly part of an ongoing creative continuum, even boasting track titles adapted from Yoko Ono’s classic book of text scores Grapefruit.\n\nThe album’s opener “dawn | pulse” puts a morning drone at the threshold of their sound world. This undulating slow roller is a free time drift of bowed tonal clusters respiring in long, melodic swells, and unfurling among wordless singing. Despite the time marker in the title, this piece feels suitable for any part of the day—the morning stretch skyward, the afternoon ambling respite, or the late-nite chillout. Both majorly serene and deceptively avant garde, “dawn | pulse” is a perfect entrée into BODY SOUND.\n\n“laundry | blood” begins with a near-waltz percussive tumble created by a tape loop of Kohl’s barrette-prepared cello. Its soft and eerie triplet propels a deep and snarling viola-cello-violin drone forward à la the doomiest moments of the Berlin School canon or the repetitive outsider glory of Tony Conrad \u0026amp; Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate. It’s a darkly cinematic take on the ambient ideal for the scarcely visible slow-moving night train chug. You can almost see it roll by.\n\nSome moments feel intentionally disconnected from the performance, instead tied more closely to the concept of LP format listenership: the disintegrated melodic pumps and clomps of “chewing gum”, the body shaking radiator hiss come-apart of “snow | touch”, the otherworldly bass and sub-bass of “stone | piece”.\n\nAcross the album’s 11 tracks, each piece manages to keep a foot in both worlds. “burning | counting (sleeping)” begins abruptly with massive bursts of heavily-bowed sawtooth strings looping in real time, creating a near-synthetic feeling. Deep stutter-step freneticism, tape-manipulated and rendered into overlapping moments of dense psychedelia give way to an oncoming long-note tranquility—an improvised cacophony evoking some long dissipated storm-paced Irish folk drone more so than a New Music exercise or a study of Kronos \/ Reich.\n\nAnd that seems to be the story with all of the material within BODY SOUND. It’s music with inexplicably broad appeal while maintaining a sort of mysterious outsider quality. Johnson, Kohl, and Stewart have created a stunning album—an exquisitely textured, spatially vivid, wordlessly expressive, sonically multitudinous collection—that manages to decode a slew of high level concepts while clearly and directly speaking to the human impulse. BODY SOUND is right.","brand":"Finer Sounds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53055272157500,"sku":"FSLP-2039","price":24.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/files\/a1705246381_0_299db116-40d8-4720-9667-4b7e1446de68.jpg?v=1778691484"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0923\/5320\/0444\/collections\/Finer_Sounds_Script_255f3bee-86ed-4e5d-82fa-d2ad993a7ad9.png?v=1759698282","url":"https:\/\/finersounds.com\/collections\/international-anthem.oembed?page=3","provider":"Finer Sounds","version":"1.0","type":"link"}