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MOOR MOTHER & NICOLE MITCHELL Release Improvised Live Performance
Posted on June 1st, 2020

Moor Mother and Nicole Mitchell, longtime admirers of each others' work as conceptual artists, converged for a singular live improvised performance at the Le Guess Who? Festival, which Moor Mother curated, in Utrecht NL in 2018. Today, Don Giovanni Records releases the audio of the performance as Offering - Live At Le Guess Who.

Shimmering columns of light will guide you, a grand synesthesia riding on a kaleidoscope, oscillating between hushed moments, where sound unfolds the firmament, unfurled like a cloak upon the shoulders of the real world. Listen: this is not a “track”, a circular appendage looped around a spindle and activated by some muscular stone on stylus. Too many people bled for the diamond there, too many questions remain trapped in the groove. What to do then, besides move the listener beyond the traps of expected sonics and into a menagerie, away from the strange hook of the promise of shelf-space or the obsessive atonal drone of, in fact, obsession? Here it is: live on wax, as it were, a breathing, living thing, pulsating on its own, lifting into the ether to announce itself, to nestle into the crevices of your dusty IKEA storage units. Move this mysticism in!

There is a traditional, ancient magic embedded in the dusty spaces surrounding Moor Mother's afro-retrofuturist tech-jazz, amongst the noise emblazoned with phoenix fire screeds. She is an Orisha willing to embrace a foreboding cyberpunk narrative informed by Born In Flames and Space is the Place, if it will free you, the traveller, the future mystic, from a carbon-rusted sheath, so that you, a sword on fire, may burn. “How do we get it back?” Empowering these ideas are dream drones, ghosts on soundwaves burst through her instruments like a poltergeist-- Nicole Mitchell conjures at her cauldron, uninhibited by the specter of spectacle, by the post-academia, five-stars-and-an-Eventbrite-link-industrial complex.

“See the vultures laughing? See the hawk circling? Have you been walking around with open eyes?” they say here, in a song. These are whispered bombs under the breath of a gamelan, an accoustic soundsystem-- pleading, longing, for your specific liberation. Make a home for this magic!

Traveler, spirit, sage-- your hand holds the physical, time-stamped documentation of the first collaboration between two mystics, the inimitable poet and noise musician Moor Mother and the indefatigable flautist and composer Nicole Mitchell. These two artists, diviners truthfully, spent a few years basking in the sun-spilled glow of each other's radiance from a distance before colliding and colluding musically at the Moor Mother curated Le Guess Who Festival in Utrech, the Netherlands in 2018. That is the performance captured here, then chip-tagged, cataloged and released into the wild.



Painted Zeros New Single "I Will Try" Out Now, When You Found Forever LP out 5/29 on Don Giovanni
Posted on May 27th, 2020

This Friday, May 29 Don Giovanni Records will release When You Found Forever, the second full-length by Painted Zeros. Today, you can hear the new single, "I Will Try."

"I Will Try" is the album's third single and is more upbeat and poppier than the previous released tracks, despite its introspective subject matter. The vocal hooks are belted, not whispered, and the song ends with intricately finger-tapped guitar lead melodies, Lau herself calling the song a "weirdo anthem".



When You Found Forever documents a turning point for Lau both artistically and personally. It’s the first album she’s released since becoming sober three years ago. Regarding the lyrical content of "I Will Try," Lau states that she "wrote this song channeling the feeling of gratitude I have for what really feels like getting a second chance at life thanks to getting sober, and getting on the other side of a difficult time onto a path of emotional/mental health in general. Now, every day I wake, I'm just trying to do the right thing, live an honest, useful life, and trying to help others however I can. When I was still drinking and using, life had become so dark and miserable, and now, being in recovery for three years, my life has changed beyond recognition; it's better than I ever could have imagined it could be."

The song is available on all streaming platforms now, and shareable link is here.

Album pre-order here: http://dongiovanni.co/whenyoufoundforever



WATCH: Paisley Fields - "The Other Boys" Music Video
Posted on May 13th, 2020

"Electric Park Ballroom is a scruffy, over-the-top, cabaret country affair. (Paisley) makes mischievous use of down-home symbolism... upending the conventions of stoic, range-riding masculinity with winking, queer flirtation." - NPR Music

Wed. May 13: Nashville/Brooklyn-based songwriter Paisley Fields has released a new music video for the song "The Other Boys." This is the third single to be released from his forthcoming LP, Electric Park Ballroom, out June 5th via Don Giovanni Records.

Fields is a country singer with an eclectic background -- a taiko drummer, a Manhattan piano bar survivor, and touring member of foundational queer country outfit, Lavender Country.

Last week, NPR featured Fields' single "Ride Me Cowboy" in their Nashville Roundup, saying "Electric Park Ballroom is a scruffy, over-the-top, cabaret country affair. (Paisley) makes mischievous use of down-home symbolism... upending the conventions of stoic, range-riding masculinity with winking, queer flirtation."

Album Pre-Order: http://dongiovanni.co/electricparkballroom

Reflecting on the song and its video's conception, Fields said "When I was a kid I would stay over at my Grandma's house on some weekends. We would watch the Golden Girls, eat ice cream, drink tea, and she would let me try on her jewelry. One day I came to visit and she had a present for me that she said I could just keep at her house. It was my own pair of clip-on earrings. My Grandma has always been my biggest supporter. When I came out to her she said "Oh I knew that a long time ago." I filmed this video with my husband while in quarantine in Brooklyn. He doesn't work in the creative field at all, so it was really special for us to work together on this project. I'm so glad he was able to meet and get to know my Grandma before she passed away a few years ago. I like to think she's looking down on us now, and if she could see this I know she'd be proud."


Moor Jewelry - True Opera out now!!
Posted on April 20th, 2020

Out today, True Opera is a full-length collaboration between producers Moor Mother and Mental Jewelry.

Moor Jewelry’s 2017 EP Crime Waves was a work focused largely on electronic instruments and computer-based composition.

On True Opera, the duo took a different approach -- exploring the visceral, physical punk music that the duo grew up listening to.

The tracks were improvised in the recording studio during two sessions. Mental Jewelry played drums and bass. Moor Mother performed guitar and vocals. Later, they were joined by drummer Philip Price (Kayo Dot).

“We grew up going to punk shows and playing in punk bands,” explains Steve Montenegro (Mental Jewelry). “We missed the energy of playing instruments live together. On a computer everything is accounted for. This has all of the imperfections and flubs -- it’s more of a direct conduit.”

“I think -- at least for me, for people my age -- there was a shift away from punk rock. At a certain point, you started getting into other music,” he says. “Now I’m like, ‘Crass was right about everything’.”

Listen/order limited tape


Paisley Fields - Electric Park Ballroom out June 5th!
Posted on April 15th, 2020

Out June 5th, Electric Park Ballroom is the second full-length and Don Giovanni Records debut by Paisley Fields.

Active since 2013, Fields is a singer, songwriter, and bandleader splitting time between Brooklyn, New York and Nashville, Tennessee. He writes country music. His songs are tender and authentic, but also pretty quick with a joke. They’re mindful of tradition, but deeply informed by his singular background.

Raised in the Midwest, Fields spent his teenage years playing piano at church, detasseling corn, and pulling shifts at Dollar Tree. He ultimately skipped town to become a world traveler, a proficient taiko drummer, and a Manhattan piano bar survivor who has co-written songs for RuPaul’s Drag Race stars (“Purse First” and “Feeling is Mutual”). Fields is a touring member of the pioneering queer country outfit Lavender Country and can also read your tarot.

The stories on Electric Park Ballroom are his, but the feelings they convey -- love, loneliness, lust, and so on -- are, hopefully, still universal.

PRE-ORDER NOW

Bad Bad Hats announce new album!
Posted on March 5th, 2024

Sug Daniels "When I'm Gone" OUT NOW!
Posted on March 3rd, 2023

Rodeo Boys - Home Movies out June 16th!
Posted on February 21st, 2023

Announcing our 2023 SXSW Showcase
Posted on January 20th, 2023

Franz Nicolay - New River out November 11th
Posted on September 14th, 2022

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Posted on September 6th, 2022