Angel Bat Dawid
Transition East
Now Available
Transition East
What people Are Saying
“Two mystic and burning cuts from Angel Bat Dawid following in the glistening wake of her hugely acclaimed debut album ‘The Oracle’”
– Boomkat
“…transcendent and compelling.”
Announcing IMRC0032: Angel Bat Dawid - Transition East
Released May 12, 2020
Available on 7” Vinyl/Digital via our Bandcamp page
Transition East features two new pieces of music created by Angel Bat Dawid in response to Emma Warren's 2019 book Make Some Space – i.e. the book that chronicles the history of London DIY music institution Total Refreshment Centre.
Angel Bat Dawid, who first met Emma Warren at Total Refreshment Centre in 2017, composed & recorded "Transition East" alone in her space on the Southside of Chicago, originally to be an accompaniment for the audiobook version of Make Some Space. Angel conceptualized & named “Transition East” in commemoration of the storied Chicago community center that was a hub for the AACM and icons from the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, and was recently revived by one of her mentors, Eliel Sherman Storey.
"No Space Fo Us" was composed & recorded at a space in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where Angel travelled with a crew of Chicago artists (including IARC label mates Ben LaMar Gay & Damon Locks) on a collaborative mission called Close to There (Perto de Lá). The track features Angel with Ben LaMar Gay and new Brazilian friends Edbrass Brasil, Romulo Alexis, Tadeu Mascarenhas, Nancy Viégas & Germano Estacio.
"No Space Fo Us" was composed & recorded at a space in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where Angel travelled with a crew of Chicago artists (including IARC label mates Ben LaMar Gay & Damon Locks) on a collaborative mission called Close to There (Perto de Lá). The track features Angel with Ben LaMar Gay and new Brazilian friends Edbrass Brasil, Romulo Alexis, Tadeu Mascarenhas, Nancy Viégas & Germano Estacio.
Transition East is available directly from IARC as part of the MAKE SOME SPACE FOR US bundle – alongside Emma Warren's "Make Some Space" paperback and a new "foreward" in the form of a screed written by Piotr Orlov (connecting the book & the music into the current context of our spaceless/timeless struggle) printed on a 17" x 22" broadsheet (also designed by Jeremiah Chiu).
Notes
"Transition East"
Angel Bat Dawid - clarinets, keys, drum machine
Composed & Arranged by Angel Bat Dawid.
Recorded & Mixed by Angel Bat Dawid
at the Radcliffe Hunter Historic Mansion,
Bronzeville, Chicago, USA,
September 2019.
Produced by Angel Bat Dawid.
Mastered by David Allen.
"No Space Fo Us"
Angel Bat Dawid - piano, clarinet
Ben LaMar Gay - cornet
Romulo Alexis - pocket trumpet
Tadeu Mascarenhas - bass
Edbrass Brasil - percussion
Nancy Viégas - percussion
Germano Estacio - percussion
Composed & Arranged by Angel Bat Dawid.
Recorded & Mixed by Tadeu Mascarenhas
at Estúdio Casa das Máquinas, Salvador, Bahia, Brasil,
February 2020.
Produced by Edbrass Brasil.
Mastered by David Allen.
Design by Jeremiah Chiu.
Photo by Scott McNiece.
All rights reserved
About Angel Bat Dawid
Born to missionaries in Atlanta, Angel Bat Dawid grew up moving as her parent’s ministry mandated. From Georgia to Kentucky and Kenya, the family finally settled in Chicago’s south suburbs where she would go on to study clarinet and music education. In 2014, Bat Dawid recommitted herself to a life in music. Giving up her day job, she followed in-roads through Chicago’s creative music community with touchstones like David Boykin’s Sonic Healing Ministries sessions and Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble. She soon formed her own improvisationally-focused collective, The Participatory Music Coalition, and developed a performance residency at Elastic Arts, dubbed the Mothership 9 Multimedia Series. Inspired by everything from the poetry of Margaret Burroughs to Yusef Lateef and even Mozart, Bat Dawid made her debut, The Oracle, with International Anthem in 2019. Eschewing conventional labels, she describes her work in no uncertain terms: "This is Black music.” On The Oracle, she echoes ancestral agonies through blues and spirituals, a conversion theory she attributes to the late Milford Graves. When asked what’s next, Bat Dawid is lucid. “I have really big artistic goals and hope to expand compositionally. I’ve always wanted to write a symphony and I’m really interested in film scoring.” A new voice has rumbled forth with clarity and intention from Chicago’s Southside, reminding us that the past is still present and the future is full of radical hope.