*new single*

Asher Gamedze - "Sometimes I Think To Myself"

We're only a month out from the release of Cape Town based drummer/composer Asher Gamedze's new album Turbulence and Pulse and the moment is marked with a MIGHTY new single – "Sometimes I Think To Myself" – which is available to stream on all digital music platforms today.

The track features astonishing, fire-breathing vocals from Julian 'Deacon' Otis, whom Asher began collaborating with as a member of Angel Bat Dawid’s live band Tha Brothahood (as heard on Angel's 2020 double LP LIVE).

Asher sums this single up with: “Heartbreak and empty pockets.”

Listen.

preview & pre-order

Turbulence & Pulse Documentary Film

Also out today: a documentary film directed by Dylan Valley which features Asher in conversation with two of his close collaborator/mentors – the revolutionaries/scholars Leigh-Ann Naidoo and Marcus Solomon – exploring the album's themes between studio footage and the coastal scenery of Cape Town in South Africa.

Asher says "Leigh-Ann and Marcus are two amongst the many people who have taught me a lot about politics and living a principled and committed, radical life. What I have learnt with and from them, and others who I have organised with and think with regularly, has shaped how I want to be in the world, and what I want to do in the world, and this in turn shapes my orientation to music. This is one of the ways in which what is outside of the music, actually informs and directs the music's intention in my practice."

Director Dylan Valley says: "This film is a true collaboration between Asher and me, the filmmaker. We took the concepts and inspiration behind the album as a departure point and then improvised our approach as we found the groove, and each other. We hope you enjoy the end result as much as we enjoyed working together."

Watch.

Asher Gamedze - Turbulence and Pulse

2xLP, CD, Digital album out May 5th, 2023

Cape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out May 5th, 2023 and released in collaboration with Johannesburg-based label Mushroom Hour Half Hour.

Gamedze’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dialectic Soul was released at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Around the release of that record, with friend and writer Teju Adeleye he organized and participated in a joint online discussion “Poesis,” with historian Robin D.G. Kelley and others. One of the notable comments made in this session was by the poet and scholar Fred Moten, who described Gamedze’s drumming as an “amazing interplay between turbulence and pulse. Pulse is supposed to regulate and also be regular, but the turbulence underneath it and on top of it, it’s just extraordinary.” Moten added that this concept is a fundamental element of the percussive approach in Black music more broadly.

Turbulence and Pulse takes its title from this moment of synchronicities. Inspired by this description, Gamedze developed the metaphor further, expanding the concept of turbulence and pulse through the lens of history. “Time in music is a metaphor for thinking about time in history and how time moves,” he says. “The way we’re taught history is generally in a way that robs people of agency in imagining themselves as part of history and how it unfolds. It is something that happens to us. I think there's a productive metaphor in that because the sense of time in music is created by musicians playing together. If we can use that to think about history and time in history, you can see that, actually, history is created by people in a whole range of ways. At the heart of it, historical motion is created by people organized and acting together, whether for progressive or reactionary ends.”

For Gamedze, the underlying message of Turbulence and Pulse is “to claim a form of historical agency and realize that the future is not a foregone conclusion. As people we can organize, to transform our world in small and big ways.” This concept comes out of Gamedze’s involvement in radical cultural work and political organizing. He adds: “One of the ideas that I've had for a long time is to unsettle the way that people think about culture as something static or as something fixed. There’s this tension in Africa, because of the way that the colonists have constructed visions of African culture, where people speak about this need to conserve culture and document it. I think that's important, but you also have to understand that these things are moving. And we are the people who have to participate in that movement.”

For this new record, Gamedze worked with the same musicians as Dialectic Soul, wanting to develop the sound further with those players. Joining Gamedze is Thembinkosi Mavimbela on bass, Buddy Wells on tenor saxophone, and Robbin Fassie on trumpet. Vocalist Julian Otis guests on a track - a good friend whom he met through Angel Bat Dawid’s band. “I chose these musicians specifically because I know that they’re open to understanding and interpreting the music from my perspective and my way of working.”

The LP, CD, and digital download versions of Turbulence and Pulse feature three additional tracks – alternate versions of “Melancholia,” “If It Rains. To Pursue Truth,” and “Out Stepped Zim” – all recorded in December 2020 on a rooftop in Cairo, Egypt, by Gamedze with his Another Time Ensemble featuring Cairo-based musicians Maurice Louca (synthesizers), Adham Zidan (bass), Alan Bishop (alto saxophone, voice), and Chérif El-Masri (guitar).

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*Deluxe Vinyl Package*

One Drop color vinyl

For the album artwork, Gamedze extends the visual aesthetic of his previous release with a hand-drawn illustration. “I feel like my drawings represent the inside of my mind. It’s very free and improvisational,” he says. Friend and designer Naadira Patel worked with Gamedze to design the final cover layout, which includes liner notes penned by his sister, writer and artist Thuli Gamedze.

Turbulence & Pulse comes on two limited edition "One Drop" color vinyl LPs inside a heavyweight gatefold jacket with obi strip and custom IARC/MH3 printer inner-sleeves. Lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST and pressed at Pallas in Germany. And as always, we will have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only, available via our Bandcamp page only.

Order a Copy via Bandcamp

Distribution via RedEye for
US, Canada, North & South America

Retailers in the United States or Canada or anywhere else inside of North, South, and Central America... Please reach out to your sales rep at RedEye Worldwide if you are interested in making wholesale purchases of this album, or any other album in our catalog. Don't yet have a RedEye rep? Please just reach out to us and we'll get you hooked up!

Distribution via !K7 for
Europe, UK, Australia, and ROW

We are distributed by our good friends at !K7 Music and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Australia, and everywhere else in the world outside of North & South America.

If you are a retailer or store with questions about wholesale or are just looking to get some of our records... we'd like to make things as easy for you as possible, please do not hesitate to contact us!

Turbulence and Pulse is the first collaborative release (of hopefully many) with the Johannesburg-based label Mushroom Hour Half Hour. This crew is a major inspiration for all of us here at IARC – definitely recommend keeping an eye out for any and all of their LPs !!!