"On falling" - new Bex Burch music, mini documentary, and upcoming shows in UK & EU
((( photo by Fabian Brennecke )))
Bex Burch - "On falling"
Today, composer, percussionist, producer and instrument maker Bex Burch shares “On falling," the latest lead single from her forthcoming International Anthem debut There is only love and fear.
Recorded to analogue tape by engineer/percussionist Ben Lumsdaine at Chicali Outpost in Los Angeles, "On falling" is a trio ballad featuring delicate sanza playing by Burch, who anchors the piece in rhythmic conversation with droplets of water, while the lead voice is played by emotive piano chords from Diego Gaeta.
Gaeta recalls: "This piece arrived in the moment, drenched in sunlight, at a point where the peaceful entities within the group improv fell into place such that a special jazzy lullaby was created. Listening back, after it was created, the three of us: Ben, Bex and myself felt such a giddy, safe, warm feeling similar to that of a tender moment at a house party of deep communal acceptance and love felt in a close conversation."
As Burch describes it: “'On falling' was a phrase from a friend Emilyn Claid, and this came to me in a moment in Scottie and Chess’s home in LA, a real domestic moment: They had given me a bird bath to hold water so I could play a water drum as part of my setup. While we were playing that day, the bath started leaking, and I turned the microphone down to focus where my ears were focused: the water drops. I love how sounds and rhythm and noises can affect music, I feel like we continuously interact even if it’s unconscious - our unknown participation in my duet with the water drops.”
There is only love and fear
Mini Documentary Out Now
Invited to spend a month in the US by International Anthem in Summer 2022, UK-born, Berlin-based artist Bex Burch brought her hand-made xylophone and immersed herself in the label’s creative community - listening to what it gave her, making field recordings, and allowing There is only love and fear to emerge from the collaborations and environments she encountered.
Sessions for the album spanned multiple non-traditional recording spaces including a storefront in Bridgeport, Chicago and a canyon in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, with an eminent cast of creative musicians including Ben LaMar Gay, Macie Stewart, Anna Butterss, Mikel Patrick Avery, Ben Lumsdaine, and Dan Bitney of Tortoise, all of whom Burch met for the first time in the moments before they played.
A load of footage and photographs were taken by Burch's collaborators and hosts between Chicago and Los Angeles, and have been beautifully edited together into an illuminating There is only love and fear mini documentary by David Burkart, with interview footage shot in Berlin in 2023 by Fabian Brennecke.
((( photo by Chris Almeida )))
"Messy minimalist" composer, producer, percussionist, instrument maker... her restless creativity and desire to embrace new musical challenges across a range of percussive instruments have led to collaborations with a diverse range of artists such as Peter Zummo, Kuljit Bhamra, Tamar Osborn, Leafcutter John, Mariá Portugal, Tony Buck and Evelyn Glennie. Her recorded music with Boing!, Flock and her celebrated band Vula Viel has seen her straddle the divergent worlds of minimalism, post punk, and improvisation with equal success.
IARC0064
Bex Burch
There is only love and fear
LP, CD, Digital album out October 20th, 2023
Over 12 dream-like instrumental incantations, Bex Burch creates a delicate and elegiac atmosphere. The fluid sonic whole is woven together by the physical and spiritual resonance of her xylophone, and the autobiographical sounds she recorded in her journeys between. It’s a quintessential development of Burch’s self-described “messy minimalist” approach, recalling the ingenuity of Moondog, the open improvisational atmospheres of Carlos Niño, the obtuse arrangements of early Sun Ra Arkestra, and the neorealist aural storytelling of contemporaries like Claire Rousay, Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer.
There is only love and fear is a dynamic, soft-spoken and subtly arresting masterpiece.
Deluxe Vinyl Package
There is only love and fear comes on a 140-gram vinyl LP (lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST, pressed by Pallas in Germany) inside a heavyweight matte jacket (design by Jeremiah Chiu), with IARC obi strip and dome-patterned inner-sleeves.
And, as always, we have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only, available via our Bandcamp page only, which is 555 copies of *Brother Sun* color vinyl.
Distribution via RedEye for US, Canada, North & South America
There is only love and fear is also available on Compact Disc (in a deluxe 4-panel digipack), and Classic Black Vinyl (same specs as listed above). 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, Japan and ROW
On all the same formats mentioned above, this album will be distributed by our good friends at !K7 and their various territory partners in Europe, UK, Australia, Japan, 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 reach out!!!
BEX BURCH ON TOUR
October 8 - Pastiche International, Arkaoda Berlin, Germany
October 13 - RIAA, Hamburg, Germany (Listening session)
October 20 - Cafe Oto, London, UK
October 27 - King Georg, Cologne, Germany
October 30 - Rhinoçéros, Berlin, Germany (Listening session)
November 03 - ÜBERJAZZ Festival, Hamburg, Germany
November 17 - Jazz Brugge, Belgium
