out this week: Cassie Kinoshi's seed. - gratitude
IARC0081
Cassie Kinoshi's seed.
featuring NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra
gratitude
out this Friday March 22nd, 2024 on LP, CD, and Digital Download
(( full album will be available on streaming platforms on April 23rd ))
"Cassie Kinoshi is staking her claim as one of the most ambitious members of what could be called the 2010s Tomorrow's Warriors graduates. She has keen orchestral interests... Everything is bigger." – Jazzwise
"gratitude promises a vibrant journey through her creative process" - Twisted Soul
"It’s remarkable stuff — larger-than-life grand, but also somehow intimate and personal.” – Stereogum
"Made from the raw materials of Kinoshi’s life, gratitude overflows with harmony and clarity." - KLOF Magazine
"Each track unfolds like a musical tableau, apposing the warmth of the orchestra with birdsong and other organic sounds." - Big Issue
"Common jazz-meets-classical patterns are completely avoided. Parts of the suite (dominated by violins, cello and piano) to the anthemic or freely improvised sections (electric guitars, wind instruments), which function like chest rattlers. gratitude throws us listeners into a free space in which the experience of music is rehearsed in a state of suspension." – Musikexpress (translated from German)
"With the rigour and narrative detail of an artful ballet score" - The Financial Times
((( honored to be another one of Al's picks, at Landlocked Music in Bloomington, Indiana )))
Here (and below) is a list of record shops in the US, Canada and UK that have confirmed they are stocking gratitude for the album release date this Friday 3/22/24. Don't have the list but we know there are even more stores across the globe carrying. Wherever you live, please consider supporting the vibrance of your local economy, and go out to buy this album at the nearest independent record shop on Friday! And if you're favorite shop isn't carrying gratitude yet, ask them to order it for you, they'll surely be happy to oblige!
Baltimore, MD - Sound Garden
Bedford, UK - Slide Record Shop
Belfast, UK - First Press Records
Berkeley, CA - Amoeba Music Berkeley
Bloomington, IN - Landlocked Music
Brighton, UK - Capsule Records
Brighton, UK - Mr Bongo
Brighton, UK - Resident Music
Brooklyn, NY - Rough Trade
Burlington, VT - Pure Pop Records
Calgary, AB - Melodiya Records
Calgary, AB - Sloth Records
Charlotte, NC - Lunchbox Records
Chicago, IL - Dusty Groove
Chicago, IL - Laurie's Planet of Sound
Chicago, IL - Reckless Records Wicker Park
Chicago, IL - Tone Deaf Records
Chichester, UK - Analogue October Records
Columbus, OH - Records Per Minute
Coventry, UK - Just Dropped In
Dayton, OH - Omega Music
Dearborn, MI - Dearborn Music
Denver, CO - Twist & Shout
Dublin, IE - Tower Records
Durham, NC - Chaz's Bull City Records
Edinburgh, UK - Good Vibes Neighbourhood Store
Edinburgh, UK - Underground Solushn
Edmonton, AB - Blackbyrd Myoozik
Edmonton, AB - Listen Records
Encinitas, CA - Lou's Records
Fredericton, NB - Patient Records
Golden Valley, MN - Down in the Valley
Grand Rapis, MI - Part Time Records
Gravesend, UK - Elephant Records
Indianapolis, IN - Indy CD and Vinyl
Lawrence, KS - Love Garden Sounds
Leigh, UK - Sticky Black Tarmac
Little Canada, MN - Cheapo Discs
Little Rock, AR - Control
Liverpool, UK - 81 Renshaw
London, UK - Rough Trade
London, UK - Stranger Than Paradise
London, UK - Vinyl Factory
London, UK - World of Echo
Los Angeles, CA - Amoeba Music Hollywood
Loveland, OH - Plaid Room Records
Madison, WI - B-Side CD's
Madison, WI - Strictly Discs
Manchester, UK - Piccadilly Records
Marlborough, UK - Sound Knowledge
Miami, FL - Sweat Records
Milwaukee, WI - Lilliput Records
Minneapolis, MN - Electric Fetus
Montreal, QC - Atom Heart
Montréal, QC - Boite à Musique
Montréal, QC - Sonorama Disques
Nashville, TN - Grimey's
New Orleans, LA - Euclid Records
Norridge, IL - Rolling Stones Record Store
Northampton, UK - Spun Out Sounds
Norwich, UK - Venus Vinyl
Nottingham, UK - Nottingham Record Co-Op
Opelika, AL - 10,000 Hz Records
Orlando, FL - Park Ave. CD's
Oxford, MS - The End of All Music
Pittsburgh, PA - The Government Center
Portland, OR - Everyday Music
Portland, OR - Music Millennium
Portland, OR - Speck's Records & Tapes
Princeton, NJ - Princeton Record Exchange
Québec, QC - Explosive Groove Disquaire
Richmond, VA - Plan 9 HQ
San Diego, CA - Folk Arts Rare Records
San Francisco, CA - Amoeba Music SF
San Francisco, CA - Stranded Music
San Luis Obispo, CA - Boo Boo Records
Seattle, WA - Silver Platters
Seattle, WA - Silver Platters LLC
Sheen, London, UK - Level Crossing Records
Sheffield, UK - Beartree Records
Somerville, MA - Vinyl Index
St. Louis, MO - Euclid Records
Stroud, UK - Sound Records
Talent, OR - Biscuits & Vinyl
Toronto, ON - Big Shiny
Toronto, ON - Sonic Boom
Totnes, UK - Drift
Vancouver, BC - Audiopile Records
Vancouver, BC - Neptoon Records
Wallingford, CT - Redscroll Records
gratitude Listening Party
on Bandcamp
Friday April 5th @ 11AM CST // 5PM GMT // 6pm CET
We'll be celebrating the next Bandcamp Friday with a front-back listen of gratitude.
The physical album (and download) is released March 22nd, BUT the full thing won't be streamable till April 23rd... so this will still be an early preview of sorts, for some...
Cassie + various members of our IARC crew (including DV who mixed the album, and DA who mastered the album) will be holding down the chat room from our various global outposts. Please join us for a deep listen and a deep conversation about the beauty of this music!
((( photo by Keziah Quarcoo )))
In March of 2023 composer, arranger & 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 (LCO).
Followers of UK Jazz know Kinoshi from her previous work with seed. (including the Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass, released by jazz re:freshed in 2019), or as a former member of Kokoroko. But her compositional résumé also 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 on gratitude, 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.
Similar to those keystone writer-arrangers, here Kinoshi wields the power of a large ensemble to convey nuanced human emotion. “gratitude was written as a means of guiding my own healing,” says Kinoshi. “My mother told me that she keeps a gratitude book where she writes one thing, no matter how big or small, every day that helps to re-focus her mind on practicing gratitude. The examples that she gave were seeing the flowers that she'd recently planted in her garden bloom and a kaleidoscope of butterflies that she saw flitting about a tree in her garden.”
Inspired by her mother’s focus on natural beauty and the meaningful minutiae of everyday life, Kinoshi was driven to work through her own relationship with mental health and to pour that into composition. “I was spending a lot of time on my own, often at my desk writing continuously,” says Kinoshi. “At 3pm everyday, the winter sun would be positioned opposite my window and shine directly onto my face. The task of writing this piece was one of the most difficult I've endured – because of the headspace that I was in at the time – and this would be the one thing in the middle of the day that would bring me a very deep sense of contentment… my first attempt at consciously practicing gratitude for something that I so often take for granted.”
“At this point in my artistic career, highlighting the often overlooked subject of mental health and what it means to move towards creating healthy, positive and introspective practices in regards to both understanding and regulating one's own mental health is of the utmost importance to me.”
Throughout the writing process Kinoshi had the privilege of knowing that her composition would eventually be interpreted by seed. — an ensemble of players she founded in 2016 and whose collective talents she knows through and through. “The binding concept of seed. has always been to have a creative outlet that allows me to express and highlight subject matter important to me alongside musicians that I deeply respect, admire and enjoy spending time with,” explains Kinoshi. “It is the one environment where I feel extremely comfortable being able to experiment with sound authentically. Over the years, it has evolved in the sense that the more comfortable the band members get with interpreting my music, and the more we develop a creative language together, the more honest the music sounds.” That profound musical and personal trust helped make the ensemble a perfect vehicle for a composition augmented by new collaborators — in this case the LCO and NikNak.
Kinoshi and seed. first met turntablist NikNak at the Marsden Jazz Festival in 2019. After spending some time talking politics and sharing jokes it was clear that a creative relationship was possible. “I find that working with formidable artists that I get on well with on a personal level always leads to my best work, and knew as soon as I met NikNak that I wanted to work with them.”
On the genesis of her collaboration with the LCO, Kinoshi says: “I have always wanted to combine seed. with electronics and orchestral elements, as I have always envisioned the band performing multi-disciplinary works. I have long admired the members of the LCO and their way of successfully melding orchestral arrangements and improvisation with more contemporary artists. I was introduced to them via Lexy Morvaridi during his time at the Southbank Centre. It was through his support, creative insight and trust that we were able to make this project happen.” The beauty and harmony of these communal connections plus the depth and deftness of all the musickers involved truly made Kinoshi's dream of this composition a reality.
Running confidently at 21 minutes and 33 seconds (not including the album’s B Side / final track “Smoke in the Sun,” which was recorded separately at Total Refreshment Centre) and going straight for the heart, gratitude is an evolved, emotionally attuned, creatively ambitious and compositionally exquisite philharmonic expression of post-millennial UK jazz.
*Deluxe Vinyl Package*
*** Smoke in the Sun color vinyl ***
gratitude comes on 140 gram vinyl (pressed at Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST) inside a heavyweight jacket, with insert sheet, IARC OBI strip and printed inner-sleeve.
And we have a limited edition color vinyl option for the first pressing only – 333 copies of *Smoke in the Sun* color vinyl are available via our Bandcamp page.
Purchase gratitude as part of the
**Spring Mondo Bundle**
For the fervent, faithful collector of our output.
By the middle of April we will have announced five (5) new albums - IARC0078 (Ruth Goller - SKYLLUMINA), IARC0081 (Cassie Kinoshi's seed. – gratitude), IARC0079 (Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly - MESTIZX), IARC0076, and IARC0080 - that will be available on CD, classic black vinyl, and limited edition color vinyl. The Spring Mondo Bundle combines all five titles into a single, beautiful parcel. Save money on shipping (they all come at once, as opposed to five individual shipments) plus an additional 5.5% discount on the retail value of the albums as an extra *thank you* for your trust in us.
Order the Spring Mondo Bundle on limited edition color vinyl here.
Order the Spring Mondo Bundle on classic black vinyl here.
Order the Summer Mondo Bundle on compact disc here.
Distribution via RedEye for USA, 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
This album is 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!!!
