SUMAC and Moor Mother have shared the new piece “Scene 4“, taken from their upcoming work The Film, to be released on April 25th. The piece features singer Sovie layering harmonies between SUMAC’s taut thuds and Moor Mother’s dynamic incantations, electronics bristling beneath the procession. Restraint and outburst build tension as the ensemble’s deft performance inspires close listening, giving each wallop and swell that much more impact.
The Film’s moniker speaks to the fact that it is conceived and delivered as a complete album, a full story or narrative. Moor Mother puts it best: “The idea is to create a moment outside of the convention. This is a work of art. Thinking about the work as a Film, instead of an album or a collection of songs. This task is impossible in an industry that wants to force everything into a box of consumption. You won’t understand or get the full picture until the artwork is completed. This work is developing and is requesting more agency within the creative process.”
The Film does have clear themes running throughout – again Moor Mother expounds: “the themes are universal in nature – land – displacement – the climate – human rights and freedoms – war and peace – the idea of running away from the many violent forces and horrific systems of man and empire.”
The Film is an album that takes attributes of both artists’ work and finds common ground in shifting musical patterns, and expressive force. The record is a musical thumbing of their noses at the more traditional approaches of their respective fields, an innovative, powerhouse of an album. Heavy, holy, hypnotizing – beyond existence, beyond the fettered constraints of normality, past the false notions of the indoctrinated disguised as the organic, planets form; the detritus of cosmic stuff merges into galaxies, into something that can sound like it’s populated by suns. The Film is just such a work, a nebulitic collaboration between SUMAC and Moor Mother. The Film was recorded at Studio Litho in Seattle with Scott Evans. The album includes appearances by guest vocalists Kyle Kidd, Sovie, and Candice Hoyes.
Around the record’s release, SUMAC and Moor Mother will be premiering their collaborative performances in Berlin and at Roadburn Festival. Additionally, SUMAC will be heading out on a European tour this Spring with special guests, Japan’s ENDON, while Moor Mother will be playing select European dates with Lonnie Holley in May.
SUMAC and Moor Mother tour dates
Apr. 17 – Berlin, DE – Festsaal Kreuzberg
Apr. 19 – Tilburg, NL – Roadburn Festival
SUMAC tour dates
Apr. 15 – Warsaw, PL – Hydrozagadka
Apr. 16 – Poznań, PL – 2Progi
Apr. 20 – Tilburg, NL – Roadburn Festival performing ‘The Healer’
Apr. 21 – Brussels, BE – Botanique #
Apr. 22 – Koln, DE – Bumann & Sohn #
Apr. 23 – Karlsruhe, DE – Jubez #
Apr. 24 – Fribourg, CH – Fri-Son #
Apr. 25 – Innsbruck, AT – PMK #
Apr. 26 – Munich, DE – Strom
Apr. 28 – Athens, GR – Kyttaro Live Club
# w/ ENDON
Moor Mother tour dates
May 11 – Krems, AT – Donau Festival *
May 14 – Bern, CH – B-Flat *
May 15 – Frankfurt, DE – Jazz Montez *
May 16 – Berlin, DE – X-Jazz Festival *
* w/ Lonnie Holley
The Film album cover
THE FILM TRACK LISTING:
1 – SCENE 1
2 – SCENE 2: THE RUN
3 – HARD TRUTH
4 – SCENE 3
5 – SCENE 4
6 – CAMERA
7 – THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
8 – SCENE 5: BREATHING FIRE
“feverish noisy” – Post-Trash
“an intense drone metal spoken word stunner” – The Needle Drop
“…can be compared to Moor Mother’s work with her own jazz project Irreversible Entanglements, albeit with the heavier backing of SUMAC.” – Consequence
“The frenetic, almost no wave angularity of that track [Camera] calls to mind Last Exit or James Blood Ulmer’s most punk-accented moments, while the contrast between hymnal vocal harmonies and brutalist sonics in “Scene 4” recalls Swans “A Hanging”…” – The Wire
“It’s noisy, it’s militant, it’s human” – The Skinny
“shatters the boundaries of any genre… an album that is as challenging as it is rewarding…. not so much a collection of songs, but as a distillation of ideas, [as] a rebellion” – Veil of Sound
“a captivating sonic extrapolation of displacement, land and nature.” – Get In Her Ears
“this piece of art shakes deep to the core” – Noizze UK