Colin Stetson

Colin Stetson, the sax player best known for showing off his circular breathing techniques on stage with Arcade Fire and Bon Iver, has announced his next solo effort, entitled All This I Do For Glory. According to the press release, the album examines concepts of the afterlife, explores ambition and legacy and is the first half of a doomed love story in the model of Greek tragedies. Ambitious, then. All This I Do For Glory is Stetson’s first solo album since 2013’s acclaimed To See More Light and supposedly contains more percussive elements influenced by Aphex Twin and Autechre.

Last And First Men, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s poetic swansong, receives its world film premiere on 25 February at Berlinale 2020. Deutsche Grammophon will release the original score digitally worldwide on 28 February followed by the release of the film on Blu-ray, packaged with the CD, and a Limited Deluxe Vinyl Art Edition in March. The Icelandic composer was working on the score of his magnum opus at the time of his death in February 2018, distilling and intensifying the symphonic soundworld that he had premiered at Manchester International Festival (MIF) six months earlier. Jóhann Jóhannsson devised the multimedia work’s visual concept, travelled to the former Yugoslavia to shoot footage of isolated locations and futuristic war memorials, then set about marrying haunting images to music.

The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined.