New Album : King Britt x Tyshawn Sorey

Upon first meeting one another, drummer / composer, Tyshawn Sorey and synthesist / producer, King Britt, had a mutual respect for one another’s practice.

Growing up in Newark NJ, Tyshawn was exposed to east coast club & electronic music, which always had a special place in his heart. His record collection is an example of a true connoisseur of the genre, who has travelled the world extensively. Working with everyone from Vijay Iyer to George Lewis, Tyshawn is one of the most sought after composers and improvisors in music, he had yet to explore his electronic side, except for his occasional unannounced dj sets!

King Britt’s continued contribution to the advancement of electronic music, producing or remixing everyone from Solange to Miles Davis, help solidify his native Philadelphia as a necessary point on the map for dance music enthusiasts. Growing up in a household of jazz fusion, funk and soul, his love of the electronic heroes of those genres, pushed him to explore djing and improvising with musicians using the cutting edge technologies available.

These two titans went into the studio for 2 days, which happen to fall right before the world went into lockdown in 2019. With no rehearsals, direction or plan, armed with drums & synths, these two did what they do best and created a sonic documentation of fearless exploration into polyrhythmic time travel. They were channeling and conjuring sounds from an alternate universe, releasing whatever emotions were in the moment. They were focused on the journey leaving the destination in the listener’s mind.

We hope you enjoy the ride.

Out on King Britt’s Buddy System Label

Available on all platforms…..

King Britt is a member of the Curatorial Council for Carnegie Hall's Afrofuturism Festival

Learn more here

Bandcamp feature on The Buddy System

A nice feature on King’s Buddy System label.

READ HERE

Moksha Black debut EP

Moksha Black is an ep on The Buddy System Label, produced and created by King Britt and an anonymous gent from Philadelphia. Moksha Black refers to Black Liberation through self realization and spiritual awareness. A sonic journey of shoe gaze electronics.

Puerto Rican Space Program EP

So proud to present the new Puerto Rican Space Program on my label The Buddy System. Hailing from Miami, producer Lumin centers his production around the Buchla synthesizer, exploring ancestors and lineage thru sonic power.

Fhloston Paradigm x Stellar Masses x Fel's Planetarium (live)

A dream come true performing at Stellar Masses : Earth III at The Fels Planetarium.  A beautiful evening of cosmic sonic beauty.  Enjoy this live video.

Alarm Will Sound x King Britt

Had the honor of collaborating with the unconventional, Alarm Will Sound Orchestra, on three compositions.  We debuted the work at The Sheldon Concert Hall in St Louis.  This is a clip of the song, The Intention.  Such a wonderful experience and looking to bring this to other cities.

West Coast Weekender x King Britt

I was honored to perform at the annual West Coast Weekender in San Diego.  Some of the top djs from the house music and dance community, brought their magic to the historic Lafayette Hotel, for a weekend of education, workshops and joyful music events.  I cannot wait until next year!

                       Here with Oscar G, co founder of West Coast Weekender

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                                                             Cassy in the mix

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The Gatherings x Fhloston Paradigm

I was honored to present my Fhloston Paradigm project at the now legendary Gatherings, presented by Chuck Van Zyl at St Mary's Church on University of Pennsylvania's campus.  I was joined by the great, Pia Ercole, who's voice always take the project to the next level.

Suzi Analogue x King Britt

Recently, I had the pleasure of having Suzi Analogue in the studio. She was passing through on tour and we worked on a spontaneous track. She truly knows what she is doing in the studio and was absolutely refreshing.

+ check her site

Fhloston Paradigm Fall Tour

Excited to embark on special tour dates for Fhloston Paradigm.  See you soon.

AFTER... - Fhloston Paradigm

King Britt’s future forward project Fhloston Paradigm has been his focus since 2012. The inaugural full album of this project, The Phoenix, debuted on the dynamic label Hyperdub in 2014. Organically over the past five years, this project has seen various incarnations in prestigious places including the MoMA PS1 (NYC), MoCAD (Detroit), XOYO (London), and Womb (Japan). Fhloston Paradigm has also received humbling and beautiful reviews by respected press including The Wire, Pitchfork, and FactTV.

King Britt’s new album After... is the continuation of the story… ascension and polyrhythmic primal energy through unexpected process.

After... features guest appearances by Nosaj Thing, Ryat, Jacqueline
Constance, Moor Mother, Pia Ercole, Stephanie Yu, Alexa Barchini, Kate Faust, Petra, Puerto Rican
Space Program and Tim Motzer.

Fader Magazine x Fhloston Paradigm

Check out this mix of music that influenced the new Fhloston Paradigm album, AFTER...

+ listen

Fhloston Paradigm - Electric Fields review in The Wire

Amazing review of my new EP ... read below... huge thanks to Joe Muggs for recognizing the real.

Moor Mother x King Britt : Time Float (King Britt West Philly Remix)

Such an honor to remix friend and comrade Moor Mother. This mix represents Philadelphia in the highest degree! Enjoy.

Pendulous Moon : The Making of the Clara Hill LP

So in November 2014, I took off for Berlin, to finally start on a project with Clara Hill.  We have been friends for many years and I worked on the song Did I Do Wrong a few years ago.  We have been wanting to do a complete album for a while now but our schedules just didn't work out.  This time was perfect as I needed to work in a different environment for a bit and winter in Berlin is perfect for a dreamy darker album.  Clara set up her living room to record.

We really didn't know the direction, but she really enjoyed the Fhloston Paradigm project I did for Hyperdub.  With this in mind I did a bunch of sketches on my iPhone on the flight over to Germany.  Using various apps and Audiobus to bring one app into the other.  Its mindblowing to have this much technology in the palm of your hand. 

The next day was day 1 of the sessions.  I played her a bunch of the tracks from my phone and she loved them all! The interesting thing about them all, is that I was limited to how much power I could use on my (then) iPhone 4s.  This limited the amount of apps I used, but in the end, it gave a sort of sonic cohesiveness to the album that may not have happened so naturally when you have too many choices. 

Clara brought in an additional Moog Prodigy and Nord Lead (I don't remember if we actually used that) to add to the palette.  Also the amazing MemoryMan looping pedal for vocal ideas.  She is a master at this!

We then started on the first song which I think was Spheres.  She loved the bassline I used for Chasing Rainbows on Fhloston Paradigm, so we added a great line with the Moog.  This rough vocal is the one that actually appears on the record.  The sun had just set and we recorded straight into Ableton (who's offices were 10min away funny enough).  In one take we knew we were about to embark upon a very special project!

"I loved the rough and electronica sounds. The technical, sharp, crisp and sometimes hard sounds were a wonderful counterpart to the voice. I am also a big Boards of Canada and synthesizer fan. And deep melancholic basslines and darker harmonies are always catching me and I always feel very inspired." - Clara Hill

The next song was what ended up Lonely Glow.  We both loved the Thom Yorke solo stuff and that was a bit of inspiration for this tune.  I originally did the backbeat in NanoStudio with my own glitchy sounds, then programmed heavier drums from the Depeche Mode sounds that Daniel Miller released for Ableton users (the next year we were blessed to meet Daniel). The synths were tweeked from Nano and my personal Ableton patches.  Bassline actually was Ableton as well.

Asynchronous is an interesting one.  Extremely Fhloston-esque but also Beak and Anika inspired.  The sci fi textures in the background were from this app called Thicket which is actually quite unique in its visuals.  This one is stripped to Moog, beat and textures.  Most tracks were done with the idea that Clara would have room to really layer and harmonize as she does!

Moons, Oscillate and Dron3 are all little movie scenes in a way.  Interludes into the next.  I used mostly Reaktor plugs for these and a bit of Thicket in the sound design. 

D.E.F. is one of my favorites.  The beat again done in Nano Studio (app). I love making beats with it, dunno why.  Bassline and a few pads were done with AniMoog app.  There is also a sort of bell loop that I made in Impaktor then recorded into Loopy HD (all tracks were recorded into this on the plane, then drag and drop into Ableton).  I kept all the drums together for this album as stereo files, like the old school way back in the day. 

With Mystery (Interstellar), the main beat was done with Impaktor but mangled in an app called Loop Twister, which was my favorite app ever.  They stopped updating it and unfortunately it doesn't work anymore.  That beat really set up the whole vibe of the track.  I then used this Blade Runner sounding pad from Magellan Jr, which is really great for making pads.  One more sound from Grain Science that set the grittiness. 

Making Silent Roar  was interesting.  It was supposed to be for another project until Clara heard the track.  I was like yeah? So the beat I did in Moog Filtertron. I actually had this sketch from a trip to Western Mass.  I recorded at like 4am because I couldn't sleep.  It was insanely quiet there (which is really wild because Clara named it Silent Roar without knowing this story) and I recorded a little vocal loop into it to that's really low in the mix.  The drone pad came from Cassini app.  Loved what she did to it.  I'm actually going to remix it soon.

Dron3 was super fun.  It was one night we had gotten back from our old friends Jazzanova's studio and just wanted to unwind on some experimental vibes.  So I had set up 2 drone and noise patches in Reaktor to mix in between them live while tweeking them.  Clara did the vocal looping live as well on the Memoryman into my Ableton.  So, this track was all done live with no overdubs.  The Moog comes in later as well feeding back on its modulation.  When it was over we looked at each other like oh sh*t.

For me the technology in music plays always an important role. aesthetically, electronic elements in music are so beautiful. I always try to combine analogue sounds with electronics. But for the live set, now, i prefer not to use a computer on stage because i want to feel free - just only to work and sing with my voice. I think my Drummer will trigger all electronics sounds on stage. - Clara Hill

For the vocals, Clara used a nice process:

I recorded the vocals in my home studio. I used ProTools, recording the vocals after i did the sketches. Then i arranged some additional vocals and did some ad-libs. I cut and cleaned all vocals. Then i bounced them and sent all stems to King, for the further mixing process. 

For my last album i mostly used an old AKG from the 60ties, which i really liked because of the mid frequencies. My voice sometimes is bit too airy“. And the AKG suited to my voice very well. Some Neumann's are very good too but sometimes too „high“ for my voice. I would choose the best microphone which fits perfectly to the sound and atmosphere of production. For „Pendulous Moon“ i used an Neumann and an small Sennheiser evolution for some vocal-effects. - Clara Hill

When she sent me all the vocals for the songs I was blown away.  You never know what someone is going to send and its super exciting to think about all the directions it could go.  Her layering and harmonies were top notch.  No autotune was used (take note kids).  I just added a nice EMT 250 on bgs and a bit of Ableton delay.  Had those on sends for more control.

Mixing was very interesting because Clara is super detailed with every single thing, which turned out to be really satisfying in the end. 

Mastering was done by none other than Martin from AtJazz ! He loved the album so much (and remixed the single) that he wanted to master it ! Thank you so much!

Anyhow, that's Pendulous Moon. 

(left out 2 songs just because I did lol)

+ buy Pendulous Moon