MAKAYA MCCRAVEN - UNIVERSAL BEINGS

The 2018 release of Universal Beings, in many ways, feels like the moment that the dam broke for both Makaya McCraven and International Anthem. On one hand, it's a four-sided communal showcase of the inter-city exchange that had started to develop in the “new jazz” hubs, collecting group improvisations from New York, London, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On the other, it is an editing and post-production masterclass – the MVP of McCraven’s “organic beat music” concept – and a landmark moment where his cut-splice-reassembly chops shine as brightly as the players themselves.

The musicians on the album were a combined who’s-who and who’s-gonna-be-who of their respective scenes: Brandee Younger (harp), Joel Ross (vibraphone), Tomeka Reid (cello), Dezron Douglas (double bass), Shabaka Hutchings (tenor saxophone), Junius Paul (double bass), Nubya Garcia (tenor saxophone), Ashley Henry (Rhodes piano), Daniel Casimir (double bass), Josh Johnson (alto saxophone), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (violin), Jeff Parker (guitar), Anna Butterss (double bass), and Carlos Niño (percussion). In our original press release, we called it “an inspiring display of the organic global inter-connectedness of the Black American music tradition in 2018.” Not in the press release, in our off-the-record conversations at the time, we said it was ‘like Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, but for jazz’.

JAMIE BRANCH - FLY OR DIE II

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jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise, originally released in the fall of 2019, was hugely anticipated in its time.  

Roughly a year before its release, and following the success of her debut Fly or Die album, branch whisked her incredible quartet across Europe for a string of performances in November 2018. Across that tour, the group stretched a songbook in-process to its limit, improvising en modo deconstructivo, tugging at the music’s edges and relentlessly morphing the sound of a four-fold liberation machine that included branch (trumpet), Chad Taylor (drums), Jason Ajemian (bass), and newcomer Lester St. Louis (cello), who had recently replaced Tomeka Reid.

The continued rise of branch’s star coincided with an increasingly deep connection to International Anthem as the label formed tighter and tighter bonds with friends across the pond, particularly in London, where most of bird dogs of paradise was recorded – in studio at Total Refreshment Centre over three days, and live at Café OTO over two nights that same week – at the tail end of that November 2018 tour. The album itself captures a very significant moment in the arc of the band. St. Louis’s presence had provided a fresh injection of virtuosic curiosity, and the interplay between him and Ajemian rejiggered the crew’s string-driven multi-rhythmic plonk swing while also refreshing their alternately aggressive and melodious heavy-bite bowing within an ever-expanding pocket. It was a highly fertile foundation for branch to experiment and explore, reach for the nether regions of her instrument, and continue to focus and refine her flagship ensemble into a wholly original sound.

FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise also introduced the wider world to branch’s singing voice. “prayer for amerikkka pt. 1 & 2” - written and first performed by branch in Paris on the night of the 2018 US midterm elections - has since become a rallying cry for those who share her sense of justice in a world controlled by those who are seemingly unconcerned with it. And on “love song” (for assholes & clowns), branch shows us her cards with a wink and a smile. “So much beauty lies in the abstract of instrumental music,” branch says in the album’s original notes, “but being this ain’t a particularly beautiful time, I’ve chosen a more literal path. The voice is good for that.”

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ALABASTER DEPLUME - CY & LEE: INSTRUMENTALS

To Cy and Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1 is a collection of Mancunian poet, singer, saxophonist and composer Alabaster DePlume’s simple and serenely intimate wordless adventures in melodic ennui. The collection properly introduced the world to a previously under-exposed, undeniably deep dimension of DePlume who, at the time of the its release, was most known to his (majorly British, majorly committed) followers for his music with words, his poetry, and his prowess as an impassioned orator. His performances (especially those that were part of his monthly Peach residency at Total Refreshment Centre in London) were becoming legendary for blurring the boundaries between secular sermon, theatrical monologue and song, as he turned audiences into experimental large ensembles and lead full-throated shout-a-longs to tunes like “Is It Enough” and “Be Nice To People” (both from his 2019 Lost Map album The Corner of a Sphere). The instrumental pieces that quietly buffered the big vocal moments of his recorded catalog, to that point, had mostly lived, quietly, in those buffers.

We’re not really sure what inspired DePlume to gather all of his recorded instrumentals, add a couple new ones, and invite International Anthem to collaborate on the campaign (we had only recently been getting to know him a little deeper, after our second trip to Total Refreshment Centre in the fall of 2018 when we recorded jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise). But what we do know is, not long after To Cy & Lee’s February 2020 release and the subsequent arrival of a global pandemic, those recordings went very far, very fast, taking on a new life as stay-at-home hits — the quiet catharsis we didn’t know we needed in the face of rapidly unfolding confusion, fear, and isolation. As the people of the world found themselves inside their small rooms, they began to search for smaller, more intentional sounds to fill them. These instrumentals carried the healing qualities we were after then, and still seek now. As we cite on the obi strip, the music is an antidote with seemingly ancient sonic characteristics, and a unique ability to embrace the core of our very being.

To Cy & Lee was also the first document of an ongoing collaboration between DePlume and International Anthem, which has already yielded the albums GOLD (2022), Come With Fierce Grace (2023), and A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole (2025), in addition to sundry singles and EPs. The depth of partnership between DePlume and our crew that has developed since To Cy & Lee, coupled with the endlessly quenching spiritual comforts the album continues to provide, makes it an absolute essential of the International Anthem catalog and a proud choice for the final three of the IA11 series.