Lee Ranaldo & Raül Refree have launched a new track + video from their forthcoming album, Names of North End Women, out on Mute on 21 February.
The new track, “Light Years Out” follows the release of the album’s title track and shows the experimental side of Ranaldo and Refree’s new album, incorporating both spoken word and singing, old cassette tapes and state-of-the-art digital machines.
Watch the video below, shot in São Paulo and New York City by Anna Bogaciovas and Fred Riedel, described by Ranaldo as “an adventure into the world of ancient analog video processing!”
Ranaldo and Refree worked together Ranaldo’s last solo album, Electric Trim (Mute, 2017), and soon after the pair returned to the studio to record the follow up they realised that Names of North End Women would become what Ranaldo describes as “the beginning of a new partnership, a new configuration’”.
“We were mixing in all these strange analogue sounds from old cassette tapes, dealing with tape hiss; using very new technology and very old technology and mixing them together,” remembers Ranaldo. “This record began as playing with samplers and cassette players,” says Refree, “as experimental music, musique concrete, poly-rhythms.”
Names of North End Women’s release will be followed by a European tour that includes a performance at the Milton Court Concert Hall on 7 April, as part of the Barbican’s music programme (full details below).
Catch Lee Ranaldo & Raül Refree live on tour:
5 April – Bruges (BE), Chamber Music Room – Concertgebouw Brugge
6 April – Utrecht (NL), De Heiling
7 April – London (UK), Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican
9 April – Paris (FR), LE CENTQUATRE
10 April – Clermont-Ferrand (FR), Cooperative De Mai
11 April – Nantes (FR), Stereolux
17 April – Girona (SP), Festival Strenes – Teatro La Mercé
18 April – Avellino (IT), Cinema Teatro Partenio
19 April – Rome (IT) Monk Club
21 April – Ljubljana (SL), Cankarjev Dom
22 April – Pordeone (IT), Capitol
23 April – Civitanova Alta (IT) – Theater
25 April – Lausanne (CH), Theatre de Vidy
26 April – Bern (CH), Dachstock
27 April – Nuremberg (DE), Z-bau
28 April – Berlin (DE), Roter Salon – Volksbühne
29 April – Prague (CZ), Palác Akropolis
30 April – Krems (AT), Donau Festival