heavensouls: Woodhouse Interviews

Niños Luchando: Woodhouse Interview

Sometimes an album is a cage match. Sometimes that cage match is man vs self. Jab/cross from Spain’s Niños Luchando is the sound of a man fighting himself—or dancing with himself. With synth arpeggios spiraling like double helixes, spooky instrumentals jittering beside thumping kicks, this is self-reflection through the dancefloor. We talked with him below.

heavensouls: Woodhouse Interviews

There’s a tendency to focus on a prodigy’s age and what they could do in the future. But that obscures what heavensouls has already done as a teenager. He became a RateYourMusic darling as one part of epic collage rap pranksters The Sidepeices. But his newest solo album westside trapped on its own is a remarkably self-assured, virtuosic effort, sparkling with the type of righteous anger that can lead to joy. heavensouls layers a multitude of afrobeat experiments over each other, creating these monstrous, lumbering beasts of rhythm that interlock at strange angles. Every track on the album feels like it’s on the verge of total collapse but will suddenly find a moment to mesh into something stunning. We talked to him below.

Star Moles: Woodhouse Interview

Take the Broad-Ridge spur straight to hell. Emily Moales’ version of Philly has baristas mingling with wizards and turnpikes to celestial realms. Its the mundane and the magical, but even dragons have to pay rent. Highway to Hell follows some lost soul in a Philadelphia-shaped purgatory, accompanied by chiming and lush pianos, skittering drum parts, and Moales own dreamy voice floating above it all. We interviewed her below.

Ão: Woodhouse Interview

“Condemn me” It’s the first sentiment on Belgian band Ão’s hypnotic, stunning album Malandra. Thumping electronic beats are bolstered by bellowing drums, labyrinthine guitar patterns entwining, and orchestral stings adding bloody drama. Singer Brenda Corijn brings alluring darkness from her Portuguese roots, the smoldering sadness of Fado, and the hope at the center of saudade, a moving, energetic melancholy. It’s entrancing witchcraft at every turn. We interviewed them below.

Richard Carrick: Woodhouse Interviews

Richard Carrick makes maps. Yes, he’s a pianist, and in the middle of a trilogy of albums inspired by North Africa, but each record outlines his cartography. l’Algérie, a tribute to Algeria, his mother’s homeland, sounds like a tour of antiquity and magic. The album is overflowing with captivating rhythms and motifs that return like old friends again and again. Somewhere in-between jazz, classical, and Maghrebian music, Carrick has charted his own path. We talked to him below.