We are very pleased to premiere “Handwash”, the debut single of international collaborative and experimental jazz project Solapur Road, forthcoming on XVI Records.
The brainchild of composers / saxophonists Alejandro Van Zandt Escobar (also of XVI Records signees Lucked In, whose debut release “Nuttin’ Cold” received incredible support from Gilles Peterson, Lauren Laverne and OkayAfrica) & Divya Farias, “Handwash” and b-side “Machine” showcase the pair’s avant garde background as angular horn harmonies meet fluid structures, soaring vocals and subterranean sub-bass.
Capturing a moment in time, bottling a lightning-strike moment of unbridled creativity, these recordings evoke a deep and unsettling atmosphere, soundtracking the re-examination of antiquated systems currently being experienced across the world. Delivering their first offering since 2016’s track ‘Continental Lobby’ (taken from the ‘XVI Records Vol III: Islands Unknown’ LP), the single was recorded in 2017 from a series of jams in Brooklyn and Oakland. Explaining their processes, Divya and Alejandro said:
“Living across the world from each other has pushed us out of our comfort zone in music making, as we both come from live improvisation backgrounds. On the rare chance that we’re in the same place we try to record a bunch of improvised sessions with very loose structures and melodic ideas underpinning them, which we then proceed to cut up and build into a song. The process is very slow, with versions getting lost in web transfers and hard drives over months or even years, but we also find this gives the tracks time to mature.”
“On Handwash and Machine we worked with our friends Pam Soffer (vocals) and Phil McNeal (drums) who brought an organic energy to our studio cut-ups. We see Solapur Road as a production duo with our saxophone recordings as our raw material but aside from that, we don’t exactly know where the road leads.”
XVI Records release Solapur Road “Handwash” on July 3rd 2020
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