Les Yper Sound Explorations in Drums & Sax

Figure & Ground releases the sophomore album “Explorations in Drums & Sax”, an all-instrumental journey through numerous genre-crossing worlds. Comprised of 14 original tracks by Les Yper Sound, the album pulls from the group’s eclectic influences. Surrounded by an array of acoustic and electronic sounds—all rooted in rhythms and pop melodies—it showcases the versatility of percussion and woodwinds and the various and unusual ways of recording their elements. The 12-inch vinyl LP release features coke bottle-clear wax and a digital download code. In early 2016, two New York session musicians Miles Arntzen and Jas Walton—who both currently play in the Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas - began experimenting with their respective instruments in Miles’s Greenwich Village basement. Arntzen (Will Butler, Teen, Mark Ronson) on drums and Walton (Leon Bridges, Sinkane, Father Figures) on saxophone, the duo hunkered down to compose demos that were made up of percussion, woodwinds, and the offbeat sounds of everyday objects. The style of recording and manipulating everyday ‘non-musical’ sounds was born in Paris during the 1940s and dubbed “musique concrète.” Recording became an art form in itself as musicians began playing with the possibilities of altering sounds and performances. While touring with Luaka Bop’s William Onyeabor super group Atomic Bomb!, Jas met Beastie Boys’ synth master Money Mark and Sudanese-pop artist Ahmed Gallab (Sinkane, Caribou, Of Montreal, Yeasayer). In March, the four of them convened in Brooklyn to record under the project name Les Yper Sound, titled after Pierre Henry’s 1967 musique concrète EP. This studio-oriented team of multi-instrumentalists—who are all producers in their own right—digested Miles and Jas’s original basement demos and began improvising new works during sessions at Shahzad Ismaily’s new studio in Brooklyn.