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Format

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  SBR162CDCD  £10.00

Label

Sacred Bones Records

Marching Church

Telling Like It Is

Marching Church, the onetime solo project and now bona fide big band formed by singer Elias Bender Ronnenfelt, has followed its leader’s muse everywhere from their early days of 4-track lo-fi tapes, to Sam Cooke-tinged soul on This World is Not Enough, to outré free jazz on their most recent Coming Down 12". For Telling It Like It Is, Ronnenfelt and his bandmates have foregone much of their past proclivity for wild stylistic swings in favor of thematically unified, complicated, but fundamentally cohesive song arrangements; the studio itself at times acting as an auxiliary band member. The result is the most focused vision of Marching Church yet, but one that has lost none of its swagger, and none of its power to enthrall. The band in 2016 comprises Ronnenfelt and his frequent collaborator and Iceage bandmate Johan S. Weith (on electric viola and guitar here), Lower‘s rhythm section of Kristian Emdal and Anton Rothstein, trumpet player Jakob Emil Lamdahl, and Hand of Dust’s Bo Hoyer Hansen. Augmenting these sessions are Maaike Van der Linde and Thora Sveinsdottir of the Stargaze Orchestraon flute and strings, and Sonja La Bianca of Choir of Young Believers on saxophone. The obvious chemistry among these players makes this the most cultivated Marching Church album to date, unveiling the full spectrum of capabilities and musical dexterity of each player. Telling It Like It Is taps into a debauched lunacy that teeters equally on the verge of exhaustion, and the charged sensuality rooted in our loins that keep us going.

Tracklist

• 1Let It Come Down
  2Up for Days
  3Heart of Life
  4Inner City Pigeon
  5Lion's Den
  6Florida Breeze
  72016
  8Achilles' Heel
  9Information
  10Calenture