James Holden shares video for new single ‘Common Land’

JAMES HOLDEN SHARES VIDEO FOR NEW SINGLE ‘COMMON LAND’

NEW ALBUM IMAGINE THIS IS A HIGH DIMENSIONAL SPACE OF ALL POSSIBILITIES OUT 31 MARCH VIA BORDER COMMUNITY

SHOW AT LONDON’S EARTH ON 13 APRIL

Watch the video for ‘Common Land’ here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzq8JA2TCRs

Listen back to James’ ‘Peel Acres’ show from earlier today here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001j5lz

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Last month James Holden announced his first new album since 2017, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities (31 March via Border Community) along with lead single ‘Contains Multitudes‘. Today he has followed up with the video for new single ‘Common Land’.

From the full expanded band line up of previous album The Animal Spirits to his latest EP collaboration with Polish clarinettist Waclaw Zimpel, Holden’s recent career has been marked by an impulse towards collaboration with live instrumentation. ‘Common Land’ sees him drawn once again to the strident expressivity of the saxophone, this time calling upon guest soloist Christopher Duffin who lends classic vibes and an evocative reverberating lead line to Holden’s insistent groove. The gently hypnotic heads down shuffle is punctuated memorably by the melodious washes of a chopped up archive field recording of British wild birds, and sees Holden tentatively skirting the edge of the club dancefloor from which he’s strayed.

Explaining the coincidentally topical choice of track title, Holden says:

“The title comes from the British Library bird recordings I wrote the track around, but obviously references the idea that all land is everyones and we are all born with the right to roam or rave on it. I think who and what is allowed on the land tells you a lot about how this place is run, and for who. Personally I think anything a rich person claims as ‘theirs’ is stolen off the rest of us and there’s nowhere that’s more obvious than the English countryside. Imagine! – the state protects the right of these cretins to fence off thousands of acres for their barbaric hobbies while ancient traditions like communities coming together to get high and dance in the woods are criminalised! Everything is upside down and we need to fix it.”

The single is accompanied by a new video by current visual collaborator Innerstrings, who has previously lent his distinctive brand of live visuals to James Holden live performances. It follows a curious donut-headed red figure around a psychedelic-tinged Wormwood Scrubs, one of the largest areas of common land in London which is currently being partially redeveloped to accommodate the HS2 railway.

Further Right To Roam information can be found here:
https://www.trespasserscompanion.org/the-new-english-countryside/
https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/

An unconstrained new album of rave music for a parallel universe, Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities tops off a musical career spanning over twenty years. Here Holden is seeking to recapture the feeling of hope, freedom and possibility (both musical and otherwise) that characterised the venerated earliest days of dance music, when the boundaries of the distinct genres as we now know them had yet to crystallise. A time when a starry-eyed teenage Holden was still dreaming in the bedroom of his Leicestershire village, his clock-radio balanced on a wardrobe trying to catch the faint pirate FM signals from the nearest city.

Standing in contrast to the expanded band and live take recordings of its predecessor The Animal Spirits, Holden’s fourth solo artist album is more of a continuous sound collage, artfully juxtaposing audio worlds in his own inimitable manner.

Photo credit: Laura Lewis

High-res images can be found here

Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities will be available on double-vinyl and CD via independent record stores, pre-order digitally here:
https://jamesholden.bandcamp.com/album/imagine-this-is-a-high-dimensional-space-of-all-possibilities

Live:

13 Apr – London @ EartH – TICKETS
7 May – Glasgow @ Optimo presents: Melting Pot x Heverlee Springtime Weekender
11 Jun – Holyhead @ Gottwood Festival

Tickets are available here:
http://www.jamesholden.org/