Internationally
acclaimed drummer, producer, and sonic collagist Makaya McCraven
returns to announce four distinct yet interconnected EPs - Techno Logic, The People’s
Mixtape, Hidden Out!, and PopUp Shop - to be released on all
music platforms October 31st. The
four EPs are also compiled on a 2xLP and 2xCD physical release titled Off
the Record, available for preorder now and in stores October 10th via XL Recordings /
International Anthem / Nonesuch. Together they mark McCraven’s first recorded
offerings since 2022’s In These Times
(“McCraven’s most ambitious set of music”
-GRAMMY) and a deep return to the signature “organic beat music” approach
that Makaya first debuted on his 2015 album In The Moment
and further developed across subsequent releases Highly Rare
(2017), Where We Come From (2018), and Universal Beings (2018).
Built from live recordings, the music is later reshaped by McCraven via
extensive editing, overdubs, and post-production at his home studio in Chicago.
The
source material from each EP is drawn from moments of pure improvisation,
recorded live in performance, shaped as much by the room and audience as by the
musicians themselves.
Techno
Logic
features Ben LaMar Gay
and Theon Cross, and draws from
performances in London (2017), Berlin (2024), and New York (2025), showcasing
nearly eight years of developing rapport between the three musicians, starting
with their very first session at Worldwide FM’s former North London studio.
The
People’s Mixtape has its foundation in a live recording
from Brooklyn’s Public Records in
January of 2025, where McCraven celebrated the 10 year anniversary of In The Moment with an intentional return
to the improvisational language he developed over that album’s sessions. For
the occasion, McCraven played with bassist Junius
Paul and trumpeter Marquis Hill
(two musicians who are majorly present on In
The Moment), as well as vibraphonist Joel
Ross (who has been a regular collaborator of McCraven’s since the 2017
sessions for Universal Beings), and
synthesist Jeremiah Chiu (marking
the first occasion for McCraven to play with the SML co-leader and
International Anthem labelmate).
Hidden
Out! is built off recordings from McCraven’s
June 2017 residency at The Hideout
in Chicago, where he improvised weekly with a revolving cast including bassist
Junius Paul, Tortoise member, International Anthem labelmate, composer and
guitarist Jeff Parker, and SML
co-leader, GRAMMY-award winning producer and alto saxophonist Josh Johnson.
PopUp
Shop was created from recordings of
McCraven’s Los Angeles debut at Del
Monte Speakeasy in 2015, where McCraven took part in the King Hippo and
Grown Kids Radio-produced event RAWS:LA, and improvised with guitarist Jeff
Parker, vibraphonist Justefan, and
bassist Benjamin J. Shepherd.
The OFF THE RECORD
vinyl LP and CD compilation is not just a collection of these recordings, but a
tactile document celebrating creative, communal, IRL moments of musical
gathering.
Speaking
on the record, McCraven says, “In a time
where we’re increasingly connected through phones, in a virtual world where you
can’t really tell what’s real or what’s fake, there’s something special where
we come together and share space, there is something special where we are
sharing music, art. I want to create an energy that amplifies the magic in the
underground moments where we come together and we experience something wild,
different, off the cuff, human. What I’m trying to present is a dreamlike alteration
of that energy, which only exists in the recorded realm. But to actually have
been there, in real life, is the special thing.”
Makaya
McCraven, who has been aptly called a “cultural synthesizer” and “beat
scientist,” has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and
blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of
post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st-century folk music. Profiled in the New York Times, Vice, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among
other publications, Makaya and the music he makes today is what Passion of Weiss says, “is part of a necessary conversation about
the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as ‘jazz.’
He’s found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either
wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he’s plucking them gleefully
like the strings of a grand instrument.
