BadBadNotGood announces new album “IV”

BadBadNotGood have announced their fourth album, appropriately titled IV. Having already collaborated with Ghostface Killah on last year’s critically-acclaimed Sour Soul, IV represents the first time that BadBadNotGood have employed guest vocalists on one of their own albums. It also marks the official addition of longterm collaborator and touring partner Leland Whitty as a permanent member of the band. Despite appearances from Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands), Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins, Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire, Bon Iver), Canadian producer-of-the-moment Kaytranada, and newcomer Charlotte Day Wilson, BadBadNotGood’s innovative and exploratory music is still at the forefront of what makes the album so special.

Set for release on July 8 via Arts & Crafts, the band debuted their new single “Time Moves Slow” (Ft. Samuel T. Herring) via Zane Lowe. Stream it here.

IV is a master class in mood. The opening three-song suite “And That, Too”, “Speaking Gently”, and the Samuel T. Herring-assisted “Time Moves Slow”, is a slow, slinking creep, like moving uneasily through an abandoned house. And while BBNG explores different tones on subsequent tracks, that feeling–the search, the push for the unknown is the prevailing theme. “Chompy’s Paradise” is peaceful and serene, but ends on an uncertain note, unresolved. Like most great artists before them, the quartet understands that it’s more important to raise questions than to answer them.

Like musical theatre and scripted television, jazz and hip-hop are uniquely, undeniably North American art forms. Though the latter genre was born out of funk and disco in the late 1970s, many of its landmark artists embody the ethos of jazz: loose, visceral, instinctive. Some hip-hop acts – A Tribe Called Quest, or more recently Kendrick Lamar have successfully repurposed jazz, but the older genre has seldom made successful inroads into new generations of rap fans. And that’s what makes BadBadNotGood, the four-piece, Toronto-bred jazz outfit that has melded jazz and instrumental hip-hop into something elusive, something altogether their own, so unique.

IV – Track-list
1. And That, Too
2. Speaking Gently
3. Time Moves Slow (Feat. Samuel T. Herring)
4. Confessions Pt. II (Feat. Colin Stetson)
5. Lavender (Feat. Kaytranada)
6. Chompy’s Paradise
7. IV
8. Hyssop of Love (Feat. Mick Jenkins)
9. Stucture No. 3
10. In Your Eyes (Feat. Charlotte Day Wilson)
11. Cashmere

BadBadNotGood 2016 Tour Dates
6/3 – Nelsonville, OH @ Nelsonville Music Fest
6/4 – Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
6/5 – Chicago, IL @ Do Division Street Fest
6/9 – Brooklyn, NY @ House Of Vans
6/17 – Ballinough Castle, IRE @ Body & Soul
6/18 – Barcelona, SP @ Sonar Festival
6/19 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival
6/21 – Luxemburg, LX @ Rotondes
6/23 – Tel Aviv, ISR @ Barby
6/24 – Luzern, CH @ Sudpol
6/27 – London, UK @ Village Underground
6/28 – Paris, FR @ Trabendo
7/1 – Roskilde, DK @ Roskilde Festival
7/2 – Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter
7/3 – Timisoara, RO @ JazzTM
7/23 – Oro-Medonte, ON @ WayHome Festival
8/5 – Buena Vista, CO @ Vertex Festival
8/6 – Happy Valley, OR @ Pickathon