Berlin’s Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra returns this summer with a fourth album, titled Vula.

Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra (a.k.a. (A.M.E.O.) is a self-organized, independent group of like-minded individuals that is “unlike any other orchestra.” It’s a steadily working ensemble with a focus on experimentation. Comprised of 18 young, in-demand musicians hailing from various countries and musical backgrounds, its members have previously worked in constellations that couldn’t be more diverse—including Ensemble Intercontemporain, Tony Allen’s Afrobeat, Jazz-Legend Kenny Wheeler, and Camerata Bern. The Notwist and post-conceptual artist Cory Arcangel and Daniel Glatzel, the orchestra’s leader and saxophonist, have been the main composers over the last decade since it’s inception in 2006, overseeing the group’s three previous releases, namely Live on Planet Earth (2014), Bum Bum (2012) and Take Off (2009).Besides playing concerts around the world, AMEO also hosts and curates its own genre events.

Having celebrated their 10-year anniversary with a series of concerts last year, the orchestra’s new full-length “showcases a stronger focus on harmony and melody,” they say. It is, they continue, “quite a different beast compared to its live predecessor or the orchestra’s last studio effort.” It is a one-hour-long adventure that needs to be listened to in full.“Listeners who just dip in and out won’t be able to grasp it, I’m afraid,” says Glatzel. “It takes concentrated listening, from beginning to end, with decent sound, to achieve that. And of course it sounds somewhat anachronistic, but it actually reflects the working process, because there were so many complications and obstacles we had to clear during the five years in which we worked on Vula. And yet, despite all the hullaballoo, I felt inspired to see it through: simply because the music seemed to say “if you can’t devote yourself to this, you’re lost; but if you can, you’re bound to experience the ride of your life…””

Ahead of the album’s July 9 release on Alien Transistor, “J Schleia” is available to download via the WeTransfer button below.

J Schleia