Pharaohs have released a new album through International Feel.

In Oeland is the Los Angeles-based group’s second LP, and their first record since 2015.

The band is made up of Ale Cohen, Samuel Cooper, Stellar Rahim and Diego Herrera. Sam met co-founder Ale Cohen in Amoeba Music and the pair, who each play guitars and synths, started jamming in 2007/08. Two more members were added. Diego Herrera, who also records as Suzanne Kraft, was an original member and although his relocation now prevents him from joining the regular jams, some of his playing can be heard on this album, notably its first track “Muddy Middle of Nowehere.” The fourth member, Casey Butler (a.k.a Stellar Rahim), studied composition at CalArts where his mentor and teacher was renowned avant-garde and free jazz trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith. He is also a member of the CalArts Gamelan Orchestra.

The album was inspired by the writings of journalist Michael Kew. “While we were working on this record I was reading a book “Crossings” by surfer journalist Michael Kew,” says Sam Cooper. “A lot of the music was inspired by his travels in the South Pacific, his imagery, the way he talked about places and how there were still undiscovered places in the world. I was immersing myself in this tropical island world. I guess this is my idea of what I’d want to hear if I was out there.”

The record is the latest in International Feel’s mini-LP series focusing on the “space somewhere between worldbeat, Balearic, and library music.” Following releases in the series by Len Leise, CFCF, Shelter, Wolf Muller & Cass, In Oeland offers “a mature and heady mix of diverse influences that displays the furthest extents of Pharaohs musical adventuring to date,” the label adds.

Tracklisting

A1. Muddy Middle Of Nowhere
A2. Oelan Gunda
A3. Invisible Mile
B1. Air Kiribati
B2. Coral Heads
B3. Cadejé
B4. Energy

International Feel will release In Oeland today, with “Oelan Gunda” available to download below.

Oelan Gunda