James Holden recently announced his third album recorded together with his newly-expanded band as James Holden & The Animal Spirits. The Animal Spirits will be released 3 November via his own Border Community label. Following the announcement and the sharing of the relentless, elastic and hypnotic polyrhythms of lead single 'Pass Through The Fire', today he has shared the second single to be taken from the album, 'Each Moment Like The First'. As the only track on the album not recorded in the one week-long mammoth live recording session with the full band, 'Each Moment Like The First' sits both as an anomaly and as a glimpse at the records core. The track's recording is the first time Holden played it with drummer Tom Page during an early rehearsal. "What you hear", says Holden, "is us making it up as we go along, playing melodies I hadn't written yet as they occurred to me, finding where the song wanted to go. And although we tried rerecording it later with more players and better mics, there was something untouchable about the truth of that first time." The idea of a musical recording capturing a unique moment in time which can't be recreated is central to Holden's personal recording dogma, and so this raw, stripped back - yet undeniably magical - rehearsal version of 'Each Moment Like The First' sits at the centre of the album, offering a revealing window into Holden & Page's improvisational process. The Animal Spirits will be the first full length release from Holden since 2013's critically lauded The Inheritors which saw top-twenty 'Album of the Year' mentions from the likes of FACT, MOJO and Clash as well as #2 from Loud & Quiet and Resident Advisor's 'Album of the Year'. The band consists of long-time collaborators Tom Page (RocketNumberNine) and Etienne Jaumet as well as Marcus Hamblett, Liza Bec and Lascelle Gordon. Recorded live in one room in single takes and born out of of the sheer unbridled joy of live performance, Holdenās third artist album The Animal Spirits is the momentous culmination of a radical transformation, as the former trailblazer of the early noughties computer music revolution is dramatically reborn as live musician and band leader. Holden also recently announced his first London show since 2015 at Islington Assembly Hall on 6 December as well as his curated stage at this year's Le Guess Who? with artists including MaĆ¢lem Houssam Guinia & Band, Sex Swing, Hieroglyphic Being and Mario Batkovic.
