“We’re improvisers first and we’re bringing “moment music” into these other zones of hip hop and electronic music, drum-machine music, sound-system culture… Acoustic musicians sun-kissed by electro-magnetism, flowing out into everything. This is the shit that we want to be playing on big ass systems. Omnivorous, energy space time, mosh pit dance-music. Get it in the subwoofers so you can feel it hit, cuz the music has to begin in the body!” – jaimie branch

jaimie branch and Jason Nazary are Anteloper. When prompted about their name, branch comes back rhyming: “An Anteloper, is an antelope, interloper,” adding in a jovial manner, “an antelope walks up to a party, but you know, people don’t want him around.” Turns out, she had the name before the band was formed, and once the duo started rehearsing, it was apparent that THIS was what an Anteloper sounds like.

Another creature pops up in the title of the duo’s new album: Pink Dolphins. branch explains that the name is in part a nod to her Colombian heritage (from her Mother). “There’s these amazing pink river dolphins that live in the Amazon – they can swim in salt water, they can chill in fresh water, or they can rock in mixed up brackish waters. They are uniquely ‘aquadelic’ in that way. Aquadelic and super endangered.” In many ways branch and Nazary are like those dolphins – adaptable to varied terrain and moving in many directions through sound.

There’s also a punk aspect to Anteloper – branch makes this clear when she says “I’m coming from punk. We’re both coming from punk!” – and you can really feel that energy in their DIY, do or die approach. Additionally, they embrace a bit of pre-punk, contrarian innovation energy like Miles Davis on Live Evil – a benchmark album for both musicians. Speaking of Miles – his trumpet solo on “Green Dolphin Street” (dolphins again!) was the first solo that branch ever transcribed, and Nazary says that when they first started playing together, he wanted to cover “Little Church” from Live Evil (atleast in part because of Airto’s playing). branch also notes that Parker cites Live Evil as one of his favorites. In fact, Parker played a sort of Teo Macero role for Anteloper on Pink Dolphins. Parker explains: “The source material that was initially sent to me was many, many hours of improvised sessions that needed to be sifted through. It was overwhelming! So eventually Anteloper went back in the lab and edited the source material down into smaller chunks, and we went from there. It took me a long time to find a groove with it… I spent many months experimenting with different techniques and ideas. I would send them tracks, they would add to it and send it back. It was definitely a challenging way to make a record. I learned a lot. It was worth it!”

Nazary notes that their growth as a duo has really come about as they have refined their relationship with electronics: “The other step for us is how we are interfacing – how I am using the drums to control electronics. I’m always looking for a different way.” branch references early influences Sun Ra, Mouse on Mars, and J Dilla, and later influences from Moor Mother, Harriet Tubman, and Sam Newsome. She cites the importance of electronics to her as exploratory instruments, both in sound and technique. Nazary notes that his drums/electronics rig is “really a cyborg setup, the machines influence me as much as I do them.” Then he surprisingly picks one big electronic band as his key inspiration “I love Autechre! That record Confield and Draft 7.30 – that’s it – that’s how I want to sound on the drums!”

What makes this album special is the way that this duo bravely abandons the known as they leap forward into a path less-travelled. There’s no pre-made template here, only sound. Only a starting point, the destruction of that point, and the telepathic creation of a new way out. The electronics incorporated by both players are navigational devices, transportation sound-crafts. The resulting output is freewheeling, other-worldly, improvisational music, inspired by the unknown and at home in the astro-world. But the driving force behind Anteloper’s psychedelic space music is not escapism, rather a complete immersion in the hyperreality of the present. Their music is made for destroying concepts of past and future, for confronting and embracing the moment, for the betterment of the here and now. It’s music that is as rare and bewilderingly beautiful as the aquadelic pink dolphins surfing through the Amazon River.