Song You Need: Natural Information Society’s cosmic sprawl

The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.

Joshua Abrams is never in a hurry. His songs are slow, unworried creations, spilling out across periods of time that look imposing on paper but can feel like moments or decades, depending on your state of mind. As his Natural Information Society ensemble move into the rollout for their next album, Since Time Is Gravity, they’re easing in without urgency once again, letting the weight of their newest endeavor dictate the speed and trajectory of their orbit.

“Stigmergy,” a 13-minute offering pulled from the forthcoming record’s molten core, rotates around a rhythm section consisting of an irregular synthetic drum line and a glacial riff plucked out on Abram’s guembri. The refrain is a singularity, stretching all the sounds around it — rattling percussion and warped, wailing horns, mostly — as soon as they enter its gravitational pull without swallowing them whole. (“‘Stigmergy’ is an ensemble ostinato orbiting an Ace Tone Rhythm Ace, refracted through Echoplex, dedicated to Arkestra pioneers Robert Barry and Ronnie Boykins,” Abrams explains more succinctly.)

Since Time Is Gravity is due out April 14 via eremite North America and Aguirre/eremite Europe. Listen to “Stigmergy” below.