Chicago (out there) jazz label International Anthem celebrates its 11th anniversary at BRDCST #3

BRDCST x INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM x BLOW UPS @ AB VITRINE

The most exciting (out there) jazz label of recent years is undoubtedly Chicago-based International Anthem. Quality newspaper Chicago Reader: “International Anthem brings punk idealism to progressive jazz.” A comparison with the groundbreaking Impulse! Records from the 60’s comes to mind: top-notch productions, the musical gaze ahead and an extremely well-crafted graphic design invariably packaged in an (oh so popular in Japan) OBI strip. 

So it’s no coincidence that BRDCST and International Anthem have been in a blessed marriage for many years now, with previous visits by Tom Skinner (The Smile), Irreversible Entanglements, jaimie branch (R.I.P), Bex Burch and Alabaster DePlume.

In the period from 2014-2024, there were around 100 IA releases. They stayed true to their mission statement (‘to vitalize demand for boundary defying music’) and their ethos (‘always looking forward’). In 2025, AI wants to celebrate that past decade under the banner IA11 with ‘a series of releases, reissues, miscellaneous media and events’.

BRDCST has the honour of being a part of the celebrations and marks the 11th anniversary with blow-ups of their artwork exhibited in the AB Vitrine on the Steenstraat and with four prominent artists who are part of the label’s soul.

JEREMIAH CHIU
Uncut just recently chose Jeremiah Chiu’s (US) album The Closest Thing to Silence (with soulmate Maria Sofia Honer and fourth world music legend Ariel Kalma) as ‘Experimental Album of the Year’. The title was an intentional nod to the motto of ECM Records: ‘Music is the closest thing to silence’.

Let’s just say that LA-based Chiu has a healthy obsession with synthesizers (both analogue and digital). In 2023, that resulted in the International Anthem album In Electric Time, an aural account of Chiu’s visit to the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in LA. Mr. Bongo: “The result is a superb electronic / ambient journey”. And also Boomkat: “He captures the outer-space mystery of some of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's best soundtrack material, touches the ramshackle brilliance of early Carl Craig, adding a trace of Jean-Michel Jarre.”
Chiu is also a part of International Anthem’s latest addition SML who also play at BRDCST.