International Anthem
The Eleventh Year
jaimie branch
FLY or DIE II:
bird dogs of paradise
IA11 Edition
jaimie branch’s FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise, originally released in the fall of 2019, was hugely anticipated in its time.
Roughly a year before its release, and following the success of her debut Fly or Die album, branch whisked her incredible quartet across Europe for a string of performances. Across that November 2018 tour, the group stretched a songbook in-process to its limit, improvising en modo deconstructivo, tugging at the music’s edges and relentlessly morphing the sound of a four-fold liberation machine that included branch (trumpet), Chad Taylor (drums), Jason Ajemian (bass), and newcomer Lester St. Louis (cello), who had recently replaced Tomeka Reid.
Most of bird dogs of paradise was recorded in studio at Total Refreshment Centre over three days, and live at Café OTO over two nights that same week – at the tail end of the tour.
The album itself captures a very significant moment in the arc of branch's band. St. Louis’s presence had provided a fresh injection of virtuosic curiosity, and the interplay between him and Ajemian rejiggered the crew’s string-driven multi-rhythmic plonk swing while also refreshing their alternately aggressive and melodious heavy-bite bowing with an expanded pocket. It was a highly fertile foundation for branch to experiment and explore, reach for the nether regions of her instrument, and continue to focus and refine her flagship ensemble into a wholly original sound.
bird dogs of paradise also introduced the wider world to branch’s singing voice. “prayer for amerikkka pt. 1 & 2” - written and first performed by branch in Paris on the night of the 2018 US midterm elections - has since become a rallying cry for those who share her sense of justice in a world controlled by those who are seemingly unconcerned with it. And on “love song" (for assholes and clowns), branch shows us her cards with a wink and a smile. “So much beauty lies in the abstract of instrumental music,” branch says in the album’s original liner notes, “but being this ain’t a particularly beautiful time, I’ve chosen a more literal path. The voice is good for that.”
The IA11 Edition of FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise comes on classic black 140-gram vinyl LP (pressed at Pallas in Germany, with lacquers cut by Daniel K at SST) inside a heavyweight reverse-board jacket, with a 16-page 11x11" insert booklet featuring previously-unpublished photos, two sets of new liner notes – the first by jaimie’s mom, Soledad “Sally” Branch, as told to Kate Branch, and the second by Fly or Die bassist Jason Ajemian – plus IARC 2025 obi strip and printed poly-lined printed inner-sleeve.
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jaimie branch – trumpet, voice, synthesizer, percussion, bells, sneaker squeaks
Lester St. Louis – cello, percussion
Jason Ajemian – double bass, percussion
Chad Taylor – drums, xylophonewith special guests:
Ben LaMar Gay – voice (on track 2)
Marvin Tate – voice (on track 2)
Matt Schneider – 12-string guitar (on track 2)
Dan Bitney – percussion, synthesizer (on track 8)
Scott McNiece – egg (on track 8)All compositions by jaimie branch, except “birds of paradise,” “whales,” and “bird dogs of paradise” composed by jaimie branch, Lester St. Louis, Jason Ajemian & Chad Taylor; and “lesterlude” composed by Lester St. Louis.
Recorded mostly at Total Refreshment Centre (tracks 2–7 & 9) and Café OTO (tracks 1 & 8) in Dalston, London UK, November 20th–25th, 2018.
Edits & overdubs at Dave’s house in Pilsen, Chicago, December 2018.
Final dubs & mixing at Decade Studios in Old Town, Chicago, January 2019.
Mastered at Chicago Mastering Service in Garfield Park, Chicago, March 2019.Recorded by Dave Vettraino & David Allen
Recording Assisted by James Dunn & Kristian “Capitol K” Robinson
Edited by jaimie branch & Dave Vettraino
Mixed by David Allen & Dave Vettraino
Mastered by Shelly Steens
Cover Art by jaimie branch & John Herndon
Cover Design by Damon Locks & jaimie branch
Insert Cover Photo by Peter Gannushkin
Photos from TRC by Fabrice Bourgelle
Photos from Café OTO by Dawid Laskowski
Layout & Insert Design by Craig Hansen
IA11 Design & Layout by Aaron Lowell Denton
Executive Production by Scott McNiece & David Allen
jai jai
By Soledad “Sally” Branch
As told to Kate Branch (August 2025)
image: jaimie leading the Branch family band while performing “La Bamba” at the Unitarian Universalist Society at Shelter Rock on Long Island, NewYork. (photo courtesy of the Branch family, photographer unknown)
jaimie has been singing ever since she was old enough to hum. At age three, we would perform, with her dad on the guitar, songs like “La Bamba” and “Guantanamera.” She would always be the one right there in front, singing all the words in Spanish and English. Guajira, guantanamera/ yo soy un hombre sincero...
At the age of six, she wrote a song for a retiring reverend at our Unitarian Universalist Church on Long Island where we had lived. She wrote the song with my mom, her grandmother, they were very close. After they played it on the piano, jaimie and I wrote the notes down on paper. When jaimie performed it for the church, there was a choir behind her and a small band: piano, violin and guitar. She was wearing a little denim jumper. Her hair was long, black, bangs. She got up there very quietly and very slowly, somewhat shy, very serious, and said: “The name of the song is ‘My Dreams End in the Sky.’”
That was our girl.
jaimie, age 6, receiving the Suffolk County Music Award for best composition for “My Dreams End in the Sky.” (photo courtesy of the Branch family, photographer unknown)
jaimie’s affinity for birds started early; here, at age 2.5, on her family’s boat named “Soledad.” (photo courtesy of the Branch family, photographer unknown)
jaimie always was a person who had her ear to the ground to the injustices in the world, from when she was just a little one. She had a strong religious education and was surrounded by very smart, very liberal folks. At the time, the AIDS epidemic was all around us, and jaimie saw the terrible prejudice and ignorance around that. When she was nine, we had just moved to Kenilworth, Illinois, and she wanted to check out a book from the school library about a young boy named Ryan who had contracted HIV through a contaminated blood transfusion. And the librarian wouldn’t allow her to take it out, because it was “too advanced for her age.” I had to go to the library myself. “She’s an avid reader,” I said, “and she's very interested in these things....”
As jaimie got older, she experienced injustices directly. She didn't really fit in. She did not look or act like all the other children, but she was super innocent, and felt things very strongly. As she got older, she joined a lot of efforts, especially with the church, to be out there and advocate for various kinds of causes. By the eighth grade, she began rebelling, and ultimately became a soldier for those who were considered on the periphery, or “second class citizens.”
I don't know if it was just in la sangre, or what, but we came from a long line of strong women with incredible intuition. My mother, who was an amazing storyteller and had this real earthiness, spiritual side to her, shared so many stories with us about injustices back home in Colombia. The church was in cahoots with the government against the poor. All the times she had to dodge bullets to get home before curfew because they were under military control. And then, when she and my father came to the United States in 1947: it was time to return home, and my mother desperately wanted to, but a war had broken out in Bogotá called la guerra roja, and my mother's people said, “All of our land has been taken by the government. Don't come back.”
From left: jaimie’s mom, Maria Soledad, age 3, pictured with her aunts, Maria Cristina and Sarah Cecilia, and maternal grandparents, Ana Cecilia and Jorge Enrique Barbour, in Brooklyn, NY in 1953.
jai with Grandma Cecilia Barbour on Christmas morning, 1984. (photos courtesy of the Branch family, photographer unknown)
So they stayed and got their citizenship and eventually moved to a neighborhood in Brooklyn which would now be considered Sunset Park. At the time, there were no other South American families on the block. But in our apartment, a three-floor walk up above a toy shop, we danced and played our music. Inside, it was muy Latino.
It was around 2016 when I started helping the family jaimie speaks about in part two of “prayer for amerikkka.” At the time, I was a psychotherapist. But for 14 years prior to that, I had been working primarily with Latino families as a social worker in pediatric hospitals, and as a volunteer family counselor for private organizations. I helped parents of babies who did not have legal papers here, or who were severely poor and could not afford formula, clothes, and I would connect them with different programs that offered resources. I loved the people—these are people who would take the shirts off their backs to help you—and I missed the work.
So one day, I walked by this church in Evanston, Illinois that had a big sign out front that said, “We Are A Sanctuary Church.” And I walked straight in, and met a woman from El Salvador who was wearing an electronic ankle monitor. Her name was Ana, and she had two young boys with her. Her daughter,Yesica, was being detained at the border. She was only 19.
The family came over because their lives were in danger. The gangs that ruled El Salvador were after their daughter, wanting her to become a girlfriend of one of the guys in the gang, but her father would not allow it. One day, she was coming home from school, and the guy approached her, and her father stood between them, and that was it: he was shot in the middle of the plaza right in front of his daughter.
Ana, who sold leather shoes in the square, didn’t want to leave El Salvador, but she had no choice: the gang held her at gunpoint for refusing to pay them after they killed her husband. The only reason they didn’t shoot was because a bystander got in the way. So she took her children in the early hours of the morning, from one day to the next, and got over to the United States. It takes a lot of woman to be able to do that.
A passport photo of jaimie, taken in junior high. (photo courtesy of the Branch family, photographer unknown)
And even though the authorities at the border believed their story, they wouldn’t let Yesica into the country because she was over the age of 18. In truth, she had just turned 19. Only Ana and her two boys, who were 14 and 7 at the time, could apply for asylum. ICE sent Yesica back to El Salvador, where she hid in their home, the home that her family owned, before escaping to her grandmother's house.
Eventually, the gang found her, and proceeded to rape her and almost kill her.
Somehow, she made her way back over to the border in Texas, where she was detained for three years. It was a for-profit detention center, which is a whole other area of horror; the more people they detained, the more money they made. It’s a lot of what we know today, except now it's even worse.
By 2017 and 2018, my involvement in the family’s story grew even greater, fierce even.We would march together, and talk to the press, with me translating. I was very busy trying my best to help them.That’s when jaimie started getting interested in their story. “prayer for amerikkka part one and two” was her way of getting involved.
When jaimie asked if she could write a song about the family, she promised me she would not use their names. She did use mine, though. I was surprised at first when I heard it, though I remember her asking about my name, Soledad. She wanted to know about the history of my name, and what it meant. Solitude. Right away, she understood that “solitude” didn’t mean that you were alone, but rather you were individually strong enough to bring people together.
The fact that jaimie sang the actual meaning along with my name told me that she listened, and that, for her, I counted.
And the fact that she played so loud and with such pride—translating her screams into beautiful music—told me that the Latina in her was very much alive.
Photo by Dawid Laskowski
jaimie branch
About
First and foremost, jaimie “Breezy” branch (intentionally punctuated as all-lower-case) was a trumpet player. Whether it was the blast of her horn’s long steady full-bodied tone, or the expressiveness she’d add with plunger mutes and harmonizing looped effects, branch played the trumpet like she was born to, reasserting her love for and fascination with the instrument each and every time she brought it to her lips. If you need one reason to know why jaimie branch was a special musical force, start there.
International Anthem
The Eleventh Year
On December 2nd, 2024, we marked the ten-year anniversary of our first release.
With a full decade under our belt – ten years of commitment to a growing community of artists, and our original mission statement ("to vitalize demand for boundary defying music," among other things) – we've spent a lot of time thinking about how we'd like to celebrate this milestone. What we keep coming back to is: desire to use this opportunity to revisit and revivify music and memories from our first decade; but keeping true to our ethos of always looking forward, all the way.
In that spirit, across 2025, we'll be rolling out a series of releases and events under the IA11 banner. Celebrating our eleventh year. Doing our best to retell essential, foundational stories from our past, while keeping our hearts and minds fixed on the present. Trying to establish new standards that can help carry our mission through another decade of work – and hopefully more.
Stay tuned for releases and news.