daily album meditations

every day I try to find time to sit down and listen--just listen--to an entire record.

[dailyalbummeditations]

The Samuel Jackson Five are a Norwegian band with a silly name and jokey song titles. They also make some of the most intelligent, tuneful, cathartic music I've heard, in a jazz-influenced style of post-rock. Emotionally resonant without being sentimental; equally given to bursts of raw energy and artfully hewn melodies.

Many songs are imbued with power via the rock-production standbys of wide punchy drums and searing electric guitars, but those sections gracefully give way to contemplative space and gorgeous violin bowing. SJ5 never let you feel too grounded--they push their sounds into a somewhat abstract headspace by weaving buzzy synths and warbly theremins in with the more recognizable instruments, and they're happy to straight-up destroy your skull with noise ("Person Most Likely to Enjoy the Taste of Human Flesh" features the most sublime cacophony).

But make no mistake, this album is a work of expert craftsmanship from top to bottom. Every band member plays with a perfect balance of expression and restraint. They're so good at layering sounds that a combo as simple as an electric guitar in sync with an acoustic one can sound like a completely new instrument. And I love the way they can change the character of a melody by re-contextualizing it with a different groove or bassline.

I've never heard another group quite like this. If you dig Easily Misunderstood make sure you check out their true magnum opus, Goodbye Melody Mountain.

[dailyalbummeditations]

Steve Lawson is a solo bassist, who uses live sampling/looping and effects to create multi-layered improvised compositions. On this record he branches out into glitchy synths and imperfectly-timed drum machines. IMO it's his most aesthetically realized, thematically coherent work.

These meandering improvisations, through looped repetition and the subtle depth of Steve's playing, concentrate their energy over time and seep into your brain to become legit memorable melodies. The jittering glitchy bits are like fleeting thoughts and perceptions coming in and out of the mind, while the smooth fretless bass creates a centering undercurrent of inner calm.

Click through to the Bandcamp page if you want to read Steve's many words on the conceptual underpinnings of the record, including how it relates to Aristotle's ideas on the structure of human thought and action.

P.S. Steve typically doesn’t do physical releases, so I had to make my own bootleg cassette copy, with my own artwork:

[dailyalbummeditations]

An old favorite. This album seems to exist like a spirit in a hollow oak tree, both grounded and ethereal. These songs create an amazing sense of space, holding you at a distance at first (i.e. with the muffled intro to "All We Ask") so they can then bring you inside their space--often with a wavering, intimate vocal that cuts through the fog.

Drums here are snappily tight yet bloomingly open. Vocal layers swirl, ghostly yet deeply human. The instruments create emptiness and fill each other's spaces with a dynamic finesse that is downright orchestral, but organic in a way that makes the sounds feel like elements of a landscape (rather than, say, characters on a stage).

The lyrics are often obscure, and that helps them avoid getting in the way of the more ethereal qualities of the record. I will say, though, that the last track works way better for me with my original misheard lyric of "fulcrum" rather than "foreground". ;)

[dailyalbummeditations]

We got our first snow of the season today in Madison, Wisconsin, so I decided to welcome it with my favorite winter album: Zammuto’s Anchor. This is the first record that got me thinking of how seasons create different emotional contexts for experience.

The mellower songs have a chilly pace with frosty textures that reflect the snow and ice outside, while the more upbeat songs give a burst of warmth and fun that's much appreciated when the sun is hard to find. The moods on this record don't quite gel in warm weather (and it was unwisely released in the summer, leading to some negative reviews) but in the cold, this is often just what I need.

[dailyalbummeditations]

75 Dollar Bill are an improvising duo playing guitar (Che Chen) and a plywood crate (Rick Brown).

On their newest record they expand out to include saxophones, floor toms, and infinite maracas. Meditative, repetitious loops that interlock, evolve and transform in deeply organic ways.

This has quickly become one of my favorites for feeling more grounded and/or focused. And, for some reason, I think this is the perfect soundtrack for playing Settlers of Catan. >_>

P.S. I love that Che’s album art reflects the underlying rhythmic philosophy of the album: Rick bases his beats on compound rhythm groupings of 18, and each color column is a different way of visually organizing 18 squares on a grid.