Dusted Mid-Year 2023, Part Two
Yo La Tengo
And we’re back with the second half of the alphabet—from Kookei to Yves Tumor. If you missed it, check out part one here. We’ll have the writers’ lists tomorrow.
Kookei — The Incredible Hulk (H$G Studios)
Who picked it? Ray Garraty
Did we review it? No
Tim Clarke’s take:
Detroit rapper Kookei has a truly bizarre rapping style. He delivers almost everything in a hushed whisper, as if he’s right there inside your earbuds, sibilance sizzling, braggadocio booming. Though Kookei rarely wavers from this vocal approach, the production across The Incredible Hulk varies wildly in consistency and quality. Trap beats, synth stabs and rudimentary piano loops dominate the backing tracks, with cuts such as “Jackie Chan” sounding much more rich and polished, while others such as “Cousin Skeeter” and “Headshot Gang 2” bleed into the red, making for some wince-worthy distortion. Admittedly this stuff is no doubt supposed to be heard loud while high as a kite, so I can’t say I’ve been able to fully appreciate its intended effect.
Kali Malone — Does Spring Hide its Joy (Ideologic Organ)
Does Spring Hide Its Joy by Kali Malone (featuring Stephen O’Malley & Lucy Railton)
Who nominated it? Jason Bivins
Did we review it? No
Andrew Forell’s take:
At three hours in duration, Swedish composer Kali Malone’s latest long form composition seems a daunting proposition. Based on Malone’s tuned sine wave generators, Stephen O’Malley’s guitar and Lucy Railton’s cello, Does Spring Hide Its Joy is an extraordinarily rewarding experience. Within the elemental drones, Malone conjures tectonic movement both sweeping and incremental. Microtonal changes feel enormous, the glacial pace focuses the ear on every imperceptible progression, every movement of bow across string and the shimmering harmonic interaction between the instruments. Recorded in early 2020, Does Spring Hide Its Joy reflects those early days of the pandemic when time seemed at a standstill and lethargy, dread and inertia slithered their way in. Three years on, this music resonates with the ongoing effects of those upheavals. All the terrible beauty is here and if you have the time to concentrate, Kali Malone and her collaborators provide a cavernous space in which to process. Very highly recommended and thank you to Jason for the impetus to listen.
Natural Information Society — Since Time is Gravity (Eremite)
Who Picked it? Bill Meyer
Did we review it? Yes, Christian Carey said, “Whether the new collaborators will remain, or other players will join Abrams, Since Time is Gravity demonstrates that Natural Information Society is a durable creative enterprise.”
Bryon Hayes’ take:
Most of us at Dusted love Natural Information Society, and with good reason: Joshua Abrams and his ever-evolving ensemble know how to concoct a hypnotic brew. As such, it’s no surprise that this record made it to the top of someone’s list this year. If you were lucky enough to catch the latest incarnation of the group – swollen in ranks and named Natural Information Society Community Ensemble with Ari Brown – play live in 2022, you’d have an idea of what’s in store for you on Since Time is Gravity. Even though they might not have been playing this particular material, the large ensemble interplay featured here was definitely on display in the live setting, as was Ari Brown’s crafty soloing. It’s prudent to note that the songs are shorter in comparison to the marathon that was Descension (Out of Our Constrictions), but this is great because as a listener you get to follow the group along a variety of pathways. It will be interesting to see where Abrams takes Natural Information Society next, but you can be sure of one thing: we at Dusted will love it.
Pile — All Fiction (Exploding in Sound)
All Fiction by Pile
Who picked it? Patrick Masterson
Did we review it? Yes, Patrick said, “All Fiction furthers that thinking, another reason this feels less like a leap and more like a carefully considered step toward further Piledom — the band’s flowing, peripatetic nature makes writing about individual songs less important than considering the whole.”
Ray Garraty’s take:
All Fiction is anemic enough to ask yourself: do they eat enough? Rick Maguire’s voice here sounds like he could use more nutrients and proteins in his diet. He kind of wakes up on some tracks, like “Poisons,” yet core of the album is that sad, melancholic material disillusioned middle-aged men write. It’s Radiohead-ish, it’s rock-ish and it’s… just flat? If it’s really what fiction is these days, I better stick with nonfiction.
The Reds, Pinks and Purples — The Town That Cursed Your Name (Slumberland Records)
The Town That Cursed Your Name by The Reds, Pinks & Purples
Who recommended it? Christian Carey
Did we review it? Yes; Jennifer Kelly wrote, “Glenn Donaldson puts a louder, fuzzier attack behind his gossamer-wistful songs this time, amping up the volume for a set of darker, more desolate tunes.”
Jonathan Shaw’s take:
It seems to me that Pitchfork gets something right about the Reds, Pinks and Purples: Jude Noel’s review of The Town That Cursed Your Name notes, amid a breathlessly positive assessment, that the band’s records “simply pick up where the last left off, like a series of Moleskines filled end to end.” That may be so, and the consistency of Glenn Donaldson’s songcraft likely provides a good deal of the band’s appeal—but do you really want to spend time reading a batch of someone else’s Moleskines? The Whole Foods grocery lists and the snatches of wood-shopped poetry and the paragraphs of winsome repining? If so, check out “Almost Changed,” the ninth track on The Town That Cursed Your Name, which doesn’t quite brood and doesn’t quite whine and doesn’t really seem interested in making anything change in the first place. To be fair, it’s very, very hard to find fault with this record’s compositions, the rhymes and the musicianship, which are like a May breeze, a Monet pastel or a warm cup of ginger tea—or all three at once, in someone’s comfy suburban sunroom. If that’s your situation, maybe you don’t want (or need) much of anything to change. Must be nice. Here and there, The Town That Cursed Your Name stirs from its state of cloudless repose to threaten some fuss. “What Is a Friend?” picks up the pace and thrums and hums with something like urgency. Then Donaldson sings: “Dodged your call from the jail / No birthday card in the mail, I always fail / Maybe you lost the plot / You could have offered an opening slot, it’s food for thought.” The inside-baseball, indie-rock vernacular and the literate metaphors dominate the record’s lyrical register. They are always clever and inevitably build an emotional tone best described as precious mopery. The music of the Reds, Pinks and Purples is pretty and precise, and it winces when the world gets ugly. Unfortunately, it’s an ugly world.
Cécile McLorin Salvant—Melusine (Nonesuch)
Mélusine by Cecile McLorin Salvant
Who nominated it? Jason Bivins
Did we review it? No
Bill Meyer’s take:
Cécile McLorin Salvant isn’t exactly beyond my ken. If, like me, you spend time reading and writing for jazz publications, her name and striking taste in eyewear are inescapable. However, having caught her some years back at the Chicago Jazz Festival, I was under the impression that she was a skilled but hardly innovative jazz singer, so I haven’t been trying to keep up. On a formal level, Melusine wipes the floor with that misconception. The material, which consists of original songs sung mostly in French and much older ones sourced from Francophone-adjacent cultures, is certainly not standard. Subtle production touches situate this recording in the 21st century without lapsing into pop pandering. And her singing, which is both technically unassailable and emotionally communicative, transcends any linguistic barriers. There’s a lot to appreciate here; thanks for the tip, Jason.
Tacoma Park — Tacoma Park (self released)
Tacoma Park by Tacoma Park
Who picked it? Ian Mathers
Did we review it? Yes, Ian wrote, “Tacoma Park manages the always-difficult feat of simultaneously reading as the heady product of multiple creative minds in deep conversation and yet fluid and confident enough in its own voice that the result still registers as singular.”
Tim Clarke’s take:
This self-titled duo recording by John Harrison and Ben Felton documents a fruitful pandemic collaboration, overflowing with possibility. With each track built around a handful of rhythmic and melodic ideas, the music is given plenty of air to breathe, plenty of time to evolve. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar and arpeggiated synths dominate the palette, then there’s some drums here and there, both live kit and electronic. At 68 minutes, Tacoma Park is a long record that meanders a fair bit, but it feels like it reaches an apex of sorts with “Circles As A Path As A Valley,” a nearly eight-minute exercise in cathartic layering. Beyond that point, drum-machine-driven tracks such as “We Lost Our Place, We Started Over” and “I Left My Wallet in the 90s” (great title) feel like starting points for another project entirely, or a postscript pointing towards recordings to come.
Tørrfall — Tørrfall (Den Pene Inngang)
Tørrfall by Tørrfall
Who picked it? Ian Mathers
Did we review it? Yes. Ian wrote, “If there’s intoxication here, it’s the post-panic euphoria of a body running out of air; and if this is water music, it’s for currents deep enough they’ve forgotten what the waves are, if they ever knew.”
Patrick Masterson’s take:
In a way, I’m tor[r]n. Tørrfall’s “psychedelic water music” can at times feel languid and flowing as water is, so I see where both the band and Ian are coming from — but what I hear more over these four songs that all clock in between nine and 13 minutes is an alien drone, something elemental but not necessarily earthen. The key to that otherworldliness is Nils Erga’s synthesizer work and wordless vocals: Hovering like a UFO over the rubbery, at times counterintuitive basslines of Kristoffer Riis and Thore Warland’s rainshower percussion, Erga graces these tracks with an omnipresent ethereality that suggests terrain not entirely our own. The music can’t help but follow: Not quite jazz, not quite krautrock, not quite drone, not quite house or techno, Tørrfall skirts the fringes of each to make an entrancing, immersive sonic universe (calling it a mere world feels insufficient) all its own that, headphones or speakers, the louder you play it, the more unsettling it gets. I can’t imagine how these guys must translate live.
Wound Man — Human Outline (Iron Lung)
Human Outline by Wound Man
Who nominated it? Jonathan Shaw
Did we review it? Yes, Jonathan wrote, “The whole record is a barely contained bundle of nerves, electric, hardened, threatening to come completely undone. For those of us walking around in twenty-first-century cities full of anger, suffering and insanity, Human Outline feels infuriatingly apt, mad and full of madness. It’s a terrific record.”
Jennifer Kelly’s take:
In his review, Jon spends a fair amount of time considering which metal subgenre Wound Man belongs to, a subject that I can contribute exactly nothing to. I can say, however, that Wound Man grips and ravages, at slow speeds and fast ones. I like the blistered assaults of “Leashed,” mad forward surges of rabid energy that hurtle forward at mouth-foaming speed, then pull back abruptly, as if on a choke chain. “Punisher” does exactly what the title implies, disintegrating guitar tone into buzzing aggression with sheer force of speed and volume. These cuts are over before they get started—the title track, for instance, is 40 seconds long—but you’ll feel the impact in your gut and ear canal long afterwards.
Yo La Tengo — This Stupid World (Matador)
This Stupid World by Yo La Tengo
Who picked it? Bryon Hayes
Did we review it? Yes. Tim Clarke said of the closing track that it’s "a searingly emotional purge and soothing balm all rolled in one.”
Ian’s take:
These assignments really are actually selected randomly (there are slips of paper and everything!) but it so happens that not only was I already enjoying This Stupid World but that Bryon and I wound up representing Dusted’s Canadian wing at the Toronto stop of YLT’s tour for this record. We had tickets before I got selected to cover it here, even! As a moderate fan of the band (love some classic albums of theirs, have been sorta half-paying-attention to the new stuff for a while now), this is actually the first time I’ve really sat down and engaged with a new Yo La Tengo record in years. That means I can’t really compare it to the last couple, but it feels like I picked a good time to check back in. That closing track, “Miles Away,” might be my favorite song of theirs plus or minus a “Night Falls on Hoboken” (perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s some overlap in vibes there), but overall this is a packed and consistently great 48 minutes. The skronky ones go for it, the gentle ones do in fact soothe, and the deadpan yo-yo tricks on James McNew showcase “Tonight’s Episode” tickled me. To still make records as good as Painful, nearly 30 years after they made Painful? That’s a significant achievement.
Yves Tumor — Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (Warp)
Who nominated it? Patrick Masterton
Did we review it? No
Andrew Forell’s take:
Having been peripherally aware of Yves Tumor I was excited to hear Praise a Lord..., and when it hits it’s very good with Tumor coming on like a latter-day Prince. Their combination of alternative guitars, courtesy of producer Alan Moulder and swaggering RnB is compelling. “God is a Circle,” “Lovely Sewer” and “Operator” have a real edge and a sense of transgressive danger, but other tracks are weighed down by the everything-including-the-kitchen-sink operatics that plague Kevin Barnes’ most indulgent moments with of Montreal. Having said that, this is a really enjoyable, immaculate sounding record and you can’t help but be won over by Tumor’s charismatic performance and their willingness to take risks.