In the 1990's my future wife was a record store clerk in Portland, Oregon. American guitar legend John Fahey was living in a nearby town and would visit the shop. Here are two mix cassettes that he made for her during that time...
It feels like it’s been 2017 for roughly a decade now, given the constant barrage of news and events, but actually we’re only about halfway though. So again, for the fourth time in a row, we have created a mid-year feature in which Dusted writers review each other’s favorite records, specialized expertise be damned. That’s right, veteran free-jazz expert Bill Meyer reviews Actress, outside-punk rock fan Ben Donnelly gets Tift Merritt, trad jazz authority Derek Taylor takes on Julie Byrne, etc. We are drawing outside the lines. We are making a mess. We are discovering things to like about records that would probably never have hit our turntables otherwise. We hope you will do likewise, reading about albums that you might not ordinarily consider, listening to the audio and maybe finding one or two things that make your own year-end list. We’ll run the first half of our picks today, covering Actress through Sarah Davachi. The second will be posted tomorrow and a collection of this-year-so-far lists on the final day of our feature.
Actress — AZD (Ninja Tune)
Who recommended it? Joseph Burnett
Did we review it? Yes. Joseph said, “(H)is tracks trace the boundaries between the dancefloor and the art gallery in ways that have rarely been achieved so successfully.”
Bill Meyer’s take:
In the video for “X22RME,” Darren Cunningham (aka Actress) conceals his face behind a welder’s mask and gesticulates in front of a crumbling concrete sound catcher that was built to amplify the sounds of advancing German bombers during WW II. The sight of these shielding devices resonates on the morning after a truck drove down the sidewalk of London Bridge, running over pedestrians, then disgorged its occupants into a restaurant district where they stabbed passersby with long knives. Cultural action vibrates within a milieu, and we live in a time where we are constantly reminded that the old fights come around again, new ones multiply, and our modes of protection will not keep us safe. Actress’s beats won’t solve that, but their adherence to dance floor functionality points to one option for working out the stress. Likewise the women’s voices that rise in multi-lingual layers above the electronic burble at the track’s end articulate connections and possibilities; people construct their lives in whatever circumstances they find themselves..
Blanck Mass — World Eater (Sacred Bones)
Who recommended it? Ian Mathers
Did we review it? Yes, Ian’s review went up earlier today, saying it’s a record that “somehow [manages] to be both more relentlessly overwhelming and more immediately accessible” than his previous work.
Ben Donnelly’s take:
World Eater seizes the challenge of making everything loud at once, with rhythm sequences that fill up the 16th notes and every frequency. It's the same dare taken by black metal, and I daresay metal has something to do with the aesthetic, though the results of Benjamin John Power's production are brighter. When his synthetic valkyries are charging, it’s epic for sure. It's a victory gallop, not impending doom. And victorious he is. Looped waves of noise have the force of machines, and they all ring with the intent of a human somewhere behind the scenes, giddy with the godlike storm-bringing power he's discovered. So yes, "The Rat" has an industrial meat grinder beat, but it sounds like he's dropping pinball machines into the auger, not enemies. This is a dense record shot through the ribbons of darkness, but those bared fangs on the cover are smiling.
Bottle Tree — Bottle Tree (International Anthem)
Bottle Tree by Bottle Tree
Who recommended it: Eric McDowell
Did we review it? Yes, Eric covered it in a mid-May Dust, saying, “Over the cassette’s 30 minutes, the trio gets significant mileage out of contrasted layers, deft structural pivots and sudden harmonic cadences.”
Ian Mathers’ take:
Most records this year won’t pack quite as much into their running lengths as Chicago trio Bottle Tree does in a mere 32 minutes, and with fairly minimal means, too; just A.M. Frison’s smoked honey voice, Tommaso Moretti’s protean, quicksilver drum fills and the sometimes anchoring, sometimes intangible arrangements and guiding hand of Ben Lamar Gay. The trio can and does stop and go on a dime, takes switchbacks without pause, and somehow does all this in a form that’s never anything less than sublimely mellow. Whether it’s the gently clattering percussion and bass burbles behind Frison’s chanted and then crooned lyrics on “Open Secret” or the sunrise synths and steady, subway train drumming leading into the stirring chorus of “Permanent Change” (where, of course, the drumming changes up), Bottle Tree somehow twists classic song craft and the avant garde, pop and jazz, Motown and improv, into an effortless, instantly ingratiating Mobius strip. Whatever else that tree is growing, there’s lightning in some of those bottles.
Nathaniel Braddock — Quadrille and Collapse (Invertabrata)
Quadrille & Collapse by Nathaniel Braddock
Who recommended it: Eric McDowell
Did we review it: Yes, Bill Meyer covered it in Dust, writing that, “’Doesn’t Remember,’ … interrupts Philip Glass-like repetition with intricate bridging phrases, while ‘Silvering Ghosts’ sounds like Steve Reich adapted to West African and Caribbean picking techniques.”
Jennifer Kelly’s take:
Braddock is known for interspersing American Primitive-style picking with West African blues, but this pristine and radiant disc seems to lean more heavily on Fahey than Ali Farka Touré. You may intuit the dry heat of African trance blues in “The Desert Within” but elsewhere shimmering flurries of picking evoke the Appalachia-crossed-with-raga musings of Jack Rose. The title track, balancing 18th century square dancing with post-modern notions of entropy, is a glistening intricacy of notes, grounded by low plunks like a kick drum but spinning off from there in dizzying circles. Closer “Tiger Bucket” swaggers. Strong rhythm cuts through the light-and-shadow eddies of rapid notes; it’s a spring-swelled stream that looks placid on top, but spits off bubbles and froth from its tumultuous undercurrents.
Jaimie Branch — Fly or Die (International Anthem)
Fly or Die by jaimie branch
Who recommended it? Derek Taylor, but the Dusted hive was in firm agreement
Did we review it? Yes. Eric said, “The Chicagoan-turned-Brooklynite’s overdue debut is bursting with the pent-up energy of years spent cultivating an impishly bold voice and collaborating widely without the deserved reward of a reputation outside the local scene.”
Patrick Masterson’s take:
This time last year, I was giving a close listen to Babyfather in the wake of Brexit and wondering what we’d be listening to in the aftermath of a Trump election (not to say I told you so). For me, as it turns out, the answer was: Not much. I never got internet service for my new apartment and I’ve been reading a lot of books lately. I’ve enjoyed Migos, Pile, Colin Stetson, and Big Thief records, sure. I’ve indulged in long moments of peaceful repose to Young Thug’s “Safe.” The latest Overmono EP is solid. But that’s about it for 2017; my listening has been liberated from the ever-peaking insanity of the “news” cycle. It feels good, man.
And that’s how liberation should feel, shouldn’t it? You should come away empowered, relieved, unburdened. I wonder if that’s how Jaimie Branch was feeling as she wrapped up post-production last July for Fly or Die, her full-length debut. At a lean 35 minutes and two fistfuls of tracks, this record packs it in and lets it out: The swell of white noise before the count-off into “Theme 001,” a power groove of a song, shows right away that this is no free-jazz genre purist’s haven. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the album flows so well between songs like the “Themes” or “Waltzer” and the interstices of the title-track or end note “…Back at the Ranch” given Branch’s familiarity with band mates Jason Ajemian, Tomeka Reid and Chad Taylor. But despite a handle on divergent mile markers that would have lesser composers looking foolish, the deft touch she’s provided frees it only as far her leash will allow; as Eric rightly points out in his review, the glue is her voice, and she’s got a taut one here.
Nevertheless, calling Jaimie Branch a trumpeter or even bandleader feels preposterously limiting; this woman is living the art we need right now to survive. Does that seem over the top? Well, far be it for me to insist you listen. Or the overwhelming majority of us at Dusted. Or Branch’s bandmates. Or Rob Mazurek. Or Ryley Walker. Or Sarah Neufeld. Everyone hears the liberation at their own pace, after all.
The Bug vs. Earth — Concrete Desert (Ninja Tune)
<a href="http://thebugmusic.bandcamp.com/album/concrete-desert">Concrete Desert by The Bug vs Earth</a>
Who recommended it? Mason Jones
Did we review it: Yes, Mason wrote, “As the guitars and piano are successively overwhelmed by sonic waves only to resurface with glints of beauty, it feels like an oddly peaceful, welcome drowning.”
Jennifer Kelly’s take:
Two artists that seem, on the surface, to be radically different, find austere common ground in this disc. Dylan Carlson of Earth carves out epic meditative spaces with long, widely separated chimes of guitar, while Kevin Martin, The Bug, builds masses of shivering, shimmering hum. “Gasoline” and “Snakes vs. Rats” power forward on machine-drilled, industrial beats, the brooding heaviness set to foreboding motion. The long ones, “American Dream” and “Concrete Desert” wax elegiac, the ebb and tide of static eroding melody, like the crackle of clock radio cutting through the fading images of a dream.
Julie Byrne — Not Even Happiness (BaDaBing/Grapefruit)
<a href="http://juliembyrne.bandcamp.com/album/not-even-happiness">Not Even Happiness by Julie Byrne</a>
Who recommended it: Jennifer Kelly
Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer said, “Not Even Happiness is a work of intimate loveliness, surely one of the most flat-out beautiful songwriter albums of a year that is just getting going.”
Derek Taylor’s take:
True to the unspoken, but venerable troubadour credo, particulars of Julie Byrne’s biography bubble up in the mutable, artifice-averse economies of her songs. A life lived with openness to extempore itinerancy and an abiding adoration for the natural world are points on the artistic compass, as are the bonds of family and interpersonal consanguinity even when at odds. Acoustic finger-style guitar lies at the core of Byrne’s performance tool box along with an ethereal voice that glides from a lilting, speakers-sating croon to candid spoken-sung salience. “Morning Dove” and “All the Land Glimmered” contain convincing evocations of the former, her starkly audible fretting on each folded directly into the gentle fractals of the tunes. Electronics and other instruments/effects enhance the equation on songs like “Natural Blue” and the interstitial “Interlude”, but Byrne’s fulcrum is usually the sturdy lattice work spun simply from words and strings. Lyrics and music coexist with equal and reciprocal weight and in their mingling revert to a pleasing and restorative weightlessness. Hers is not my usual wheelhouse, but one I will agreeably spend time in, soothing libation at the ready to augment those Byrne brings forth of an aural sort.
Evan Caminiti — Toxic City Music (Dust Editions)
<a href="http://dust-editions.bandcamp.com/album/toxic-city-music">Toxic City Music by Evan Caminiti</a>
Who recommended it? Bill Meyer
Did we review it? Yes, Brett Marion said, “Its slippery patterns [serve] as auditory snapshots of dank irradiated zones and heat realm communities quarantined in an airless isolation.”
Jennifer Kelly’s take
Guitars have receded under an ominous fug since Caminiti’s days in Barn Owl. Where slow bright arcs of tone soared over cuts from Ancestral Star and melancholic picked figures reverberated through Lost in the Glare, here the six-string sounds — sometimes Caminiti himself, sometimes augmented by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma — are ghostly wrecks, barely glimpsed through the haze. Caminiti incorporated field recordings from New York City into this apocalyptic mix, so some of the roar and hiss and rumble is just the sounds of midtown. Yet in “Joaquin,” the disc’s best, music slips under a pall of poisonous smoke, submerges in waves of material-destroying acid, goes down amid the distant hiss and clangor of machinery. Toxic City Music sets up an uneasy conflict between sound and entropy, and it seems that unmaking, rather than making, is winning.
Sarah Davachi — All My Circles Run (Students of Decay)
<a href="http://sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com/album/all-my-circles-run">All My Circles Run by Sarah Davachi</a>
Who recommended it? Tobias Carroll
Did we review it? Yes, Eric McDowell said: “Davachi remains a composer of gently immersive and just-stable ambient textures — the kind best enjoyed in total darkness, relieved of as much extraneous sensory input as possible.”
Joseph Burnett’s take:
Even if I hadn't learned it beforehand, I would be certain that the influence of LaMonte Young hung heavy over All My Circles Run from the first note. Sarah Davachi's compositions share Young’s dutiful dedication to patience and stillness more than most, as the extended, shimmering and unwavering tones on "For Strings" make abundantly clear. But dwelling on the core tones of strings, piano, voice and organ so unflinchingly, she allows their strengths to be magnified even as her subtle sonic manipulations upset the listener's expectations. "For Voice" is the clear triumph on All My Circles Run: resisting the temptation to overplay the layers of wordless litanies, she allows each voice to glisten and shine even as it crosses paths with others. Combined, these haunting refrains form a mournful choir that hangs translucently in the air, so fragile one fears it could break apart at any second. So much "drone" music is sterile and intellectual, but Davachi's dedication to focusing solely on the essence of each sound source means All My Circles Run is as affecting an experience as it is interesting.
The uploader says: “In the 1990’s my future wife was a record store clerk in Portland, Oregon. American guitar legend John Fahey was living in a nearby town and would visit the shop. Here are two mix cassettes that he made for her during that time.”
Strange sounds abound, from international garage rock to avant-classical drone to pummeling industrial sound collages. There’s even a little bit of acoustic guitar, too. Not much, though. But it’s a fascinating window into where Fahey’s head was at during this period.
Trio Mokili specializes in Ghanaian Highlife and African jazz. The group derives its name from the Lingala word for "the whole world," and features Occidental Brothers Dance Band International members Nathaniel Braddock (guitar) and Makaya McCraven (drums), with Junius Paul (bass).
Every Tuesday the Relax Attack Jazz Series presents Chicago's top jazz artists in a lively atmosphere, full of cocktail-shaking and spirited conversation. 9:30pm. Two sets. No cover.
