In the summer of 1960, trumpeter Ted Curson created one of jazz's most iconic moments when he performed on his pocket trumpet at the Newport Rebels Festival. This alternative festival was organized by Charles Mingus and Max Roach as a protest against the commercialization and lack of representation at the official Newport festival. Curson became renowned for his use of this compact instrument; his performance alongside Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin in Mingus's group is considered a milestone of the "inside-outside" jazz approach of that era.
Words cannot describe how much I adore this outro, where they bring the chorus back in. When they’re all winding down, Dannie’s sizzling down the drums, I love how Bud still plays until the last note. He always kept the melody and different rhythms alive through such an improvised performance. ♥️
We’re winding down for another year, looking forward to time off for the holidays and seeing friends and family in a semi-normal way. Once again it’s dark at 4:30 p.m., and once again, it doesn’t matter all that much if you’ve got a fire going and some good music playing. And so, we take stock of the albums that have caught our ears lately in another Dust. Here are garage bands playing jazz standards, Dutch jazz duos evoking night skies, Berbers playing wedding music, a whole album full of ambient accordion music and the final recording from a 101-year-old Creole fiddle maestro, as well as lots of other unexpected stuff. This month’s contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Andrew Forrell, Ian Masters, Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Chris Liberato, Justin Cober-Lake and Jonathan Shaw.
Aeon Station — Observatory (Sub Pop)
You could definitely get old waiting for another Wrens album. Their second and third albums were famously separated by ten years in the wilderness, and even Meadowlands, the triumphant, long-awaited return is 16 years old now. The photo my husband took of Kevin Whelan tossing his bass in the air on that tour is yellowed and curling at the edges, and Charles Bissell has publicly stated that the Wrens will never record again as a band. But at long last we have SOMETHING from former Wren Kevin Whelan, here supported by the rest of the band, that is Greg Whelan on guitar and Jerry McDonald on drums. Aeon Station is almost the Wrens, and if Observatory is missing the wistful ironies and clever observations that made Meadowlands heartbreaking, it’s got the big pop swells and irresistible choruses that made it exhilarating. To hear the steady bass pulse of “Fade” erupting into giddy overload is to relive the heady days of 2005, when these boys were exhausted but on top of the indie pop game. When the fragile uncertainties of “Queens” surge into drum-kicking, guitar-destroying exuberance, you can hear the way “Happy” picked listeners up out of the doldrums and headed for exultation. Sure, you’d maybe like a little more lyrical introspection, and the second half of the record is better than the first, but it’ll do for now. Who knows? Maybe in another decade or two, there will be more.
Jennifer Kelly
Beach Fossils — The Other Side Of Life: Piano Ballads (Bayonet)
Beach Fossils front man Dustin Payseur reinterprets some of his indie tracks in jazz trio settings with former drummer Tommy Gardner (piano, sax, and bass) and Henry Kwapis on drums. The results are mixed. On one hand Gardner and Kwapis provide excellent if unstretched backing for Payseur’s croon, on the other the songs remain the same and one’s response may depend on your attitude to the original material. On its own The Other Side Of Life is a pleasant side trip down an imagined memory lane. Payseur is a decent singer and occasionally acute songwriter and Gardner shines but the leap from lo-fi indie to jazz trio is neither wide enough nor narrow enough to make this more than a well-made curio. Enjoyable but inessential.
Andrew Forell
The Black Watch — Here and There (Atom)
The Black Watch’s John Andrew Frederick steeps his tunes in the psychedelic 1960s, laying a radiant jangle across fuzz-bombed but catchy melody. This 20th album for the last of LA’s Paisley’s underground is equal parts crunch and drift, with the hard lines of guitar strumming filled in with pastel drifts of vocal harmonies. “The Real You,” matches the droning sweetness of Ride with the winding, searching guitar soliloquies found in the Bevis Frond or Teenage Fanclub. Yet there’s also a new element, the lush string arrangements of Ben Eshbach which line the contours of “Now & Then,” with velvety ease. If you like your Nuggets-y guitar racket with a fair bit of craft and melody, this one’s for you.
Jennifer Kelly
Bremer/McCoy — Natten (Luaka Bop)
Natten (The Night) by Bremer McCoy
A Danish duo of pianist Morten McCoy and bassist Jonathan Bremer makes sparkling, evocative music poised somewhere between jazz, ambient electronics and new age in this nocturnal themed outing. “Natten” means night in Danish, and its namesake cut glitters with starlight in the piano and electric keyboards, while Bremer’s bass elicits velvety dark skies. “Mit Hierte” (“My Heart”) bobs and weaves with pensive syncopation, the startling clarity of keyboards set off a bass that swaggers, but subtly. The earthiness of bass contrasts sharply with synthesized sound washes; there’s a swing in these tunes, but also a meditative aura. These compositions balance nightclub-dwelling, martini-quaffing suavity with something clear and clean and natural, so that it’s hard to tell if it’s very late at night or very early in the morning.
Jennifer Kelly
Bruno Bavota — For Apartments: Songs & Loops (Temporary Residence Ltd.)
Italian composer Bruno Bavota is far from alone over the past couple years in finding himself staying home more often. While the notion of “accomplishing something” with our enforced extra time around the home quickly became both obnoxious and a meme, Bavota is also far from the only one to actually find himself producing work conditioned in some way by the lack of change in environs. The title of For Apartments: Songs & Loops might make it sound like a bit of a grab bag but there are actually two equally impressive but very distinct and demarcated albums here, with the six loops making for just under 40 minutes of synthesizer travelogue that feel a lot less constrained than the term “loop” might suggest, and the 13 songs sketching out slightly less than 29 minutes of calm, graceful solo piano complete with room tone. Maybe the best moment of the assembled For Apartments is the switch from the sixth loop to the first song, two totally distinct sound worlds briefly bumping up against each other, the heady excursions into (inner or outer) space of the former informing the patient space of the latter and vice versa. It’s very fine music to be stuck in an apartment with, however eager we might be to test it out in different contexts as well.
Ian Mathers
Pedro Carneiro / Pedro Melo Alves — Bad Company (Clean Feed)
Bad Company by Pedro Carneiro | Pedro Melo Alves
Put aside your rock-rooted associations. Bad Company is named after a story by Yasuoka Shotaro which depicted the seductive lure of antisocial cruelty and the corrosive outcome of such flirtations. So, who is the bad influence here? Carneiro, who plays marimba, works mainly in contemporary classical music but maintains a sideline in improvisation. Alves is a drummer whose work in new jazz is often tinged with an awareness of classical form. They would appear to be made for each other, and the recorded evidence from this totally improvised encounter adds evidence to supposition. Alves’ playing is quick and precise and Carneiro more patient, which conveys a sense of sonic depth and contrasting, complementary motion. Form derives from the differences in tone and velocity; if Portugal ever puts its cultural budget behind this duo, it would be great to witness this music being enacted in acoustically apposite spaces around the world.
Bill Meyer
Hocine Chaoui — Ouechesma (Outre National)
Ouechesma (Remastered Version) by Hocine Chaoui
Sometimes music comes at you unhindered by context. Take Ouechesma. If you don’t know the Chaoui language, you’re not going to know what Hocine Chaoui is singing, or why his surname matches the names of his ethnicity and language. Knowing that the Chaoui are a Berber community situated in mountainous eastern Algeria won’t really tell you anything about this music, and the sleeve doesn’t even tell you when the original cassette edition was issued. But here’s what you really need to know: it has a good beat, and if you can’t dance to it, you’re going to be awfully lonely if you attend one of the weddings where it gets played, because it’s very effective at motivating movement. It is pretty basic; a commanding chant of a vocal that alternates with an effects-dipped flute, and a galloping programmed beat that doesn’t waver for the whole song. Basic, and devastatingly effective.
Bill Meyer
Ted Curson — Pop Wine (Souffle Continu)
Pop Wine by Ted Curson
Souffle Continu is relentless in its mission to reissue quality Gallic-related jazz sides, and this time the theme is an American sideman in Paris. Wielding his horn on acclaimed recordings by the likes of Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor and Archie Shepp, with Pop Wine Ted Curson takes on the lead role; he’s got a trio of talented Frenchmen by his side. George Arvanitas handles the ivories, while Charles Saudrais rides the drumkit and Jacky Samson plays bass. On this 1971 studio recording, the quartet offer up five pieces, effortlessly working their way through a handful of styles ranging from funky fusion all the way to feisty free jazz. Each player is at the top of their game, meaning there’s no true hero here. Samson goes from laying down a groove on the title track to whipping his bow out for some string sawing on the fiery “L.S.D. Takes a Holiday.” On that latter piece, Arvanitis works his way up and down the keyboard. At times he's swift and supple and at others he demolishes the keys. Curson shows that he can be lyrical, such as on “Lonely One,” and he can frolic frantically (“Quartier Latin”). Saudrais keeps the former piece from being a maudlin affair with his jumpy rhythms, and even lets loose a rollicking solo on the speedy romp “Flip Top.” Pop Wine doesn’t necessarily have a pure varietal character, but such stylistic breadth allows for an intoxicating body and bouquet. This heady brew is the perfect tipple for many moods.
Bryon Hayes
Willie Durriseau — Creole House Dance 45 (Nouveau Electric)
Creole House Dance by Willie Durisseau
This exuberant single captures legendary fiddler Willie Durriseau as a spry centenarian, playing in a frictive, squalling, sprightly Creole style that disappeared before World War II. Louis Michot of the Lost Bayou Ramblers captures Durriseau in all his homespun glory, sawing away at zydeco dance tunes and blues rambles that haven’t been heard since most of us were born. Near the end of “Willie’s Zydeco,” here embellished with jovial accordion, Michot asks Willie about how he made his first fiddle out of a take-out box. “How’d you do it?” he says, “Because I want to make one.” “You’ll just have to watch the film,” says Durriseau, taking that and other secrets with him when he passed shortly after this record was made. Remarkable.
Jennifer Kelly
Wendy Eisenberg – Bent Ring (Dear Life)
Bent Ring by wendyeisenberg
Wendy Eisenberg doesn’t want you to look while they’re writing love songs. “It’s embarrassing enough for me” they sing, strumming unassumingly along. Periodically, a percussive swipe cuts across the track like a scythe attempting to end Eisenberg’s progress. Other times, a bell tone sounds at a line’s end, reinforcing a positive thought. Several times, in the middle of the track, the two sounds clash. “Little Love Songs” is from the experimental guitarist’s latest solo record, Bent Ring, which is the result of a self-dare: “to write an album of songs that don’t use guitar at all.” Instead, they employ a salvaged tenor banjo for a meditative and disarmingly complex collection about their art’s relationship to the world and themself. “We work very well together. I believe it’s true,” they sing, almost blissfully, during one of the final verses in which the bell chimes alone.
Chris Liberato
Equipment Pointed Ankh — Without Human Permission (Astral Editions/Sophomore Lounge)
Without Human Permission by Equipment Pointed Ankh
Without Human Permission feels like a message in a bottle, only the ink’s a bit smudged, so the communication is far from clear. Is it from the past? The LP has a Ralph Records c. 1978 vibe to it, quirky yet catchy. Is it from far away? The liner notes say these guys are from Louisville, but they drove to Rhode Island to make the record…who does that? The music is instrumental, but it doesn’t fall neatly into a genre, and the line-up of multiple synths, lots of guitars and some drums generates suspicion that this crew thought about who they wanted to play with before they thought about what instruments a band needs to have. And we haven’t even gotten to the Terry Riley’s piano meets your grandma’s organ’s rhythm box jam that melts into a psychedelic clarinet puddle yet. This record was made for those moments when your head needs scratching and your leg needs pulling, and if you don’t know what we’re talking about, well, we never said that we did, either, did we?
Bill Meyer
Hard Feelings — Hard Feelings (Domino)
On the closing track of Hard Feelings’ debut, Amy Douglas sings “I will bend time where I want it to go,” but she almost doesn’t have to; she and Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard have just spent 42 minutes doing pretty much that. Not only can the grooves and Douglas’s indelible performance at the center of Hard Feelings lead to the kind of dancefloor hypnosis where you’re not longer sure if it’s late at night, early in the morning, both, or neither, Goddard’s productions touch on many of the sounds and strengths of house, disco, techno et al, but they do so in a way that feels neither like an unnecessary ‘update’ not just a throwback for the sake of nostalgia. Those tracks alone would make Hard Feelings more than worth a listen, but Douglas’s Alison Moyet-goes-to-the-club vocals and sharp songwriting are more than just incidental to the impact of these songs — the duo has been describing the album as an “opera of sad bangers” and maybe the best testament to that is the way Hard Feelings can remind the listener that emotional intensity, even melodrama, is definitely not a bad thing when it’s also this (body)moving and this much fun.
Ian Mathers
Joëlle Léandre / Pauline Oliveros / George Lewis — Play As You Go (Trost)
Play as you go by JOELLE LEANDRE / GEORGE LEWIS / PAULINE OLIVEROS
In 2014, Joëlle Léandre, Pauline Oliveros and George Lewis convened for one night at the Vs. Interpretation Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. It wasn’t really a first encounter; Léandre has decades of working acquaintance with both other musicians, and given the diligent scholarship that Oliveros and Lewis have applied to music, they can’t have been unaware of each other. But neither is it a meeting of an ensemble with an established dynamic. Rather, they bring their shared experiences with jazz, classical and free improvisation together on a common ground cleared by a shared commitment to listening and intuitive response. Whether they contribute instruments (double bass, accordion, trombone and computer), voice (Léandre), or electronic processing of collective sounds, they do so in ways that build a cohesive sound environment. The name of the festival seems especially applicable; each musician is all in, present in the moment rather than figuring out how to react to what they just heard.
Bill Meyer
Kiran Leonard — Trespass on Foot (Self-Released)
Trespass on Foot by Kiran Leonard
Trepass on Foot is really two records, the first a sprawling meditation made by the Manchester experimental songwriter all by himself, the second a series of shorter, more song-like collaborations with friends among the UK’s avant-garde. Both are worthy but require a real listening commitment; the two discs comprise nearly two hours of music, and several tracks, especially in the solo portion, are in the ten-plus minute range. “The Ship,” for instance, swells slowly, with tidal force, beginning in scratchy sampled recordings, guitar strums and ambient hum and reaching a near orchestral climax over its 15-plus minute duration. Loosely shaped and morose, it has some lovely intervals like the off-kilter song verse with slanting guitars, which sounds like a lost bit from Loren Conors, and the blinding beautiful surge of massed guitar and voice near the end. “Sights Past” is even longer and follows a similar trajectory, building slowly, taking a variety of guises and reaching a nearly unbearable intensity. You don’t always know where you are in these compositions or what’s coming next, but if you allow yourself to wander from room to room, you’ll see some gorgeous things.
The second part of Trespass on Foot is somewhat more readily accessible, divided into songs that are more conventional in length and structure. There is solace, too, in the support of other musicians, like the lovely harmonies that Jolliff Seville supplies in “Third Day of February,” or the plaintive clarinet (Margo Munro Kerr), bass clarinet (Hannah Hever) and cello (Francesca Ter-Berg) that thread through found-sampled “Untitled.” “Castell” turns into a meaty folksong with the addition of drums and a yearning, forthright melody; the violin—that’s Dan Bridgwood-Hill—and supporting vocals Isabel Thorn give it dizzying density and resonance.
Jennifer Kelly
Mandy, Indiana — ‘…’ (Fire Talk Records)
The debut EP from Manchester band Mandy, Indiana is a pulverizing explosion of industrial grind courtesy of Scott Fair and Liam Stewart; over this racket, Valentine Caulfield chants and hisses lyrics in her native French. “Bottle Episode” careens between Stewart’s metallic martial percussion and a defibrillated heartbeat as Caulfield chants with increasing urgency and a flanged guitar chord thrums. The sound is rough, close, full of tension with little release, before it all clanks to a halt. “Nike Of Samothrace” slows the formula and adds what maybe the death throes of a cello and a sheets of controlled feedback, while Caulfield sits to one side commenting on the maelstrom. “Alien 3” is a little more straight ahead but still sounds like SPK or Einstürzende Neubauten mugging techno in nightclub alley, so pretty damn good.
Andrew Forell
Walt McClements — A Hole in the Fence (American Dreams)
A Hole In The Fence by Walt McClements
Walt McClements is not the first musician to make ambient/drone music primarily with an accordion (and in fact he happily acknowledges the influence of Pauline Oliveros among others), but one of the catch-22s of making music with a relatively rare lead instrument is that it’s not you’re often more likely to get closely compared to others using than instrument than (say) someone focusing on guitar or piano is. By any standards though, McClements’ A Hole in the Fence is more than just another richly textured, emotionally complex, sometimes sonically overwhelming album of accordion music. These 33 minutes sometimes feels more like movements of a single composition, one that takes in McClements’ theme of the various liminal spaces and secret worlds he’s moved through in his life (various music undergrounds, gay cruising scenes, even train hopping) and creating a work that in turn can evoke the foreboding, peace, hesitance, and joy we find passing through those gateways and finding our places past the literal or metaphorical fences in our way. That combination of love and exploration courses strongly through the sounds and drones of A Hole in the Fence, and the result would be noteworthy whatever instruments McClements used to get there.
Ian Mathers
McKain / Murray / Radichel / Suarez / Weeks — The Running of the Bulls (Radical Documents)
The Running of the Bulls by McKain / Murray / Radichel / Suarez / Weeks
The cassette’s title signals the attitude if not the content. No bovines were jostled in the making of this music, but the participants do pitch themselves into this free jazz fray with abandon. This quintet convenes improvising musicians from San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia, but the vibe brings to mind certain vintages of sound made in Chicago or Wuppertal. Saxophonists James McKain and Tom Weeks apply an array of techniques, but put them together and they impart the blammo wall-of-reeds sound of Mars Williams + Ken Vandermark + (occasionally) Peter Brötzmann. Drummers Leo Suarez and Kevin Murray have a similar tendency to meld, albeit into mass of discrete textures and densities. Bassist Jared Radichel navigates the shifting masses with aplomb, working hard enough in the lengthy group pieces that one does not begrudge him the option of sitting out when the paired instruments break out for briefer improvisations. Points added for the excellent cover art.
Bill Meyer
M(h)aol — Gender Studies (TULLE)
M(h)aol isn’t fucking around. A five-person post-punk outfit with Irish roots and members in Dublin, London and Bristol, the band thunders and rampages in gender-empowered fury. “Why don’t you study my gender/Tell me I’m no fun anymore/That I used to be quiet and pretty/And you liked the old me more,” snarls the singer in the title track before revealing, “Guess what, I like the new me more.” The lyrics are uncompromising, but not without humor (“No one ever talks to us…unless they want to fuck”), and the sound is hard and unyielding, with sawing bursts of rapid-slashed guitar and rickety architectures of snare and kick drum. In an odd bit of symmetry, the mostly female M(h)aol has connections with the all-male Girl (now Gilla) Band; Jamie Hyland is the voice on “Holding Hands with Jamie,” and the two bands share an affinity for noisy breaks and smart, unusual lyrics. However, M(h)aol draws its name not from the other gender but from the legendary Irish female warlord Gráinne Mhaol who faced off Elizabeth I with, supposedly, a dagger in her bodice. Yup, sounds about right. Good stuff.
Jennifer Kelly
Matt Mitchell & Kate Gentile — Snark Horse (Pi Recordings)
Snark Horse [Box Set] by Matt Mitchell & Kate Gentile
Drummer Gentile and pianist/synthesist Mitchell toil in a manner that transcends any of the idiomatic signposts of jazz. Their compositional style conjures up the energy of punk rock and the bleeding edge wizardry of experimental electronic music. The pair push limits and dive headlong into whatever challenge they set for themselves. For this gargantuan six-disc boxed set, the duo set up an experiment, constraining themselves to write compositions of only a single bar in length. They call the resultant body of work Snark Horse, but there’s nothing cynical about this music. To realize the project, they assembled a ten-person strong Snark Horkestra made up of some of the finest American instrumentalists. Alongside Gentile and Mitchell are Kim Cass on bass, Ben Gerstein on trombone, Jon Irabagon on reeds, Davy Lazar on horns, Mat Maneri on viola, Ava Mendoza on guitar, Matt Nelson on saxophones and Brandon Seabrook on guitar and banjo. The 70 compositions were putty in the Snark Horkestra’s hands, around which Mitchell and Gentile encouraged the crew to improvise. The two composers perform across the entire set of music, with others joining the fray in a variety of permutations across different pieces. There are moments when only one or two of the members jump in, but things get wild when the entire crew goes at it. One of the most immediately noticeable characteristics of these songs, which vary in length substantially, is the rhythmic complexity. Gentile’s drumming style is unique, as she plays around with time signatures and constructs intricate patterns of beats. Add Mitchell’s dextrous piano work and the music becomes a furious beast that just might be the jazz equivalent of math rock. When you thread in the adept contributions of the eight other players, the proceedings heat up quickly and the energy is downright enchanting. Even when the tempo slows to a crawl, the music has an infectious electricity. To add icing to this already elaborate cake, Mitchell has dispersed a series of abstract electronic works of his own devising across the set, which perhaps serve as markers for a listener to return to once their flagging stamina has been replenished. One imagines that listening to over 270 minutes of adventurous sounds in one sitting would test the mettle of even the sturdiest set of eardrums.
Bryon Hayes
Moonlove — May Never Happen (Concentric Circles)
May Never Happen by Moonlove
Moonlove isn’t the most motivated band to come out of greater Akron (see: Devo). But then, so little is known about the trio that we’re left only with what they tell us on 1985’s appropriately titled May Never Happen. On twangy jangler, “Cast Your Troubles and Dreams Away” (riyl: Bonny Doon), Jeff Curtis sings about his ambitions of sitting around and caring less. And when he finds himself behind a “Hearse On The Highway,” he doesn’t even consider taking to the passing lane. Instead, he downshifts and dwells hard on the absence of time over a charmingly degenerate blues shuffle (think: VU). Beth Erickson takes the wheel on “Blue Skies,” and continues on the same trip. “He lies in bed all day / wasting hours and hours away,” she sings with the kind of undynamic yet heartfelt lilt that makes you wonder what might’ve happened if they’d sent their tape K Records’ way instead of no one’s. Luckily, though, almost 40 years after the fact, a copy ended up in the hands of Jed Bindeman, whose Concentric Circles label has built its name on this kind of reissue (read: magical). Climb on in!
Chris Liberato
Jessica Pavone — Lull (Chaikin)
Lull by Jessica Pavone
Some composers write scores that test the physical limits of those who play them. Composer and violist Jessica Pavone does the opposite, considering what feels right to play and using that knowledge to center what’s asked of each musician. The results, however, are by no means limited; Lull is one of the most inclusive albums Pavone has ever made. It encompasses chamber music and improvisation, shifting between ultra-detailed improvisations featuring drummer Brian Chase and trumpeter Nate Wooley, and boldly colored, intricately layered string passages by an octet that includes Pavone. Ranging between spare turbulence and patiently evolving presence, the music uses changing textures to externalize nameless but palpable emotional states.
Bill Meyer
Fredrik Rasten — Svevning (Insub)
Svevning by FREDRIK RASTEN
In this CD’s liner notes, guitarist Fredrik Rasten explains that the Norwegian word “svevning” has two meanings. One applies to the sort of effortless glide that birds achieve when they’re riding air currents, and the other refers to the beating effect obtained by sounding two sustained notes. Translated into math, the formula is 1 word = cause / effect = 38:15 + 38:55 minutes of hovering tone. Rasten operates in the same sonic galaxy as Cristian Alvear and Taku Sugimoto, which is to say that he explores acoustic phenomena with unemphatic precision. These two pieces employ the same method, which is for Rasten to repeat a figure with very slowly evolving changes on a guitar tuned in just intonation. The effects of plucked notes in proximity, approaching and transforming each other, is gently hypnotic. This could be your next sound meditation.
Bill Meyer
Steph Richards With Joshua White — Zephyr (Relative Pitch)
Zephyr by Steph Richards
Zephyr packs a lot of musical exploration into a small space. The album is divided into three suites, each of which uses an environment as a cue to examine relationships between musician and musician, artist and family, and sound and space. The five-part Sacred Sea uses trumpeter Steph Richards’ technique of playing with water as a method to ponder her suppositions about her then-unborn daughter’s perception of sound as well as the limits of instrumental capacity; Joshua White uses preparations to similarly transform the sound of his piano. Sequoia and Northern Lights are a bit less literal, but in both sequences, the duo press the limits of their instruments and techniques as they evade expectation.
Bill Meyer
SiP / Prezzano — SiP / Prezzano (Moon Glyph)
SiP/Prezzano by SiP/Prezzano
The existence of this duo will validate your belief in destiny. Conversely, if Jimmy Lacy, who performs as SiP, and Pete Prezzano, who runs the Love All Day Label, had not gotten together, you might look up at the cosmos and ask, why not? They both live in Chicago, and each makes and/or distributes music that uses synthesizers to take the edge off of whatever life’s dealing with you. Their collaboration is pretty seamless, and the four tracks on this half hour long tape flow together effortlessly, which means that you’re likely to spend less time figuring out who did what than you are giving in to the temptation to let the mind drift wherever long, oscillating tones and ambling modal melodies might take you.
Bill Meyer
Snotty Nose Rez Kids — Life After (Distorted Muse / Fontana North)
Life After by Snotty Nose Rez Kids
Indigenous Canadian hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids were on a roll when the pandemic hit. As the quarantine era wore on, they kept getting attention (the placement of “Boujee Natives” on Resident Alien was perfect) but they struggled with recent and past trauma. Out of the crisis came Life After, the title referring not just to exiting lockdown, but to getting through any sort of hardship. The group still has its warrior side, and Yung Trybez and Young D sound as angry as ever, taking on various forms of oppression while addressing the particular struggles of First Nation peoples. They haven't lost their sense of humor, though. “Uncle Rico” references Napoleon Dynamite as it looks at both personal hubris and family mythology. “Oral tradition / I can barely spell,” makes for a fun moment while capturing the attitude of the album. All of the work, though, serves to work toward something better. Chill track “After Dark” closes the album with its real thesis: “I pray we at peace and not in pieces / And that we break the cycle for my nephews and my nieces.” Right now, we're all in life after disaster; but SNRK brings hope that we're headed toward the light after dark.
Justin Cober-Lake
Mai Sugimoto — Monologue (Asian Improv Records)
monologue by Mai Sugimoto
As titles go, Monologue is an unsparing self-assessment. For what else is a solo concert? But between a pandemic that’s made it hard for bands to get together, and an upsurge in anti-Asian violence, the time’s right for Sugimoto to put some points across. Sugimoto recorded this album alone except for an engineer, accompanying her alto sax and flute with some handy percussion. This combination of woodwinds and little instruments suggests that one local legacy on Sugimoto’s mind is the AACM’s. Like Roscoe Mitchell, she gives each idea the space it deserves, neither more nor less, and she feels no need to sugar a pungent attack. The titles assigned to this CD’s 14 tracks evoke vulnerability, spirituality and playfulness. But, compared to her previous recordings with her trio and the collective Hanami, there’s also a pithy toughness.
Bill Meyer
Tigers & Flies — Among Everything Else (Violette)
This is the stuff! Or at least at first blush it sounds a heck of a lot like it — the brassy, soul-influenced indie pop that bands like Orange Juice, The Jasmine Minks and The June Brides played, bridging the gap between post-punk and c-86. But unlike their predecessors, Tigers & Flies are only occasionally capable of playing with convincing passion, as they do, for example, on “In My Skin.” Here, drummer Arvin Johnson bashes his way into the chorus with a fist-pounding-the-table beat and the song unspools momentarily in response, via its bouncy syncopated guitar lines, before folding forward in frustration again. “Are you seeking enjoyment?/ Are you seeking a change?” wonders frontman Arthur Arnold. But his vague gripes also point to the bigger problem here: there isn’t much at stake in these songs and the music rarely makes up the difference. Lead single, “Half,” tries to twist itself into a more musically complex knot that it hopes will hold. “When you leave, half of me walks away too. / So don’t leave, because I need that half of me that is you,” Arnold sings, while trumpeter Matteo Fernades attempts to recall a leaving lover with a pair of confident bleats. Instead, all he gets is a synchronized, frolicking dance with the rhythm section. The bands they’re aping began as novices and played with a conviction that can’t be faked. On their debut, Tigers & Flies arrive in reverse: they’ve got the sound down, perhaps a little too well, but when it comes to selling the songs' emotion they’re only, as Arnold puts it, “pretty good at doing fine.”
Chris Liberato
Unda Fluxit — Stone Ringing Sorrow (Ever/Never)
Stone Ringing Sorrows by Unda Fluxit
Unda Fluxit makes no attempt to find ease in its jangling, discordant melodies, which reverberate with haunted chaos in the space between experimental folk and noise music. The main creative force behind the band is Huma Aatifi, an Afghan native relocated to Boise, Idaho as a child, and her compositions bristle with jarring dislocation. “Chance of the Towel” clatters noisily with assaultive percussion as Aatifi croons lost lyrics about snow and circumstance, guitar notes crowding behind her like a migraine gathering for attack. “(sunset rain)” is more muted but still full of suffering, a yodeling vocal melody floating uneasily over thunks of hand drums and detuned strums of acoustic guitar. You could make a connection to Christine Carter’s abstracted guitar melodies or even to Karen Dalton’s blasted, desolate folk. Like them Aatifi doesn’t care about conventional prettiness. Like them, she achieves a strident kind of beauty in the clash of notes.
Jennifer Kelly
Uranium — Wormboiler (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)
Wormboiler by Uranium
For a power electronics project, Uranium delivers some fairly formed songs on Wormboiler: see “We Deserve Death,” which sort of has verses and what feels like a refrain. “Sort of” and “feels like” are necessary qualifiers; the music on Wormboiler, provisionally legible as it may be, is fully tapped into the volatility and ugliness that have always been baselines for power electronics — just check out that record title. Still, interesting as the intermittent suggestions of song form are, Uranium is at its most effective when its chaos and appalling deformity are most grotesque. “Hate Thyself for the Callous World Cares Not” slithers and vibrates and jolts with bad feeling. Like some of the best power electronics, the music feels its way along, flowing and climaxing with weirdly livid energy. Which, as the project’s name implies, is toxic stuff. It’s all pretty nihilistic, building toward a final track called “The Glorious Void” that contains samples of symphonic music interpolated with an impossibly distorted horror-movie-Satan voice. The track flirts with goofiness for a bit, but soon it achieves an apotheosis of hostility, obliterating any trace of levity. Schopenhauer would dance to it.
Jonathan Shaw
Vaulted — Left in Despair (Self-released)
Left In Despair by Vaulted
The songs on Vaulted’s new LP Left in Despair sound like a bad day in Boston: damp, cold and full of ornery ill intent. That makes some sense: Melville says Americans learned to “say ‘No!’ in thunder” up in Massachusetts. But instead of any gloomy New England-style austerity, Vaulted pour on the aggro hostility with a sort of excessive glee. The Boston band makes chugging, crunching hardcore, redolent with the burly filth of the death metal that sprouted from the trail of slime left in the wake of Suffocation’s Pierced from Within (1995). See especially tracks like “Lacerated” and “No Place to Mourn.” But make no mistake: Left in Despair is a hardcore record, at its best when it hits hardest. “Mote It Be” mostly moves with a mid-tempo truculence, doling out overdriven riffs that want to bruise. The downshift that occurs around the song’s third minute has a palpable threat attached to it — it’s that slight pause you make when you approach a dark corner at 3 am in Southie. Hunch your shoulders a little tighter, squint your eyes with a sharper “don’t-fuck-with-me” look, because who knows what’s coming. If you’re listening to Vaulted, it’ll probably be another thumping, thundering, three-minute hardcore tune. And heads-up, all you freaks for obsolete formats: you can cop a cassette version of Left in Despair from War Fever Recordings, the label run by Vaulted’s bass player Nicholas Wolf.
