Listening with an open mind. Writing about what I hear. Do you have something interesting you'd like to share? Write Mick at thasoundblog@gmail.com. Twitter @thasoundblog
Norwegian hardcore band Daufødt are rock and roll as fuck. Listen to their new album 1000 Island and have a somekind of a weekend. I don't know how, just have a weekend. Don't scroll Twitter. Log off, have a life, but first listen to 1000 Island first and then have a weekend. Bye. I will see you next week.
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| Image courtesy of Duma |
LA's Old Blood combines doom metal and blues-rock in a way that I didn't think was possible after the '90s crashed into the new millennium. But then I heard Acid Doom. This album gets something right about doom metal that I don't think anyone else working in that lane. It's ok if you hate me for saying that, but it won't stop me from being correct. Read my write up of Acid Doom at the links below:
The guys from Plates of Cake made a fantastic alternative country album last year called Glass Bottom Boat Ride. It's an amazing tour of the various flavors of country music that were whipped up last century and the start of the current one, and it's absolutely delicious. Check out my write up on NEw Noise below:
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| Image courtesy of Alex Julien |
Vision Eternel is a thoughtful ambient project with strong literary sensibilities. The group's sixth album For Farewell of Nostalgia is a literally short novel told entirely through sound. I caught up with the band's frontman Alex Julien to talk about his new album and its inspirations. His responses are as interesting as they are long. Check out the full transcript over at New Noise at the links below:
You don't see too many bands going for that first wave black metal vibe but Persekutor are doing, and they're doing it right. Led by LA transplant and Romanian ex-pat Vlad the Inhaler, they make an outrageously fiendish variety of rock 'n roll. Check out my thoughts over at New Noise at the links below:
I had the chance to pal around with some very cool cats this week. TORSO and Urban Sprawl are two hardcore bands you ought to know if your a fan of OSHC and crust we got their front folks together for a panel for New Noise to discuss affordable housing, their new 7"s dropping this week on Revelation Records, and why they'll both probably die by Henry Rollins' hands. Check out the full interview at the link below:
Read the interview with Taylor of Urban Sprawl and Mae of TORSO.
Gatecreeper dropped an amazing album last week. An Unexpected Reality really shows off the band's love for hardcore, grindcore, and death-doom, and dare I say, it's their best album yet. Someone will want to debate me on this opinion, but they don't have the args. I have the args! It's me! And you can read what I have to say about the album over on New Noise at the link below:
I did a little write up of The Struggle's new single in support of the UK DIY punk venue BOOM. This is the first Oi band I think I've ever written about, and it reminded me of why I loved this kind of stuff back in high school. Check out my words over at New Noise at the link below:
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| Image by the band |
Chicago has a new bunch of emo kids pouring their hearts out all over the city and I was able to catch up with their front person Eric to talk about their new record South Loop Summer, how the band came together, and their most memorable Birthday along with other amusing anecdotes. Links to the interview and album below:
Read interview and album feature on New Noise.
Get a copy of South Loop Summer from Counter Intuitive Records.
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| Image thanks to Couch Prints |
Check out the interview on CHIRP's sight here or listen below:
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| Photo from the band |
Talked a little with butt-ugly cowpunks Swapmeat about their debut album Being A Weirdo Don’t Pay the Bill$ and living hard and getting as high as possible while you're still alive to enjoy it. Check out my chat with frontman Ben over on New Noise at the link below.
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| Image provided by Carnival Crash |
I spoke with Ivan Nahem of Ritual Tension about his time in Carnival Crash for New Noise today. Carnival Crash was an unexpected link between the NYC punk scene of the late '70s and the no wave and noise scenes of the '80s. A number of their surviving recordings are being reissued in a new collection by Obelisk Records called It Is a Happy Man. Of course, because I'm a complete nerd, I had to talk to Ivan about his new release, and try to squeeze as much of a history lesson out of the conversation as possible. You can read the transcript of the interview at the link below.
Did a smash write up of the debut demo from Calgary's World of Pleasure for New Noise today. They're like Punch wielding Year of the Knife riffs. They will cut you to ribbons!
Deranged and arty, party punks Nightclub throw one of the biggest bummer bashes of all time on their debut Private Party. It's like watching a high-class soiree in a NYC high rise where there is a gas leak but no one notices because they're all too coked up, and you're outside with a pair of binoculars waiting and watching for someone to try and light a clove cigarette with the window cracked and blow the whole thing to hell. Private Party is the New Years' party soundtrack that 2020 needed but I'm afraid that all too few too proper notice of.
Oddly enough, what struck me first about the new Rob Mazurek album, is how familiar it sounds. It felt like it slotted so peacefully into the milieu of Chicago music at the end of last year that it almost escaped my notice; this is in no way a comment on its quality, though. Dimenstional Stardust is an excellent album. It is a complex, and at times, fanciful listen that connects many stray points of interest and influence within the contemporary jazz scene and fastens them into an eloquent and recognizable constellation. And that's kind of what makes the album seems so familiar; it feels like THE archetypical International Anthem release.
I became aware of International Anthem through their release of Ben LaMar Gay's Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun, a jazz album with the feel of an underground hip hop release. This melding of high and low, acceptable and incorrigible, and cognizable and obtuse, is the tension at the heart of the label's curatorial aesthetic. It is the latent conceit of their almost single-handed revitalization of mine and other's interest in jazz as both an engine of outsider art and standard-bearer of America's legacy of contributions to the canon of classical compositions. Into this rumbling aurora borealis of sound presently streaks a new shooting star, one that cascades from one end of the horizon to other, seemingly collecting all of the celestial bodies in its magnetic wake. Who else could this be but Rob Mazurek and the Exploding Star Orchestra?
Rob Mazurek is a well-recognized figure within the Chicago jazz community, having played a formative role in the many permutations of the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio, Quartet and Orchestra, and supporting players and institutions as luminary as Jeff Parker and Pharoah Sanders. He even worked with Tortious and Stereolab once upon a time. The Exploding Star Orchestra is one of Mazurek's many projects that have longe endured, possibly, despite its auspicious origins, as a commissioned exercise by the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute of Chicago, which requested a jazz band be assembled that represents all of the city's diverse, but painfully segregated, neighborhoods. Dimenstional Stardust is now the Exploding Star Orchestra's seventh album, demonstrating both the longevity of this thoroughly collaborative project, as well as Mazurek's passion for maintaining the potential of its liberatory scales.
The current line up of the Exploding Star Orchestra includes Damon Locks, John Herndon, Nicole Mitchell, Jaimie Branch, Macie Stewart, Mikel Patrick Avery, Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, and the incomparable Chad Taylor, among others, and was convened to perform at the 2018 JazzFest in both Berlin and Chicago. Upon returning stateside, International Anthem was able to convince Mazurek to record an album with the then-current line-up of the Orchestra. This project began in 2019, and through a triathlon of intense writing, recording and post-production relays, eventually became Dimenstional Stardust.
The inversion of pop sensibilities and avant-garde affordances buttress the polyrhythmic, jungle-beat jab and mischievous slam-poetics of the star-clashing "The Careening Prism Within (Parable 43)" which cuts through the upper stratosphere like a bullet through water vapor, propelled by the combustive solo salvo spun off Jeff Parker's cosmic-dust laced fretboard. "Dimensional Stardust (Parable 33)" proceeds cautiously as if on a midnight heist, the prattle of percussion like a drizzle of rain that provides cover for the covert operation, every anxious thought echoing in one's mind with the weight of an approaching footstep, while every physical step is as soft and careful as a cat walking on the vertical planks of a neighbor's fence. "Parable of Inclusion" pairs an air raid siren with an effervescent flute and mallet groove, that opens into a playful field of conversive pianos, flowering string, and a brush of soothing saxes, crafting a narrative that explains the urgency of bringing down the barriers that prevent people from accessing each other's humanity, and the paradise that resides on the far end of that necessary struggle.
I said before that Dimensional Stardust feels like the archetypal International Anthem album and I stand by that statement. What this means practically is rather simple. Every revolutionary text has its peers, even manifestos on transcendence as thoroughly convincing as the one which Mazurek has presented here.
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| Image by Matianak |
Took a minute to chat with Arelys of tortured and twisted Chicago-based black metal band Matianak for New Noise today. Their new album Compilación De Insaniam dropped last November as a self-released album via Bandcamp and I am completely transfixed by its sheer depravity and intensity. Check the link to the interview and album stream below:
Tsha is a savvy, London-based producer, skilled in curation and composition of warm, down-tempo electronic dance music, with an unobtrusive and disarmingly chill vibe. The songs on her latest EP Flowers are actually so relaxed and easily digested that it would be markedly easy to miss how deftly intricate they are. In all honesty, it took me about four full playthroughs before the deeply considered qualities of the elegant revelation "Sisters" hit me with the full weight of its budding bliss. The song is about Tsha meeting an estranged sister, who shares a father with, from whom her sister is also estranged. The playful, bucking piano sample echos with a resonance of hope and nostalgia, while a shuffling beat hints at both hesitance and abandonment to anticipation. As good as this opener (and lead single) is, the EP really doesn't hit its emotive high points until the sturdy, tense-funk relay and ricochet of "Renagade" gets up to speed, taking various forms of slick '90s electronica and weaving them into a sleek catsuit of pointillist guitars and cross-stitched pan flutes, tempered by eruptions of pressure-boosting, neon-hued, synth incendiaries. The next track, "Changes" features the vocal talent of Gabrielle Aplin, and has more of a classic '80s R'nB vibe by way of '10s pop-revivals, like a Carly Rae Jepsen remix, where the singer duets with the low-key flash of a dusky synth chord on the back of a somersaulting snape-beat, while phasing through the rinsing loops of a flattering temporal-distortion. The EP wraps with the intriguing, pan-global swath of "Demba" where Tsha pairs the rhythmic chants of Malian singer Trio Da Kali with the babbling echo of a ligneous balafon, feeling like a bit of world-beat caught up in the blissful-sweep of a Bonobo inspired groove. Sufficed to say, a bouquet of beautifully arranged sounds awaits your adoration on Flowers.
Had a blast doing a write up of the debut album from Southwestern rapper Lil Lavedy today for New Noise. Punk meets hip hop to take on all comers! You got to love it!
Lebanese noise artist Maltash has a new take for you in 2021. Instead of making a resolution. Instead of attempting to optimize your body and mind to make them more attractive to our corporate masters. Instead of eating better or drinking more water, why not try something new? Why not sabotage yourself? Why not let it all fall away? Stop answering calls. Stop replying to emails. Stop watching documentaries on Netflix. Just say no, to all of it. See what happens. See how the walls dissolve around you and the spaces that seemed closed to you suddenly open. Move through these openings like a mist between dead trees. Doesn't that feel good? Doesn't the thought of melting out of sight just sound like a relief? Such a nihilistic fantasy may be about as close to real liberation that you are likely to know this side of the new decade.
Obviously, you can't give up on everything in your life, and some of those cliched resolutions might actually be good for you (drinking more water for instance). But the reality is that most of the things that we think of as ways of "improving" ourselves are actually just ways of tightening the chains that already lace themselves around our limbs and neck. It's the organizing principle of the West (and increasingly the rest of the world). We each are our own and our neighbor's jailer. And as long as you don't leave your cell, or can keep someone else in their's, you'll be ok... for the time being. Until the warden needs to make an example of someone that is, and he always does...
On his Bandcamp, Maltash explains his debut album Sabotage Yourself as operating on a simple philosophy "Break Every Boundary, Empower the Disheartened." For his work, he draws from the tumultuous modern history of his home country, but the sentiments are universal as I've already explained. Whether its the explosive cacophony of opener "Dystopian Dream" or the bleak, blackened electro-doom of "Infatuation Queen" with its unsettling vocal expressions, taking the form of a hog-like, slit-throated gargle at first, and transitioning into a red-eyed, exasperated holler after the bridge, sounding like a man trapped in a well during the rain, as the water levels slowly rise around him. "Kid on the Left" sounds like a version of Street Sect that's literally been run over by a street cleaner and had all of its skin frayed into a chew, blood-sopped felt. But the most devastating elements of Maltash's sound are saved for the profane sacrifice of the title track, beginning with Nine Inch Nails reminiscent, gas-exchanging, compressed filament of beats and a pitiful, weeping vocal bawl, it continues with this wailing and woeful thesis as the song's tempo increases and the melody (if you can call it that) is beset by wolf-like growls and foundation wrecking bass-lines that wipe and lash like cut electrical lines in a storm.
On Sabotage Yourself asks a simple question. What parts of yourself are worth saving? What parts of you should be left to die? Answering this question may be the only thing that saves your sanity in the coming year.
Protosapien, the latest album from Brazil's Jupiterian, is a thoughtful, tortured beautiful, doom-sludge album that definitely does not feel its length. Check out my write up of it over on New Noise. You don't have to do it now if you don't want to though. This is the internet. It will be there later. But if you wanted to check it out the link is below.
Stumbled on neocrust band Habak's latest record a few months back and I've been pretty much obsessed with it ever since. Meditative, autumnal, and angsty, it's hit all the right vibes for me. Check out my write up of Ningún Muro Consiguió Jamás Contener la Primavera published on New Noise below.
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| Image provided by the artist |
I had a fantastic conversation with Tori Ruffin of The Time fame about his new record They Call Us Juice released on nonprofit label Horton Records by his funk/metal/blues project Freak Juice. Tori's a straight up dude who has had an amazing and storied career. I'm stoked that I had the chance to chat him up. You can find links to the article published by New Noise below.
Did a write up of the debut from new Sooper Records star Luke Titus. His new album Plasma is a wild and funky ride on the bleeding edge of hip hop and avant pop. Check out my words over on New Noise!
Presumably, the New Mexico where the blackened death/doom quartet Heretical Sect blossomed from, like a planter's bed full of venomous, carnivorous birthwort, is different from the one you see in targeted ads, that (pre-pandemic) advertised time-shares and winter-getaways to the frozen denizens of the upper-midwest. It's also, presumably, the same. Real or imagined, the reference point for both is a place with a largely invisible history.
Most people who identify themselves as Americans, and Americans first, understand that at some point in the past, New Mexico was inducted into the Union of the United States after having been a territory (or something like that). How this exactly happened is a bit of a mystery, though. Maybe God tucked the deed to all that land in a pie and mailed it to the White House for William Taft's birthday in 1912. No, that's a lie. There is also no mystery to it, either. If you think there is, that's a lie too. New Mexico was acquired like the rest of the western United States, through a series of colonialist and expansionist wars, in this case, against Mexico. The victory against the former Spanish subjects saw the US taking what is now Texas and a large part of Southern California for reasons that would require me to explain the entire pre-Civil War political landscape of the era to make sense of... and even then the answer just boils down to people with money and property wanting more money and property. To be fair, the US Government did pay for the land it acquired following the war (to the tune of $10 Million), but of course, none of that money went to the people who actually lived on, and unutilized that land to feed themselves and their families. People like the native Pueblo and Hopi tribes, as well Mexican nationals and other folks the Spanish colonists moved up there to build their empire. That history alone goes back to the mid-sixteenth century. Truly, it is a land whose flesh bears the long, deep scars of swindle and toil.
Rapturous Flesh Consumed examines much of the history of New Mexico, if not from a trans-historical or anthropological standpoint, then from a mystical and emotional one, but is able to draw many of the same conclusions. Centered on the bestial practices of Spanish missionary, Fray Salvador de Guerra, whose maniacal ministerial practices concerning the Hopi natives (barbaric measures that included reopening wounds, previously inflicted by his whip, and pouring boiling hot turpentine into them) eventually lead to his trial and (ahem) demotion. As gruesome as these practices were, historical accounts are quick to point out that they were not uncommon methods of disciplining slaves in the seventh century. The offense caused to his fellow friers sprang instead from the fact that these common punishments were being used as a conversation tool. A fact which made the Franciscan order who oversaw the mission... uncomfortable, not horrified, just uneasy. They, therefore, made an example of Guerra, stripping him of his duties through legal channels available to them through the Catholic Chuch. Guerra however remained at his convent following the trial, he just no longer had anything left to do now that he was no longer allowed to continue his work, torturing the love of his god into the native population.
The banal response of Spanish religious authorities to the horrific mutilations that Guerra committed in the name of the Chuch is something that Heretical Sect extrapolate on and expand to come to an understanding of the entire project of colonial expansion that produced the present borders American Empire. With sulfurous guitar-tones that conjure an atmosphere submerged in and dampened by blood, they demonstrate how the blunting of human reason can be made to serve the logic of power. How the human conscience can be replaced with a kettle of venomous snakes. How hollowing one's soul can lead someone to the conclusion that the mutilation of another human by someone who is only following order you handed down to them, can be seen, not as an affront to basic human morals, but rather, a "bad look."
Did a quick write up of the new self-titled album from Oslo, post-punk shaded hardcore band Purple-X. Solid way to start the year!
I had so much fun writing a review/blitz/invitational/wrap-up for myself that I did one for CHIRP Radio's blog as well. This piece focuses on albums that I discovered through my work with the station this past year and didn't end up covering anywhere else. It's another flood of great albums to keep you humming through the first couple of weeks of 2021. They ran it as part of their "Best of" series which is both funny and accurate, even if I made no effort to rank or otherwise arbitrarily compartmentalize the records I wrote about.
Check out my CHIRP 2020 Invitational here.
Full list of artists/albums covered below (Artist / Album / Label):
Omar Apollo / Apolonio / Warner Bros
Apollo Brown & Che’Noir / As God Intended / Mello Music Group
The Budos Band / Long in the Tooth / Daptone
The Nels Cline Singers / Share the Wealth / Blue Note
Johnny Iguana / Johnny Iguana's Chicago Spectacular! / Delmark
Kate NV / Room for the Moon / Rvng Intl.
L.F.T. / Foundation Chicago / Chicago Research
Master Boot Record / Virtuaverse.ost /
Blood Music
No Joy / Motherhood / Joyful Noise
Songhoy Blues / Optimisme / Transgressive Records
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| Image thanks to the band |
You can get copy of the new EP here.
Check out the interview on CHIRP's website or below: