Album Review: SSS - SSS

SSS is a Philadelphia duo, currently representing the talents of Shane Riley and Morgan Garrett. Do not conflate them with the English thrash band SSS (Short Sharp Shock), they are much more interesting than warmed-over DRI tribute ever could be. Truly, the SSS I want to talk about tonight comes out of the left field. The project is not at all the sum of Shane Riley's soundboard torture tapes or Morgan Garrett's sedated, worn-through pop with Scream Culture. Their label Decoherence describes the project as "almost music" which is almost too accurate as far as epithets go. I think the best way to approach SSS's self-titled LP is as a dance record, but one that points to the discoloration that haunts all dance music that is distributed as a stand-alone listening experience. The reason that I say this, is because the record appears to labor over extremely motivated grooves, energy patterns that beg you to match their motion, but whose general structure makes coordinating your movements to them in any intelligible pattern a paradoxical proposition. 

Dance music is meant to be enjoyed in public, as a social exercise of mass cooperation and communion. But most dance music is enjoyed like any other type of music, flowing into a solitary set of ears in a demarcated, personalized part of an office or domicile. In other words, most dance music is listened to while the listener is alone and likely physically inert. Your vegetated isolation is not a problem for SSS. Their music is a machine onto itself. It thrives in isolation, daring you to observe it and its transgressive detours. Daring you to push further into the squealing knifes edge of its protuberances only to have your pores juiced and your organs pushed out of place. The rhythms are just too janked out for a human body to fit inside, and yet, they are there begging for your communion. The gambol that SSS inspires then is contained entirely within the mind of the observer- a mental stress test where you are tasked with finding a throughline of coherent, rhythmic logic. One that doesn't feed your face-first into an alien compost trench full of worms the size of resting fawns, hankering to reduce your comestible bits into fuzz-pedal infused, fertilizer. 

All this is missing the forest from the trees a bit though. At this point, I'm sure you're just curious whether SSS's self-titled LP is good or not. And to that, I say... it's pretty fucked up... but fucked up in an intriguing kind of way. 

This album is from Decoherence Records. 

Album Review: Hell Machine - Relentless Aggression

I wrote about some uncompromising blackened thrash out of Australia for New Noise today. Check out what I had to say about Hell Machine's Relentless Aggression below: 

Review https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-hell-machine/

Relentless Aggression was self-released by the band. 

Album Review: 夢のチャンネル - 存在

Covering this one is a bit of a departure for me as it's technically a single and I prefer to write about full albums because I feel like it gives me more context for the artist and their project as a whole. However, this one song is the length of a full LP and it gives me plenty of materials to work with. 夢のチャンネル or Channel of Dreams is a slushwave artist claiming to work out of Shibuya, Japan. They started posting to their Bandcamp back in 2018 and have kept up a steady flow of production since, releasing as many as six albums per year. Their earlier work like 私たちの計画された夢 (Our Planned Dream) was pretty tightly composed and consisted of mostly low-key and reverby synth-funk with some playful samples mixed in. Even from these early releases through, 夢のチャンネル was exploring a theme of dream illustration- a subject which they return to with increasing abstraction over the years, finally reaching an ambient plane of hypnogogic homeostasis by the time they released 2020's 存在 (Exist). It is a single track in which threads of angelic flutes, harps and electronic hums are woven into a blooming crown of cherry blossoms to rest upon your head. Dew dripping from their peddles and down your temples and brow, moistening your skin like tears of joy as they scurry down the sculpt of your happy visage. The progression of phases and motifs are so elegant and seamless that I find myself losing track of time while listening to "存在," as if I have entered a series of antechambers with vaulted and muralled ceilings and conveniently forgotten where the exit can be found. The way the song fills the space it has to work with is like the plumage of a songbird, stretching from the scapula to the metacarpus of its wing, forming a fan that enables it to take to the air. While the splendid mood it manages to convey reminds me of the sensational refinement of the interior of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Neither that exhibition hall nor this song are bad places to get lost in for a while and both are places that I often find myself wishing to return to and admire.

存在 is out on Liminal Garden.

 

Album Review: Snotty Nose Rez Kids - After Life

Wrote about the latest excursion in give-no-fucks, DIY hip hop from Snotty Nose Rez Kids for New Noise today. Check out what I had to say about Life After below: 

Review https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-snotty-nose-rez-kids/

Seek Life After here. 

Album Review: Codex Serafini - Invisible Landscape

Named after Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus, the UK-based hard psyche band Codex Serafini are a skull-shattering experience, meant to create a dramatic enough swell of sonic cacophony to push you over the barrier wall of your own ego, out of your own head, and into the great unknown. The band claim to be a Saturnian cult of extraterrestrial origin making a pit stop on Earth to impart some deep, cosmic knowledge on the inhabitants of this planet through their rituals and Equinox aligning wails. Invisible Landscape is their second EP and would not sound out of place in the Castle Face catalog.  Indeed, the band is capable of some crazy compelling moments of trance impelling freakouts, reminiscent of the kind that would color the Osees lives sets back when they were still known as Thee Oh Sees. Maybe you want more from your space shamans, but what Codex Serafini have on offer should be plenty to satisfy your mind and senses. Codex Serafini are handing a ticket to a matrix of synesthetic space-express lines, each capable of monorailing you out of the orbit of your own ego-drift. If this sounds of interest, then you've stumbled upon the right celestial platform, one staff entirely by fellow travelers, beings who will welcome you onto their backs like you were an Egyptian Plover mounting a great, star-coated crocodile as it wades through the currents of the Milky Way. Leave the anguish of this world behind and embrace the path to enlightenment as a stepladder to the stars. 

Invisible Landscape is out via Ceremonial Laptop

Album Review : Wild Up - Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine

When an artist makes something, I think there is always a twinkle of hope that it might outlive them. That the work they've labored over, either on its own, or taken as a part of a larger body, might contribute to an endearing legacy of some kind. I don't think this is the case for most artists and artworks, though. If my experience working with, and admiring, the unsung and underdog has taught me anything, it's that most works are DOA and sink to the bottom of a cultural memory hole within days of their debut. This fate almost never correlates to the quality of the work either- some masterworks are suffocated by the sands of time, while egregious offal tends to rise like rancid cream. In an attempt to salvage at least one great work from death by neglect, the LA ensemble Wind Up has taken it upon themselves to record and release their interpretation of composer Julius Eastman's Vol 1: Femenine. And I'm pretty glad that they did. 

Vol 1: Femenine is from the middle period of Julius's career and was written for a chamber ensemble prior to his penning his most well-known works Dirty N*igger and Gay Guerilla, and represents his "organic music" approach to writing and performing. "Organic music" as it informs Julius's writing and vision, represents an emphasis on repetition, wherein a piece builds and evolves through the recitation of specific phrases, ultimately leaning into the iterative potential of short sequences of notes in order to form the basis of more complex motifs while transforming the meaning of the core phrase itself in the process. Julius was also one of the first composers in the '70s to incorporate elements of popular music into their scores, working closely with artists like Arthur Russell, and contributing to his disco-infused Dinosaur L project. Vol 1: Femenine does not include many elements of underground dance or popular music though, and I mention this fact about Juliu's body of work only because I find it interesting and worthy of further exploration. 

Unlike many struggling artists of his era, Julius actually enjoyed quite a bit of legitimate recognition and institutional support during his lifetime, although his temperament and artistic interests inevitably led to these ties to the stable world of academia to fracture. He may have had his work written up in the New Yorker, but this could not rescue his career from the ravages of its own excess, including one infamous incident involving nudity and insinuate,d homoerotic subtexts during a performance of John Cage's Songbook which incensed Caeg himself and forced Julius to leave a professorship teaching theory in Buffalo in 1975. Things spiraled from there with Julius turning to drugs to cope with a dearth of professional opportunities, losing touch with friends and family while in the throttle of his descent. Julius would die in 1990 with most of his manuscripts and compositions discarded in a dumpster by a disinterested landlord and police. No public notice of his death would be recorded until an obituary ran in the Village Voice in 1991. 

Now Wild Up has taken pains to recreate one of Julius's more hopeful and representative compositions, and I am thankful that they made the effort and committed the sweat dividend to do so. It is not only a lovely suite of sound and emotion, but one that carries with it a promise; that one's passions are not simply the exhaust of their ego, expelled and dispersed into the atmosphere as droplets of moister that dwindle into something less than hot air before they even reach the ground, but instead, something that can be condensed, retained, and reproduced for the benefit of others, and the preservation of which allows the fruits of one's mind to germinate in evergreen cycles. I think this is the dream for most artists, and I'm glad to see Julius's work finding a home in contemporary hearts and minds in just such a way. 

Vol. 1: Femenine is out via New Amsterdam Records. 

Album Review: Cities Aviv - The Crashing Sound of How it Goes

 
Memphis MC and producer Cities Aviv knows how to make an impression. Whether it be through the dark, hardcore rhymes and dazzling, DIY dance production of Come to Life, or the tight and riveting, DJ Screw-shaped "Raised For A Better View," you can tell one of his numbers simply by the way it impacts your psyche. With in this impressionistic journey of sound, one which Cities Aviv has been hitchhiking and hijacking his way through since the inception of his current project, The Crashing Sound of How It Goes is possibly the purest in mood, if most varied in approach.

Generally, the album embraces smooth, Sunday-suited jazz samples and plangent soul to envoke the sensation of a laconic tension- like the gentle rise and fall of a tranquil pool of water, one characterized by a fluctuation barely perceptible on the surface. And like still water, it runs deep and contains ravaging current- the strengths of which may not be perceptible until they've pulled you under. The stony beats and bristling electronics on the first half of "Iron Theatrics" is a good example of just such a turbulent set of rhythms, while "Episodes," conversely, rockets to the stars on a spacey, disco synth riff, only to contract and fold around a straightforward, R'nB beat and relaxed Serengeti-esque flow- a transition that is more surprising than you'd expect, and emblematic of the unpredictable nature of the album on the whole. 

Despite its evolutionary approach, there is a leaning towards fatalistic architecture on some of these songs, conveying a sense that things will never change- a sentiment explored through the looping funk bass on "Stranded," which keeps threatening to resolve only to stumble over its shoelaces and stutter through another phrase in tandem with a limbo-leashed chorus sample, both contrasted and mocked in turn by Cities's even tempod, chewy flow. Later, we witness gambits of egress, exiting cycle in affirmations of practice on "Life's Only Valid Expression," where a camp revival and disco soul sample battle for space and oxygen with Cities's vocals- verses that sound like they were recorded at the bottom of a subterranean waterfall- representing a kind of baptism in a combined bonfire and underground font. 

A lot of the sources for the samples used on this album are ambiguous to me (although, I'm positive someone else could track them down if they wanted to). I can't tell you where the soul sample from "Imma Stay Here" is from, but it sounds old and established, and when Cities comes in over it, he sounds like he is putting down roots in stone, laying down a foundation that will last as long as the rock of ages. A lot of these samples are beautiful on their own, but they really come to life when Cities interacts with them through his flow- reviving their potential and allowing them to live again through his music.

There is a sense of scholarly investigation in the way that many of these samples are being employed. Like Cities is testing the limits of each of their power and intelligibility. Observing how their energies disperse as they degrade in the air. Testing their strengths and submitting to their frailties while collaborating with their assumed logic in a way that allows new doctrines of possibility to be erected through discarded and overlooked sound- the way a folk artist may assemble an original sculpture with found artifacts. Only in this case, it is not a sculpture Cities has made; it is a golem. One that he rides astride its shoulders, directing it to dig for fire in seemingly desolate places with only passion and a certainty of purpose guiding the joint venture of their excavations. 

The Crashing Sound of How It Goes, is an audacious meddle of sounds and emotions- confrontational in both conception and design. There is zeal for exploration and an appreciation for progressive instrumentation in his work that still feels rare in hip hop, even in an era when psychedelic expressionism is making inroads into the underground- not just in hip hop, but in soul and R'nB as well. Somehow his album manages to bridge the divide between all three genres in a cacophony that is as insurgent as it is innovative. 

The Crashing Sound of How it Goes is out via D.O.T. Audio Arts

Album Review: BEDTIMEMAGIC - Between the Sheets

Wrote about a fun hardcore record out of Boston for New Noise today. See what I had to say about BEDTIMEMAGIC's Between the Sheets below: 

Review https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-bedtimemagic/

Between the Sheets is out via Forbidden Place Records.

Album Review: Dua Saleh - Crossover

Dua Saleh's music always feels like it should accompany a slow-motion zoom-in on the artist themself. The camera pans forward. Narrowing its attention with each passing second. Capturing every blink, breath, and gesture as it closes in on their profile. Returning their enigmatic gaze. It feels both intimate and yet profoundly mysterious and pregnant with intrigue. Like you are getting to know this person for the first time and they already fascinate you. You pick up on bits of pieces of their history through conversation, but each of these pieces is queer in shape, and every answer they provide unlocks a chest with a thousand questions inside. Their lack of center is the center. Their fickle outline, an impenetrable firmament.

Not all R'nB singers have to be this way, but I'm glad that Dua Saleh's is, because their music is the kind that I can't really ever see myself getting bored of. There is always some new dimension to uncover, or some finer detail to pour over and rediscover. It's music you can live inside and make a space for yourself within- roomy, moody, and versatile. Like a private club where a different interior designer realized their vision in a separate room.

Dua Saleh's most recent EP Crossover is the product of some very deep ruminations on the way in which their identity defies concrete definitions and is always in the process of transitioning through a new and audacious phase. It's a theme that is given voice across the reflective arch of Crossover, manifesting first in the conical resonance of "focal," a pivoting sequence of pressure points permeating a breathy outlay of beats like light splintering through dark beads of teardrop-shaped, crystalline textures.

Crossover is meant to be a dance album, but it mostly feels like a VIP affair rather than a floor exhibition. The brush of the melody on "buzzin" feels like it is being impressed on your ear lobe one exhaled phrase at a time, and the vulnerability of "tic tic," featuring Haleek Maul, feels too tender at times to survive outside the incubation chamber of your bedroom for more than a full measure.

"fav flav" has one of the crisper and brighter beats on the EP but the real highlight has to be the nail-polish and battery acid stained, plaintive coo of "trash snack" which unleashes the progressive potential of an FKA Twigs and 100 Gecs collab that probably won't happen, but may need to if the universe is ever going to know balance once more- and now we know who could produce it! 

With Dua Saleh all things are in flux, with the exception of their prowess as auteur and curator of sound and emotion- in these respects, they are firmly established. 

Crossover is out via Against Giants. 

Interview: John Thayer

Photo by Lea Thomas

John Thayer is an audio engineer and composer whose most recent album Supermundane takes up as its task an elevation of the mundane in a way that cuts through the clutter of ego and the varnish of spectacle to examine human experience in dialog with a world of rhopos. Its errand is to understand our relation to our environments in a way that is philosophically serious and rigorous, but which still leaves room for play and experimentation. That penetrates the visage of the mundane rather than simply outlines its form. In fact, it is the grounded nature of the album that allows its evocative soundscapes to achieve the great heights that it does. Supermundane is like a still life rendered in conscious radiation and sound.

When I first sent a copy of the record this summer it captivated me for the reasons expressed above. However, I found that anytime I attempted to collect my thoughts on it, my ideations fell from my grasp like sand through a colander. And yet, I could not shake the need to interact with the work to some extent and disseminate information about it through this blog. So I reached out to John to see if he would be willing to answer a few questions. Thankfully, he agreed.

I need to emphasize that the truest experience of Supermundane can only be wrought by the bare sensation of listening to it. Although, if you are like me, and find yourself obsessed with the work, as I have, John's statements below may afford some additional vantage points from which to appreciate the album. His words can only guide your journey into the album so much as your only volition is willing to carry you. Supermundane is an opportunity for a self-directed investigation of your environment. Take that how you will.

The following conversation was conducted via email on October 19, 2021. It has been edited slightly for clarity. 

What expectations do you hope the title, Supermundane, sets for your potential audience? 

Super mundane is defined as “transcending the earthly, divine, celestial.” I came across the word and like most people, I assumed it meant something extra mundane. I enjoy its playful nature, it defied expectations and I hope my album does the same. It’s an apt word to describe my thoughts on the power of sound and the headspace I was in while recording the record. 

How do dreams inform the sounds and concepts of the album? 

I’ve never been very good at remembering my dreams but pre-pandemic I was traveling a great deal and I found myself dreaming more vividly than when I was home. I started wondering how my location was impacting my dreams. The more attention I paid to my dreams the more I remembered. This led me to think about my waking reality and the thin veils between different states of consciousness. There’s a certain freedom within the liminal space. It’s a wonderful area to explore. 

What environments did you draw inspiration and sound from for this album? 

The record was created and refined primarily in three locations, Maui, Kyoto and Brooklyn.  My partner Lea was born and raised in Hawaii and her family has since relocated to Kyoto. Whether it be tour or travel, both places have been a place of sanctuary and community for us for many years. Brooklyn is where I’ve lived for the last 14 years. I work at a recording studio called Thump and it’s a safe space for me, one where I can experiment freely without expectation. 

Kyoto is an ancient city, it’s full of beautiful serene places. There’s a pervading sense of stillness that I very much relate to. Maui is a more vibrant, lush landscape. You’re surrounded by 3,000 miles of ocean and it’s a simple reminder of the splendor and enormity of our beautiful planet. It’s hard not to be inspired.

There’s also the digital world, the digital environment, notions of hyperrealism and laptop composition. This music requires long hours in front of a computer moving blocks of sound around with often questionable results. It feels like a very personal practice, a time for solitude and experimentation.  

How might the listener's familiarity with similar environments augment their overall experience of the album? 

I would like to think anyone with curious ears would enjoy this album, no global travel required. I attempted to make an experiential record that wouldn’t require a backstory and could stand on its own merits. I would say that my ego often prevents me from making anything too tranquil, meaning I like to make music that demands attention, it’s not meant to be a passive listening experience. I hope it’s an entertaining and enveloping sonic journey.

How does "fourth world ambient" describe your music, and what is your reference point for this term?

 

Fourth World is a term coined by composer Jon Hassell, which he defined as a “unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques.” I wouldn’t use this term as a primary description of my work, but as a studio engineer, I do employ numerous technological systems to create new sonic worlds. I believe Hassell’s use of the term “ethnic styles” implies there is something more ancient and sacrosanct than the typical modern view of music as entertainment. I’m aligned with him in my belief that music is inherently a sacred form of communication and its creation should be treated with a certain amount of reverence. 

Why is it important for you to interject a sense of humanity into, sometimes, rigid electronic processes? 

I make a great deal of music with collaborators and I’ve found that the best collaborations begin with a collective improvisation or at the very least a shared physicality. It’s rare that a completely remote and computer-based correspondence will yield the emotional legitimacy of an in-person session. Once everything is organized in the DAW then we can mangle until our heart's content. 

When making music in a solo capacity I needed to find similar methods of spontaneity and improvisation. It’s not fun to be restricted by a grid so I developed ways to break habits and introduce chance. The best music is a post-linguistic connection to a higher sense of self. It’s something woven from the fabric of spirit, not something manufactured using assembly line techniques. 

What was the most challenging aspect of making Supermundane? 

Working solo, there was no one to dialog with, making it challenging to know if I was making something worth releasing. I had to trust myself to know when something was complete and that wasn’t always a straightforward process.

Finding the balance between nonlinear composition and listenability is tricky. My solution entails working on a piece and then listening to it in different environments. Passive listening is a real asset in terms of compositional clarity. You can obsess on a sound for hours, but after a break and a casual listen, it’ll immediately present itself as either an issue or a non-issue. Completing the album was an ambition realized and, for that alone, I’m very proud of the record. 

Supermundane is out via Moon Villian.

Album Review: Ovlov - Buds

I wrote about the new Ovlov album Buds for New Noise today. Ovlov was one of the better and worthy standouts of a rather dull period in indie rock. I'm glad to see them continue to grow as artists and get better with age. Links to words below: 

Review https://newnoisemagazine.com/album-review-ovlov-buds/

Buds is out via Exploding in Sound

Album Review: L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation - World Wide W​.​E​.​B.

"This is L.O.T.I.O.N.," not surprisingly, tells you an awful lot about the New York City outfit L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation. Things like: what kind of industrial beats they prefer, how they like to layer the vocals into the mix, the farcical tone of their lyrics, the bombastic quality of their electronics sequencing, the rawness of their production, and what their name actually means (which is either, Legacy Of Terror In Occupied Nations, or Liquidation Of Targets Is Often Necessary... they kind of use both). It's a handy cipher... that you will find near the end of their 2019 LP, World Wide W​.​E​.​B... 

Alright, so maybe the third to last track on an LP is, probably, not actually, the most helpful of a place to put an introductory track. Sure, it's needlessly obscured by the prior tracks and place where it is in conformity with some absurdist sense of systemization, but that's also the band's whole deal. Absurdity is as natural to L.O.T.I.O.N. as fatal UI bugs are to most Microsoft products upon launch. But as far as comparisons go, this digital hardcore band is a whole lot less evil than any Seattle-based software company you could name off the top of your head.

L.O.T.I.O.N.is a heavy concept punk band, who relies on schlock '80s pastiche and a dumpster fire aesthetic to call attention to the machinery of empire, and how it is deployed to coerce consent to US global hegemony, both at the frontier of the Empire, and in the interior of the metropole. Also, they sound like HAL from 2001 having violently consensual and emetophilic cybersex with an organic simulation of Alec Empire while they both dry hump an analog drum machine back to its factory presets. 

While the lyrics point to real, seemingly intractable problems in the world, the form these issues are presented in is highly satirical. Like on the blast zone battered and hydraulic beat boosted crust punk of "New Prosthetic Metal Arm," where a soldier finds himself stripped of his humanity (and most of his flesh) in the process of him being made into the ultimate killing machine, or "Unsecured Network" where the architects and technicians of the present world order confess their sins over a public wifi signal moments before the civilization they are charged with maintaining is reduced to irradiated charcoal in a nuclear holocaust of their own making. It's enough to make your motherboard feel like it's about to melt into hot silicon slurpy.

 I'm almost certain L.O.T.I.O.N.'s won't consider the project a success unless they've given someone an aneurysm, either at one of their shows, or more likely, while listening to this LP. It's also possible that this is not just a desired effect, but a sought-after outcome. Maybe that is the only way to subdue the Empire... to make everyone in America's brain explode. 

World Wide W​.​E​.​B. is out via Toxic State Records. 

Album Review: 200 Stab Wounds - Slave to the Scalpel

Wrote about the gruesome Cleveland death metal band 200 Stab Wounds and their godless assault on the senses Slave to the Scalpel for New Noise today. Savage and tasteless in all the right ways. Read my words below: 

Review https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-200-stab-wounds/

Out via Maggot Stomp. 

Album Review: Non Band - Non Band

There could easily be a book written about the NON baNd's self-titled EP. Truely, that is the level of depth that is required to do it justice. It's a classic of Japanese no-wave and the avatar of first-wave Tokyo-punk icon Non. But because I'm a masochist, I'm going to try and say what I've got to say about it in about 300 words. Wish me luck!

Originally released by the fledgling underground label Telephraph in 1982, NON baNd self-titled is the only studio album that the band ever released. As the story goes, following the capsize and disbursement of her maiden "Tokyo Rocker" outfit Maria 023, bassist, vocalist and visionary, NON began to chart a course for her solo career. She did so by frequenting clubs and local bars and delivering unscheduled performances with just her bass and a microphone- often electrifying those in attendance and commandeering the attention with the quizzically, chiding character of her voice and the plucky, rhythmically inclined mischief of her bass picking. Eventually, her magnetism attracted the talents of guitarist and violin player Kinosuke and drummer Mitsuru Tamagaki, and just like that, NON had a band again. 

As you can imagine, the compositions on NON baNd's self-titled album are sparse and idiosyncratic arranged- centering NON's voice and bass as they glide around the bends and arches of Kinosuke's whimsical, tilting bow. There is a lot of open-air that is left on these mixes and a welcome affordance of space can be uncovered throughout. It is into this space that you can feel yourself drifting while listening to this album. Breathing and observing. Circling the band as they perform. A silent witness to their exhibition and stagging of sound.

While enjoying this record I feel like I am right next to the band. Soaking in the moister of their breaths and the smell of their perspiration, as we stare into a teeming, absorbing blackness just beyond the threshold of illumination cast from a spotlight above. I am there with them, listening intently to the riddles which NON divulges through the mocking titter of her chatter-box melodies, maneuvering around the wild, thrusting gesticulations of Kinosuke as he saws with his bow, and feeling the thump of Mitsuru's beat as it's vibrations rise up through my spine and scarper through the reservoirs of my ribcage. 

It's not very often that a record nearly 40 years old record can present itself with such fresh immediacy that it feels as though it is being performed for the first time to be directly received by your senses. But that is the magic of NON baNd's self-titled EP- A singularly unique and delightfully peculiar experience. 

Get it from TAL Music. 

Album Review: Kalbells - Max Heart

I've been enthralled with Kalbells since hearing their Mothertime EP last year (which I reviewed here). I was pretty excited to hear that Kalbells had a full-length dropping this year, and after taking a couple of months to absorb Max Heart, I have to say that I'm as pleased with it as I was their last EP- a little more in some ways, actually. There is a calming kind of minimalism on Max Heart that carries over from their earlier work, but on this latest record, the compositions are allowed to spread out and reveal their interiority and complex web of dimensions in ways that the band had not previously explored. 

In general, I appreciate the spartan approach Kalbells have to their music. I'm not sure if it's the product of judicious application or a shaving down of extraneous details to reach a bedrock of essentials. Either way, it works. They know what shape their song needs to take, and they have the courage to live with their works and share mental space with them, permitting them free-range inside their heads and nurturing them all the while until they reach their full potential. This process bequeaths to the songs on Max Heart a strong sense of purpose and the confidence they exude is very reassuring. 

As previously alluded, while the songs on Max Heart still display a kind of direct and cleanly defined structure, they feel larger and deeper as well- like a big winter coat that you can fall into, and keep falling, plummeting through a dimension of warm, downy embrace. 

I especially like the integration of more progressive jazz and space disco elements on Max Heart as well- Kalbells is a band that has always known their way around synthesizers and it's cool to see them realize the potential of their instruments in this way. 

The final thing I want to say about Max Heart is that it is interesting to me to see a band make an album that embellishes the pleasures and rejuvenating aspects of sleep. Many bands describe the experience of dreaming through their music, but few explore the state which makes such psychological and experientially limitless tangents possible. 

In a period of history when people are sleeping less than ever due to the demands of waking life and the hypnotic draw of digital firelight, indulging in a natural period of rest feels like an act of righteous disobedience. Sleep is a time when other's demands can't touch you, can't mold you, and can't bend you to their will. It is a time when you are alone and can embrace a sense of independence in this solitude. It is also part of a cycle of healing and replenishment that our bodies need in order to keep functioning. You need to sleep to live and this is something to be celebrated, as it is a state of repose that represents a kind of freedom from want and capturing of desire. I'm thankful for Kalbells for the reminder that myself, and everyone, have this subtle mechanism of soft revolt built inside of our very beings. 

Buy Max Heart from NNA Tapes. 

Album Review: Claire Cronin - Bloodless

Wrote about the absolutely lovely new dark country album from Claire Cronin for New Noise today. Read what I had to say about Bloodless below: 

Review https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-claire-cronin/

Snag it here https://clairecronin.bandcamp.com/album/bloodless

Album Review: Oliver Buckland - Temptation Stairway OST

This short EP containss UK electronic composer Oliver Buckland's contributions to Joel Guerra's playful and hypnogogic, digital folk tale Temptation Stairway- a short film that follows the polygonal protagonist Ena as she attempts to win a race against her friend Moony in order to have her ultimate wish granted. Inspired by the highly abstract sequence events which it accompanies, Oliver Buckland's score is firmly grounded in a familiar pastiche of new age new wave, percussive progressive jazz, PC soundcard scans, and bubbly spritzes of yacht rock- a medley of sound that is as carefree as it is captivating. The EP begins delightfully with lush and jaunty "Hourglass Meadow" which will leave you in a frolicking mood after a brief encounter with its bantering piano lines, plush rainbow-hued electronics, and crispy, batter-fried beat. Things do get a little trippy from there with the battery acid-soaked wipe-out of "Radical Phindoll," but thereafter charts a course for smoother sailing, passing through the shimmering ingress of "Venturing into the Pyramid" and finally exiting via the divine, echo-chamber drift of "Dead God Graveyard." Dare to dream in 32-bit resolution tonight as you give Oliver Buckland's Temptation Stairway OST a spin. 

Buy the record here. 

Watch the short film Temptation Stairway directed by Joel Guerra below: 

Interview: Dos Santos

Picture by Victor Duarte

Alex Chavez of the Chicago-based Latin fusion group Dos Santos and I had a pretty great chat about his band, their philosophy and their new album City of Mirrors for CHIRP Radio's Artist Interview Series. Our conversation is live on the Station's website right now and I'm really happy with how it came out. Check it out here, or below: 

CHIRP Radio · Dos Santos Interview

City of Mirrors is out via International Anthem.

Album Review: Wolvhammer - The Monuments of Ash & Bone

Wolvhammer are a crusty black metal hybrid out of Olympia, Washington who have a knack for retaining momentum between releases. Their 2018 album The Monuments of Ash & Bone was their hotly anticipated follow-up to 2014's critically acclaimed Clawing into Black Sun. 

On Monuments of Ash & Bone there aren't many surprises from the band (a good thing, frankly!), which sees them continue to revel in the sludgy primitive crust punk and suffocating claustrophobic black metal that has earned them the allegiance of many a malcontent over the past decade. I was most familiar with Wolvhammer through their 2011 album The Obsidian Plains, but after hearing The Monuments of Ash & Bone it quickly became my favorite of their catalog. 

The production here is much more dynamic than on their previous releases, and while that isn't always a selling point for a black metal album, it really works here. I feel like I can walk into a lot of these mixes and they will actually expand and extend into space under my tread. They feel like the precarious, geometrically unsound halls of a collapsing Victorian manner that is slowly being subsumed by the ectoplasm-rich marshy soil and clay upon which it was ill-advisedly raised. 

I'm also a fan of how elemental the force and chaos of the record is. As if the band were simply a demonic wind, for which you are neither obstacle nor audience to its passage, but rather an inconsequential facet of the environment that it will batter and leave ruined in its wake. It is a kind of violence that is pure, impersonal, and uncomplicated- and I very much appreciate it. 

There aren't as many moments of ambient discord on this release as their past efforts, which may disappoint some fans. Not me, for the record. Every black metal band who dropped an album between 2014 and 2018 seemed to include at least one tacked-on interlude of shifting feedback, like they were hoping you would mistake them for Deafheaven for something. Wolvhammer did a little bit of this as well, but you can definitely feel them weening themselves off such bad habits with this release. 

Really the only moment on this album that doesn't feel like it is passing through you like a hot piece of steel is "Call Me Death" which includes a divergence into clean singing- a reservoir of replenishment that helps to emphasize the vibrant spectrum of brutality which the clawing, reptilian vocals occupy thereafter. 

The rest of Monuments of Ash & Bonejust feels like boxing with a werewolf. I hope you've had all your shots because this bastard bites! 

Get it from Blood Music. 

Album Review: Manzanita y Su Conjunto - Trujillo - Perú 1971​-​1974

 Analog Africa is the catalog equivalent of a vein of gold. Anytime I come across one of their releases, it makes me feel like a millionaire- experientially rich at least, even if I'm still technically cash poor. But if I've learned one thing in life, it's that true wealth is measured by how you spend your time rather than how you spend money (although, having money doesn't hurt!). And the latest Analog Africa collection, Manzanita y Su Conjunto's Trujillo - Perú 1971​-​1974 is helping me spend my time well indeed. 

The album assembles some of the surviving works of Berardo Hernández aka Manzanita to showcase his pioneering Peruvian cumbia style, as well as preserve some of his music for posterity's sake. It never ceases to amaze me how brilliant and unique works manage to slip down the slope of obscurity like sand passing through the bottom of a cracked hourglass. When stuff ends up getting preserved like this, it's often only thanks to collectors and archivists making partially informed purchases at second-hand stores, or traded between friends. Alas, there is always simply an element of blind luck at play in the distinction of what gets documented and what ends up in the dustbin. 

The origins of Trujillo are owed to Analog Africa owner Samy Ben Redjeb's having the chance to sort through a collection of a cumbia enthusiast and friends who had just had a child along with a sudden shift in priorities (ie he was selling his collection). When Samy showed interest in an LP from Manzanita, his friend practically forced it into hands, stating that it was "one of the best LPs ever recorded in Perú." I can't verify this fact independently, but I can certify that it is solid gold according to my ledger. Whether or not it is one of the better releases to ever come out of the country is immaterial. It was good enough for Samy to want to put money down to reissue and distribute the songs that appear on Trujillo to the masses after decades of amass memory shrowding dust in a crate. 

Manzanita first gained popularity during the psychedelic craze that swept much of South America during the '60s, when he took inspiration from Northerly guitarists like Jimi Hendrix and translated their transportive techniques through the meniscus of Cuban rhythms. While he only managed to produce a few records, he was a prolific and influential performer, whose trade was not hampered by the political developments of the era. Throughout most of the '60s and '70s, when military dictatorships came to power, it meant an end to popular forms of expression. Ironically, this was not the case in Peru. When the Juan Velasco regime seized control in a military coup in 1968, it suppressed foreign imports of rock and other varieties of popular music in favor of promoting local and traditional art. This caused a bit of a frenzy, with local labels rushing in to fill the public's demand for new music, and it was in this context that Manzanita's distinctive style became a sensation.

And why not? Manzanita's music is an earnest melding of then-popular styles and regional folk. The only surprising part is how much these songs still manage to resonate today. This is likely owed to the sincerity of Manzanita's approach. He really didn't have any tricks up his sleeve, just a vision and the ability to execute it- relying on a fantastic sense of time and rhythm and a natural ability to select compatible collaborators to make his dreams reality. 

The majority of the tracks in this collection center on Manzanita's guitar playing- often taking the form of a tension holding tremolo or a twisting, gyrating groove that holds in suspension, both opposing and accordant thoughts and moods. Like love and anger, jealousy and forgiveness, regret and hope- themes that keep each other in balanced rotation, like the gravitational equilibrium and waltz of the celestial bodies. The momentum of these songs is such that they will cause you to feel like you are being hurled forward into time and space even while you are sitting still. And if you do give into the rhythms of Manzanita's trill, you will find the sounds of his guitar and the accompanying instruments to be more than generous and encroaching as far as dance partners go. 

It is extraordinary that these songs were ever almost lost given the strength of Manzanita's popularity at one point. It kind of makes you wonder what inescapable works of our present time might all but disappear in the next 30-50 years. I can certainly think of a couple songs and artists that I would hope to suffer such a fate, but it's hard to dwell on such thoughts when you have something as compelling as Trujillo to preoccupy your mind and body with. 

Buy the record from here.