Album Review: JOYFULTALK - Familiar Science

Jay Crocker calls his latest album under the JOYFULTALK nom de plume Familiar Science. It's anything but. My initial impression of the album was that he was doing an outré amalgamation of Jeff Parker's inspired deviations, isolated from a Tortoise writing session, and reborn in a prenatal chamber of his own variation. The more times I plumbed through Familiar Science though, the more alien it seemed to become to me- and the more enthralled I became with it. This is such a rare experience when listening to an album. It's can become easy to get complacent on your fifth or sixth listen because you have acclimated to an album's internal climate and terrain. That has not become a problem with Familiar Science, and I am still actively devoting brain powder to figuring it out and sorting through my reactions. For instance, why do I find the title track so haunting, and why is the percussion so gratingly raw and impulsive, and yet, humbly intimate? Why does "Ballad in 9" leave the impression that I'm dodging through a hail storm of knives on one playthrough and like I'm washing an inch of peat and mud off my shoulders with the aid of a summer rain shower the next? How is it that every time I hear "Take It To The Grave," I get the impression that I need to move my feet as fast as possible, like I'm trying to outrun a subway train while concurrently practicing a highly aerobic dance routine, all while being coached by the ghost Patrick Swayze and another apparition that strangely resembles Jennifer Bealsin a  peculiar and unsettling manner? I can't rightly say. All I know is that Familiar Science has my undivided attention, and it's going to keep it as well. Because if I turn from its dazzlingly incongruous display to mind something else for even a moment while it is on, I'm sure to miss something extraordinary. 

 Available from Constellation

Album Review: Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World

Magdalena Bay's LP Mercurial World starts with a conclusion and ends with a "Start," and because I think they're on to something, I'm going to do the same. It is unquestionable in my mind that Mercurial World is an excellent album. It is a release that I think any fans of electronic music and underground pop can find something to love about. 

Especially in a world where a band like Yes can go from "Roundabout" to "Owner of a Lonely Heart," Magdalena Bay's aptitude for catchy sound concepts would seem to almost be a forgone conclusion- only Magdalena Bay has embraced this potential in themselves faster than most of their predecessors (and contemporaries). It's not surprising how confidently Magdalena Bay guides the listener through the complex rhythms and expansive melodies of Mercurial World and how unshy they are about their prog-rock background- in fact, I believe it is this past that allows them to fully realize the visions that emerge from the fog of their imagination. 

The firm patter and charismatic themes of the piano lead on "Hysterical Us" gives you a taste of how soft rock and space disco can interlock to find common footing on a cosmic cruise of quasar-chasing discovery. "Chaeri" slowly comes to life through progressive builds that mature before your eyes like a time-elapsed video of a dayglow-hued orchid in bloom, unfurling faster than you'd expect, but not without the excellent courtesy to permit you the opportunity to appreciate each peddles as it extends outward in emancipation of its verdant form. A halo of chiptune nirvana descends around the downy but angular, breath-play of the player-v-player dialogue of action that evolves over the course of "You Lose!"

In between its shimmering bookends, there is a deep realm of groove and posh, pliant experimentation to wonder, with the sounds of lysergic-oiled synths and the blended textural melodies of Mica's voice as your guide. The final track, "The Begining," leaves you with the impression that the party is just about to get started, with a crowd noises introducing swift, soft-shoeing house piano sections, energizing dance-floor-tile chipping heel-beats, and a grappling wave of synth rolls that sweep you into the mix like the space between you and the band had simply been highlighted and deleted with a superficial keystroke.

 Later tracks compliment their predecessors in a way that doesn't so much build on past motifs, but rather show how each song acts in anticipation of the needs and constituent parts of its siblings. Mercurial World begins with "The End" which ushers you into the duo's world of liquid daydreams and absorbing fugue-embedded investigations into the domain of the subconscious and uninhibited mind. The structures they've adopted allow the album to feel like it is operating on a non-linear spectrum, where narratives course in intersecting conflicts in simultaneous space-time and it's up to the listener to piece them back into an order that doesn't fry their brain. 

They are blazing their own path and it's not hard to see why they've been getting so much love following the release of their latest LP, Mercurial World. Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin's Madalena Bay is part electronic pop project and part mythical stage from where the quizzical pair unleash their antics upon a greying world through impossibly catchy manifestations of diversionary creation and keen, body-moving, sonic inquiry.  

Find it from Luminelle Recordings

Album Review: Century Egg - Little Piece of Hair

Halifax rockers Century Egg allow the natural chemistry of their influences and their band dynamics to coalesce into some lasting and magnificent on their EP Little Piece of Hair. They're pretty fearless in their adaptation of the fun and flurry of emotions of '80s J-Pop as well as the way they hitch it to the driving buzz and tumble of '90s pop-punk. You'd think these styles, given their emphasis on melody, would be more common bed-fellows, but I guess it just takes a certain level of genius to suitably integrate them in order to bring out the best qualities of both. 

The lean muscle and magnificent melodic potential of their hybrid sound is discernable from the outset on the engaging swivel and sway of "Do You Want To Dance?" a song which embodies the jet-setting jog and post-soul influence of what we in the "West" know as city pop, set to a spiked and churning Blake Schwarzenbach-esque cadence, wrapped and delivered in a gauzy payload of psychedelic distortion. 

"Do You Want To Dance?" is a fantastic and exciting way to start off the album, and provides the proper level of heat tempering to condition you to catch the screw-turn pitch of the sonic fireball"Ring A Bell," as well as to mind the pace of the patiently scalding post-punky plod of "I Will Make Up A Method"- both of which owe their heritage as much to Hot Water Music as the generous reach and ambition of Aunt Sally. 

The most striking addition to the EP though, even if it feels a little cliche to say it, is the title track, "Little Piece of Hair." It's a song that interpolates the sum total of the sounds that Century Egg explores on the rest of the album while adding an avuncular melody reminiscent of much of Satomi Matsuzaki's work with Deerhoof. Here, every line is like a wind-up summersault, a self-affirming motion that forces its way out of another layer of pubescent swathe with each rotation. The way the chords build on each other with each measure creates an excellent sense of tension and release as well, a ceaseless sensation of momentum that simply escalates its confidence through revelatory expulsion. It's a wonderful track to build the album around and demonstrates how well they can balance a thoughtful performance with a gush of rock 'n roll energy- an exercise in legacy, balance, and discovery. 

Get it from Foward Music Group

Interview: Zvrra

Image from the artist

 I got to hang out and talk games and dance music with Chicago producer Zvrra for the CHIRP Radio Artist Interview Series this week. I really love the kind of techno she is making and I'm very happy to be able to share her music with the station's audience. If you've visited her Bandcamp, you may have noticed that she's a prolfic producer. She's also working on a game, which we talk about a little bit in the interview, and which sounds really badass. It's surprising that she finds the time to stream on Twitch with everything else she is doing. An inspiration to the rest of us I tell ya! You can listen to the interview here or below: 

CHIRP Radio · Zvrra Interview

Listen to one of her more recent albums Solace below: 

Album Review: Michael Beharie - Promise

Something that I'm not used to talking about when it comes folk albums is the groove. Folk (at least good folk) usually has pretty strong melodies, but these melodies are often confined to the vocal work and aren't always complimented by a memorable counter amongst the accompanying instruments. It's a confrontation with these expectations that snared my attention (and held it!) upon hearing Michael Beharie's "Ghost" off his most recent album, Promise. 

Michael is best know for his avant-chamber work with groups like Zs, and there is a lateral quotient of this indubitable verisimilitude embedded in a song like, "Ghost" whose melody is half grounded in sea-shanty and half held aloft in gloomy pop reflection a la the Cranberries's "Zombie." This melody is achieved by a latice-like folding of Michael's lonesome croon, dipping in and out of a lyrical guitar strum, and basking in the flow of a cool spiral course, siphoned from the breath of flutist Laura Cox. Stepping into the stream of this song is like wading into the River Styx, and feeling one's spirit pulled like a splitting strand of grass between the poles of each bank, life and death mingling in a tranquil flow outside of time. 

This sense of inner-circulation and mysical circadian stir also gives songs like the groaning patter of "Silo" its peculiar sense of weightless gravity and eidolon imprint and assures the effervescence of the accommodating outward-seeking unveiling and distant calls of songs like "Thakur."

It's not all ephemeral though; and there are times when Promise is more embodied in the moment than others, such as on "Lolo" where the bass guitar is so real and forward that you can almost feel it press into the dirt below you with each strum like it was your own footprint compressing the body of the Earth. Then there is "For Days" which has a familiar but not parochial form, following an intuitive blueprint to shape a snappy powerpop profile that would not be out of line for an acoustic Evan Dando B-side. 

Promise is most distinct, though, when it is allowing its physical nature to intersect with its spiritual aspirations, such as on "August," whose twisting rhythms doubles back on themselves in an infinite hourglass shape as the sands of time stream from its navel with silty synths and guitars guiding the arching spillage of this ruptured chrono-vessel in its fateful, trusting curl.

When the certainties of your life have been buried by doubt and you find yourself wandering a desert of foreclosures without a drop of rain to wet your tongue, any small trace of life can become a beacon of hope. Music that is attached to its physicality without becoming overwhelmed trenchant sense of immediacy can be the sign towards mecca that you need to leave such a barren place. Finding the right path for you takes time, and taking the time a situation requires to understand all of its dimensions appears to be what Promise is all about. Open your heart to the message of transcendence and the lively way Michael presents his codas and you might just find the direction you are looking for.  

Album Review: Them Beats - End of Time

It was kind of a big deal a couple of years back when the Weeknd reminded everyone that being sad could be kind of sexy. For better or worse, his aesthetic appeal was rooted in the fact that a tormented soul can attract a fair amount of empathy (and eroticism), especially when they're good-looking. He also reminded us that sadness is often a natural pairing with volatility, and that this can be a good source of an adrenaline rush (if that's the sort of thing you're looking for). I'm not passing judgment- I'm just describing the vibe. 

The funny thing about melancholy R'nB, though, is that it's always been around, and been around in less explosive and more durable forms. Artists like Patti LaBelle and Freddie Jackson expressed plenty of distress in their music, and even their uplifting songs drew water from a well of tears- even going so far as to describe their longing as suffering- as if their desire was so intense that it became physically painful, even scolding, to hold on to. It could be really hot... literally. 

Massachusetts Them Beats, despite existing in a post-Weeknd world, and adopting the minimalistic, dark, and shadowy production style that is pertinent to it, seems to belong to a previous era of R'nB and soul on their EP End of Time. It's refreshing to hear someone simply express their desire, without any caveats, knowing that their love might not be returned, but choosing to expose themselves to the slings of rejection regardless. It's zero hour for professing your passion, and I love it! 

The slow simmer and skimpy, disrobed beat of "Nervous" is a thrifty but indulgent ode to a longing that sounds completely credulous in its purring confession. "Miss U" has a bubbling sweetness to its poping electronics that compliments the tantalizing glacé of the singer's intentions like a drizzle of chocolate on a fresh strawberry, and the long amble of the piano-led "Care of Your Heart" has a Jackson-esque lilt to its crooning twitterpated bow of surrender to the object of its affection.  

I think it was good choice to put Them Beats's vocals at the front of the mix, as it feels like there is less of a barrier between you and the singer, almost like they are singing to you directly. That's the goal after all, intimacy. The company of another where true feelings have no place to hide. 

Find it from Vivarium Recordings

Album Review: Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru - S/T

There is a lot you could be said about Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, but I think it's best to keep this introduction short. She was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She began her music career early, leaving to study violin in Switzerland at the age of six.  It isn't her violin work that she is best known for, though. Nor her singing, nor her work in the court of the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. Instead, it's her solo piano performances that have preserved as the sturdiest pillar of her legacy. They're quietly incredible and rightly well remembered. Chicago-local Mississippi Records has re-released her second self-titled LP, a collection of '60s works, and it's given me a chance to sink into her unique sound and performance- a body of work that I've read about, but haven't appreciably explored. Listening to this collection, it's almost like she is in the room with you. The production is beautiful and warm and I can almost feel the vibration of the notes in the air as they escape the body of her instrument and blossom in the cavity of the room. There is a sadness to these compositions that is pockmarked and pitted with a certain resilience- even joy. A combination of classical chamber music and swelling jazz motifs glide around and past you you like a falling stage current, revealing a new venue of consideration with each passing, enticing phase. Her movements are swift and grand, direct but curious, conjuring an abiding swirl and gust of cool air that fills your lungs and suspends time for the duration of her performance- almost like the moment of her performance was a leaf set aloft by a pressing sigh. Form and intention coalesce in an oasis of sound, and it in I find myself replenished. 

Available again through Mississippi Records 

Album Review: Omni Gardens - Moss King

Moss King is the latest LP perennial greenskeeper of sound and Moon Glyph honcho Steve Rosborough, performing as Omni Gardens. Calling Steve's smooth meandering synth trills and trails "plant music" would seem derisive, but the plants in my living room would beg to differ. I've been playing the album for them the last few days and they've really seemed to blossom in Moss King's presence (more regular waterings haven't hurt either). 

There is a flowing sense of deliberation that underscores tracks like "Watering Plants," a serene state of imagination, reminiscent of a meditation on Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green as one watches diamond-shaped beads evaporate off blades of grass following a rain. "Cool Off" possesses a similar fascination with motion and water while revealing an intimacy that is equally humble and esoteric, like performing a private recital for the sea. 

The middle track "Drawing A Rainbow" marks a transition point for the album where reflections on terrestrial life become inverted in order to face the vast ocean of stars and inky expanses above, a transition achieved through a tubular glide up a reverse rabbit hole. After which Moss King etches an elegant arch over a crescent waxy synth tone, shining like a dazzling cascade of starlight on "Far-Out Greens" before calmly drifting out into the frontier of the cosmos on the "Algae After All." 

The album then comes full circle with the warm drizzling coo of "Oolong,"  a final parting gift that feels like you are steeping in a bath of herbal tea heated by the distant blaze of a thousand stars. Who knows the places Moss King could take you if you gave it the time it needs to grow on you? Speaking from my own experience, I've only begun to experience the benefits of its carefully cultivated beauty.

Out on Moon Glyph

Interview: Dummy

Image by the artist, ID by me

Took some time to get to know Joe Trainor of Dummy following the release of his band's double single for Sub Pop's Singles Club. We talked about the new record ("Mono Retriever / Pepsi Vacuum"), of course, but I also managed to quiz Joe on the important topics of the day, like "Why is indie rock bougie?," "How do the economics of a show with a sliding entrance fee work?," and "What should I be listening to?" His answers to these questions are pretty spot on, in my opinion.  

Check out the interview below: 

Listen to their Sub Pop singles: 

Interview: Quin Kirchner

Image by Lizzie Kirchner

Had a really great time talking with Quin Kirchner for the CHIRP Radio Artist Interview Series this week. I recorded this interview a couple of weeks ago while Quin was on tour with Ryley Walker in Europe so that's why he says at the beginning that he is calling in from Switzerland (I believe he is home now). We talk about touring, mental preparations for performance, the role of ego in improv, and his latest album with Rob Clearfield, called Concentric Orbits. It was a far-reaching conversation that is hopefully as fun to listen to as it was to have. Check it out on CHIRP's site here or below: 

CHIRP Radio · Quin Kirchner Interview

Concentric Orbits is out on Astral Spirits. 

You can check out Quin and Rob playing a record release show for the album at Constellation Hall below: