Interview: Jordan Reyes

Image by Katherine Squier

I had the pleasure of talking with experimental artist and American Dreams label head Jordan Reyes this week for the CHIRP Radio Artist Interview Series. It was a little spooky conversing about his  new album Everything Is Always given the psychological turmoil that it comes out of and the mortal fear that inspired it, but the topics are perfectly suited to the season and I'm glad that this interview dropped in time for Halloween. You can listen to the interview here, or below: 

CHIRP Radio · Jordan Reyes Interview

Jordan will also be playing a release show on Nov. 4th at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. You can listen to Everything Is Always, out on American Dreams below:

Album Review: gammaGIRL - The Cult of Flesh and Blood

It's the night before Halloween in the US, and if you're not listening to gammaGIRL's The Cult of Flesh and Blood, then you are not properly prepared for the holiday. There are dark forces at work in this world. Spirits who will turn you into a flapping bag of skin at a glance. Monsters on the prawl, starving and hunting for fresh souls to devour. Maybe you can't feel the battle for survival being waged around you, or perhaps you've already lost, and resigned yourself to your fate. I hope neither is true for you. It would be better if we lived in a world without fear, but alas, such a hope is less potent than the exhale of a daydream. If you must hear the battle cry, my wish is that it resonates within you with the present and ever-enduring cry for preservation that being a living body is the pure and inalienable distillation of. This demand for life and autonomy in the pursuit of one's own ends is often conveyed very physically through heavy metal/hardcore punk, emotionally through emo, and spiritually through electronic dance music. As it were, gammaGIRL's The Cult of Flesh and Blood is the unity of all three. The album unleashes its first of many immodest but indisputably defiant summons with the ripping "Scream (Bloody Murder)," a gory, monstrosity that opens at a rushing pace, like an avalanche of lava and enmity spilling down the side of a mountain, before settling into a surfy, Code Orange-esque, discordant arrangement of wiggling, tentacle armed grooves and werewolf girl howls. The following track makes use of a deep-fried drum machine pattern as the crusty floor for an aggravated, supersaturated and seriously danceable bass groove that thunders above a stratum of desolate crying souls and their arid, longing whispers. "Sister Killer" combines the distorted jungle conflagration of Atari Teenage Riot with the melodramatic whip and lamentful holler of My Chemical Romance as it splashes unconcernedly in a fit of pain and ecstasy in an open pool of glowing toxic waste and running, black eyeliner. The mood becomes more personable and inviting with "Gay Sex Collective," where MidWest powerpop grooves hook up with MidWest emo buzz-chords out back behind the dumpsters for an explicate, adult encounter. Dreamy shades of the Cure emerge through the drizzling streaks of the dark and dripping crimson clash of "Fake Blood," and the intertwining of moments of Glen Danzig's vocal inflections into the unrepentant and decadent spoils of what is essentially a horror punk version of an Elliot Smith song on "Potter's Field" is a trick worthy of a High Priestess of a witch's coven. Sometimes to defeat monsters, you have to become a different kind of beast altogether, and on The Cult of Flesh and Blood, gammaGIRL is, without a doubt, a new kind of monster, one that fights the best way it knows how: by singing its revenge in to the night. 

Album Review: Jeremy Cunningham / Dustin Laurenzi / Paul Bryan - A Better Ghost

A Better Ghost is a collaboration between drummer Jeremy Cunningham, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, and producer and bassist Paul Bryan. The album evolved out of improvisations shared between Jeremy and Dustin, with Paul being invited on board to give the project a little more definition once the bones had been set in place. The result is a rather sturdy, firmly demarcated and thriving germination of sound. Paul's bass playing adds compelling depth to the tracks, which lends a needed third dimension to the concentric nature of the work. The tracks are often comprised of structures that begin with a bebop groove and curve outward from this core, gaining dimension as they rotate and bloom in motion while retaining the rythem of their central pivot. This staged and progressive orientation lends to A Better Ghost a dramatic kind of gravitas and an epicness in scope reminiscent of filmic representations of the antiquity from the Mid 20th Century- rising in a hallowed grandeur without giving over to pomp or vainglory. It's not often that a bop groove or sax wail reminds me of tall stone pillars and expansive, detailed mate paintings of ancient lands, but I believe that it is the ever-growing and expansive nature of these compositions that invokes in me these associations with romantic epics. The tracks are somewhat humbled by the insistent coloring of warm-toned synths that Dustin has interspersed throughout these tracks, providing for forward-leaning veneers and margins of overlap with post-rock in the vein of Tortoise or a more subdued Trans Am. The most impressive part of A Better Ghost is the manner in which it is able to absorb energy and inspiration and grow sustainably and gradually from cleanly defined loci in a way that doesn't push against the incredulousness of the listener's ego, but rather anticipates and providers room for one to lose themselves in an arena of transfixing depth and ever-broadening horizons without losing the anchoring sensation of feeling one's soles planted on the ground. 

Out on Northern Spy. 

Album Review: Rich Jones & Iceberg Theory - Smoke Detector

Rich Jones is an MC with a perfect MidWest vibe. Maybe somebody won't think it's cool that I said that. Maybe they think the MidWest corny. Well, they're wrong for feeling that way. We do grow a lot of corn out here, but that's beside the point. What I mean, is that as a lifelong MidWestern, I feel like I know this guy well. Like personally- even though we've only technically met once. He's a proud creature of his environment, a part of the country that appreciates earnestness, respect, grind, and personableness. As a result of coming up here, he's a passionate, clear-spoken dude, with an appreciation of history and the people who helped him flourish over the years, and this bares out on his latest LP Smoke Detector. The album has this incredibly warm and shaggy feel to it, cultivated in part through producer Iceberg Theory's deliciously '70s selections- recreating lounge, yacht rock, and disco beats, not as they were, but as you remember them from the plush rumpus rooms and finished basements your parent's friends kept well into the '00s- stocked with ancient liquor bottles, lined with sunken couches, and inhabited by one, impractically large, wood-bodied record players as their centerpiece. Out of this bouillon of intoxicating and tactile reminiscence, Rich's calm, almost sing-songy cadence rises like a white dove above the clap of a surly tempest. Elevated and without a care. You might mistake him for being bulletproof in this state, but it's actually your own conscience that prevents you from doing harm to something so pure. Put down your guns and stretch out your hands. Pray you can rise to his level. When Rich raps, his delivery is coolheaded and confident, slipping through the gaps that form between a tightlipped grin and a crooked smile, polishing and clawing out juicy bits and profound afterthoughts like a toothpick tip running through a gum-line after a pricey steak dinner- the smell of blood on his breath and sense of satisfaction in the air. He shares in this feast with old heads and perpetually hungry MCs like the refined mutant maestro Curly Castro and Defcee with his deep, steady rowing rhythm and flow, as well as irrepressible upstarts like the down-to-earth enigma, Semiratruth. I'm glad he elected to call this record Smoke Detector, because if you follow your ears, you'll find that there is not a single track that is not red hot! 

Rising from FilthyBroke Recordings.

Album Review: Superbloom - Pollen

Sometimes I feel like I enjoy the bands that are playing now and are inspired by '90s grunge, more than the actual grunge acts of that era. Looking back and listening to bands like Paw or Skin Yard (good as they were for their time), now just leave me feeling depressed. They were just trying way too hard to prove to people how angry and alienated they were. It was a little cringe if we're being honest. I much prefer acts that are able to have a little bit of fun with the down and dirty, ugly and untidy palette of sound that grunge provides. Take NYC's Superbloom for instance. While there are definite forceful suggestions of denim-clad, post-blues, punk-chunks and dissident semi-psyche Gish dished up on their LP Pollen, the muscular thrust of these songs isn't the point. These tracks are hooky as hell. And the hook is the point. Everything about these songs serves it. Superbloom aims to impress you with the deftness of their melodies rather than stagger you with a display of aggression. I could see a version of this record where the nimble, buzzy, backward tilt of the Bush-y "Leash" simply felt like it was hitting you in the forehead with each lap of the groove, but instead, the band exhibits the wherewithal to pull back just short of impact so that you get the adrenaline rush without the hamfisted stunner on the end. Similarly, the rough powerpop of "Spill" benefits from the leavening effect of a little downtempo Local H-esque, dirgey-ness which helps to consistently rachet up the tension for each prescribed release. The biting whir of "Mary on a Chain" stays on its feet despite its frantic posture by staying impeccably true to a dense acuity for toe-tapping rhythm and opener "1994" has all the backwoods rust and clatter of a Toadies track, but sharpened, polished, and buffed to a sheen as if it were meant to appear on There Is Nothing Left to Lose. I get the sense that part of why Pollen is the way that it is, is because Superbloom translates these sounds through their appreciation of contemporary melodic hardcore acts who have experimented with grunge aesthetics in recent memory like Title Fight and Citizen. However, that's just my conjecture-inclined mentality getting ahead of itself. I actually don't need to dive down any rabbit holes while Pollen is on. I just get to enjoy the fuck out of the ride. 

Album Review: FM Skyline - Illuminations

What separates the abstract and indirectly symbolic art of the early 20th Century and the late 20th Century? One obvious distinction is the medium. Piccaso was a painter and his work helped explore the dimensions of 2D space.  Objects like readymades challenged the definition of a sculpture by breaking them into their components and then elevating them in their recombined form. When I think of abstract art from the later half of that Century though, I'm not struck so much by high art in traditional mediums as art that is suited to the ephemeral. Live renegade theater, interpretative choreography, computer-generated music, and graphic renderings. The significance of vaporwave is that it collapsed some of the dreamer potentials of a PC's abstract aesthetics with mid-Century pop as a synthesis of both in the 2010s. Many artists have built upon this fertile impressionistic plateau since, but I'm particularly enjoying FM Skyline's Illuminations tonight. It is an album that takes this continuity of nonrepresentational art seriously in presenting highly recognizable computer-enabled sounds in a neoclassical format to evoke the sensibilities of conceptual art at the turn of the last Century. It reaches back farther than most vaporwave projects in its inspirations in order to bring its subject closer to the present- intertwining different eras of human achievement as if they coincided spatially and temporally in the process. It's hard not to listen to the album's funky synth melodies and not think of marble stare cases rendered in early CGI- a surrealist and physics-defying setting for an amble through a digital chateau furnished with cubist art. It's also difficult to repress the sensation of your thoughts changing in their dimensions, gradually transforming, and exploring different geometrical patterns as they waltz in flourishing contemplation to the tune of an approximated saxophone's whine or a crystalline guitar solo. The temperature of the tones applied to this music is very colorful and, in fact, glow as if they contain an internal light source, like bioluminescent mushrooms. Illuminations is an album that exists within the heritage of clear precedence but opens up space for interpretations that are consistently revolutionary in their capacity to cease on the past to overturn them in the production of an enlightened future- a palace of possibilities at the acme of abstraction, forever ascending from the digital sands of time. 

The groove is on over at 100% Electronica. 

Album Review: Rachael Dadd - Kaleidoscope

It's hard to find anything that would discourage me from fully endorsing abstract pop singer Rachael Dadd's second LP Kaleidoscope. Even if she elected to promote the record in as reckless and unruly of a manner as dumping buckets of paint onto passing motorists from a hot-air balloon, I'd probably feel inclined to consider such an action to be a quirky, if a poorly planned, extension of the work's overarching themes rather than a disqualifying act of antisocial hostility. This is because Kaleidoscope feels like an untarnished force of positivity in the world. It is a record that can't help but burst forth with a quietly frantic tenderness in a rush to expose all of the delicate consequential introspections it contains. Rachael's voice has the breathy whisper of a practitioner of romantic Celtic harmonies, textured with the whiskery brush of a Charlyn Marie Marshall-eque purr, and transposed with the intimacy of an after-hours open-mic night at a local coffee shop, where performances are shared while surrounded by love ones and receptive, encouraging strangers. The melodic waft of her voice is like a feather giving chase of the wind, seemingly elevated by magic, but in fact, moved by an application of will and an acceptance of the affordances presented by accommodating ontological pressures. The heavens will furnish a path for those who are receptive to the light of providence, and Kaleidoscope is the lens of the pathfinder. Incredibly, it is Rachael's vocal performance that is possibly the most firmly moored aspect of the record, as her loftiness is often matched and exceeded by Platonic country-western elements, such as strings, pianos and guitars, all of which are plastic and translucent in nature, and therefore expandable to encompass the whole theatre of the sky's divine atrium. I'm going to go back to my original metaphor for a moment, where I imagined Rachael dumping paint out of a dirigible, because it is an apt visual representation, only instead of splattering on the ground and causing confusion, I revise the scenario so that the technicolor bilge freezes in air, forming a walkable incline that you can climb, with hardly the effort of a sparrow in flight, in order to join Rachael in her floating, color-menagerie keep. IN the end, Kaleidoscope is your key to a kingdom in the clouds that was made to receive your audience.  

Check it from Memphis Industries.

Interview: Liska

Photo by Matt Allen

Got to talk with a very talented and rising rock/pop star for the CHIRP Radio Interview Series this week. We talked about her secret inspirations, growing up surrounded by musicians, and her new EP La Boom. You can check it out on CHIRP's site here, or below:

CHIRP Radio · Liska Interview

La Boom was self-produced and released. 

Album Review: Leatherette - Fiesta

They're calling this thing Fiesta, but it's definitely not a party that Bologna's Leatherette have in mind here. More like a traffic jam that turns into freeway wide street brawl, or a segment of "hold music" that produces a string of household arsons, and that is responsible for thousands of people independently concluding that they'd rather live in the woods than listen to one more stilted, tinny phrase of it while waiting to talk with an operator. A complete breakdown of civility and decorum as a result of pent-up emotions and one, final, brack-breaking indignity- that's what Leatherette has in store for you here. I feel like post-punk acts always have the potential to give shape and articulation to the intolerability of modern life. Leatherette not only accomplishes this feat, but manages to do it in a manner that is intelligent, forward-thinking, and heavy with eloquent sass. Did I mention they have a sax player too? It's the kind of sax playing I really appreciate. Subtle, restrained, and melodic. Fiesta might not be a party, but it's at least going to be part of my regular rotation through the rest of 2022 and beyond. 

Found via Bronson Recordings. 

Album Review: Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffaloes - Uganda (Dawn of Rock)

I don't think I'm stretching my credulity when I assert that I think Akira Ishikawa's 1972 album, Uganda is a tribute to the birth of rock and roll. Why do I say that? Well, the full title is Uganda (Dawn of Rock) for starters. But more importantly, rock is a popular music form, one that has spanned the globe and united people of disparate languages and backgrounds under the banner of an electric zeitgeist. And all of the sounds that allow it to have such power can be traced back to a single, geographical area of the world. Allow me to elaborate. It's incontrovertible that rock owes its origins to the folk traditions of the Americas, specifically the black blues traditions of the Southern United States. Further, it's long been accepted that the blues and other such traditions owe a debt to African rhythm traditions. What the jazz drummer by trade, and maverick by character, Akira does in collaboration with his band, Count Buffaloes, on Uganda, is nothing short of inverting the trajectory of rock's evolution without losing any of the merits of its progression. By latching notional twists on transportive psychedelic ruminations to African-inspired percussion and carving into the grooves of this dark ouroboros, splendid articulations of venomous dank heavy metal chords and agrestal flourishes of interpretative delta blues, he is articulating a sense of universal sonic heritage that is not reductive or primitivist, but instead gives the gift of the heritage of these sounds a corporal and real presence that allows it to take up space and exert a kind of determinacy in the motion of our shared destiny. As a result, Uganda doesn't sound like it's aged as much as it's arrived from the future. 

Unleashed again by Mr. Bongo. 

Album Review: Esse Ran - Derelict Memories

As a human, the thing I generally like most about music is its ingrained humanity. The way in which the thoughts, intentions, and world view of the people who make the music come out in its aesthetics and the expression of form. How every note and rhythm is attributable to some human interaction with an instrument, that person's environment, or even their own body. That said, even though I enjoy it, I don't have access to these simple pleasures when it comes to electronic producer Esse Ran's LP Derelict Memories. The record is a slimy and compulsive variety of hard techno that ungulates widely according to a covert design that I can not fully decern or comprehend. The grooves build and iterate on themselves like a mutant lifeform, molting in its scally epidermis, shedding its husk, and emerging as something ugly and compelling after hot, quivering gestation. The record feels like the result of Esse Ran having seeded some bass notes in a petri dish and let the cultures grow and amass in accord with some otherworldly calling, and periodically fertilized with protean powder, nitrate-infused water, and his own sweat and tears of pride. The product of his labor is a perpetually ripening monstrosity always on the verge of another revolutionary, self-annihilating unmasking. It's alien but not alienating, in that I can certainly decern some intelligence behind the maneuvers of this dancing, mucusy, bio-metallurgic mutant, but its ends are not our ends. As a human, I can only appreciate the form it takes. I can not decipher its wants or objectives.   

Find it on Humidex.

Album Review: Herva - Seez

There is a lot of initiative demonstrated on Seez and it's worth starting the conversation there. It's the latest album from Italian producer Herva and represents a new approach to the artist's traditional sample-based sound. Even though he started work on the album immediately after his previous release (2017's Hyper Flux, also on Planet Mu) the album took him until this year to finish. That's because he had something he needed to complete first, an entirely home-made suite of studio hardware. That's the understated marvel of Seez, everything you hear on the album is entirely original and the product of some device that Herva built himself. It took me a couple of listens to really pick up on it, but these grooves and sharp imprints have a hospitable quirk to them that feels like they are being led with care, first by hand, and then by habit, like an obedient pet that has taken well to its training. Each of these numbers feels like it was plucked from the ephemeral weave of Herva's brainwaves and gifted a physical presence in the form of a redolent, pellucid and variegated organic pattern that was tamed by rehearsal runs through a humble, homestyle obstacle course to the point where they bark and backflip in unison with their master's intentions, without him even having to utter a word (or even raise an eyebrow). I've heard plenty of experimental music that plays with a generous breadth of crystalline tones and motifs, but never one where the composer has felt so directly involved in a conversation with his tools, almost like there is a chain of telepathy between them. But I guess Seezing is believing. 

Another successful transmission from Planet Mu. 

Album Review: L3AH ANGEL - IN EXILE

In Exile is the second LP from Northern California pop artist L3ah Angel. It's a retrospective of her diverse interests and talents, as well as the entire spectrum of "bedroom music" as a phenomena. Turning on the interiority of poetry that elucidates travails of desire and identity, and arising from her alienation through diligent meditation and pragmatic self-acceptance, In Exile develops through polymorphous epiphanies to expel any sense of confinement. Allowing the compass of the heart to direct its pathfinding, the record finds its center in multiplicity, transforming before your senses through phases of dark acid house ("Water"), twinkly emo ("Run From Love"), subdued pop-folk ("A Cigarette"), moody R'nB ("Your Conscience"), tranquil chamber music ("All the Light"), and dazzling dream pop ("Ugly"). It's an exemplary record that not only guides you through a plethora of lovely moods and styles, but also showcases the power of commitment to one's passions and what can be accomplished with an entirely DIY setup (just a guitar, a laptop, and mic), that transmute one's bed chambers into a recording studio. Its versatility really speaks to me as someone who spent a lot of time in what little space you could claim for themselves (typically a bedroom in the house I was staying at), feeling guarded and trying to sort things out. In Exile demonstrates the fact, that even at our most withdrawn, we all have an incredible breadth of talent waiting to be unlocked and so much to offer the world. 

Album Review: Yasushi Ide - Cosmic Suite 2 - New Beginning

In 2020, producer Yasushi Ide released his first new recording in close to a decade, Cosmic Suite. Cosmic Suite 2 - New Beginning (released earlier this year) is its sequel. As you'd expect, it is similar in style and approach to its predecessor, but it is easily more conscientious in its construction this time. The first Cosmic Suite consisted of two exploratory tracks, each almost twenty minutes in length and with very few constraints in terms of direction or structure. Cosmic Suite 2 is the exact opposite, 16 tracks, each with its own distinct personality, intent, and focus. Through all of its guided incursions into dub, jazz and afrobeat, the tracks exhibit a consistent experimental fragility to them, like they are straining against thin boundaries, that if broken, would cause the entire piece to fall to ruin. They remind me of early hip hop and club mixes in that respect, where hardware limitations and other materials constraints forced the disc jockey to be precise and smart in their work- a situation where failure to find creative solutions meant a failure to produce anything listenable. There are some cool features here that update the classic appeal of these tracks, like the triplets Josue Thomas spits over the dreamy, French-busking-esque opener "Mirror," but the more telling moments of the album in terms of its source material is the Afrika Bambaataa feature on "I'm Thinking, I'm Spacing" where Afrika unleashes his mighty spirit in a wild, subconscious guided glow expressed through lyrics that are extremely funny, agitating and pointed, often in the same verse. When you tally the strengths of Cosmic Suite 2 up at the end, you have a pretty compelling party record on your hands- but one that reminds of the odd environment of innovation and freedom that modern dance music evolved out of, and which hints at the fact that the forward-thinking ethos of our past could once again rise and become a luminary compass for our future.

Find it on Grand Gallery. 

Album Review: Angelenah - I Don't Regret A Thing

I appreciate an album that makes a bold statement. And you can't get much more firm in your statements than I Don't Regret A Thing. The album comes by way of Chicago rapper and singer, as well as one-half of Big $ilky, Angelenah. It represents a laudable direction for her solo career, jumping right into that late '90s neo-soul stuff from the outset with opener "Just Getting Started," which follows a patient but deliberate acoustic guitar line as it underwrites Angelenah's affirmational prose, as well as those of her backup singers. The album continues to feel mature and grounded as it moves into the swimming sparkle of the devotional "Vegas," and then confronts the reflective rebuke of "HML," the latter of which tempers the passion of its lyrics with some supremely chilled-out, tweedy guitars and lapping salt-water flavored, electronic washes. Even though, I appreciate how thoroughly I Don't Regret A Thing embraces the classically minded and sensible side of R'nB, I'm also glad to see Angelenah cut loose a little on the soft-touch, soundsystem pulse of  "Put it Down" as well as flash a bit of her dark side on the scintillatingly taunt, "Danger." Angelenah is an artist with a lot of growth potential and she's not ashamed to show it off. If she hesitated at all in delivering her message then she might end up leaving something vital unsaid. And as the title of the album makes clear, regrets like those are out of the question.  

Album Review: mushfoot - Time Before Land

Time Before Land is the debut album from NYC trio Mushfoot. Named for a pet snail, the band is fittingly insular and measured on this album, with each member noticeably assembling their contributions in a separate lane, that then stack to create a cacophonous but cohesive span of sentimental and expressionistic indie rock. And I'm not just saying that because I noticed the primacy of disunity that runs through the project, but also because the band literally recorded their parts separately in different parts of the city. There are two amazing consciences to this structure, 1) each part sounds extremely distant, and 2) despite this, they manage to intersect like the loops of a pretzel. Separately each part doesn't sound like much, but together they form quite the treat. Time Before Land sounds like three people, in three separate flats, centered directly on top of each other, heard the music of their downstairs/upstairs neighbors and decided to improvise over it... and then a fourth person elected to record these unwitting collaborations and distribute it as a record (in reality though, I'm pretty sure Moone Records got permission before pressing the record). Combining '60s chamber pop with spastic electro-funk jitters in the vein of Graham Kartna and marrying it to cavernous post-jazz reminiscent of Beth Gibbons's solo excursions and meddling with shoegaze while rerouting old Magnetic Fields grooves, Mushfoot heap together their collaboration like they don't care if a sneeze or a sharp exhale could send it scattering across the ground like an exploded ant hill. It really does sound that spontaneous, unprecedented, and precarious, like a Jenga puzzle supported by a single block at the bottom in an inverted pyramid. Time Before Land teeters like could tip over at any moment, but through an exertion of innovative willpower, and a pinch of magic, it manages to stay upright and avoid collapsing as a structural enigma. Time Before Land exists in defiance of gravity itself. Like a winged tightrope walker, the band knows that their act is both a matter of skill and serendipitous provenience that generates steadiness out of peril. 

 Out on Moone Records 

Album Review: Deliluh - Fault Lines

It never fails. That part in a film or tv show where a character realizes that, after surviving a whole adventure and completing a narrative arch, they are suddenly confronted with the reality that they never left the room where their journey had started. The conclusion: the entire story up to that point had been a dream, an illusion, a demiurgic ploy. I love stories with this kind of twist. It's a fascinating narrative tool as it focuses our attention on the truth that there is some central element of the character's conflict that they have not only failed to resolve but have not even been able to recognize. Listening to Canadian post-punk duo Delilah's LP Fault Lines has a circular, terrifying logic to it that matches the structure of a story that is also a self-assembled prison. Its repetitions, its ghostly schemas of hollow chamber resonances, the wistfully mechanical and treadmill-like quality of the beats; they all manifest an essential betrayal of the senses, conveying an impression that you are always running, even if you are never getting anywhere. Passages stretch on for miles, through twists and inversions, highs and deep, deep lows, and in the end, you always turn up in the same place. In a cold sweat, in a room by yourself. Whether you worm your way through the slits and half-collapsed apertures of the claustrophobic orchestral flesh-echo of "Body And Soul," remain calm as the empty body of "X-Neighbourhood" floats overhead like an inflatable parade balloon designed by Robert Wilson to resemble your greatest fear, or dig through the filth and rot, the squirming, nerve-invading tenderness and aching humiliating throb of "Amulet" like a badger being chased by a hound, you will never escape your fundamental destiny. That of dropping right back into the cell where you started. A place where it is just you, yourself, and the puzzle of your own mind. Only now you are there with the knowledge that your progress up to this point was only a self-imposed delusion. It never fails.

 Drifting down from Tiny Angel Records. 

Album Review: Cold Meat - Hot and Flustered

Cold Meat is the name of a band that you'd expect to appear in an '80s exploitation film about rebellious youth driven insane by boredom. One of those moralizing tales that is half-heartedly sympathetic to the lonely alienation of young people but is primarily concerned with selling a story about drugs, depravity, and violent street crime, and has rationalized an underground punk show as an appropriate backdrop for all three. This might sound like a dig on exploitation flicks but it's not. Some parts of life can only be revealed through art in its most absurdist forms. And punk certainly thrives in the embrace of absurdity, something that Cold Meat drives home with every left-ricocheting hook and every jeering lyric spat. If they had been around when principal photography was taking place for Suburbia, Cold Meat would have been an essential pick for casting, slotting naturally between the bullying TSOL and defiant adolescence of The Vandals with their hurky, jerky, style of loose and livid hardcore that is as much about exercising certain ugly emotions and as it is ruthlessly mocking the conventions and prestige of rock's presumptive premiers (ZZ Top in particular). Of course, the opening track "Piscies Crises" off of 2020's Hot and Flustered would have only made slightly less sense in 1987 than it does today in its sneering commentary on the extent to which people attempt to avoid facing hard personal truths by losing themselves in pseudosciences- at least in the specifics that is. People in the '80s still believed a bunch of garbage, although preoccupations with astrology were having a particular moment in 2020. The vindictive row of "Women's Work" definitely feels like it could have been written three decades prior, and the sentiments of the shrieking and clawing "Bad Mood" seem perennial and paralyzing. That's kind of my final impression of Cold Meat when listening to Hot and Flustered. They're a band that sounds like they exist in a perpetual state of rising antipathy with an origin point somewhere between today and some difficult-to-pin-down point in the past. A wormhole-dwelling goon, writhing and snarling across a wide temporal expanse, they are like a stalker that defies the lurch and pull of sequential time- spotting you and staring you down, switchblade in one hand, bike chain wrapped around the other knuckle, a red fury in their eyes, daring you to make a move. 

Out on Static Shock. 

Album Review: Parabola West - Stars Will Light the Way

I'm not sure that fantasy, as a genre, is always about escapism. Obviously, you have to suspend your disbelief somewhat to embrace a narrative where adventure awaits over every hillock, where swords and sorcery have their sway, where awesome and terrible beasts guard untold treasures, and the evils of the world can be defeated purely through the cleverness and bravery of those who heed the call and embrace their fate. This is not the world we live in, but I think there is truth in the longing for justice and just rewards that the medieval world of our imaginations reflects. Allied with these desires are certain types of folk and electronic music as sonic forms that express a clear aspiration for connection and harmony with the world- a peace that is so often denied us by the bare facts of living. Parabola West's Stars Will Light the Way is a particularly interesting example of a combination of these two forms (folk + electronic music = folktronica, if you will), expressing a universal desire for consonance with one's community, one's environment, the universe at large, and a synergy of the skirmishing of personas that constitute a whole person. Five years in the making, the New Zealand-based artist's project, expresses its spiritual worldview through a pantheon of personified sounds who burst through from their separate dimensional streams and into our reality like the flaming wings of a phoenix crashing through a stained glass window, transported on lofty lines of neo-classical, ambient, and world folk as they are reconceived as resounding new archetypes. The brisk blessed and rolling calm of  "Calling Your Name" is possessed of the fresh, flowing release of the first thaw of spring. "Hannah" is awash in a resonate Celtic rhythm, slowed to a reverent pace and sheathed in a purifying baroque pop melody to accommodate its inquiry into the endless sacred quest of its subject- a kind of wandering spirit who is no longer bound by the pains of this mortal plane. "New Moon" has a refreshingly swarthy and scintillating ambiance, while "No One Can Get Me Here" provides a fairway for a spacious midnight cabaret that ventures into the looming shadows of a gnarled and ancient forest without a shade of doubt to discolor its winsome heart. "The Best Thing" will draw you in with its soothing low-voltage purr, and "Come to Me" will invite you to share in the evanescence of its pale pure radiance under a temple dome of intricate, ligneous, orchestral accompaniments. Some art will inspire your dreams of a better world. Some art will enable you to recognize when such a world is already here, or at least, near enough to grasp.

Album Review: Precenphix - Off​-​Axis

Off-Axis is a long and crumbling road, snaking through the sacrificed zones of the American midwest. A tour of rust and decay that requires heart and humility to see it through to the end. The album is the product of producer Precenphix's studio ingenuity, combining dark techno with industrial post-punk in a manner that is both modern and distinctly nostalgic. Off-Axis lends itself to contemplation without being weighed down conceptually. In lieu of overthinking the structure of his tracks, the Harrisburg, PA musician prizes groove and rhythm over stakeless intellectualization. He puts his skills on the line to make music that you can dance to despite its abundance of heavy, stolid elements. It's like he's trying to force you to move, to stretch your muscles, tear them and repair them as fast as you can so that you will be strong for the fights and enduring struggles that will define your life and the lives of those you care for. Wet and dribbling electronics spit and shudder on "Scutellaria Lateriflora" feeling like a mangy dog shaking itself dry after a rain, while tracks like "The Open Cabinet" are imbued with a conspiring intrigue leading from their tip-toeing pianos and ominous overhanging synths, conveying a sense of boiling dread that should be familiar to any city dwelling denizens who is still unnerved by the watchful eyes of CCTV cameras that dot the urban landscape as the passive inspectors of an omniscient security state. The heralding choir opening of "Kavalactones" has a rapturous rise to it which is intersected by milky electronic echos and sounds of mechanical compression, confluences that lend themselves to concerning conclusions about the status of humanity's actual sources of faith in the 21st Century- truly, is there still some knowable higher power, or has it been reduced to the radiant mask of a computer interface? "Triptan" is held together by blinking florescent patterns and the arduous whipping scrape of metallic rotations, capturing all the horrible tension of sitting alone in a police interrogation room under a squeaky fan, awaiting questioning for a crime you couldn't have possibly committed. It is followed by "In the Courtyard" which answers the previous track by setting you free through a series of linked, swiveling grooves and silvery Eastern inspired synth-lines that shatter the locks on the doors and dismantle the walls of your cell, brick by brick, and bar by bar. Take the next left turn onto Off-Axis and let Precenphix give you a guided tour of the possibilities and perils of the modern age. 

Available on Not Yet Remembered Records.

Metal Monday: Rolo Tomassi, Vanda, Warcoe & Lord Dying

Alas, another Monday is upon us and I have therefore taken up the burden of trudging my way down to the belly of my metal vaults to retrieve some malformed treasures to bestow upon you. We're starting out with the highly conceptual new album from UK's Rolo Tomassi and ending with a lash of brutality from Portland's Lord Dying. There is no theme this week. These are just some of the metal albums I listened to today and that I felt inspired to write about. 

Rolo Tomassi - Where Myth Becomes Memory (MNRK Heavy)

It's hard to keep a bead on where the UK's Rolo Tomassi is headed next with their sound. The only thing that is certain is that they will always be on the move. First taking shape in the metalcore scene of the mid-00s, they have fashioned for themselves many different permutations over the years, from shoegaze rockers, to acid jazz jockies, to ambient architects, to sonic cosmonauts, only to finally come back to roost in their metalcore roots, darker and more dangerous sounding than before. Their latest album Where Myth Becomes Memory is the latest incarnation of their perfidious, shadowy cosmic-core phase. The last in a three-part series (following 2015's Grievances and 2018's Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It), the band takes the time on this album to contrast their dichotomous aural belligerence with increasingly golden guitar tones and a bath of cleansing feedback, which showers the progressive unfurling of their designs in an air of forgiveness and redemption. Part feral space horror; 2/3rds divine epiphany; all the stuff of legends. 

Vanda - Covenant of Death (Majestic Mountain Records)

Vånda is a truly wicked-sounding band. They emerge from Stockholm as if they've just rushed out of the deep woods- blood streaked across their faces, wild mayhem in their eyes, hair thick, wet and gnarled as if they've been sweating petroleum, and with fire leaping up from the footprints left by every galloping step. Their steps spark and ignite their surroundings as they move with maligned intention- a farce of humanity cast by the devil himself. A human-shaped avalanche of death that is now bearing down upon you. Apocalyptic imagery aside, Vånda's debut Covenant of Death most assuredly hits a sour, satisfying balance of death-thrash and black metal in a way that few bands can. They're like Watain if they focused less on shock value and more on the structure of their songs, or Necrophobic but with more earthy grit and a firm undertow of incurable gothica. Covenant of Death will leave you headbanging the whole time that you're fleeing for your life.

Warcoe - The Giant's Dream (Morbid And Miserable Records / Forbidden Place Records)

Italy's Warcoe nails the occult ambiance and aura that a lot of '60s heavy metal was able to tap into on their debut LP The Giant's Dream. Relying on melodic guitar grooves to do the bulk of the lifting on these tracks, they paint a picture of arcane practices and bring the essence of ancient knowledge thundering into the breach of the modern world. When I hear these high-cast, burning guitar riffs lumbering through the cool muddy pound of percussion, I am visited by visions of wizards pouring over ancient texts to discover the secrets of turning dragon scales into gold, or various tales of misfortune, such as a poor shepherd who stumbles into a tomb of forgotten treasures where he encounters a scroll that turns him into a great hungry wolf. It's hard to imagine containing the untamed, willful and timeless motion of these songs within the confines of a single eight-track album. You might as well be trying to push a glacier across the tundra with your bare hands, yet Warcoe proves themselves more than man enough for the task. The Giant's Dream is truly a beast and Warcoe are both its progenitor and its master. 

Lord Dying - Poisoned Altars (Relapse Records)

To me, Lord Dying belongs to that era of the mid-'10s when sludge metal appeared to be finding new inroads into the realms of death metal and hard rock with results that, improbably, had some hooky commercial potential to them. Red Fang appears to be the most successful of the band to come out of that milieu, but Lord Dying had a lot going for them as well, as a darker and more outwardly punishing version Inter Arma and a more direct and less cosmically inclined version of early Mastodon, Lord Dying on their second LP Poisoned Altars have wrought forth an absolutely crushing affair that still manages to pack in some captivating hooks among all the deluge of bruising riffs. And when I say captivating, I mean it! Tracks like "A Wound Outside of Time" and "Offering Pain (and An Open Minded Center)" literally feel like they are trying to warp themselves around you with snaky grooves and put you in a headlock. Every half-choked, half-sung line forcefully ejected from singer Erik Olson mouth feels like a narrowly missed haymaker, rushing past you and creating a frightening vacuum in its wake. Ultimately, I think the key to their aggression can be unlocked by clues found on the track "Suckling at the Teat of a She-Beast" which feels like a combination of crust punk and West-Coast chopper rock, that will educate you in the ways of their brutality in the most hostile ways possible. Lord Dying went in a more space-rock and psychedelic route with their 2019 album Mysterium Tremendum, but 2015's Poison Altars is still the pinnacle of their discography, in my opinion. Long live Lord Dying! 

Album Review: Little Thief - Under The Patio

Under the Patio is the debut LP from Little Thief, a romantic couple (apparently recently engaged), and White Stripes style, drum 'n guitar rock duo comprised of Charlie Fitzgerald and Rhii Williams. She's the drummer and he's the string man, and they both sing. The entirely crowdfunded album dropped last year with a simple purpose; to rock your world! I wasn't always a fan of this style of rock music back when it was regularly on the radio. But since its dropped out of regular airplay rotation, I find myself really missing it. And by "this style of rock music" I mean high-gloss roots rock like the Black Keys. Like the aforementioned band, Little Thief updates the blues and country-western playbook with bold, cracking guitar work and narrowly off-kilter grooves that manages to bridge the hard rock of the '60s with the indie aesthetics of the 21st Century. The indie proclivities of the band can't be undersold, not only because of their scrappy attitude, but also because of how clearly they adore bands like the Pixies and '90s post-rock, a fact that is evident from the production all the way down through to the way Charlie tosses off certain lyrics with a Black Francis-esque yelping croon and penchant for wavy Joey Santiago style riffs. Even though Little Thief are diehards for the underground, Under the Patio feels like too big of a record to stay nestled in obscurity and under wraps for long. Pretty soon it's going to come bursting up from the rafters like Gorgo and then we'll have two choices: flee for our lives, or kneel before our new radioactive rock god. I know which way I'm going and I have a ribbon around my finger to remind myself to buy a fresh pair of kneepads.  

Find it on Bad Sandy Records. 

Album Review: Love Potion - XXX

If I were to brew together trap music and witch house in the cauldron of my mind, the last thing it would probably end up sounding like is an otherworldly adaptation of an NES era JRPGs OST. But that's why I'm not a hip hop producer and Love Potion is. Their album XXX combines the terse, sputtering beats and rattling imprints of that very Southern style of rap production with a paranatural ambiance, and a handful of fairy dust adjacent chiptuney chitters, to conjure an audible elixir that feels like it contains the distilled essence of all of the universe's love. The mystique of this record is conveyed through spinning prismatic synths that sparkle like diamonds in the rain and a throughline of grooves that strikes you like a lover's gaze. The entire production is awash in an overflow of silky textures that glide around you like warm memories from childhood. Being made up of different, and surprisingly compatible, modern production styles, it would seem right for XXX to have some direct parallels in contemporary pop culture, however the most appropriate comparison I can come up with to describe the album's sound is '80s sci-fi and fantasy films- most likely about an angel who comes from outer space to teach a hard luck, nobody teen, how to love- a story complimented by sets covered in mist and greek pillars, cinematography that impregnates every image on the screen with an intoxicating internal glow, and narrative arches that idealize the sweet promise of youth. If you like transportive sounding hip hop jams and have a weak spot for the nostalgia of your older, Gen X sibling's cultural touchstones, then you probably won't need more than a taste of XXX before you're entirely hooked. I know I didn't. 

 

Pick it up from PLUS100 Records

Album Review: interior geometry - TORE THROUGH THE SKY

It's hardly worth noting the "home recording" quality of an album's production anymore. Fewer and fewer albums embody the sensibilities that qualify for this category of light praise in a noticeable way. This is partially because it's no longer noteworthy to record at home. Every indie musician has to do it in some capacity out of necessity. There just isn't the money being doled out for making records like there used to be. More significantly though, the equipment and software people have at their disposal for recording at home have become more sophisticated, and as a result, all the weird but interesting imperfections that someone could get from recording directly to tape in their bedroom end up getting clipped and filtered out. While it's an aesthetic that seems to be withering for lack of exposure, there are still points where it surfaces. Detriot musician Jared Sparkes appears to actively be engaged in reviving this tried and true indie aura- like embers in a hearth that stubbornly cling to life long after the fire has spent its fuel- stirring the ash and kicking up sparks with his project interior geometry and its latest album TORE THROUGH THE SKY. It sounds rough and cozy, like an old arm blanket that you found in a chest in your grandfather's attic. Jared has a very casual but unselfconscious guitar style that glints with a hint of wry, unvarnished charm- a style that is highly reminiscent of Silver Jews' patented, quirky strum bracketed by some light effects and playful chaos. He is joined on the record by a gang of troubadours, who include members of Idle Ray and Child Sleep, and whose summed performances on the album feel a bit like you've stumbled into a room during a house party where a bunch of friends had taken a break from drinking and socializing, picked up some instruments they had found lying around, and started to pluck out some remarkably cohesive melodies by ear. The album has a discernable impromptu air about it that bubbles up along an anxious excitement, almost like the players aren't sure what they are making, but they're excited to give it their all and listen back later in the hope of discovering a delightful surprise. The humility of these recordings is further reinforced by the toneless tenor of Jared's voice, which when forced to produce a melody, becomes dense and flat like a piece of 2D geometry. It's so flat and obscure that it's actually arresting- and a little funny. I almost get the impression that the band had tagged in Brian Posehn to honor the project with his reflexive, befuddled groan of a voice (a scenario that is not outside the realm of possibility for future albums). Jared's atonality is contrasted beautifully at points by the vocal performances of Mary Fraser and Emily Roll, who both sound stunningly sublime, elevating these songs through their contributions in a kind of unalloyed transcendence and piercing evanescence. In the face of its modest presentation, TORE THROUGH THE SKY will drop a little bit of heaven into your lap so long as you have the hospitality to open the doors and window of your abode and let its homespun goodness shine on in. 

Album Review: Praises - In This Year: Hierophant

Through their project Praises, Jesse Crowe takes an abjuring glance at the false mask of the world and digs their claws into the guts of tradition on their second LP, appropriately named, In This Year: Hierophant. The Hierophant is both a pillar of custom and rule in the tarot, and an interpreter of the supernatural and the arcane in Greek orthodoxy, a holy person pursuing methods that uncover God's will through miracle and misfortune alike. Jesse's album twists and bends and restructures the rituals of the ages through the careful selection of titles and themes expressed through their songs, such as on "Our Father" where they scry through a prism of curiosity and caution to discern the makeup of a man who is distant but who is known dearly, their Prometheus in a way, a creature over whose soul they secretly place a magnifying glass, observing the fibers of his will and watching his bones shift below his skin. Another example of their mastery of the arcane arts can be found on "Persona," where they appear to turn their instruments of perception inward to encircle the being burning alive inside them, gazing on as it dances in silence despite its painful contact with the scorching recessed wall of their interior, a Bronze Bull furnace that will never release its prize. To unseal these gifts of perception, they join with their band in manifesting a gothic Americana night club act to entice the devils of our better natures and snare the sinister angels of our most terrible ideals. It is a performance that walks the fault lines of the planes between the living and the damned, tugging and sowing the frayed bounds between them so that they may be restored upon contact with the resounding, dark overture of their voice. It is a collapse into the old ways, splitting like the shell of an egg to exalt the birth to the new. Watch as Praises turns over the next card, the card you have been waiting for with bated breath, the one that will expose your fate to the sight of your tearful eyes. Soon it will all become clear, In This Year: Hierophant. 

Done by Hand Drawn Dracula.

Album Review: The Losing Score - Learn To Let This Go

It's hard to underestimate how quickly a good, catchy pop-punk song will take you out of a band mood. It definitely works for me at least. What about you? Feeling unproductive? Are you letting yourself be consumed with negative thoughts late into the night? Are you worried that you'll never get your life on any kind of meaningful track? Well, I can't help you with any of that. And neither can the UK's The Losing Score. What I can do though, is recommend that you check out The Losing Score's Learn To Let This Go. It might not have the answers you're looking for, but it is a very fun and beautifully crafted, tight and honest pop-punk record. And it just might get you out of whatever mood you're in long enough to do something about what got you in that mood to begin with. The riffs are punchy and the melodies bemusingly familiar but distinct- a combination of Blink beats and grooves and bright and bursting rock structures that explode with a guileless enthusiasm analogous to Weezer in their current incarnation, but played with a level of pep and zeal that can match your memory of the first time you heard the Blue Album. The lyrics do not address sunny subject matter, but they do often demonstrate a propensity for growth and reflection that I find incredibly encouraging. And then there are Brodie Normandin's vocals, which I can only describe as a sonic match for an emotionally grounded, and, dare I say, happy (!?!) Dan Andriano with the way his words just glide off his lips and his tendency to curl the end of his lines in such a way as to maximize their emotional impact. Learn To Let This Go may be the product of the band tearing the lids of their head and letting all the grief and anxiety they've pent up flow out the top like a shook up Pepsi, but I can't help myself but find what they're doing kind of sweet and compelling. On top of that, they clearly know how to write and have managed to put together a sterling little rock record, which counts for a hell of a lot. Like I said before, The Losing Score can't cure what ails you. That's up to you at the end of the day. But what they can do is give you something that is an absolute joy to listen to, and who knows, maybe that will be what helps you get a jump on all that other stuff that's been weighing you down. It could be as simple as getting a haircut or a good night's sleep. You have to start somewhere if you want to get anywhere. 

 Naturally, it's out on Counter Intuitive Records.