Album Review: Norman W Long - Sikan I - III

Sikan I - III is an original collection of works from Chicago sound collage artist Norman W Long. It has a pretty clear lineage and origin story coming out of a set of collaborative performances inspired by the Cuban visual artist Belkis Ayon, coordinated by Honey Pot Performance as part of the IF/THEN: New Works Festival back in 2021. Like Belkis's visual pieces, Norman's found sound and synthesizer performances are starkly outlined and bold in their content, possessing an organic grain and the quiver of an enigmatic ambiance. The album is primarily inspired by one of Belkis's own points of fixation, The Princess Sikan, mother of the Abakua Society. The Abakua was a secret syncretic, all-male fraternal order that made its way to Cuba from Africa through the slave trade. A mixture of Christianity and various Nigerian tribal beliefs, the Abakua believe that their founder was born of the corpse of Princess Sikan after she was sacrificed for divulging her knowledge of a sacred fish that could speak and convey great power to all who heard its voice. The great irony of the society is that while it owes its origins to a woman, women are barred from joining. The Abakua's traditions are all oral, and have no representational depictions of their legends, making Belkis's patrols of their mythology somewhat controversial- a particularity of the society that she conspicuously references by depicting the character's in her works without mouths. Similarly, there are no words in Norman's compositions, allowing him to tell stories about myths that are bound up in silence and in a manner that skirts impiety while remaining discernably transgressive in his presentation of the placid as well as the divine. 

Album Review: Luzius Schuler - Penta Fest

Swiss pianist Luzius Schuler has created another vibrant album of hybrid electronic jazz piano music on his second solo LP, Penta Fest. Every bit as enchanting as his debut (Moon Is the Oldest TV), the album combines an inspired turn on the elements of mid-20th Century piano standards with pitch augmented electronics implements to instigate a weightless kind of intrigue and interplay between melodically percussive motifs. Sometimes it sounds like Luzius is playing along with the wind as it tickles the pendulums of a crystal chandelier, at other intervals, it appears that his upright piano is dueting with the fusible slosh of an oil drum half filled with perfume and seasoned with salt from the Dead Sea. "Tidamtidam" in particular, has a soporific aura to its hallowed twirl while manifesting a deliberate and productive rhythmic exchange, and the superb "Crab Bay" binds an elevated piano melody to lofi and spacy hip-hop beats in a soft-focus shaping of mood in a setting of consecrated contemplation and meditation. Tradition and transition entwined in a singular circuit of harmonized evolution. 

 Find it through Red Brick Chapel

Mid-Summer Beach Bash 2022

It's no longer mid-summer (or mid-year) but that doesn't mean that it's time to crawl under 12 blankets and hygge Old Enough (or some other Japanese program on Netflix a friend recommended to you... Terrace House?). No, there are still plenty of warm weather days ahead of us this year and even more great records to spin while soaking up all that natural UV treatment. Because this is a blog, where I write about music, here is a short list of music I've been enjoying this summer (so far!). I've been in a pretty chill mode this year so it's mostly hip-hop and pop music. This is a heads-up for those of you who dig that sort of thing. If you like other stuff, there is other stuff too. Hopefully, you find something you can groove on. If not, don't tell me. I will take it very personally. 

Fly Anakin - Frank (Lex Records)

Frank is the debut solo excursion from Richmond hip-hop artist and Jedi-level language arts warrior, Fly Anakin. If I had to describe the theme of this debut, it would be fidelity- staying true to who you are, where you came from, and being honest with yourself about what you want to do with your life. Might sound simple, but its implications are profound. Fly continues to have a very slick and sharp flow on Frank, which remains deftly eloquent even when shifting into high gear, a talent for elocution and street heated, personal prose that thrives amongst a colorful backdrop of '70s hustler soundtracks and moody soulful beats as comfortably as a peacock wears the train of his feathers. Frank is a forceful exercise in keeping it real. 

Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin - Ghosted (Drag City)

Taut and groovy guitar jazz for the night owl in you. Ghosted is the product of a collaboration between Australian guitarist Oren Ambarchi, bassist Johan Berthling, and Norwegian bone-rattler Andreas Werliin. The four-track album presents nearly forty minutes worth of subdued, street-lamp illuminated, vespertine patterns of repetitious impressionism. It is a perfect album for when the night has surrounded you, and you've settled in the cool mist and cleansing glow of the moon. It is at this time that you may become energized by the equinoctial rhythms of a trio in tune with the hidden illustriousness of the nocturnal world. Everything old will seem new in the low light sounds that this ensemble emits, and everything new will soon fit you like a glove. 

  

Sweet Pill - Where the Heart Is (Topshelf Records)

It's always a good sign when you can easily pick up on a band's inspirations, even when their sound is nothing like any of the bands that they remind you of. New Jersey's Sweet Pill happens to be just such a group. On their album, Where the Heart is, you will encounter some brash jangle guitars ala Tigers Jaw and some composed fury in the vein of Circa Survive, but the performances are far from a derivative of the two. Instead, the band's sound will hit you like a sandbag full of memories- soft and forceful, polished and resilient, going off like a grenade full of skeleton keys that opens all the doors in the cluttered gangway of your mind; letting all the feelings you've forgotten or put away flood out in a singular breach of catharsis. Singer Zayna Youssef's voice is supple and impervious, sounding like Frances Quinlan at her best on a bad day, and Sean McCall's guitar work possesses an ambient and catchy kind of antagonism that can't be resisted, only negotiated with. Where the Heart is will get you in the feels whether you're ready for it, or not. 

Ben Shemie - Desiderata (Joyful Noise & Backward Music)

This album was a bit of a shock to me when I first heard it. Ben Shemie of SUUNS's solo album Desiderata was presented to me as a dystopian, synth-based and sci-fi-inspired concept album- a description that shrieks Carpenter OST knock-off as loudly as an ambulance-siren blaring, and engulfed in flames-toppling off the roof of a parking garage. Not the case for Desiderata, as it turns out. Instead, Ben's use of synths is that of a partisan duelist, playing an environmental foil to insurgent string arrangments (courtesy of the Molinari String Quartet) to transmit pinning codas via a relay of electro-pop soul. The lyrics and their delivery are particularly interesting and literate, proceeding as clear-sighted and warmly calm; they read like the euphemistic dialectic of an anonymous neural-net diarist, whose decrypted digital scripts describe the dreams and deathless endurance that stoke a fire in his chest, a blaze that powers the machinery of his heart and soul, and protects him against the battering blizzard of a heartless world. It's fiction, of course, but it imitates life in a manner that leaves a chill running down my spine... or is it that life has come to imitate the dark art we once used to satirize it? It's becoming increasingly hard to tell. We are all children, lost in the ruins of one of Orwell's dreams. 

Dana Gavanski - When It Comes (Flemish Eye)

There is something about '60s baroque pop that continues to be irrepressible. Year after year, artists revive its hazy focus, jutting rhythms and whistful singing- frolicking in the fountain of Aquarius to taste the fruits and youthful optimism of a prior generation. On her second album, When It Comes, Dana Gavanski has emerged from this pool of inspiration like a vision of Venus in a petticoat and high-waisted slacks, calling out in a siren's coo that weaves its way down the coastline like a psychedelic sidewinder. The wavering whipple of farfisa-like prog chords waltz with sax and strings in the wrinkled undertow of "The Day Unfolds," and "I Kiss The Night" slivers the dam between a piano concerto and sleepy daydream gush. Dana seems to be taking every opportunity to play with her voice and enjoy the feeling of it rising through her body- it is a wonderful feeling to share with her audience, seeing as she lost the use of it during the recording of the album due to an illness. Triumphing in recovery, the roguish scamper of her performance is unassailable and delightful.

Tha God Fahim - Six Ring Champ (Nature Sounds)

Tha God Fahim is having a blast on Six Ring Champ. The LP was produced by himself, Camoflauge Monk, Nicholas Craven, and Thrasherwulf, but they all seem to approach the album with a unity of intention- namely, to give Fahim the setting he needs to be his most grandiose self. Layering striding gangster flick basslines, hidden-lair horn trills, and the groan of lethargic burlesque house strings, amongst other b-movie backing-track mainstays, these fat and greasy beats enable Fahim to keep his direct and steady flow, nimble and on the balls of its feet, allowing him to glide around your ears like a boxer on figure skates, hitting you with a right hook on one side and then a slicing crescent kick on the other. Fahim is a cut-up with some sick skills and he deserves all six of those rings he is boasting about.  

Acid Coco - Camino Al Mar (El Palmas Music)

I think what works for me about Acid Coco's Camino Al Mar is how easy it is to enjoy. Whenever I throw it on, I lose a full thirty minutes of my day just grooving on it. The group combines various forms of Columbian folk and dance (primarily cumbia) with electro-pop influences without managing to feel cliched or derivative. Instead, their blended sound is smooth and gratifying, possessed of a rhythmic vibrancy, spiked by mousseux guitars and damp earthen textures. A wonderful collection of tactile sounds bathed in a sweat of satisfaction and the scents of the night and the sea. 

Fuera De Sektor - El Mundo Sigue (La Vida Es Un Mus Discos)

Influenced by Uruguayan punk bands like Traidores, Fuera De Sektor have whipped up a four-round fight titled El Mundo Sigue. The band has a distinctly hooky new wave style, with a deathly edge, favoring guitar work that minces through the mix with a menacing metallic glare. The two things that jump out at me the most on this release are the vocalist's fluid acidic sneer and the way the guitars cut through the songs like scissors through spandex. The elements of the band's sound have a pin and pin-cushion relationship, where some parts feel like they can be molded in your hand while others are seemingly designed to puncture your palm like a skewer through a ripe grapefruit. The dichotomy is dangerously alluring and I'm not scared to concede that it's got its hooks into me. 

'Kechi - 'Kechi Tunez (OJUBA Music)

Chicago rapper and producer 'Kechi tells you all you need to know about his latest album on the opening track of his LP 'Kechi Tunez when he says, "I guess the whole idea is being in tune with myself." If this doesn't resonate with you, then I'm not sure why you're reading this blog. 'Kechi is figuring out what he is capable of and following the beat of his own drummer. Which is pretty much what I am doing with this blog as well... although I have to admit that 'Kechi's efforts are producing something quite a bit more impressive. 'Kechi has a secure and untaxing but slippery flow that is easy to get caught up in and his beats have a golden-era R&B glint to their reverent, lively pulse that is half spiritual, half blockbusting heat. If I have one complaint, it's that 'Kechi is too modest about what he's accomplished on this record.

Chelsea Jade - Soft Spot (Carpark Records)

Chelsea Jade performs bright and boiling pop and R'nB that leans into the minimalistic and understated. In most places on Soft Spot there isn't much more than a beat and her voice, and it doesn't need to be more. Her voice kisses your ears like the gust of a whispering sigh on the silken funk, pillow-talk slink of "Optimist," while a little later, she sends you rolling like a disco ball into a soccer net with the neon-upgraded, bass-loaded sweep of the neo-soul revival "Good Taste." This whole album is very easy to get lost in and will stick with me for a long while after the last note has dispersed into the air. Soft Spot makes for a smooth landing but a lasting impression. 

Into the Red - Velocity (Self-Released)

In the Red tapped out this past July but not before releasing the Velocity EP. While primarily a vintage-sounding alternative rock group with twinkle-core tendencies, In the Red could smoothly shift gears to accommodate any introspective terrain a song might call for. Opener "Sunsets on Mars" is tinted with shades of Smith-ian longing while awash in a dreamy sadness, while "Reaching for the Rope" rides a  sly skyrocketing vocal arch and a major-key guitar lift to soar into the glow of an arena-sized spotlight. A little later, the band loosens up for a robust power-pop romp titled "Neptune's Shore," encircling its buzz-bomb riffs with a golden haze of psych-pop shimmer. All good things must come to an end and In the Red are retiring before any signs of rust form on their chassis. You have to respect the choice to hang it up when they're in peak performance mode. Shows a lot of guts. 

Pill Super - Ghost Reel (Self-Released)

Caden Marchese of American slowcore band American Grandma has a supple and spry new electronic album under the name Pill Super, an album which he dubs Ghost Reel. Going in, I was definitely expecting a more subdued experience, but was delighted to be inundated with a resonating flow of pulsing, lustrous sonic cannonade instead. These tracks really move! Especially the twinkling, cascading extravasation of "At Last," the leap-frogging croak of "Under the Span," and the pattering, ring-riding, dream pool diver "Steam One." I dig the new age vibes and tranquility cultivated on the comforting spirit-signal ringlet "When You See It" too. I really hope to hear more from this project soon, but there is so much happening on Ghost Reel that there might not be enough leftovers to patch together a sequel for a while. I guess we'll just have to wait and see with our fingers crossed.  

McCall - ...to be a dream... (Self Released) 

LA singer/songwriter McCall describes her latest LP ...to be a dream... as a "digital scrapbook"- a place for her to put all the memories, triumphs, and more ignoble moments that have brought her to this point in her life. It's a mature album, dealing with themes of letting go as well as trust, explored through the guileless whisper of McCall's polished serenades- a buoyant performance seated in a chariot of shapeshifting electronics that coasts along and often breaches the ethereal plane and domain of down-to-earth digital goddess Imogen Heap. How high can one rise in a dream before piercing the tension of its rainbow-tainted membrane? McCall is about to find out. Cutting through the confines and limits of one's own imagination is what ...to be a dream... is all about, so I guess she'll let us know once she gets there. Or maybe she'll just go sailing off into the stars without a postcard or even a backward glance...

 

exciting!!excellent!! - tysm​!​!​!​!​!​! (Lonely Ghost Records)

exciting!!excellent!! second EP tysm!!! is more of what I've grown to appreciate about the project. Enthusiastic declarations of introspective self-recognition backed by dynamic and catchy Little Sound DJ powered Game Boy electronics that resemble renditions of Tiger Jaw and Brave Little Abacus unlocked with the help of a GameGenie designed by Elaiza Santos. And like its predecessor (debut EP i feel like i deserve to feel like this forever and i will), it is an incredibly cozy listen. I feel like I could lounge around in tysm!!!'s sound card cush forever; eating snacks under a pile of blankets, playing Spyro while thinking about life in general, or better yet, thinking about nothing at all. tysm!!! takes me to a place I don't want to leave and that's one of the things I really appreciate about it.

Megamall - Escape From Lizard City (Fanta Records)

It's Vancouver's Megamall vs the radioactive kaiju that dwells in the underwater vault of your mind on their latest EP Escape From Lizard City! Inspired by the works of author Tom Robbins, the album does battle with elephantine expressions of firebreathing egotism and other green-eyed no-goodniks while fashioning out some uncommonly good pop-centric alternative rock. At this point, I'd say Megamall is a model-vintage variant of the Pixies, harnessing Joey Santiago's chattering surf-riffage and Black Francis's wailing, half-whispered ululates to stir a slightly sweetened Bully-esque bob and a dodgy Dilly Dally dipped dose of an Eros-elevating intoxicant that will instigate a twitterpated flight into a credulous swoon and twelve floors of graduated epiphany. Also, the songs are catchy as fuck. 

Ellevator - The Words You Spoke Still Move Me (Arts & Crafts)

Big hooks and even bigger choruses coming out of Ontario these days thanks to Ellevator. Their debut LP, The Words You Spoke Still Move Me has the confident push and dingy, sweat-smeared panache of Metric, coupled with the naive crush-carnival bow of one of Carly Rae Jepsen's more rock-out-loud moments. Classic, new romantic zeal and post-garage revival pressurized pop-valiance, generating a hardboiled party catalyst with a gooey sweet interior. The vocals have a slight, damp, dirt-warn twang to them that helps them sound all the more angelic for their evident humanity, and the guitars shift and splinter in raining fragments of light like sunbeams catching a prism as it falls to the floor. Fantastic stuff all around. 

Album Review: Noah Kite - Drunk Lil Guy

Drunk Lil Guy is the second LP from the Portland-based chamber folk artist Noah Kite. He spent a lot of time in Europe teaching English about 10 years ago and the zugunruhe of his nomadic years still clings to his present artistic output. Drunk Lil Guy moves. It sways. It drifts and it parries on the wind. The songs feel like they skip across miles at a time, barely touching the ground as they flit- coaching the experience of the music as if between the shoulder blades of a great bird, courageously coasting above the white caped crests of mountain peaks as it completes its gratifying migratory calling. Even when speaking to the domains of the intimate and domestic, the album never gives up its mandate to traverse a few steps further towards a distant, deep sojourn. 

Each song is a journey of transmutation. A shapeshifting creature emerging through its pubescence before your piqued senses. They have the same essential body as the one in which they embark, but something fundamental has changes by the time they have reached their resolution and final destination. It is possible that each song represents a ripening maturity of years- a conditioning of the soul- super condensed into three-minute parables. Equally probably, the changes they undergo could be the result of them leaving parts of themself behind- caught and left hanging on thorns and outstretched branches that lined their path. Still, it could be that each has acquired some new secret that they have not yet deemed you worthy of receiving. They could all be true, or none could be true. 

Notwithstanding these considerations, motion- the physical sensation of movement- especially over long stretches of terrain- real and emotional- is essential to understanding Noah's work. I almost hesitate to call what I am hearing on Drunk Lil Guy songs when they more resemble choreography- practiced interpretations that tell a story through their chords, grooves and euphonic tones- every bit as affecting as the heartfelt and tender poetry that accompanies them. 

Travel five hundred miles with this album in your ears and in conversation with your inner monologue. Spend all night drinking and drawing your care to its joyfully lugubrious ditties. Learn to sing its songs with a group of friends and rehearse them every sundown. Such familiarities will never fully shield you from the tranquil bluster of its elegant corporeal persuasion. 

Album Review: Primer - Incubator

It's a bit of a non-sequitur, but when I hear about Alyssa Midcalf's project Primer, the 2004 film of the same name immediately comes to mind. Yes, the one that you need a literal diagram to understand. There really isn't any reason for this; it's just a quirk of association within my own head. That said, her second album Incubator does produce in me a similar blossoming mixture of contraposed thoughts and emotions as the first time I saw the aforementioned film. A bushel of slippery impressions that range from delight to disorientation, where I am never entirely sure I'm following the plot, or even if the person who made the thing I am enjoying is from the same terrestrial plane as myself. This is in the face of the fact that the actual styles and modes of expression on the album are entirely familiar. Incubator is a consummately refined and patently enjoyable pop album. Either of the blokes in the Pet Shop Boys would swell with pride to put their name to these hooks and sailing, synth-battened grooves. However, that honor goes to Aylssa herself, who, along with her friend Noah Prebish from Psymon Spine, was able to give a pulse to plastic beats and a body temperature aura and salt and sweat feel to cooly calculated consortiums of intricate pop machina. So why do I feel like I'm time traveling every time I listen to this record, or like I'm coming out the other side of it a different person? A stranger in a familiar land. I have to attribute it to the lyrics. These conventional pop songs convert normal anxieties about the future and one's relationships into twisted fables about women with monsters in their stomachs or pointed treatises on the impossible nature of ordinary dreams. Many of these songs have been with Aylssa since she was a teen, so the continuum upending aspects of them might seem less incredulous when you think about the fact that many of them serve as a periscope backward through time- one where you can see her younger self preserved in a heart-shaped opal at the end of a long burrow which opens through her bosom in the present day. For Aylssa, this seems like a means to preserve the sense of hope, wonder, and curious terror that an "inner child" can represent in their archetypal form. Growing up around this sense of a former self, rather than forcing them to grow up with you, can be a means of preserving one's identity through all the changes that life forces on a person. Sometimes there is just a part of your that needs to stay hidden, or at least a part of you that knows how to remain hidden in plain sight. 

 Incubator is out on Egghunt.

Album Review: Hello Whirled - Hoping For A Little More​.​.​.​Pizzazz

Hello Whirled is the name that prolific New Jersey singer and songwriter Benjamin Spizuco prefers to be known by. You could probably call him a bunch of other stuff too, but I'm sure he'd prefer that you stuck with Hello Whirled if you're not on a first-name basis with him. Also, when I say he's prolific, I mean it! His 112th album dropped this past July and it's titled Hoping For A Little More​.​.​.​Pizzazz. Now, this is not going to be a full retrospective on his career, this review is only of his latest release. I'm sorry, if you were looking for a little more (Pizzazz?), but there is enough to unpack about Hoping For A Little More​.​.. without excavating his whole discography. As you might (correctly!) surmise, an indie rock artist with this many albums to his name is going to have some sonic overlap with Guided by Voices. These similarities are mostly confined to certain tendencies toward buzzy, lightly psychedelic soundscapes and a wavering, throaty and wayward pitch which Ben sometimes throws his vocals into. That's really where the similarities end, though. Ben has a tendency to write complete songs for one, and additionally, he's just as likely to sound like Craig Finn as Robert Pollard, ditto for Ty Segall or the Osees's John Dwyer. And that's just his vocal performances! His selection of styles in terms of his guitar playing is no less eclectic, rotating from '90s-esque acoustic power pop on "When Can I Admit I Miss You," to manic surf-gazy mellow moshers like "Holding Back The Water," to burning garage punk on "Nothing Changes," to post-baroque stomp-and-shout like "Ascend To Paradise," and finally surreal tent-revival cultism on "Ruins." The whole vibe is of a guy sitting under a tree or next to a campfire strumming his guitar and singing standards slightly out of tune, but how these tunes come out is nothing short of hair-pinning rockers. I don't know what I was hoping for headed into this record, all I know is that I am walking away with so much more than I expected. 

Get it from Repeating Cloud

Album Review: Ughh - He is Dead... Ughh is Live

A high-tension, pitbull mugged freak out, stumbling over a hill and tripping crown over chucks into a drainage ditch to sleep off a cocktail of budget liquor and spoiled, pilfered corndogs it has floating in its system, a beggar's banquet it scrounged out of an unlocked dumpster behind a 7/11, but not before dislocating two joints in its arm and living through an entire diluted revenge fantasy in its head on the slide down. That's the best I can do to describe Ughh, a fucked up and impressively ugly sounding garage band out of one of the more impressively ugly and fucked up towns ever settled in these United States, Los Angeles. The band only has one release to their name, but it's a real hard kick in the glutes. On He is Dead... Ughh is Live Ughh lets their displeasure with life and all creation be known from the very beginning on "So I Don't," a deep fried, Cramps suffering, creepy crawl with the sludgy brawling tempo of a bruised Whores. track and the bastard-whipped, flagellating grooves of a Pissed Jeans live set. The next track, "O" is carried along on a flash-flood of pins and needles, punctured and soaked by post-punk riffage with a spiny backbone of catchy uptakes to keep you under the yoke of its rotten, churning membrane- it's one of those numbers that come at you fast and out of control, like your weight against gravity, like you've just jumped the guard rail of a gorge in a vintage Beetle and have approximately three minutes before your cute little German-design, metal coffin goes splat with you in. Finally, on the last track "Death Cult," you get a taste of the blues ala the Hills Have Eyes, a stagnant slurry of backwater riffs and growl-snort vocals that would make even Jon Spencer worried about being up on his rabies vaccine. Need I say more? It's all in the name, Ughh!

Album Review: Noémi Büchi - Hyle

Composer and sound art Noémi Büchi's EP Hyle is a plunge down the conceptual mineshaft of metaphysics. Taking as her thesis the conclusion that no matter exists independently, she immerses herself in a cosmos of liminal escapades, a process that makes the mundane a new sort of sensuous, and which authorizes sensation as an instrument of excavation. Her expedition takes her through the foliage of perceived artifice and idealist superstratum, allowing her to emerge in a freefall, like a pebble plummeting through layers of overlapping tissue until it reaches the molten core of an experience- striking it she rebound back to the surface above for a breath of air and a survey of the surroundings. Noémi's elastic synth shocks and roaming modular imprints will impress upon you the shallow limits of the shadows you have come to know as the forms of your reality and leave you in a state of wanting intellectual hunger, grasping towards the light that filters into your enclosure in the hope of filling the dark vessels that surround you with the contents of its glimmer. You may know comfort in your cave, but you will soon also know the freedom that lays beyond its gapping muzzle. In the grips of Noémi's epiphany, it will be hard to see your erstwhile den as anything more than a tomb decorated with shame, where you keep your tv and a half-thawed box of pizza rolls. 

 Find it on -OUS

Interview: Jeff Parker

Image courtesy of the artist

Got to talk with the great Jeff Parker for the CHIRP Radio Artist Interview Series this week. We mostly talked about his most recent album Forfolks, so if there is anything you wanted to know about that album or its origins you're in luck! You can listen on CHIRP's site here, or below: 

CHIRP Radio · Jeff Parker Interview

Listen to Forfolks below: 

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:

Album Review: Humanfobia - Into The Nightmarecore

Witchhouse: The scrumptious black truffle of the electronic music world. Living underground and exceedingly rare, it is also one of the more deliciously textured and palatable acidic forms of all chthonic cultures. Did I mention it's rare? At least, I hardly see it anymore. After surfacing briefly in the late '00s for a few Pitchfork features, it once again succumbed to the evanescence of subterrania where it remains to this day. If you are like me, nose in the digital dirt, snorting like a trained animal, perpetually on the hunt for things you read about a decade or more ago on some long-dead forum, then you might appreciate Chile's Humanfobia. They release an album about every four months and they're all haunting and dripping with curious, appetizing impurities. Of these releases, I'm feeling particularly attached to Into The Nightmarecore at the moment. It was revealed to the world in January of this year and its got me swept up in its dark gait. The opening track "† INT∎ THE NIGHTMARECORE †" literally sounds like an incantation with backmasked vocals and hypnotic synth spells. I'm also really relishing the way the melodies are spaced out and intersect with the beats and vocals on "🔮 SHADØW WARLØCK 🔮" as they maximize the sense of dislocation produced by the track and make you feel like you're passing into another world. "🌙 MACHITUN 🌙" has the ominous and piercing quality of a dark omen peaking through the clouds of an overcast night sky, while "GH∎STS ∎F THE WEB " embraces the internet native soundtrack by floating along the tether of a new agey synth riff. This album (and really, and of Humanfobia's work) is probably best enjoyed while steeping in a cloud of incense- just remember to take the batteries out of your smoke alarm before you attempt to set the mood.* 

*Also, don't forget to put the batteries back in after you're done, or else you might end up having to listen to the next Humanfobia album while sitting in a pile of ash... which would actually be pretty badass. Never mind- you do you.