Album Review: Sturle Dagsland - Sturle Dagsland

I find the debut, self-titled LP from the Norwegian experimental project Sturle Dagsland strangely comforting. This is despite the fact that the majority of the album appears to collapse hip hop, techno, and Northern European folk into something that sounds like the secretive language of a creature that's been living on an asteroid in deep space and learning to talk by descrambling 50-year-old radio transmissions with a walkie-talkie, a bent tuning-fork, and half a roll of aluminum foil. There are times that the singer of the group, Sturle Dagsland (the band is actually comprised of brothers, Sturle and Sjur Dagsland) sounds like Anderson .Paak attempting to rap with a shock collar on, and many others when he kindles the impression of Bjork, gasping out a verse while being slowly constricted by a large python. Complimenting these prodigiously dynamic vocals are Sjur's instrumentation, which often resembles an experimental Janet Jackson single that was too outlandish for European clubs in the mid-'80s and whose master tapes were accidentally overdubbed onto joik folk field recordings and then dipped in turpentine. It may not surprise you that neither brother put much stock in established musicality and structures, or that Sturle once honed his singing skills by practicing vocal techniques with a team of Icelandic sled dogs. Put simply; I have never heard anything like this before. And I love every second of it.

I place a good deal of importance on the human capacity for creativity and my encounters with art are a consistent motivating factor in my day to day. Art contains in it the seed of an idea that work can be more than toil. That there is some breed of human endeavor that will not result in alienation- that it is to make something that can exist for its own sake- or that can exists as a psychic trapeze act, jackknifing the mental impression of one mind into the consciousness of another. What I find so invigorating, wholesome, and validating about Sturle Dagsland's music is that it feels as close as modern pop music can to this ancient dream of transcendence through creation. That through your effort and exploration, you can produce something that lives through you and which exists without an exploitable function. Something that brings someone closer to you and synchronizes their subjectivity with your own through the locus of a shared experience. This was the original function of all music, I think, and in seeking and apprehending this ancient celebration, Sturle Dagsland music rightfully acquires the denomination of "folk." So much of contemporary music is obsessed with mimicking and reproducing existing styles- and don't get me wrong, I love most music for the skill that is put to these ends. But, there is also a time to embrace what more inspiration can unlock in you than the mere desire to duplicate, and I hope the evocative nature of Sturle Dagsland's debut will have an evolutionary effect on those who hear it. I hope that it will not inspire imitators but independents. That it will not generate reproductions so much as galvanize revolutions. 

Album Review: Scatile - Hotline Miami: The Takedown

Hotline Maimi OST was the first game soundtrack I think I ever really considered on par with the music I would hear on the radio or listen to on CD. Now I had been into videogames since I was a kid and my love of many of my favorite titles was closely tied to their music. 

I thought the boss battle score in Metal Gear Solid was incredibly engaging and level music for each match in Twisted Metal II would give the stage an added layer of humor and drama, which heightened the whole experience. Even going as far back as the 8-bit thrash of the original Doom episode, videogame music has always sent a spike of adrenaline ping-ponging throughout the soft and malleable corridors of my brain. 

But it wasn't until I heard the OST for this stylish and violently existential, neo-noir twitch-shooter that the idea of a game's music as an independent creative work really dawned on me. Part of the soundtrack's uniquely sticking character is the way that the tracks were composed and assembled. Each has its own mood and personality- separate from the game, but which still managed to deepen the sense of emersion while cracking skulls. 

It all works because the developers got some very talented people to score their vicious masterwork. Artists like M|O|O|N and El Huervo, and even the man who would become the standard-bearer of darkwave and Italian Disco revival in the years following the game's release- I'm talking, of course, about Perturbator. 

However, the individual composer whose contributions are the most consistent in my mind is Scattle. There is a brooding calm to his tracks that give them an ineffable cool. Borrowing from the lo-fi synth soundtracks of '80s thrillers and horror, his compositions explore the menacing resolve and cold, tamping of fear and regret that would have to occur in the mind of someone capable of committing the insane acts of reprisal that the gameplay requires. 

Sometimes the tracks take on the mark of Euro-disco, filling the air of urban nightfall with a sooty, irony aftertaste after a rainfall. Other times the synthy parts babble and pool around reflective funk basslines like fresh blood flowing across the floor- oozing under and around a scattering of still-smoking bullet casings. And at other times, it appears that the rhythm is moving in glinting sweeps, with a fateful and deliberate pressure, like it was calmly polishing an oversized blade. For your convenience and pleasure, Scattle's tracks from the OST have been collected into a single EP titled The Takedown. 

There isn't a single number that is wanting for character or purpose on this album, and you'll find plenty of intriguing sounds to liven up whatever your doing- from frying an egg in the morning, to going on a mid-day jog in the park, to trying out your mixology skills at night to further woo your partner or a hot date. Just try to ignore any strange messages that might appear in your voicemail after giving this thing a spin. They'll only lead to trouble... 

Buy The Takedown EP here. 

Album Review: GEE TEE - LIVE & DANGEROUS II

Live and Dangerous II is a sequel to Gee Tee's 2017 live album Live and Dangerous. Sort of. It's kind of hard to tell what is going on with Gee Tee sometimes. Which is kind of the point. Causing overwhelming chaos and confusion is probably the only why these guys roll out of bed, put on their big boy pants, and make themselves eggs each morning. And it's definitely a big part of why they make music (or whatever they call this stuff they've wrestled out of their instruments)! 

The Australian garage rock band started out as the solo project of one Kel, who began writing and tracking songs about cars by his lonesome sometime in or around 2016. Gee Tee, and the original concept for the group, were inspired by a series of wacky, Ed Roth knock-off, novelty stickers called Odd Rods. And the spirit of these anarchic commercial oddities still inform the band's ethos. 

Gee Tee's sound will be somewhat familiar to the knuckle-dragging fandoms of bands like The Mummies or the Spits- only Gee Tee are outlandish. Maybe not so much in presentation, but definitely in style (but also in presentation). There is a certain variety garage band that aims to make their sound as inscrutable and unintelligible as possible, and Gee Tee are on the knifes edge of listenability in this regard. This is definitely one of the things that is laudable about them- they can write a hook, they can make its stick, and they will make you dig through a Walmart parking lot worth of asphalt thick distortion to get to the goods. And yeah, you'll want to dive into this mess, because the goods are just that damned good! 

It's hard to imagine lyrics being this catchy while simultaneously being entirely incomprehensible. Or synth and guitar hooks that are so masterful in their prosaic elegance and allegiance to primitivism. It's almost like the band learned to play by doing a skillshare with a tribe of Neanderthals. God only knows what life skills the band taught those brutes in return (keep an eye out for any particularly hirsute web designers going forward). 

Live and Dangerous II was recorded for Goner Fest last year in the living room of Gee Tee's guitarist and saw a 7" and cassette release this year- sometime after Kel finished gluing together the artwork for the sleave. Words somewhat fail beyond this point. To get a real understanding of what Gee Tee is all about, you kind of have to see them for yourself. Get a firm grip on your hat, other headwear, or accessories, and click the video player below. 

Buy LIVE & DANGEROUS II here. 

Album Review: Abu Obaida Hassan & His Tambour - The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan

 Of all of the unlikely success stories, Abu Obaida Hassan may be one of the most miraculous. A break-out player in the nightlife of Khartoum (the capital city of Sudan) during the '70s and '80s, his career was cut short when the military dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir outlawed musicians and caused him to have to flee to Saudi Arabia for his safety, as well as to find work. Before governmental and religious censorship put an end to what was once a prosperous and diverse performance scene in 1989, Abu Obaida literally could not walk the streets during the day without getting mobbed. And at night, the festivities wouldn't begin until he arrived, sometimes performing at multiple parties and clubs per night- skipping from soirée to shindig- from dusk until dawn. 

By the time he could return to Sudan without reprisal, he had been gone so long that many people presumed he was dead. A local newspaper had prematurely announced his death in the '00s. This fact, and the tremendous crackdown on secular music that had transpired over the past thirty years, had done the dirty work of dimming the spark of his former stardom. Or so it would seem. 

In 2016, a chance encounter at a record store led a representative of New York's Ostinato Records to uncover Abu Obaida's whereabouts and persuaded him to release some music through the label. Today, Abu Obaida, while too frail to tour, gives regular concerts in his home, as the new government of Sudan makes efforts to preserve and promote the music and the culture of the region- a heritage that had been all but smothered during the preceding years of oppression. The country has a long way to go in order to rebuild what was tragically lost in those years, but Abu Obaida and his family are cautiously optimistic that things have finally taken a turn for the better. However, if you were to ask them, they'd probably tell you that they are still waiting for the government to properly acknowledge Abu Obaida's accomplishments and legacy. Recognition that should be forthcoming, especially following the global success of Ostinato Records's The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan.

You might be thinking that this is all well and good as far as backstories go, but what about the actual music of The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan? What makes Abu Obaida's record so special? Well, for starters, the eight-track EP is purported to be the first worldwide release and recording of Shaigiya folk tunes. Abu Obaida originally hails from Merowe, the central city of the Nubian culture. Shaigiya, the tribe he is a member of, have their own distinct, cultural and artistic legacy, separate from Nubians and others they share territory with. You can hear the traditional call and response chorus singing of Abu Obaida's folk music throughout The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan. Sometimes it is mixed with Arab and Nubian melodies, but it is always distinctive for its affable, smooth pitch and keeling, percussive welter. "Qamar Al Massa" stays surprisingly sturdy on a silty, panning beat, while "Fargooni" layers handclaps and drums into a hop-scotching polyrhythm, that slowly increases in tempo, interplay and intensity as the chorus of calls and responses rebounds between Abu Obaida and his back up singers, like an ember bursting from one hearth and landing in the mouth of another. Even for Sudanese music, this is unique and captivating to an unparalleled degree. 

Ironically, one of the aspects of his performance that Abu Obaida was best known for so many decades prior, was his use of an electric, custom tambour or African lyre. But on his debut for Ostinato Records, he performs the instruments in its traditional, acoustic style- albeit, with his signature additional string. It's also somewhat unexpected that Abu Obaida, wiry tambour is not more prominent in the mix. If you didn't know to listen for it, you might miss it on some tracks as the accompanying drums keep the same rhythm and have a sharper timbre, which masks the sounds of the string instrument, sometimes all together. This is hardly a complaint, though. Even though Abu Obaida's name is on the cover, these are obviously intended to be group performances. While Abu Obaida is certainly in the driver's seat, they are meant to be understood as the sounds of a specific community, and are therefore performed communally. What could have been a solipsistic endeavor is realized only in collaboration and coordination with others. The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan is a testament, not only to Abu Obaida's musicianship and vision, but also the creativity and foresight he can inspire in others. 

The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan is out via Ostinato Records

Album Review: Oddisee - People Hear What They See

Homeboy Sandman called this record his favorite of 2012. And while that means something to me, It's not why I've held on to Oddisee's People Hear What They See LP for nearly ten years. In reality, it's been kind of a talisman, a charm to help me grasp in reality, what I hold in the gaze of my mind's eye— guiding my actions, as if I were an arrow, that, once let loose from the bow, catches the correct air current, and in the face of all probabilities and statistical likelihoods, hits the bullseye- dead center. Oddisee has a certain adeptness of observation and sophistication of execution about him that I aspire to myself. This is demonstrated on People Hear What They See in ways that I think are immediately clear, even when listened to without intention or directed attention. This holistic approach is something that seeps to the surface from the very bones of the release's concept, like a wellspring of crude hinting at an abundance of wealth sousing just below the surface. Oddisee takes as his starting point for the album the way in which people have become dependent on visuals in the modern era- to the point of a near handicap. He acknowledges that we live in an era so awash in visual pleasures that we fail to give due weight to our other senses (or our own critical faculties). It's a thin world. One that is defined by illusion. And one that he was able to slip into and flesh out with some character with his effortlessly fast and visceral flow and benevolent command of boom-bap beats. I might not have saved the world, but it did catch my eye (and ear!) and has left a lingering sparkle as a sign of the encounter. And it proved to me something that I've held fast to ever since- that you can change the way a person sees the world by sharing with them a glimpse of what it looks like from your vantage point. It doesn't always work. But it is always worth the effort.  

People Hear What They See was released by Mello Music Group. 

Interview: Jyroscope

Image by Jason Neloms

I'm proud of every interview I have the chance to do. Talking with artists about this art is endlessly fulfilling. However, every once in a while I get to have a conversation that ties together a bunch of stuff that's important to you- history, human connection, and the desire to know and be known by others. I feel like we touch on all of these things and more during my conversation with 1/2 of Chicago hip hop duo Jyroscope for CHIRP Radio's Artist Interview Serious. I'm really excited about this one. Check it out below or on CHIRP's website here. 

Buy their new EP Happy Medium, produced by Montana Macks. 

CHIRP Radio · Jyroscope Interview

Interview: Timothy Corpus

Image courtesy of artist. 

I greatly appreciate how reflective quality Timothy Corpus's new ambient album MMXX and I'm very pleased that I had a chance to talk with him for the CHIRP Radio bog. Read how he has been surviving the pandemic and how his new album came together at the links below: 

Interview: https://chirpradio.org/blog/the-chirp-interview-timothy-corpus

Buy MMXX: https://timcorpus.bandcamp.com/

Album Review: Jail Socks - Coming Down

I wrote a review of the debut LP of 5th Wave emo favs Jail Socks for New Noise today. Read what I had to say about Coming Down below: 

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

Buy: https://counterintuitiverecords.com/products/jail-socks-coming-down-pre-order

Album Review: Round Eye - Culture Shock Treatment

Where to begin with Shanghai's Round Eye? Well, for starters, none of them are native-born Chinese. They're actually from all over the world, but have found themselves in mainland China, primarily due to work. Lead by vocalist, former Florida resident, and Libyan Hit Squad defector Craig [last name redacted]; the group are four albums and ten years into their career- a spectacular exercise in stubborn survival and foolish flights of misbegotten fancy. They've managed to thrive in their adopted haven despite having tours canceled by the authorities at the last minute, having their art censored due to its obscenity, and having their very existence snubbed and motivations questions by hipsters and elitists from across the globe. But, hey, what doesn't kill you makes you weirder, you know? And Round Eye are plenty strange.

For their fourth album Culture Shock Treatment, their second with Mike Watts behind the mixing board, Round Eye have make a record that is about as old-school punk as you can get. Don't know what I mean? Look, it's not your fault. Blame Green Day or Sire Records, or the music press in the '90s. A lot of people treated The Ramones and the Sex Pistols as the only legacy acts worth mentioning back in those days. But the genre was more than just three chords, played loud and fast with dried glue in your hair. There were some dudes with real vision back in the day. Acts like The Damned, who combined punk attitude with humor and absurd theater. Fellas like Grahm Parker who presented an air of sophistication while maintaining an encourageable, wise-ass sneer. And punk clubs opened up spaces for deranged pop acts like Sparks and no wavers like James Chance & The Contortions to flourish. If you were to triangular a point in rock and roll's sea of sounds and inspirations between all of these groups (plus The Fall), you'd find an island inhabited by mostly insane people that neighbors the one the Round Eye calls home. 

Culture Shock Treatment, like most of the band's previous albums, is political in theme, and while Monstervision took mostly safe jabs at the American election of 2016, this one is aimed at what they view as authoritarian overreach in the place where they now live and work. I can't tell you how, since I don't live there, and can't speculate, but the passion and anger in the face of injustice permeate the album, like water oozing through an exasperated sponge. Wring it out in your ear, and you might learn a little about what it's like to live in a place different than your own... or you might just lose your grip on your own sanity. Caveat emptor and all that. 

Culture Shock Treatment is out via Paper + Plastick Records. 

Interview: Fallfiftyfeet

Photo courtesy of the band.

Had a really fun interview with James of West Virginian metalcore band Fallfiftyfeet about their new album Twisted World Perspective. It straight-up rips! It's also one of the more eclectic hardcore albums I've heard this year. Check it out and my conversation with the band below: 

Interview: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-interview-fallfiftyfeet/

Buy Twisted World Perspective: https://fallfiftyfeet.bandcamp.com/releases

Album Review: Les Filles de Illighadad - At Pioneer Works

At Pioneer Works is the third album that Les Filles de Illighadad (Daughters of Illighadad) have recorded with Christopher Kirkley of Portland-based ethnographic label Sahel Sounds. That might not seem particularly significant, but it is. He's been a constant collaborator with the band, and like other Tuareg musicians, including Mdou Moctar (who appeared on the first Sahel Sounds comp Music from Saharan Cellphones), he's opened quite a few doors for them. Not the least of which are the doors of Brooklyn's Pioneer Works, where this album was tracked live in 2019. 

The album contains some variations on songs that appeared on Les Filles's previous albums, 2017's Eghass Malan and 2016's self-titled, but is mostly stacked with fresh materials. Without a doubt, even the familiar tracks are genuine articles in their own right and it's worth hearing these songs again to revel in the versatility of each of their variations. 

What separates Les Filles's music from other popular Tuareg and Malian music is the band's adoption of tente rhymes into their repertoire. This is actually very significant. Tente is usually a form of drum-lead (after a fashion, the base rhythm of the styles is performed with a mortar and pestle, which is played like a percussion instrument) choral music performed by women, while the "desert blues" guitar style that forms the core of Tinariwen's and Bombino's sound is traditionally played by men. However, the woman-led Les Filles manages a synthesis of the two, represents a transcendence of not just sound, but of prescribed social roles and definitions well. 

Tradition is important to all cultures for sure, but the strength and meaning of a tradition, I think, is best measured by its flexibility- something which Les Fellies's incursions within, and excursions through, Tuareg folk demonstrates to be incredibly robust and adaptive. Specifically, Les Filles give these desert ballads a hypnotic, almost prayer-like quality. Imbuing them with something enchanting and inescapable- like the smell of fresh dirt after a rain, the way that shadows bow and then evaporate before the rising sun, or the simple wonder of a bird in flight.  

At Pioneer Works is out via Sahel Sounds.

Album Review: Charm - Sugar Mountain

Wrote about last year's EP from Greenboro pop boys Charm. I also put some words down about their latest single. All the words are on New Noise. Enjoy! 

Read about Sugar Mountain: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-charm/

Buy Sugar Mountain: https://acrobatunstable.com/charm

Album Review: Bambu - Sharpest Tool In The Shed

It usually takes me a couple of days after Labor Day weekend to reset my brain and get back on the grind. Thinking about the history of struggle for survival and dignity in this country and how hostile, sour, and fucking deadly it has been for the people who dare speak up about the conditions they are expected to live under gets be a little worked up... every dang time. Labor Day is a day when I spend more time than usual contemplating these things (especially since the real Labor Day has been dragged down and replaced with some brain-wormed holiday dubbed "Loyalty Day" in the US- No. Thank. You.) And when it comes to music for working people- music that speaks to working class issues- folk in fine, but if you want to get the feelings and the facts right, you need to turn up some hip hop. There really isn't a more direct form of musical expression out there, and if you want to hit the bedrock of human experience, it pays to be direct. 

Bambu's Sharpest Tool in The Shed, dropped last year, but it's still extremely relevant... and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Set against the backdrop of the 2020 summer uprising for black lives, the LA MC describes in startling and lyrical detail the ways that banks and real estate investors loot neighborhoods through gentrification, the methods by which police act like an occupying force in segregated neighborhoods throughout urban centers, the coercion that guides and defines the choices and circumstances of so many lives, the parallels between prisons and public schools, and intolerability of ongoing apartheids- both in the US and abroad. Bambu's flow really pops throughout, landing lines like left hooks- striking out against the false narratives and consciousnesses that define what is and isn't politically and theoretically possible. It's very cool to hear straight fire, spit from Bambu's jaws like sparks from a furnace- skipping and skimming atop classic jazz samples and crisp, confident grooves. Every track sounds like a battle in a war that Bambu has been preparing to fight his whole life. I wouldn't call it a performance, but a prosecution of the justifications for an unjustifiable state of affairs. These are dope tunes, addressed to a distressed and daunting world. 

And if you listen to Sharpest Tool in The Shed and don't think what he is talking about are working-class issues, then you need to ask yourself- who do you think a working class person is? Is it a dues-paying union member who works in a factory? Is it someone who drives a car for a ride-share company? What about someone who delivers burgers or pizzas through Postmates? Is it the dishwasher who works in the restaurant that made that those burgers and pizzas- the line cook, the server, the bus person, the host? What about someone who comes the US from another country to work, with or without a VISA- who possibly sends money back to their family on the other side of the border? What about the person who is unemployed- someone who can't find work, or who is incapable of working due to disability or other mitigating factors? How about the person holding out the empty Burger King cup, who stands in the middle of the road near stoplights and asks people in passing cars for change? What about just anyone who has to work for a wage in order to justify their existence? I'm going to stop burying the lead- these are all working class people, leading working class lives. And nothing in this world is going to change until they realize that they share more in common with each other than they've been lead to believe. 

Get a copy of Sharpest Tool In The Shed from Beatrock Music here. 

Album Review: The Codgers - The Codgers Have A Little Fun

Wrote a review of the latest album from Detriot's The Codgers for New Noise today. Most of their band members are either represented by a union or are involved in labor struggles in the state. They're also a really great folk band, whose songs and subject matter feel very honest and relevant to the present moment. I figured they would be a good band to cover following Labor Day. 

Read my review: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-the-codgers/

Buy The Codgers Have A Little Fun: https://thecodgers.bandcamp.com/album/the-codgers-have-a-little-fun

Column: New Noise’s Bandcamp Friday Picks: September 2021

Because I love making lists of music to check out, I wrote a list of recommendations for New Noise for Bandcamp Friday this month. You can check it out here.

Included in the list are...

G. Brenner – Bushfire (Very Jazzed)

Charlotte Day Wilson – Alpha (Stone Woman)

Catbite – Nice One (Bad Time Records)

Mothercell – Powerhouse (Metaphorest Records)

Gumiho – Gumiho (Self-Released)

Camp Trash – Downtiming (Count Your Lucky Stars)

Lysol – Soup for My Family (Feel It Records)

Diskord – Degenerations (Transcending Obscurity Records)

Moratory – The Old Tower Burns (Planet K Records)

Anti-God Hand – Wretch (American Decline Records)

Album Review: Unearthly Trance - Stalking The Ghost

This fucking album. When Stalking the Ghost dropped in 2017, it was the first album released by Unearthly Trance since their reanimation. The shambling horror show that is NYC sludge metal band broke up in 2011, got back together, and then dropped their sixth album of signature black metal meets cacophonous tar-choked metal on the unsuspecting populous of this wet dirtball of a celestial body. People talk up Melvins, Neurosis and Isis like they were the pinnacles of what low, slow, and brooding rock music can do to unsettle the human psyche. I suspect the fact that Uneathrly Trance escapes such similar praise is because of the cerebral damage their concussive riffs are prone to cause. Brain damage is the only possible explanation. This band cut a split back in 2018 with Primitive Man for fuck's sake! This is a band that knows terror and captures it succinctly with the whirlwind of their sound. Places to stop and sights to wish to unsee on this tour of abject madness include the pummeling “Into the Spiral” with its fiery guitar work and reptilian bass lines, the deliberate slow burn of “Dream State Arsenal” with its oceanic grooves and mammoth riffs, the merciless and rhythmic hammering of “Scythe,” and “The Great Cauldron” with it's he flesh cleaving riffs which churn and lap wickedly at the creases of your ears. When it comes to heavy music, Unearthly Trace is the real fucking deal. 

Stalking The Ghost is out via Relapse. 

Album Review: Body Void - Bury Me Beneath this Rotting Earth

Wrote a review of the galaxy collapsing new LP from Body Void titled Bury Me Beneath this Rotting Earth for New Noise today. Read it below: 

Read review of Bury Me Beneath this Rotting Earth. 

Buy Bury Me Beneath this Rotting Earth

Album Review: Rejoicer - Energy Dreams

Rejoicer is the one-man hip-hop production team Yuvi Havkin. Yuvi, currently living in LA, hails from Tel-Aviv, and is credited by many as the driving force behind Israel’s modern beat movement. Energy Dreams is Yuvi’s debut album for Stones Throw and serves as an exploration of the mystic potential of free jazz to radically alter one's perception and transcend the provincial setting of one's surroundings. His soundcraft relies heavily on nonlinear logic as a guide with hypnogogic emission as its goal. Yuvi has crafted an unabashedly spiritual broke-beat album inspired by a lucid dream he experienced in which still objects stirred and his sense of time had become flat and inverted. As Yuvi himself explains, “I wanted to create an atmosphere of freedom; of walking in unfamiliar territories while still feeling at home and at ease. There’s a huge music world in my head that I hadn’t expressed or explained, and I decided to try tap into that world of sounds.” If you are looking for something that is easy to digest while leaving plenty of vibes to savor, look no further than these sweet servings of potent dive into the blossoming center of the lotus of deep-knowledge.

Get a copy of Energy Dreams from Stones Throw Records here. 

Album Review: Air Credits - Believe That You’re Here

Did a write-up of the new album from Chicago hip hop collaboration Air Credits. It's a pretty good companion piece to the unfolding apocalypse that continues to unfold before us. Read my thoughts over at New Noise below: 

Read review of Believe That You’re Here: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-air-credits/

Buy Believe That You’re Here: https://aircredits.bandcamp.com/album/believe-that-youre-here

Album Review: Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit - April is the cruellest month

April is the cruellest month is a re-issue of a seminal album in Japan’s free jazz scene from one of that movement's most forward-thinking practitioners, Masatuki Takatanagi (and yes the title is a TS Elliot reference). April is the cruellest month was initially slated for release in 1975 by the pioneering ESP-Disk imprint, but the label went bankrupt before the master could go to the presses. As a result, the album languished on a shelf until finally seeing a proper, Japan-only, release in 1991. The album has, as of just a few years ago, been distributed domestically to the USA, but it's been a hell of a wait (some might even characterize said wait as cruell [SIC]). April is the cruellest month captures Takayanagi’s “non-section music” phase, in which he experimented with a guitar to make unconventional and threshold pushing sounds that certainly have parallels in the work of Sun Ra and Jimi Hendrix, and which more than anticipated the clamorous and liberated structures of Merzbow, Acid Mothers Temple, and Michio Kurihara. If you are looking for something, deep, imaginative, and chaotic that somehow manages to maintain an air of calm and composure, then plug this into your brain and forget everything else you had planned for the day. 

April is the cruellest month is out via Blank Forms Editions

Album Review: Bliss Fields - Self-Titled EP

Wrote a little thing for New Noise about the self-titled EP from shoegazy emo group Bliss Fields. They've really come into their own and this album is proof of this fact. Looking forward to what they do next. Read my thoughts below: 

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

Buy: https://blissfields.bandcamp.com/album/bliss-fields

Album Review: Black Viper - Hellions of Fire

Black Viper is a Norwegian speed metal band inspired by American heavy metal acts like Agent Steel and German thrashers Helloween. The genesis of the band was when drummer Cato began writing songs inspired by classic heavy metal of the early ’80s which didn’t mesh with the eccentric thrash-punk of his main band Deathhammer. While speed metal is a progenitor to thrash, an evolutionary step away from the genre’s R’nB roots and a sub-species of sound, dubbed long thought extinct by metal scholars, Black Viper is able to revive it through Hellions of Fire with an absolutely vengeful zeal. On this album, the band is straightforward, fast, and deceptively mature- striking fast and delivering a mighty payload war-making chords, the venomous progression of which will course through your system for weeks to come, causing fever, dry-mouth, and periodic fits of furious air guitar. The main riffs on “Hellions of Fire," “Metal Blitzkrieg," and “Nightmare Mausoleum” make for instant classics, feeling both immediately and intimately familiar while conjuring the rejuvenating ethos of a more care-free era in metal’s history. Salvador Armijo’s siren-like vocals are mesmerizing and Cato’s inimical bellicose beats give the songs just enough crust punk grit to keep the whole affair feeling tough, brazen, and purposeful. Black Viper is going to drag you to hell and make you look forward to every burning inch of the trip. 

Hellions of Fire is out via Dying Victims Productions (as of 2018)

Album Review: Burial In The Sky - The Consumed Self

I'm not that into tech death. It is just not my deal. But when you add a sax, that changes things. I started out my review of Burial In The Sky's The Consumed Self for New Noise, that this mother fucker sounds like it has John Zorn's fingerprints all over it, and yeah, I still feel like Zorn-Tech-Death sums this album up pretty well. Read what else I had to say about it below: 

Read review of The Consumed Self: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-burial-in-the-sky/

Buy The Consumed Self: https://burialintheskytheband.bandcamp.com/album/the-consumed-self

Album Review: Saz’iso - At Least Wave Your Handkerchief At Me: The Joys and Sorrows of Southern Albanian Song

Saz’iso is the brainchild of producer Joe Boyd, who has worked with various rock ‘n roll luminaries, including Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, and R.E.M. At Least Wave Your Handkerchief… is a collection of Albanian Saze songs, recorded by musicians assembled by Boyd in order to capture this largely undocumented folk tradition. While the instruments used are modern, the songs interpreted here go back hundreds of years. The jaunty lament “Tana" tells the story of a shepherd whose flock is stolen by bandits and who plays his flute one last time before he is killed. The maudlin melodies and tense guitar work of “Penxherenë E Zotrisë Sate” tell a story of unrequited love, and gives the album its title: “You keep going in and out of your gate / O poor me outside!/ At least wave your handkerchief at me.” Many of the other songs on this album are about partisans fighting foreign invaders and men leaving home to find work, a perennial theme in Albanian music to this day.  I don't know what else to say about this one other than it is extremely wonderful and not like anything I've heard before. I cannot recommend it enough. 

This album was released via Glitterbeat... sometime in the last five years, I think.

Album Review: Wild Earp & The Free for Alls - Dyin’ for Easy Livin’

Wild Earp is the pinnacle of swinging, old school country revival and I'm stoked to say he and his band call Chicago home. Check out what I had to say about their new album Dyin’ for Easy Livin’ over at New Noise below: 

Read about Dyin’ for Easy Livin’ here: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-wild-earp-the-free-for-alls/

Buy Dyin’ for Easy Livin’: https://wildearp.bandcamp.com/album/dyin-for-easy-livin

Album Review: John Frum - A Stirring in the Noos

Philadelphia death metal band John Frum play technical death metal in the vein of Artificial Brain, with greater emphasis on jittery, claustrophobic grooves, grinding tempos, and creeping, spider-legged, chord progression. They're more blackened sludge in approach but still, undeniably, a technical death metal band. A Stirring in the Noos is their debut album, released on Relapse records, and it seems them boasting a pretty exceptional lineup, one that includes Faceless'es Derek Rydquist on vocals and The Dillinger Escape Plan's Liam Wilson on bass. 

John Frum takes their name from the mythical figure associated with the South Pacific cargo cult of the island of Tanna. As legend had it, John Frum would one day descended from the island’s volcano to reward his followers with wealth and other gifts. Against this anthropological context, John Frum (the band) has crafted eight crushing mediations on the nature of myths, the limits of reason, and tricks of human perceptions. Their message takes as its vessel the pensive and propulsive “Presage of Emptiness," the meditative churn of “Memory Palace," the volatile and rollicking “Through Sand and Spirit," the haunting and hooky “Lacustrine Divination," and the thunderous, driving uproar of “Assumption of Form." 

It's interesting to me to see a band take such a strange anthropological concept as a cargo cult and apply its lessons to their culture. It makes you think about what aspects of your life are just illusions you've constructed to makes sense of your surroundings. Or at least it should. I think most people would benefit from reflecting on how some of their closest held beliefs and cosmological convictions are actually just watery mental discharge and half articulated justifications handed down to them from those in power. A lot of people believe that swallowing the hook that is offered to them by their boss, a politician, or a beloved media figure, is the thing that will save their life and guide them through the rough waters that lay ahead. In reality, it's just the first step to being gutted and ending up on a plate or mounted to a wall. One of the things that make us human is our critical faculties. I think it's about time some people start using them. Their life might literally depend on it. 

A Stirring in the Noos dropped via Relapse in 2017. 

Album Review: Portrayal of Guilt / Chat Pile Split

The new split between Portrayal of Guilt and Chat Pile fucking slaps. I wrote a thing about it for New Noise. Read below: 

Read review of split: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-portrayal-of-guilt-chat-pile/

Buy the split: https://portrayalofguilt.bandcamp.com/album/portrayal-of-guilt-chat-pile-split

Album Review: Century Palm - Meet You

Toronto's Century Palm is a synth-driven new wave band whose sound cribs from the cleaner side of post-punk pioneers like New Order and Eno-era Roxy Music, ribboned with a chrome veneer of Wire tinted guitars. Meet You is the band's debut record and sees the group exploring what guitarist and vocalist Andrew Payne describes as, “getting to know another layer of yourself,” after going through a major life change. For Andrew, that life change was moving to Toronto from Alberta and experiencing a sense of alienating anonymity within a major metropolitan area. 

If you are going to be stuck inside your head for a bit while riding public transit or while waiting for a friend (or prospective lover, Oooh la la!) to text you back, there are worse things you could fill your ears with in order to help you process your mood. In fact, I would assert that Meet You is more than just "not bad." It's legitimately great! 

I'm relistening to it right now, and I'm entirely entranced by the staccato wind-up and release of “New Creation,” the airy synths and gloomy vocals of the Psychedelic Fur-esque “King of john Street,” as well as “Another You” with its wet reverb, washing synths, ripping snares, and moody outro. The highlight of this album though is the sax spurred, climb and stern revolt of "Sick of It." If there is one thing that I find missing from the rest of the album, it is the urgency with which the band lends to that particular track. Get to know yourself a little better tonight in the illuminating shade cast by Century Palm while you greet Meet You at the threshold of your perception. 

Meet You was released on Deranged Records back in 2017. 

Album Review: Grand Collapse - Empty Plinths

Uk-based hardcore band Grand Collapse is bringing the noise and bringing down monuments on their latest album Empty Plinths. You can check out my write up on New Noise below: 

Write up of Empty Plinths: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-grand-collapse/

Buy Empty Plinths: https://grand-collapse.bandcamp.com/album/empty-plinths

Album Review: Balkan Taksim - Disko Telegraf

 
It occurred to me while listening to the debut album from Disko Telegraf from Romanian duo Balkan Taksim, that the way dance, electronic, sound collage, and, yes, even hip hop, artists view sound can be a little objectifying towards the human experience. It kind of has to be. The point of sourcing sounds for artists working in any of these fields is to find raw material that will aid them in encouraging a certain mood or enticing a particular response from the listener. Whether that be to influence their thinking or inspire them to boogie, whatever context there was for the original sound is more or less obliterated in pursuit of the artist's ends. Again, this is not a bad thing, but it is worth examining the flattening effect this tends to have on culture and human experience when thinking of contemporary popular music. The general approach of popular music in a post-modern world is guided by the assumption that any sound or substantive human experience can be fed into the engine of creation as a raw datum and processed to achieve a discrete, and sometimes, profligate, object. 

While Disko Telegraf is without a doubt an electronic dance record, one that combines the folk music, oral traditions and prayers of various Bulkin cultures into infections doses of electronica, the care with which Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici and Alin Zăbrăuțeanu approach the capturing and repurposing of sounds on the record demonstrates a respect for the source materials that is almost unheard of within the genre. In some ways, it almost feels ethnographic- showcasing the vibrancy of traditions of Eastern sounds and practices in the context of modern music in a way that does not lose its connection to people and the places where the music owes its origins. In still other ways, it feels like a work of fiction- the hurdling forward into a foreign place, of people and ideas, where they become enmeshed in a futuristic scenario where baseline assumptions about culture and human expression are tested and allowed playout under fantastical conditions— illuminating the contours of their true character in the process. 

Disko Telegraf is a strange and beautiful album that opens up some interesting philosophical questions concerning contemporary music's use and appropriation of sound. Not as an indictment, mind you, but as a meditation on the common conditions and catharses that structure the human experience, in all its colors, creeds, forms, and patterns. 

Disko Telegraf is out via Buda Musique.

Album Review: 26 BATS! - Portal Party

Wrote a little thing about the new album from MN experimental pop group 26 Bats! for New Noise. Press against the limits of possibility and check out what I had to say about Portal Party below: 

Portal Party review: https://newnoisemagazine.com/bandcamp-of-the-day-26-bats/

Buy Portal Party: https://26bats.bandcamp.com/album/portal-party

Metal Monday: Humavoid, Merked, Sacred Bull, & Devilz by Definition

It's another Monday and I've been listening to some metal. Must be a Metal Monday! Every couple of weeks I take the time to do a few short reviews of some underground metal releases that have been making my life suck a little less. Below are four quick and dirty overviews of albums you might not have realized could improve your life as well. You don't have to thank me. I know I'm doing the dark lord's work. That reward is enough. 

Humavoid - Lidless (Nobel Demon)

Lidless is the debut LP from Finnish progressive metal quartet Humanvoid. It's an impressive introduction to the group's sound and style., one that feels about halfway between Meshuggah and Bjork's turns towards aggressive, avant-garde pop. It sometimes feels like you're at a dueling piano night at a classed-up jazz bar, where one of the jazz pianists turns out to be a guitarist... and that guitarist is Christian Andreu of Gojira. That's not quite fair, though. The band definitely has their share of jazz bonified, but these aren't entirely represented in the piano or guitar lines of the album. Most of the ivory work here, as iconic as it is, has a theatrical drama to it that is better suited to Dracula's manner in Castlevania than paired with an ensemble for a recital. Instead, Humanvoid's genuine jazz qualifications come out mostly through the drumming of Heikki Malmberg, who absolutely knows how to hold down a polyrhythm and has a remarkable, studied, sense of pacing that I can only describe as academic, without being sterile. This description might make it sound like Humanvoid can't rock, but they do. This is an incredibly forceful sounding band who manage to etch out some definitive character and personality for themselves amongst all of the auditory violence they inflict. 

Pick up Lidless from Germany label Noble Demon here. 

Merked - Mercked (Goat Power Recreation)

If there is a better name for a power-violence band in 2021 than Merked, then you can shoot me. I will go to my grave with a smirk on my lips because I genuinely think it is hilarious. Does a power-violence band deserve to be on a metal rec list? I will let you answer that yourself when you start your own blog. This debut, self-titled EP from Merked, basically combines the wry, body ravishing energy of Spazz with playful but punishing deathgrind that should be familiar to fans of Prowler in the Yard-era Pig Destroyer. It's mostly fun, shout-along hardcore that makes judicious use of extreme metal conventions to package virulently infectious, double-time grooves. That sharp point you feel between your vertebrae while listening to this EP is, in fact, a knife, held my Merked. Their ultimatum: party or die. They'll bring the tunes; you bring your body for the wall of death. Mayhem will ensue. Who knows? You might even live to tell someone about it. 

Get this bad-boy on cassette from Goat Power here. 

 

                                      

Sacred Bull - Ragged Mountain (Super Carnival Recordings)

Georgia's Sacred Bull is back with a new LP, titled Ragged Mountain. It's a loose adaptation of the Edger Allan Poe short story titled A Tale of The Ragged Mountain, a slightly whimsical, yet singularly moribund story of a gentleman who shares some strange spiritual nexus with another man who died decades prior in India. Many of the titles of the album tracks are drawn directly from lines in the story, including "Never Before Trodden" and "Galvanic Battery." The story plays with the difficult to define barriers between slumber and wakefulness, between memories and dreams, and the hypnotic pull of the unknown and unverifiable, through weighty, slumber-shrowded repetitions, smeary grooves, and bloodless passages of cold-sweat inducing sound. Like the story that inspired it, Ragged Mountain balances the intrigue of the uncanny with a ponderous personification of dread. What's more, it is an entirely instrumental album and carries its narrative without uttering a single word. Nineteenth-century literature was probably never meant to be this heavy, but the heaviness works for it all the same. 

Get it on CD and cassette here. 

Devilz by Definition - The Bitter Remains of Human Consumption (Self-Released)

Big, dumb, riffs are sometimes just what I need to get through the day. Sometimes I just have to have a fat groove to ride to through some interminable task, and I know I am not alone in this because Five Finger Deathpunch is a thing. Instead, of talking about one of the biggest groove and thrash metal bands in the country though, I'd like to introduce you to a band that fills a very similar nitch but who gets about 1/100th the love. Devilz by Definition is an Ontario band who followed up their 2016 debut LP this year with an EP titled The Bitter Remains of Human Consumption. It lacks some of the flair and flash of its predecessor, but they've honed in on the fundamentals for this release to great effect. The songwriting is sturdy, seeing the band serve up some tart licks, shout in-your-face choruses, and more importantly, some greasy, belly dragging grooves. If you can give me a reason to drop whatever I'm doing and fist pump in my chair, your doing something right. And Devilz by Definition is getting me reason to stop short and shoot some horns in the air at least once a track with this baby. So that's an A for effort and an A+ for execution in my book. 

Buy the EP here.