Podcast Episodes 717-720 are live!
After two weekends away, the backlog has become immense, so we present a whopping FOUR new episodes for the spooky season!
Episode 717 features Medicine, Fennesz, Papa M, Earthen Sea, Nero, memotone, Karate, ØKSE, Otis Gayle, more eaze, Jon Mueller, and Lauren Auder + Wendy & Lisa.
Episode 718 has The Legendary Pink Dots, Throbbing Gristle, Von Spar / Eiko Ishibashi / Joe Talia / Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, Ladytron, Cate Brooks, Bill Callahan, Jill Fraser, Angelo Harmsworth, Laibach, and Mike Cooper.
Episode 719 music by Angel Bat Dawid, Philip Jeck, A.M. Blue, KMRU, Songs: Ohia, Craven Faults, tashi dorji, Black Rain, The Ghostwriters, Windy & Carl.
Episode 720 brings you tunes from Lewis Spybey, Jules Reidy, Mogwai, Surya Botofasina, Patrick Cowley, Anthony Moore, Innocence Mission, Matt Elliott, Rodan, and Sorrow.
Photo of a Halloween scene in Ogunquit by DJ Jon.
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We seem to be in the midst of a long-overdue Delia Derbyshire renaissance at the moment due to the efforts of filmmaker Caroline Catz, Cosey Fanni Tutti, BBC Radiophonic Workshop's Mark Ayres, and others. Fittingly, this unusual and inspired album was commissioned back in 2018 as a score for Catz's similarly unconventional feature-length documentary. Sadly, it seems damn near impossible to see Catz's film at the moment (outside the UK, at least), but this soundtrack was released earlier this year to coincide with Cosey's own foray into telling Derbyshire's story (Re-Sisters: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti). The book, film, and album were all inspired by research into Derbyshire's archive and the voluminous recordings and writings that became available after the visionary electronic artist's passing in 2001. Apparently, copyright issues are preventing much of Derbyshire's unearthed work from seeing an official release (there are some great unofficial ones like Inventions For Radio/The Dreams out there), but this album is a compelling consolation prize: using Derbyshire's notes on her compositions and techniques, Cosey has achieved a sort of posthumous homage/collaboration in which her own aesthetic is co-mingled with Derbyshire's singular and groundbreaking techniques and sounds.
When I first heard the thumping house/disco EP Was It Ever Real?, I had a very hard time believing that it could possibly be a teaser for something more substantial, as much of that EP felt like top-tier Soft Pink Truth that leaves very little room for improvement. If those songs did not make the cut for the full-length, I felt the album surely had to be either absolutely brilliant or absolutely wrong-headed with no possible middle ground. As it turns out, I was at least right about the "little room for improvement" bit, as Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? is not noticeably stronger than the preceding EP. Instead, it feels more like a lateral move, taking Drew Daniel's star-studded house party in a more kaleidoscopically arty and eccentric direction. Unsurprisingly, Deeper features roughly the same international cast of talented guests as the EP, but there are some noteworthy new additions as well, such as Nate Wooley, Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner, and Jaime Stewart (Xiu Xiu). The result is a bit less "all killer, no filler" this time around, but the trade-off is that Deeper is an appropriately deeper and more immersive plunge into Daniel's psyche, touching upon everything from Barry White to George Bataille to krautrock while still managing to be functional, forward-thinking, and archly fun dance music.
The opening title piece of Schatten Ohne Licht features Tietchens blending quiet tones with distant, low-end rumbles, with both the higher and lower frequencies layering and building throughout. Towards the half-way point he switches things around, using the same components but swapping around the arrangements, becoming a different sounding piece entirely. "Anthroporsaurus" follows a similar approach, pairing floating hints of melody with deep space pulsations and a machinery like chug, although the sum total of the parts is more delicate than anything else.
On their second album this trio continues the sound of their 2018's self-titled debut, expanding the dense, continually flowing sound showcased there even further. Across three instrumentals (and one shorter vocal based song), More Klementines effortlessly jump between expansive improvised passages with taut, motorik rhythmic sections, resulting in a perfect junction of two very different styles.
This is my first encounter with this UK-based improv unit, but Fallout 4 is the latest installment of a series of live documents that began all the way back in 2001. The band/collective itself has existed since 1996, though it seems like there's been at least one decade-long hiatus and the ensemble's members have all been active in other projects ranging from prog to ambient to art pop (while Andrew Ostler has been busy building modular synth hardware, among other things). Notably, Darkroom has recently reactivated and released some new material, but the performance documented here dates back to 2012 and the aesthetic lies somewhere between slow-burning Tarentel-style post-rock and Tangerine Dream-inspired space ambient (though Can was apparently a significant inspiration as well). On a related note, the album was mastered by Jono Podmore, who played a significant role in yet another fine vault project (Can's The Lost Tapes). I suspect Podmore had a challenging task on his hands, as the band tellingly state that he was chosen both for "his ability to control sonic forces" and "to make sure it was finally done." While this album and the Fallout series in general capture the band in a more noirish and shadowy mood than usual, I can see why they were so keen to get these recordings out into the world even a decade late, as much of this album is spacey, slow-motion psych magic.
This Chicago-based singer-songwriter is a bit of an enigma to me, as details about his discography are quite slim. As far as I can tell, however, 3am is his second solo album, which is noteworthy given that it has been 8 long years since Swan’s similarly excellent debut (I'll Be Around) surfaced. What he was up to during that hiatus is mostly unknown to me (aside from "drawing the night in around his private, unnerving vigil," of course), but one thing I do know is that he formed a duo with James Schimpl called Dead Bandit that released their debut on Quindi last year (the same label behind this album). In any case, 3am is one hell of an aptly titled album, as it very much has the feel of a hushed, late-night confessional via four-track. The overall aesthetic calls to mind the "desolate outsider folk" blurring of an insomniac Elliott Smith or Zelienople with the homespun intimacy of early Iron and Wine, yet the pervasive mood of late night sadness is beautifully balanced with cool production tricks and shades of more lively and eclectic influences like Suicide and Charlie Megira.
Keeping up with Andrew Chalk’s discography has always been an amusingly challenging endeavor, but the challenge has shifted from pouncing on limited edition physical releases to vigilantly ensuring that he does not quietly surface with a substantial new opus of some kind without my notice. The most recent substantial new opus is this one on Colin Potter’s ICR label, which is billed as Chalk’s “first new solo album in five years.” It certainly feels like a major statement to me, though the meaning of terms like “new” and “album” can be quite blurry and elusive given Chalk’s singularly minimalist approach to providing album details. In any case, The End Times was (perhaps prophetically) recorded earlier this year and marks a rare CD release after Chalk’s recent run of cassettes. Beyond that, further details are quite slim. That is just fine by me, as the only thing that actually matters is that Andrew Chalk is still making incredibly beautiful and distinctive music, as The End Times is a characteristically sublime and immersive dreamscape of tender melodies, elegantly shifting moods, and vividly detailed textures.
Few artists have consistently fascinated and perplexed me quite like Oren Ambarchi, as I absolutely loved his early solo guitar albums like Grapes From the Estate, then witnessed him spend the next 15 or 20 years exploring improvisatory and rhythmic-driven detours to continually intensifying and breathless acclaim. I imagine it feels somewhat akin to being a Velvet Underground fan encountering unanimous rapturous praise for their post-Cale albums–I get the appeal, but that would not be my personal go-to era if I wanted to illustrate that band's greatness. Then again, maybe my perspective on Ambarchi's evolution would shift dramatically if I just liked jazz fusion more. In any case, I can certainly understand the unusual trajectory from Oren's viewpoint, as few would pass up a chance to form a trio with Jim O'Rourke and Keiji Haino and jamming with talented friends over mutant krautrock/fusion grooves seems like a hell of a lot more fun than making slow-motion guitar magic by yourself (can't fault a guy for loving spontaneity and challenging new collaborations). Both spontaneity and inspiring guest performances abound on Shebang, as Ambarchi enlisted quite a killer (virtual) ensemble, resulting in one of my favorite of his albums in recent memory (2016's Hubris being the other serious contender).
A noisy wall of sound is combined perfectly with atmospheric hooky tunes on this wonderful latest release from National Screen Service. I came across the 2017 release Hotels of the New Wave on Bandcamp, which caught my ears initially (however it is sadly seems no longer seems available from there). The project appears to have started in 2014 (Sea Level Trials can still be obtained from Bandcamp), and apart from being from somewhere in England, that's the extent of all I know of them (him? her?). To me it feels as if that mystery can genuinely make the music more engaging, allowing it to speak for itself while as listeners, we are free to engage the imagination. Released oddly (or tactfully) on the first Friday of October, A New Kind of Summer is a perfect warm summery album adaptable to other seasons.
Midnight Rocker borrows its title from the opening line of Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm," which was the lead song on their 1991 debut Blue Lines. Notably, that album was the beginning of Andy's recurring involvement with that project, but "Safe From Harm" is a curious song to revisit, as Andy did not sing on the original and it has a darker, more dramatic tone than the rest of Midnight Rocker. Given how wildly successful that album was, I imagine its inclusion here was a savvy choice, but its killer bass and tambourine groove plays far more to Sherwood's strengths than the lyrics and tone do to Andy's. The album's other trips down memory lane are a handful of contemporized resurrections from Andy's own sprawling discography such as "This Must Be Hell, "Materialist," and "Mr. Bassie." Of that lot, "Mr. Bassie" fares the best, as it boasts a strong melodic hook and wades into increasingly dubby territory as it unfolds.
By my count, Midnight Scorchers reprises eight songs from Rocker (with new and different titles), but also throws some welcome new elements into the mix along with a pair of new pieces and a completely different sequence. For me, the most crucial development is the involvement of cult dancehall hero Daddy Freddy on three songs, as his playful and chaotic presence almost always makes a song instantly feel like a killer party. On "Dirty Money Business," Sherwood keeps Andy's central vocal hook from "Easy Money," but devotes the verses to Freddy's fiery motor-mouthed toasting ("Mr. Andy buy a house with a satellite dish!") for a livelier and more entertaining twist. I also enjoyed the more prominent percussion and the unexpected splashes of spacy synth and Spanish guitar. It is a very "everything but the kitchen sink" piece, but the execution is absolutely stellar. Daddy Freddy's other big showcase lands on the new version of "Mr. Bassie," as "More Bassy" benefits greatly from having a feral-sounding man roaring about the urgent need to turn up the bass. Daddy Freddy also turns up on the new "Safe From Harm," but even he is not enough to save that song from its dour chorus, though I do prefer the new version due to its spacier tone and unexpectedly Egyptian-sounding harmonica hook.
Back in 2009, Important Records released a landmark compilation entitled The Harmonic Series (A Compilation Of Musical Works In Just Intonation). Significantly, that album featured a Greg Davis piece entitled "Star Primes (For James Tenney)," which was Davis's earliest foray into composing using just intonation. Nearly a decade later, greyfade founder Joseph Branciforte found himself mesmerized by that piece on a long drive back home from Vermont and was inspired to contact Davis to discuss the unusual process behind the piece. As it turns out, Davis's interest in mathematical just intonation experiments ran quite deeply, as it formed the entire basis for his 2009 album Primes. Naturally, the enthusiastic Branciforte encouraged Davis to revisit his work in that vein, which led to an 8-channel performance at NYC's Fridman Gallery in 2019. The aptly titled New Primes is a reworking of that new material repurposed for a stereo home-listening experience. Needless to say, math-driven sine wave drones are not for everyone, but the cold and futuristic alien beauty of these pieces will likely resonate deeply with fans of otherworldly "ghost in the machine" opuses like Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith.
