The Answer Is In The Beat

River Spirit: EP 2 tape (Atonuv, 2018)

March 29, 2018 at 7:53 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Detroit trio River Spirit play a gently abstract form of experimental pop, highlighted by Vanessa Reynolds’ vocals, which constantly twist like vines. Their songs seem a bit tense, certainly affected by the frustrations of the world as well as personal isolation, but they’re ultimately strong, uplifting and vibrant. This EP is more electronic than their first one, and the languid but tricky beats and dreamy atmospheres elevate their songs into a strange yet warm and comforting space. The short EP goes by quickly, and all of it sounds wonderful, but they save the best song for last. “Dime” has sluggish trip-hop beats and the right amount of heavenly echo on the vocals, not to mention some big, bulging bass tones. This is a song I’m finding myself hitting rewind on (literally, since it’s a tape). Hear for yourself at Bandcamp.

Arthur King & The Night Sea: Unknown Movie Night: Pi (Dangerbird, 2018)

March 25, 2018 at 2:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The second LP from this L.A. improv group in less than a year was recorded as a score to the film Pi, screened as a total surprise to both the audience and the band. Each side of the record is 31 minutes and 41 seconds of loose, lush, flowing dub-jazz, sometimes launching into ragged see-saw rhythms, sometimes flowing calmly like a dark river on a languid summer night (not unlike the group’s name). The second side starts out in the less-busy mode, but things get really obtuse around the 15-minute mark, with far more wavy delay, jazzy figures, and real-time electro beats. It still ends up being largely serene, however.

Pursuit Grooves: Felt Armour (What Rules, 2018)

March 11, 2018 at 5:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Long before “deconstructed club” and “weightless” became buzzwords in the electronic music press, Vanese Smith was making music which greatly reconsidered how beats can be put together, what sounds can be looped into rhythms, what can be rhymed or sung over, and also what can be absent. She’s spent much of the last three years working more on graphic design than music, but her latest album as Pursuit Grooves has surfaced, and it’s another reminder of how brilliant she is. The title Felt Armour suggests a duality between toughness and sensitivity, and the tracks feature rhythms built from blunt, concrete noises, sometimes sounding like firing bullets, opening doors, or hard crashes. But instead of beating you over the head with abrasion, the sounds are smoothed out with contemplative synth pads and soothing bass tones. There’s similarities between these tracks and the ones she produced as 91 Fellows, but these aren’t quite as suspenseful or dubby. All of these tracks are instrumental, and they’re generally midtempo; they’re not conventional dance music, but not entirely removed from it, either. The sounds are shaped into abstract rhythms, without heavy kick drums or basslines that explicitly invite dancing. There’s movement and progression, but also zero-gravity floating. It might take several listens to adjust, but if it clicks, there’s little else that can approximate how it feels. Also, it probably goes without saying that you need to listen to this at high volume, with speakers equipped for handling heavy bass. Available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp.

Seth Graham: Gasp LP (Orange Milk, 2018)

March 10, 2018 at 5:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Seth Graham’s first vinyl LP (following a grip of cassettes, both solo and with Keith Rankin as Cream Juice) continues in the hyperrealist mode as the majority of Orange Milk’s recent output, acting as a more classical-influenced counterpoint to the latest Giant Claw album, and also complementing the label’s recent Noah Creshevsky album/anthology. This one certainly doesn’t sound as squishy and slurpy as 2014 tape Goop. Instead, it’s more focused on brief pieces consisting of heavily glitched shreds of stringed instruments and voices, flickering across a backdrop of silence. Some tracks like “Binary Tapioca” head into a bit more of a rhythm, and are more heavily populated with sounds, but I don’t want to say they’re overstuffed or dense because it still feels like there’s so much space to them. There’s so many moments where everything seems still for a while, then several sounds crash through at once, and it rapidly switches between being ecstatic, silly, frightening, regal, and somewhat melancholy. “Mas Que Fin” basically sounds like someone circuit bent or hacked into an episode of Teletubbies. The brief final track “Talk” seems to mangle, stretch, and condense an epic string crescendo into a minute and a half, leaving out any anticipation-building tension and just delivering a grating rush, then slapping it down and ending suddenly as if nothing happened. Gasp is such a perfect title for an album so breathtaking, yet also concise.

Ray Kandinski & Karl Lumont: Project Chicago EP 12″ (complet., 2018)

March 10, 2018 at 4:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The title and Kandinski’s past releases on labels like E-Beamz make this appear to be house, but it’s actually lush, atmospheric jungle filled with birdsong and vintage reggae samples, like the familiar Mikey Dread drop that appears throughout “Make Me Feel So Good”. “Project Chicago” has choppier beats, getting busier but not more aggressive. “Feel It” is more goodtime vibesy with splashing Amens, and “Heal Yourself” is a bit more lo-fi, and with more twisted breaks and spiraling synth pads. There’s also more of a bassline to this track than the others. Next time you’re playing a rave at a botanical garden or conservatory, drop something from this record.

Lead: s/t LP (Radical Documents, 2017)

March 4, 2018 at 3:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Minimal name, minimal artwork, and two sidelong, untitled tracks. This album isn’t overwhelming, and it was created with just a few small instruments in an office building, but even though it sounds sparse and airy, the duo get locked into some entrancing patterns and it catches your attention. The first part of side A sounds like a musical recreation of water dripping into a pail as well as a faintly but deeply hissing radiator. Then the second part has minimalist keyboards which seem to get out of sync. Trying to follow where it’s going ends up tricking your mind a bit, even though it doesn’t seem like all that much is happening, and it’s so quiet you have to turn it up and really concentrate. After a period of puttering drum machines, dubbed-out connection noises, and rhythmic scraping, Amy Howden-Chapman’s vocals, alternating between higher fluttering and lower, lonelier reflections, float over a limited but expressive array of synth beams. The side ends with a percussive bit which oddly sounds like an electronic horseback ride. While the first side seems like a suite of several short tracks, the second side is one continuous piece. It begins with slowly dripping keyboard tones and gentle waves, and there’s some low humming which nevertheless seems to cut through the sounds a little bit. A light, metallic clicking develops, and eventually the vocals go into a higher register. For some reason, this is categorized as noise on Discogs, but it’s almost the inverse of a noise record. It seems simple and basic, maybe even “lowercase”, and it captures the essence of a small, intimate space rather than loudly projecting outwards in attempt to repel or express disgust or anger.