Synth explorer Craig Padilla and guitarist Marvin Allen return for a sequel to their 2019 collaboration, presenting an album of lengthy pieces which reflect on the strangeness of our journey through life and the quest for friendship and compassion. Like their first album, this one mixes deep space synths (and Allen’s homemade theremin!) with spacious guitar melodies worthy of Steve Hillage or David Gilmour. There’s some longer suites here that head in a few different nebulas, particularly opener “Strange Gravity” and closer “All Around Us”, but there’s also the System 7-style techno of “The Revelation”, sort of a continuation of the more beat-driven side of their debut. “Friendship” starts off contemplative before a beatbox rhythm drifts in and it ends up turning into a sort of smoothed-out synth-funk groove for a minute. Then after some cosmic mist, an entirely different slow rhythm emerges before the track draws to a close. The duo keep things moving in different directions instead of just focusing on one idea and zoning out, and it keeps their work fresh and unpredictable.
Composed by pianist Christopher Parker and lyricist Kelley Hurt, No Tears Suite was written about the Little Rock Nine and the battle for desegregation in public schools during the 1950s. Musically, it’s gorgeous, flowing jazz with spoken narration telling the story on the opening overture. “To Be a Kid” is a truly joyous instrumental piece, meant to express the wonders of childhood. “Roll Call (Canon)” is a more somber piece with another monologue, but one with a positive outcome, as it details the successful lives of the Little Rock Nine. “Don’t Cry (Warrior’s Song)” is much more swinging, and Hurt sings a few bold, encouraging verses. “Crisis” is a brief free jazz interlude, and “Jubilate” is a triumphant conclusion. Even though this album is about a very serious subject and a particularly turbulent chapter of American history, it’s ultimately a story full of hope, and the music is appropriately strong and uplifting.
Part of the online collective No Agreements, Material Girl patches together genres and moods on this inventive, masterful debut album. Every unexpected segue, beat flip, and effect takes the narrative in another direction, and it all feels mysterious but inviting. “Flood” is the woozy centerpiece, slowly fading in strings and horns before a druggy sample (“I’m so fucked up”) precedes a bit lifted from an SWV slow jam. Then it switches to an absolutely haunting beat built around Linda Perhacs’ “Chimacum Rain”, laced with Dilla sirens, and the lyrics are delivered from the edge of panic. Just an overall chilling moment, and one that cements this album as something powerful and touching. “Funeral Parade of Roses” plays more with sounds and textures, from the abrasive sax squeals to the glitchy beat vibrations, before a brief, off-the-cuff verse reflects on life and death. Then looped sighs melt into ’90s ambient guitars and then the beat blasts back with a smooth sax solo and some half-dissolved words repeating in the back of your head. While there’s some recurring elements, most of the tracks flow through different sounds without returning to them, but nothing sounds random or out of place. It’s all very deliberate and meaningful, and it’s uplifting and resonant even if it sounds gloomy and lost. Seriously beautiful work.
1-17-21
AceMoMA ~ Sky Trax
Anz ~ Rave Casual
Y U QT ~ Fort Wibbler
Jasmine Infiniti ~ Downhill
Dogpatrol ~ Sepia Story
Heavenly ~ Trophy Girlfriend
Group Rhoda ~ Alibi
Loraine James ~ 31st Dec 2020 (1)
Ian William Craig & Daniel Lentz ~ Fragrance
MC Yallah ~ Ndi Mukazi (Jay Glass Dubs Version)
Nihiloxica ~ Ding Ding
Gerald Cleaver ~ Signs I
brin ~ Glidewear
Julia Holter ~ The Weather
Celeste Lehr’s live electronics project Argiflex has been amalgamating various styles and aesthetics for over a decade. There’s a bit of a DIY noise scene anarchy to what she does, but it’s clearly inspired by dance music culture more than anything else. ∆Orb is her latest album, and it’s a fantastic set of tightly controlled yet chaotic compositions filled with expansive, atmospheric synths and crowd-moving rhythms. A track like “PURE FLATLANDS” is an excellent example of how her tracks are so transporting. It starts out with 4/4 beats, then acid lines and trancey pads build and become sharper and more ecstatic. There’s a breakdown with a friendly, MIDI-sounding slap bassline, then the atmospheric synths creep in again. Some screeching noises seep in, and then some absolutely crushing Amen breaks take over, and it’s just incredibly raw and exciting. Just the entire way she builds up these dream worlds and then smashes these heavy breakbeats on them and switches back to something more precious and delicate, it’s such a perfect release, like just being pent up with stress and then just screaming your guts out. But also besides that, it sounds absolutely beautiful. Also, it ends with a Primus cover/remix which ends up working way better than the idea sounds on paper.
v/a: MARBLE BAR – PANDEMANIA RELIEF (AN EMPLOYEE BENEFIT COMPILATION)
Marble Bar quickly became one of Detroit’s best venues for dance music after it opened in 2015. I can’t even count how many amazing DJs and performers I’ve seen there: Jeff Mills, Tony Allen, Josey Rebelle, Lone, LTJ Bukem, Titonton Duvanté, AceMo, Color Plus… it’s just the place to be whenever something’s happening there. Of course the venue has been closed since the pandemic started, so they’ve started a label and released an employee benefit compilation featuring dozens of artists, from Detroit and abroad, who have played there. Much of it is techno or house, of course, but there’s a few tracks from other genres. Luke Vibert dons his Amen Andrews moniker for the Jetsons-sampling “riotously rhapsodic rhythms”, which is an absolute blockbuster, like most of his jungle material. I missed him the last time he played at the bar because my car was about to die and I had to drive home and get it repaired the next day. Tracks by hometown legends like Andrés, DJ Minx, Hotwaxx Hale, and Terrence Parker are Detroit house at its most sublime. Anja Schneider’s “Hometown” brings the dark tunnel rave vibes, and producers like DJ T-1000 and Norm Talley similarly get down to business. Ataxia and Mister Joshooa sample Q-Tip’s guest appearance on the Beastie Boys’ “Get It Together” for a cheeky breakbeat funk track. The Brian Kage track is a bit more hands-in-the-air. Chuck Daniels’ “Traffic” turns blaring car horns into techno sirens. Ellen Allien’s “Gender Fluid” is one of the hardest tracks she’s made since the ’90s. Juju & Jordash bring a taste of their live performances with the astoundingly gorgeous “de school”. Rebecca Goldberg’s track is rougher, tenser, and more on edge, and Terrence Dixon works in somewhat of an “Art of Stalking” mode but glances toward another galaxy. Oh, and the indispensable Todd Osborn closes out the track listing. This album isn’t quite a substitute for dancing under a revolving mirrorball skull in an extended boxcar tent, but it’s a great way to support Detroit’s own mini-Fabric, and it’s an excellent stash of fresh tracks for any stuck-at-home DJ.
Vancouver’s Kelly Claude Nairn makes ambient dub that feels like a gentle rainbath, yet whisks you away somewhere else when you aren’t paying attention. A longtime close collaborator with the warped dub crew Seekers International, he released two tapes on Digitalis Limited before they fell off the face of the earth (Foxy Digitalis hath returned though!), and his latest album is on Richard Chartier’s drone/microsound label Line. More than anything else, this is just incredibly soothing music, but it’s far from paint-by-numbers ambient. The textures are constantly shifting far off the grid, and there’s always unexpected tweaks, rifts, and drops. It’s super refreshing if you just lay back and immerse yourself in it, but deep listening will reveal just how strange it is, almost restlessly so. And it really does benefit if you turn it up loud rather than let it dribble away at low volume in the background. It just comes at you like waves in multiple directions. In the right performance space this would be astonishing live, but for now we’ll just have to settle with blasting this out towards the sun.
New York-based jazz musician Collin Sherman is essentially a virtual band, recording improvised multi-tracked pieces with the discipline of a full ensemble. His twelfth album is a double-disc set, with the first containing lengthy pieces filled with sax and clarinet solos and modular synthesizers, although the electronic elements aren’t always obvious unless you’re paying close attention. Vibraphones give opener “Prey Upon the Flock” a bit of a loungey feel, and other moments sort of touch on klezmer, although maybe my brain is just programmed to think “klezmer” whenever I hear jazz clarinet. “Sycophant Parade” is less melodic and more ominous than other tracks on the first disc, but overall, these pieces are structured enough so that the improvisations coherently follow a guided path, and it’s not free jazz cacophony. After the raucous “Federal Occupation” ends the first half of the album, the second disc is starker and less rhythmic, usually just focusing on naked soloing and patient but less commanding drumming, with some synth textures contributing to the atmosphere. Two pieces include bowed gamelan in their instrument lists, with “Caesium Sculptures” being a swampy collage of strange plucks and burbles. “Sequestration Blues” brings back the drums, and is kind of a sleazy, untethered swing tune, and the concluding “Polar Ticks” is a mellow lament with vibraphone, although it rumbles a bit more towards the end.
Drum’n’bass heavyweight Current Value has been joining forces with Dean Rodell, British techno-turned-d’n’b producer and owner of several labels, as Machinecode since the late 2000s, exploring everything from industrial techno to seismic dubstep. Their newest album is on the outer limits of drum’n’bass, with complex beat patterns which seem to tiptoe around danceability, but stop short of going full throttle. It keeps you guessing, in other words. It’s propulsive, to be sure, but it’s never obvious where it’s going. They’ve left the really bombastic bass behind, but there’s still some seizure-inducing moments like the spiraling bass quavers of “MJ-12”. “Everyone’s & Nothing’s” flips the tempo upside down, maintaining the atmosphere of d’n’b but moving at sort of a stunned hip-hop speed. Aside from the rhythms, there’s usually more spacious drones than melodies, combining to create a sensation that’s tense but also unmoored.
The Answer Is In The Beat 