The Answer Is In The Beat

Joy Guidry: Radical Acceptance (Whited Sepulchre, 2022)

February 26, 2022 at 5:05 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Composer and bassoonist Joy Guidry’s debut album is a powerful statement of purpose. They preface everything with an attention-grabbing intro titled “Just Because I Have a Dick Doesn’t Mean I’m a Man”, which sounds like a casual interview clip in which the artist describes their gender dysphoria and how they learned to accept themselves as a queer, trans, fat, Black, nonbinary person. Their speech is so matter-of-fact, candid, and self-assured, and I would love to hear them speak for much longer, but this isn’t a spoken word album. From there, it’s hard to predict where this album is going to go, and it inhabits a lot of spaces. A brief gospel interlude provides the only other verbal expression on the album, otherwise Guidry uses music to interpret their journey to self acceptance. From the minimalist dark ambient drone “Face to Face”, we are thrown into the turbulent vortex of “Inner Child”, an ecstatic to the point of frightful free jazz piece which moves from a multi-drum attack to trebly reed screeching to sparse, intimate bassoon melodies. “Why Is Toxicity So Yummy?” is also tense and overwhelming, gradually piling on more and more chaotic elements, and “How to Breathe While Dying” sounds as strenuous as its title. “Voices of the Ancestors” is a live spiritual jazz piece which sounds deeply comforting, the hand percussion especially just feels nourishing. The album ends with “Grace”, an ambient reflection which just feels like a pure beam of light and like the album’s intro track, I would find a longer version, or an expansion on this idea, most welcome. I’m happy to hear anything Joy has to say, honestly, and I find their message of radical acceptance to be truly inspirational.

Das Spezial: Sifar The Remixes 12″ EP (shahab, 2022)

February 25, 2022 at 8:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Das Spezial keeps a low profile, but they’ve released a considerable amount of music since 2019, and they’ve gotten some well-regarded names to remix their tracks. For this remix EP, they hand three tracks from last year’s Sifar off to Low Jack, Bruce, Lakker, and Etch. Low Jack’s “Kefi” is a slow, lurching crawler with more gun sounds than percussion. Bruce somehow takes the same song and turns it into a faster, chirpier disco-tech track which ends up much cuter than expected. Lakker dos a sort of detached yet charging mix of “Nyctophile”, with nebulous synths flowing around a clicking broken beat pattern, and machine glitches lightly fizzing around. Etch’s “Blazemoche” has a slow-motion forward momentum clearly drawing from drum’n’bass, but remains lurking in the shadows instead of brocking out on the dancefloor.

The Vex Collection: s/t (Carrier Records, 2022)

February 24, 2022 at 7:46 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The Vex Collection’s debut is a celebration of reeds and percussion, with multiple bagpipes and traditional Korean woodwind instruments meeting gongs and flailing, octopus-limbed drumming. To top it all off, there’s live electronics adding some extra sizzle. “Ira Minervae” sets the album in gear with an energy burst of percussion and droning sun rays. “Hex Cleanse” has some more stiff, scorching bagpipe drone but its jazz elements bubble under and come close to taking over. “A Rare Lightness” is a more dynamic electroacoustic piece which avoids drums and focuses on suspended notes augmented by electronic effects. It’s mesmerizing. “Bagslingers” is a collision of avant-jazz and bagpipes that demonstrates how you can wield a bag like an axe, and “Dirge” has a little more swing than its title suggests. “Fugue” is one of the more drone-heavy pieces on the album, but easily one of its most triumphant. The album’s liner notes provide details about where all the instruments originate and how they’re constructed.

5ubaruu & saves: S5 (Landline Collective, 2022)

February 22, 2022 at 7:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Both of these producers are unknown to me, but they’re part of Landline Collective, which also includes several neo-jungle/breakcore/rave artists that I’m into, such as Nanoray, Windowshopping, DJ Klaptrap, and Bye2. This EP is short but loaded with emotions. 5ubaruu’s “parisian skyline” mixes haunting choral vocals, sparkling melodies, and some brutal choppage and break scattering. Much of this is comparable, with breaks often diced into micro-shreds while the textures are sweet and glimmering. Both solo tracks by saves are a bit hazier, but eventually come through with some sunlight-soaked midtempo breaks. And the finale “moving on” is just simply gorgeous.

Bézier: Valencia (Dark Entries, 2022)

February 21, 2022 at 4:57 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Bézier’s fifth Dark Entries release starts out in a sort of sci-fi industrial disco mode with “Resurrection”. Then “Past the Marches” has a faster tempo suggesting hi-NRG, but uneasy synths that feel like Aphexian braindance on the verge of a breakdown. “Valencia” is comparable, but more frantic, and just far more together. It’s fast, racing, dramatic, and just absolutely on point. The skipping beat patterns and elegant vocals add a whole lot of zest to “Reservoir”, and “Scrupulous” is a brief jog straight up to the stars. “Ravel” is upbeat but still moderately paced compared to other tracks on here, and it also has an ecstatic “reach for the stars” feeling.

Grandmaster Masese: s/t LP (Dagoretti Records, 2021)

February 20, 2022 at 5:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A few years ago, Grandmaster Masese released a single displaying his mastery of the Obokano (a giant eight-stringed lyre from Kenya), recorded right on the street with crowd noise audible. His new album is a studio recording featuring musicians such as Dave Sharp and Mike List, as well as production by Dr. Pete Larson. It comes closer to the psychedelic rock sound of Larson’s Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band, with atmospheric synths and blazing guitars snaking around the buzzing Obokano and complex polyrhythms. The sound is a mixture of cosmic swirling and sharp twanging, with something approaching a refracted Latin jazz style on “Orogena”, and it’s all intoxicating.