The Answer Is In The Beat

Sir Tad: Sir Tad Goes Deeper & Deeper EP (Purple Akronym, 2021)

October 17, 2021 at 1:03 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This brief cassette EP mixes therapeutic samples (instructional tapes, calming bird chirps) with ultra-cheap-fi keyboard sounds, creating a tiny sound-world that’s chipper and pleasant but also feels like it’s crumbling apart and pushing to maintain composure without making it seem like it’s struggling. It would sparkle if it was a cleanly recorded studio effort, but its degraded sound quality sort of redistributes its amount of luster. Plus there’s dubby effects and unexpected sounds like the screeching car tires during “Tie Cord to Racing Car” which add an extra dimension of surrealness. It’s just a small taste, but it’s like a batch of tiny homemade candies with just a few drops of lysergic chemicals inside.

Lovetta Pippen: Picture (self-released, 2021)

October 16, 2021 at 1:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Lovetta Pippen sang with His Name Is Alive for several years during the ’90s and 2000s, first appearing as part of a gospel choir featured on Stars on ESP, and singing lead on albums as recent as 2006’s Detrola. The first of two HNIA albums sung entirely by her, 2001’s Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth, was a diversion into minimalist, melancholy R&B which probably alienated most of the group’s old fans but was the album that got me into the group, and considering the trajectory of alternative R&B since then, it’s fair to say the album was ahead of its time, and would probably have more of a following now if it was released maybe half a decade later and was the debut album by an unknown band. Anyway, Lovetta has very occasionally popped up at concerts or singing backup vocals on records by Michigan folk troubadour Ethan Daniel Davidson, but her voice hasn’t been heard as a lead performer in far too long. She told me she was working on a solo album when I met her ages ago, and at one point she had a MySpace page set up to post her music, but now, at long last, we finally have a new single from her, popping up out of nowhere on HNIA’s Bandcamp, just like the new ESP Summer releases from last year. “Picture” is a gorgeous soul-jazz tune that leisurely unfolds with brush drums, piano, and bass. Lovetta, whose voice sounds richer and more expressive than ever, sings defiant, steadfast lyrics: “Don’t tell me how to paint my picture, don’t tell me how to sing my blues.” She doesn’t sound bitter, but it’s obvious that it hasn’t been easy for her to get where she is now, and no one recognizes what she’s been through or who she really is. The single also includes a remix by Warren Defever, who retitles the song “They Don’t Know”, which is appropriate as it barely resembles the original, only taking a few traces of the vocals and sprinkling them among shades of keyboards and filtered static, along with some antsy beats which barely touch the ground and don’t seem like they want to stick around too long. Whereas “Picture” is direct and forthright, “They Don’t Know” is detached and lingering, but they’re both different ways of expressing the same message. Just stunning.

Norman W. Long: BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN (Hausu Mountain, 2021)

October 14, 2021 at 9:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Norman W. Long, a member of Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brotherhood and longtime Chicago-area musician, gathers sounds from his environment and transforms them into immersive audio pieces, with the help of semi-modular synths and effects. This album starts out with a 23-minute live piece, “Southeast”, recorded at Experiental Sound Studio in 2019. It seems to start out simply enough with layers of chirping crickets and chirping birds, but soon the noises are twisted and granulated, with blips and glitches sputtering out, making it harder for your mind’s eye to picture a natural scene, making it appear like an image projected from a malfunctioning DVD player. Eventually it gets doused with sheets of disorienting static which sounds like audio acid rain. After some bells and other samples get shaped into a knocking, percussive rhythm, it all gets swept up and blurred, turning into a bewildering aural storm. “Marsh Filter” is a short piece that takes a seemingly uneventful field recording and manipulates some dripping and humming sounds into a mind-bending flurry, like raindrops somehow shooting in all directions at once. “Reeds” essentially seems like layers of scraping or skating, but there’s something musical about the way the higher pitches tones glimmer in. “Essential/Sacrificial(Worksong)” consists of thick layers of crickets, frogs, and birds, suggesting nature reclaiming the earth, although there’s a faint whirring of passing automobiles in the background. The title alludes to those who had no choice but to work during the pandemic, leaving themselves vulnerable to COVID-19. The lockdown allowed Long to spend much time recording sounds along his local nature trail. “Recovering Landscape Community” is a longer piece which seems to have less human interference than the others, seemingly suggesting tranquility, although there’s traces of a storm rumbling in the distance.

Saycet: Layers (Meteores Music, 2021)

October 13, 2021 at 7:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Pierre Lefeuvre makes ambitious, cinematic electronic music as Saycet, approaching similar emotional territory as Jon Hopkins or Rone. The beats are a bit rough and distorted but not super glitchy, and the tracks build up without blasting into overdrive. He tends to write delicate melodies without making them too saccharine, and likewise the beats are never too challenging, but not simplistic either. It’s very balanced, but not middle of the road. “Lightyear” definitely edges its way towards a tear-filled climax, and the slower “Layers” is like triumphantly ascending to the top of a mountain. Another track is even called “Mountaineers”, and it similarly feels like it’s scaling an epic peak. “Murmuration”, with guest Joseph Schiano Di Lombo, diverts from club-influenced tracks for a stirring neo-classical piano reflection. After hearing a few tracks, it’s not hard to tell where the rest of them are going to go once they start, but his music is good for momentary rushes of feverish drama.

Negativland: No Brain EP + Aux Brain (Seeland, 2021)

October 10, 2021 at 1:52 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Negativland’s new EP is a short overflow of ideas from their interconnected last 2 albums, True False and The World Will Decide. The record starts with “Megaphone Guy”, a piece about the loudest guy in the room, the one that is unavoidable and has no shortage of opinions to subject people to. Essentially it discusses how social media has given us all the power to become the filterless idiot with a megaphone. Then the brief “Mister Nobody” is about the invisible criminals who monitor everyone. “No Brain” is about how little of the information that comes across your vision even registers with your brain, and even how little of the internet you see from search results, or how different search results are available for different classes. “Sequitur” is riddled with purposeful non-sequiturs, demonstrating how it’s nearly impossible for most people to tell what’s relevant and true among the constant stream of information that we’re constantly being bombarded with all the time. The EP is a short, focused burst of pointed, meaningful content which holds up a mirror to the continual process of content-making. Online pre-orders of the EP included Aux Brain, an album of live performances culled from their 2019 European tour. Reconstructing pieces in real time, the performances often take on more of an ambient quality than the album versions, with familiar samples bursting out of the ether, and less of a rhythmic base than the carefully sculpted recordings. Escape From Noise favorite “Time Zones” sounds extra ominous and detached, although I’m not really getting if they’ve updated it much. Then the Weatherman does a live demonstration of what happens when he asks Google, Alexa and Siri about why he’s attracted to the odor of cheap melting plastic, or if it’s ok for him to shake his pants when he takes them off. The computer voices just laugh at him and talk about scorpions, and because of their uselessness, the Weatherman has no choice but to make a horribly off-key attempt at singing. A blast of Escape/Helter Stupid-era soundbytes round out the piece, as the irrepressible Weatherman can’t help but laughing everything off.

Maurice Louca: Saet El Hazz (The Luck Hour) (Northern Spy, 2021)

October 7, 2021 at 7:19 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Egyptian composer and guitarist Maurice Louca’s latest album incorporates Gamelan percussion, modified instruments, and improvisation from several international musicians and ensembles, presenting a reconfigured musical language that knows no borders. Stunning ten-minute opener “El Fazzah’ah (The Slip and the Slide)” features droning cello, gentle guitar melodies, mesmerizing tuned percussion, and disconcerting sweeps of noisy abrasion, keeping the piece physical as well as graceful. “Bidayat (Holocene)” features rhapsodic violin playing by Ayman Asfour and sounds closer to traditional Arabic music, with comforting tones yet winding, complex rhythms. “Yara’ (Fire Flies)” is a showcase for Anthea Cady’s tense, grinding cello as well as Khaled Yassine’s bell-like percussion, resulting in a hair-raising collision of sounds fit for a horror movie score. “Saet El Hazz (The Luck Hour)” is a more tranquil harp-based piece, at least until some of the instruments are more forcefully played and strings are bent, and high-pitched electronic waves start piercing and wailing. “El-Gullashah (Foul Tongue)” has warm, earthy guitar and percussion countered by Devin Brahja’s squonking alto sax and other noises shrieking in the background. “Higamah (Hirudinea)” would be a tranquil comedown if it was just the droning rhythm and acoustic guitar, but lots of strangeness is lurking in the night beyond the controlled camp fire.