A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #35

Ten Tracks That Sound Like Summer

“Draw a line with yourself. Go on drawing until you disappear.”
- Yoko Ono

“[Collective improvisation] can potentially be a transcendent experience that can happen by allowing yourself to fully trust, musically trust, yourself and those you are performing with. It’s about making yourself disappear.”
- Alvin Curran

It’s summer here in Montreal, and that means it’s festival season. Constantly overlapping and conflicting social and cultural events everyday for months, plus endless construction and the huge tourist rush for Formula One. But the highlight for me is always the Suoni per il Popolo festival, which began earlier this month. Suoni is dedicated to a wide variety of genres and modes of presentation that is really hard to gloss with a simple blurb. But improvised music and sound art play an important role in the festivals curation, and these two quotes have been stuck in my mind as I’ve bounced around recent concerts. I already plugged Suoni in the last newsletter, and will have more to say in review next time, after the three week program has wrapped. But the theme here this week is without a doubt summer. Sure, the fires in Canada are raging worse than ever, after an already terrible and historically early fire season out west, but now that the eastern seaboard is directly affected people are really taking notice. Still, the air quality is improving, and regardless what the rest of the summer has in store for us, I’ve been taking advantage of the relatively warm weather.

I mentioned seeing my friend Cole Pulice perform live in a backyard in Minneapolis in a previous newsletter a couple weeks back. Well, they’ve just released If I Don​’​t See You in the Future, I​’​ll See You in the Pasture, a beautiful 22-minute composition for tenor sax and signal processing. Released as part of the excellent series Longform Editions, I spoke with Andrew Khedoori on our podcast a few years back, if you’re interested in learning more about Longform and Andrew’s previous label, Preservation.

There will be lots more in the next newsletter, but this fortnight we’ve got a lot of great reviews from legendary artists, old friends, and some surprising new voices. But first, Richard Allen has put together Ten Tracks That Sound Like Summer.

Ten Tracks That Sound Like Summer

Summer music suggests the activities of summer: backyard barbecues, trips to the beach, vacations, good times with friends.  At the very least, summer music puts one in a summer mood, which can vary from easy-going to excited, characterized by tones of positivity and possibility.  In this article, we choose nine recent tracks and one bonus track that suggest summer to us.  We hope they brighten your day and perhaps decorate your own summer playlist!

(Click the heading link to listen to all Richard’s selections)

Our cover image comes from Happy Shave Ice, a blog started by a family who fell in love with shave ice in Hawai’i, returned home to Florida, and made shave ice their personal obsession.  What better summer story is there than this?

Candyfloss Mountain ~ Bubblegum Bouncy Castle (Métron Records)
The entire album, Escape from Candyfloss Mountain, is ebullient and upbeat, the score to a non-existent 80’s video game.  Synths dance with abandon across a candy-colored landscape, which includes a licorice desert, cola waterfalls and strawberry clouds.  With so many charmers, it’s difficult to pick the most summer-sounding track, but we’re going with this club confection.

Caterina Barbieri ~ Math of You (light-years)
Myuthafoo was recorded at the same time as Ecstatic Computation and is billed as its sister album.  The connection is clearest on “Math of You,” a sister track to “Fantas,” that album’s breakthrough cut.  Bright synths engage in harmonic interplay, growing ever more complex and appealing.

follow ~ Glimmer
The standout single from the Australian band’s debut album, “Glimmer” falls into the subgenre of feel-good post-rock, which is exactly where we want to be right now: not worried about a thing, just kicking back and enjoying the summer sun as it glimmers over the ocean.

Leaving Laurel ~ better days will come (Anjunadeep)
Taken from the album when the quiet comes, “better days will come” is soothing and sedate, in the manner of trance tracks from the early 00s.  The full album is a eulogy to a friend, but this track is a statement of hope; we will get through this, whatever this may be.

Lyndhurst ~ Swimming 
“Swimming” is the debut track from the debut album of a debut duo.  The duo knows it has a summer track, describing the piece as “a sunny offering … an electronic hug for the upcoming warm weather, and a soundtrack for summers yet to come.”  Platforms will be out on July 14.

OrageOrange ~ Shipwrecker (Shimmering Moods)
Inspired by Caliban’s monologue in The Tempest, An Isle Full of Noises is a breezy, stormy concept set, anchored by its languid signature track, “Shipwrecker.”  Wait for those drums to kick in at 1:03; their arrival is like the safety of shore.

Past Palms ~ Summer Prayer
As we’ve featured Past Palms in this feature before, we went looking for the annual Past Palms EP, only to discover that the artist’s latest track was released on the autumnal equinox.  The artist calls it “a moment of gratitude for the season that just passed,” but it takes on new meaning at the start of the summer: a prayer that we might drink in the season and enjoy it while it lasts.

Penguin Cafe ~ In Re Budd (Erased Tapes)
Penguin Cafe’s upcoming Rain Before Seven is described as riding a “wave of optimism,” never more apparent than on this early single.  Balafon and piano contribute a Caribbean vibe, in line with the lush outcroppings of the cover, although perhaps a bit too hot for actual penguins.

Samuel Sharp ~ Twinkly Tide (Blackford Hill)
Sax, loops and delays are all it takes to make Consequential a happy contender.  When listening to “Twinkly Tide,” one can imagine splashing one’s feet in the water, watching the foam and spray.  The sunlight reflects on the surface, casting twinkles to and fro.

Suki Sou ~ Petrichor (Curious Music)
We end our list with its gentlest piece.  “Petrichor” is the sound of summer rain and the scents that escape from soil and asphalt whenever a shower begins.  Summer isn’t only about sunshine, but its partner.  The track is taken from Notes on Listening, the composer’s debut release.

RECENT REVIEWS

Reviews are at the heart of ACL. Here are (excerpts from) a few of my favorite reviews we posted on the blog in the last few weeks. And we have a lot of old friends in this round up.

Balmorhea ~ Pendant World
Balmorhea has been through many permutations since 2006, yet their core has stayed the same.  Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller have sometimes been a duo, other times a band, other times an orchestra.  On Pendant World they split the difference, collaborating with a host of musicians to produce a seamless set that touches the boundaries of post-rock and jazz. The title is from a line in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, where a character compares death to being “imprison’d in the viewless winds, / And blown with restless violence round about / The pendant world.”  Lowe and Muller write of this “suspended world” caught between beauty and fear, as seen during the pandemic: society’s pendulum swinging back and forth, resolution desired but not achieved.

The Coastal Futures Conservatory ~ Soundscapes of Restoration
We last heard from Matthew Burtner in 2019, when Glacier Music ended up on our chart of The Year’s Best Winter Music.  This year, he presents the other side of the story, shifting the focus from melting glaciers to rising sea levels.  Along with the EcoSonic Ensemble, he offers a treatise on the effects of climate change on the shores of the Atlantic, using a unique blend of field recordings, music and sonifications. Burtner’s invitation is to join the growing number of people who are attempting to preserve and restore earth’s coastal environments, not just to prevent houses from falling into the sea, but to bolster sea species in decline.  It’s easy to ignore what one cannot hear, which is why this album amplifies the voices of the unheard, joining them in a musical conversation.

Fiona Rutherford ~ Seed
This is a great album. Yes, it is admittedly difficult to “elevator pitch” it. “Accessible folk-influenced contemporary-classical harp-centred music” is the best I can come up with and that rambly, excessively hyphenated blurb doesn’t encompass all the tracks. Nevertheless it’s full of beauty, well composed and arranged, and performed with utmost confidence. Fiona Rutherford, an Edinburgh-based Scottish harpist and composer, presents Seed, her full length solo debut, is made up of nine pieces that generally—though not always—centre around the harp. The thoughtful opener, “Orbit Audio”, gently eases us into Rutherford’s solo soundworld. In “The Buzz” the pace picks up and the harp is joined by flute, clarinet, ‘cello and double bass, an inspired combination that gracefully dance around one another exchanging phrases in a kaleidoscope of beauty. There are many lovely moments, but the ‘cello melody that begins at 3:15 is particularly gorgeous.

follow ~ Old Haunts
As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, we start to look for music we can play in the car with the windows down.  Ironically, follow is from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, which is descending toward winter.  Perhaps Australians will look at the lovely cover art and translucent blue vinyl and dream of warmer days; or perhaps they will embrace tracks such as “Cold Hands,” which more properly reflect their season.  Either way, Old Haunts is a joy to play.  While landing squarely in the post-rock camp, the music often touches upon the alternative rock styles of U2 (“Sentimental Health”), The Killers (“Any Small Thing Can Save You”) and Kodaline (“Fields of Gray”), gracing it with crossover potential.

Phill Niblock ~ Muna Torso
Given the long history of collaboration between experimental music and the visual arts and film, it’s no surprise that a lot of music we cover on this site was designed in to be presented alongside a moving image. The composer Phill Niblock self-identifies as an intermedia artist, working across music, film, and photography.  Although often used interchangeably with other terms such as multimedia, intermedia was originally coined by the artist Dick Higgins to describe work that was truly between media.  Rather than another means of describing a multimodal art like cinema, Higgins was more interested in art that fused its various media not just formally but conceptually.  Writing that strove to become painting (what he calls abstract calligraphy) or video that aspired to be music, as examples. Intermedia is the perfect lens through which to understand Muna Torso, an audiovisual work resulting from the long-term collaboration between Niblock and the choreographer and dancer Muna Tseng.  The video and composition released earlier this year by Room40 is a distillation of a longer performance project the pair produced in 1992.

Rone ~ L(oo)ping
Parisian artist Rone is no stranger to remixes and re-imaginings; 2020’s Room With a View was followed by Views of a Room, and even after that, the tracks continued to morph.  Many of these same tracks now appear on L(oo)ping, which was recorded with the National Orchestra of Lyon, bumping the composer from our Electronic section to Modern Composition.  But the new album is far more than a series of re-recorded tracks; it deserves to be heard as a parallel work, reflecting an alternative version of Rone, a path less traveled by, a fork in the multiverse.  When some of the more familiar melodies appear, one might say, “Oh, I know that song!” ~ but while the notes may be the same, the settings are drastically – and pleasingly – different.  Credit arranger Romain Allender for handpicking the tracks that lent themselves best to orchestral interpretations.  These stretch the length of Rone’s career, from 2008 to last year’s score for the short film Ghosts.

Sarah Pagé ~ Voda
We have always been and will always be fascinated by water. It fills us and gives us life but can destroy us and all we love, so it’s no surprise that many of our myths revolve around water or the creatures that dwell within. Harpist Sarah Pagé explored many of these myths back in 2014 in collaboration with Ukrainian-Russian choreographer Nika Stein and during the lockdowns of more recent years used the time to revisit and rework the project that she had found so compelling. The result is Voda, a suite of nine lengthy pieces accompanied by twelve compelling art pieces by Elena Miroshnichenko.

V/A ~ Quantized Realities – Technology
How does technology affect our perception of reality?  This question is addressed on the first of a new series from Errorgrid.  The label’s subtitle, “A Darker Sound of a Present Future,” makes it a perfect match for such explorations.  This is also the first set to travel outside the label’s roster, although we would not be surprised to see some of these artists appear here again. In the 21st century, technology has become so integrated into our lives that the 20th century seems antiquated.  Twenty years ago, few beyond the realm of sci-fi were talking about topics such as social media, deep fakes, avatars and A.I.  Today we question what is real: is the news real?  Is the person we’re speaking to online real?  Are we perceiving the world more through our devices than through our travels?

UPCOMING RELEASES

(complete list with Bandcamp links here)

The season we’ve waited for is finally here!  (Sorry, Australia & New Zealand!).  Even when we’re inside, we’re dreaming of the outside.  Summer is a time for beaches, barbecues, driving around with the windows open, get-togethers with friends, action movies and of course, lots of music!  This page is only the beginning; the summer music slate is already packed, and tours and festivals are on our calendars.  New previews are added to this page daily; we hope you will find your next favorite album right here!

Andrew Heath ~ Fold (Dronarivm, 16 June)

An Moku & Stefan Schmidt ~ Raum im Raum (Karlrecords, 16 June)

Boris Baltschun ~ Desert Dictionary (arbitrary, 16 June)

Caterina Barbieri ~ Myuthafoo (light-years, 16 June)

Daniel Paul Grody ~ Arc of Day (Three Lobed Recordings, 16 June)

Fredrik Rasten ~ Lineaments (SOFA, 16 June)

Gloorp ~ S/T (JOLT, 16 June)

Greg Foat & Gigi Masin ~ Dolphin (Strut, 16 June)

Iván Muela ~ Anamnesis (Sine Language, 16 June)

Joe Gould ~ Nobody Joins a Cult (16 June)

Kresten Osgood / Bob Moses / Tisziji Muñoz ~ Spiritual Drum Kingship (Gotta Let It Out, 16 June)

Luke Cissell ~ Serenade (16 June)

Massimo Magee ~ Networking (Orbit577, 16 June)

Methods Body ~ Plural Not Possessive (Beacon Sound, 16 June)

Near Stoic ~ Metamorphosis (Gated, 16 June)

Rone ~ L(oo)ping (InFiné, 16 June)

Samuel Sharp ~ Consequential (Blackford Hill, 16 June)

Snorri Hallgrímsson ~ I Am Weary, Don’t Let Me Rest (Moderna, 16 June)

Thorny ~ See No Sky (Weatherwillow, 16 June)

Tracing Circles ~ First Contact (Candy Mountain, 16 June)

Ulrich Krieger ~ Aphotic I (Room40, 16 June)

Wild Up ~ Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? (New Amsterdam, 16 June)

Amniote Editions and Male Junta Present ~ The Collective Capsule EP (Amniote Editions, 18 June)

Paula Matthusen & Olivia Valentine ~ between systems and grounds – the overshot sessions (Carrier, 18 June)

Baldruin ~ Relikte aus der Zukurft (Buh, 19 June)

Antoine Hubineau ~ Dérives (Le Cabanon, 20 June)

Yoichi Kamimura & France Jobin ~ Theme Vals (Vertical Music, 20 June)

GAŁGAŁ ~ Ich schwöre ich hab Angst (Abstand, 21 June)

PJS ~ Rainbow Fusion (Hush Hush, 21 June)

V/A ~ Reports from British UFOlklore (Folklore Tapes, 21 June)

Vittoria Assembri & Gaia Genera Giorgi ~ RADURA (Vertical Music, 21 June)

pablo sanz ~ strange strangers (Vertical Music, 22 June)

Tom Schneider ~ Isotopes (Macro, 22 June)

Black Duck ~ S/T (Thrill Jockey, 23 June)

Blue Lake ~ Sun Arcs (Tonal Union, 23 June)

Dorisburg & Sebastian Mullaert ~ That Who Remembers (Spazio Disposable, 23 June)

Drew Daniel / John Wiese ~ Continuous Hole (Cold Spring, 23 June)

Emily Kuhn ~ Ghosts of Us (Bace, 23 June)

Ex-Wiish ~ Shards of Axel (Incienso, 23 June)

Fires Were Shot ~ Siberia (It’s Only Me, 23 June)

Foster Neville ~ The Edge of Destruction (Subexotic, 23 June)

Jérôme Noetinger ~ Outside Supercolor (Room40, 23 June)

John Dikeman, Pat Thomas, John Edwards, Steve Noble ~ Volume 2 (577 Records, 23 June)

Jose Luis Maire ~ Different tunings (Vertical Music, 23 June)

Om Unit + TM404 ~ In the Afterworld (Acid Test, 23 June)

Orphax ~ Echoic Memory (23 June)

V/A ~ Stills 03 (Strings and Tins, 23 June)

Distant Animals ~ Santa Vitae (Vertical Music, 24 June)

Katharina Schmidt ~ Another Year (Vertical Music, 25 June)

6SISS ~ Bots (Micron Audio, 26 June)

Divide and Dissolve ~ Blood Quantum (Invada, 30 June)

Fraser Fifield ~ Secret Path (30 June)

Gregory Paul Mineeff ~ You Alone (Cosmicleaf, 30 June)

Mondoriviera ~ Frenton Cantolay (Artetetra, 30 June)

MonoLogue and Matt Atkins ~ Homework (Flaming Pines, 30 June)

Pat Thomas, Chris Sharkey, Luke Reddin-Williams ~ Know: Delerium Atom Paths (577 Records, 30 June)

Pauline Oliveros, IONE, Christopher Willes, Public Recordings and Others ~ Resonance (Art Metropole, 30 June)

V/A ~ Echolocation: Resonate from Here (Brawl, 30 June)

Zeena Parkins ~ LACE (Chalkin, 30 June)

Machinefabriek with Monica Bugagny ~ Recytle (1 July)

Tony Buck ~ Environmental Studies (Room40, July 1)

Wil Bolton ~ Swept (Audiobulb, 1 July)

Johanna Knutsson ~ Complex Network (Red Curls, 5 July)

Akira Uchida ~ Kurayami (IIKKI, 7 July)

Andrew Land ~ To Shoulder This (Bigo & Twigetti, 7 July)

Arvo Zylo ~ 333 (No Part of It, 7 July)

Ash Di Va ~ Everything Entwine – I (7 July)

Autodealer ~ Circumstances (Somewherecold, 7 July)

Daniel Carter, Leo Genovese, William Parker, Francisco Mela ~ Shine Here, Vol. 1 (577 Records, 7 July)

The Dark Jazz Project ~ 3 (Irregular Patterns, 7 July)

Ireen Amnes / Chloe Lula ~ Synergy (Tresor, 7 July)

Omar Ahmad ~ Inheritance (AKP Recordings, 7 July)

Penguin Cafe ~ Rain Before Seven… (Erased Tapes, 7 July)

Saloli ~ Canyon (kranky, 7 July)

shedir ~ Before the Last Light Is Blown (n5MD, 7 July)

Shoko Igarashi ~ Project TENORI (Faneka Music, 7 July)

Siavash Amini ~ Eidolon (Room40, 7 July)

Stefano Guzzetti ~ Letters from Nowhere – Piano Book Volume Three (Home Normal, 7 July)

Taylor Joshua Rankin ~ Sun, Will Grow (7 July)

The Titillators ~ That’s the Night (Noodle Factory, 7 July)

Whettman Chelmets ~ Koppen (Strategic Tape Reserve, 7 July)

Yann Novak ~ The Voice of Theseus (Room40, 7 July)

Peace Flag Ensemble ~ Astral Plains (We Are Busy Bodies, 8 July)

appian ~ fragments vol. 1 (sound as language, 14 July)

AWARE ~ Requiem for a Dying Animal (Glacial Movements, 14 July)

Christina Giannone ~ Reality Opposition (Room40, 14 July)

CORIN ~ Lux Aeterna (UIQ, 14 July)

Hecq ~ Form (Mesh, 14 July)

Hyunhye Seo ~ Eel (Room40, 14 July)

Jeremy Rose ~ Project Infinity Live at Phoenix Central Park (Earshift Music, 14 July)

Lyndhurst ~ Platforms (14 July)

Philip Johnston ~ I Cakewalked With a Zombie (Earshift Music, 14 July)

Tiny Leaves ~ Mynd (14 July)

Daryl Groetsch ~ Frozen Waste (18 July)

Daryl Groetsch ~ Gardens in Glass (18 July)

David Shea ~ Ana Nota Soto (Room40, 18 July)

DJ Mell G ~ Issues (Juicy Gang, 20 July)

Kevin Daniel Cahill ~ Impossible Worlds (False Walls, 21 July)

Nilotpal Das & Enesai ~ A Synonym of Dust (Brahmancore, 21 July)

Underwards ~ Delve (Earshift Music, 21 July)

Wil Bolton ~ Red to Orange, Blue to Black (Home Normal, 25 July)

Wil Bolton ~ Södermalm In Autumn (Home Normal, 25 July)

Andrew Smiley & Kate Gentile ~ Flagrances (Obliquity, 28 July)

Bear the Mammoth ~ Purple Haus (Art as Catharsis, 28 July)

El Contessa ~ Nos Habet Caramel (Bilna’es, 28 July)

Rascal Reporters ~ The Strainge Case of Steve (Cuneiform, 28 July)

Nico Less ~ Still (1 August)

Nilotpal Das & Bio Contrast ~ Harmonium I (1 August)

Sana Nagano, Leonor Falcon ~ Peach and Tomato (577 Records, 1 August)

Dustin Wong ~ Perpetual Morphosis (Hausu Mountain, 4 August)

Requiem ~ POPulist Agendas (Mutineer, 7 August)

Joe Melnicove ~ You Is You (577 Records, 9 August)

Cameron Graham ~ Becoming a Beach Angel (Phantom Limb, 25 August)

FLOCKS ~ S/T (Zehra, 25 August)

autodealer & The Corrupting Sea ~ Sonic Ablutions (Somewherecold, 1 September)

Salò ~ S/T (Kuboraum Editions, 8 September)