A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #39
An interview with Dustin Wong
Dear Listeners! Joseph here with our (bi)weekly roundup of obscure musical goodness. Last newsletter, I shared a 100-minute podcast episode featuring interviews with ten ACL contributors, a project which began for our tenth anniversary (but wasn’t completed until after our 11th). But in the time since, we’ve hit another milestone: our 600th weekly staff email! 600 weeks somehow feels a lot longer than 11 years… In the episode, Nayt mentions how much he enjoys Richard’s weekly emails, which include a list of submissions that he filters down a list of potential records for review, from the approximately 300 emails we receive each week. We receive many times more valid, interesting, and creative submissions than we could ever hope to cover. But again, as Rich relates in the episode, that’s why we keep our Upcoming Releases page up to date, for what is, in our estimation, the most complete living list of its kind.
OK, so besides the usual ever changing list of Upcoming Releases, this installment also includes a great new interview. For the selected reviews, we’ve got three records from longtime friends of the site as well as two super interesting compilations, one from Ukraine and the other focusing on artists from Kolkata and West Bengal. Next time we’ll have Andrea Belfi featured on the podcast, some more summer concert reviews, and a few other features that are likely to be published in the next fortnight. Until then, happy listening.
A Necessity for the Unexpected ~ An Interview With Dustin Wong
Our top interviewer David Murrieta-Flores returns with a fascinating conversation with Dustin Wong discussing his new record, Perpetual Morphosis, just released on Hausu Mountain.
Dustin Wong has been an important part of the guitar-based experimental music panorama since the beginning of the past decade, producing a body of work that is quietly playful, through an approach to improvisation and electronics that creates mazes of layered sounds.
ACL: I’d like to talk about the mythological aspect of your art. I think there’s a lot of intercultural and even anthropological thought in your work with Takako Minekawa, for instance, so in keeping with the theme, how has that line of thought changed across your practice, and how has it remained the same? What kinds of myths have made you think this way?
DW: Myths have always been fascinating to me, I feel like there is something of a genetic memory that we all have to these pagan beginnings, and they reflect all the beauty and flaws of humanity. We all read these stories and say, “wow, weird!” In the details it just shows complex relationships with the beings and spaces around you. Sounds are like that, in a way. When it becomes music, these beings dance together, repel from each other, come together, and so forth.
[I go back to] Medusa, Perseus and the Pegasus, and the moment of the beheading. It feels like a Rube Goldberg machine, you know, like this conflict is happening, and there is a decisive incision and out of the neck of Medusa comes this Pegasus. In Japanese mythology, Izanagi (kind of like Adam of Adam and Eve) and his wife Izanagi have a baby. Izanagi births a fire god that burns her to death; out of anger, Izanagi kills the fire god with a sword. The blood turns into about eight different new gods and the corpse itself becomes eight new gods. The animations by Bruce Bickford, [who made a short Prometheus film], get this feeling in a tactile way.
Read the entire interview here.
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.
Helios ~ Espera
Longtime Helios fans are in for a pleasant surprise, as Espera marks a return to the producer’s earlier, electronic-laced days. In opener “Fainted Fog”, the warm haze of chill-out beats sends the listener back in time to a more innocent place (or at least the image of one). Tape, piano and guitar remain faithful friends, and the entire project, whose title means wait, has a languid, unhurried feel. A lovely shift at 3:42 returns the focus to the acoustic, and for the remainder of the set the two will dance around each other and – to quote the title of the following piece – intertwine. With Espera, Keith Kenniff seems to have reached a different sort of peace as well. While the artist has returned to “A Familiar Place,” he’s also continued on his own gentle path, accompanied by his wife Hollie, who appears on “Emeralds.” When we make peace with our past, we no longer have to discard or deny it; instead, we can integrate its lessons and celebrate its beauty, as Helios has done here. While peace is not something that can be rushed, this album suggests that it can be achieved.
Lawrence English & Lea Bertucci ~ Chthonic
In 2021, Lawrence English‘s Room40 was our Label of the Year and Lea Bertucci‘s A Visible Length of Light was our #1 album. This year they’ve joined forces on American Dreams. Chthonic is a deep, dark, immersive album, its cover photo perfectly chosen to represent its tectonic theme. The music is densely layered to reflect subterranean pressure, while the largesse of the tone speaks to geologic time and perspective. English and Bertucci operate within time, yet save for the spaces between tracks, produce a sense of timelessness. The changes within these tracks are incremental, yet great distance is traversed from beginning to end. “Strata” lacks resolution because geology lacks resolution; a human looks at geology and concludes, “this happened, and then that happened.” But tectonic shifts are still – and always – in motion. There are always more strata.
Taylor Deupree ~ Eev
As much of Earth continues to endure the longest, hottest heat wave in recorded history, a cool-down release acts as a relief. Eev evokes early evening, as the sunset fades and the temperature begins to drop to a merciful level. The EP is also a reminder of the ongoing talents of two industry giants: the prolific, multi-talented Taylor Deupree and the sublime Nettwerk label. To add to the appeal, the two early singles, “Eev” and “Something That Looks Like Stars,” are available in both original and Sleep versions. The gentle twinkle of the title track, awash in bells, is enough to relax the spirit all on its own. The offering suggests nurseries, music boxes and stars, a triptych of innocence and wonder. The Sleep Version lifts the static-charged tumble cycle to the foreground, receding at the end, exposing softer bells than in the original.
Various Artists ~ Спадок
One might begin with the 297-track Massive Hutsul Sample Pack, which includes pigs, ducks, chickens, cats and dogs, car washes, rivers, waterfalls, toys, drills, bells, musical instruments and occasionally a song. These pieces, some only a second long, were recorded by Kyiv’s Gasoline Team in the Carpathians, then handed over to a host of Ukrainian musicians for incorporation and reinterpretation. The label calls it a “bridge between generations,” which is never more obvious than when a folk tune finds a 21st century setting. We’re especially happy to see some of our recent site favorites, ummsbiaus and Hanna Svirska, represented on the set. Or one might start with the war, the horrible war, the in-some-places forgotten war, as the news cycle has turned to other things. The latest updates include the russian disruption of the international food chain and the continued bombing of civilian targets. When large swaths of terrain are destroyed, heritage and history grow endangered or extinct; who knows if the areas visited by the Gasoline team are still intact, or if the musicians are still alive?
Various Artists ~ ০
The face in the album cover is rather a distorted mask, a grimace with eyes no longer organic, but loosened flesh. With bare, paradoxically frail-looking aluminum teeth, it is immersed in a gray vacuum that indicates there is no person behind, only a world that has no depth to it, all in blank. Poetically titled as an empty circle, symbolically doubling as zero, this compilation by Biswa Bangla Noise, exploring mostly emerging experimental artists from Kolkata and West Bengal, presents a musical current of defaced noise. That the sole black metal musician included in the mix throws us the most abrasively “conventional” track in the entire album should be of note: the kind of high-intensity electronic warfare associated with the genre is here subverted, sublimated from an infinitely profound abyss into an ungraspable surface, extending anxiously forever.
UPCOMING RELEASES
(complete list with Bandcamp links here)
Congratulations, Planet Earth! So far in 2023 we’ve celebrated the hottest two days in recorded history, followed by the hottest July! The water temperature hit 100F in Miami, while cacti were dying in Phoenix. When one is forced to endure such heat, there’s little relief in sight, save for some cool music, which we have in abundance. New previews are added to this page daily; we hope you will find your next favorite album right here!
Forces ~ Chimæras (mappa, 10 August)
Anthony Wilson ~ Collodion (Colorfield, 11 August)
bunsenburner ~ Rituals (11 August)
Din of Celestial Birds ~ The Night Is for Dreamers (A Thousand Arms/A Cheery Wave Records, 11 August)
Ember ~ August in March (Imani, 11 August)
Helios ~ Espera (Ghostly International, 11 August)
The Inventors of Aircraft ~ Waiting for Something to Break (Whitelabrecs, 12 August)
Jenny Beck ~ Up to the Surface (New Focus, 11 August)
Lawrence English & Lea Bertucci ~ Chthonic (American Dreams, 11 August)
Morten Georg Gismervik ~ Dunes at Night (Huber, 11 August)
Sævar Jóhannsson ~ Where the Light Enters (Whitelabrecs, 12 August)
Alphaxone & Dronny Darko ~ Beyond the Event Horizon (Cryo Chamber, 15 August)
Paul Dunmall ~ New Quartet: World Without (577 Records, 15 August)
Sova Stroj ~ Traveling Waves II (Elan Vital, 15 August)
Mute Frequencies ~ Svalbard Soundtracks (Flaming Pines, 17 August)
Alexandre Bazin ~ Innervision (Umor Rex, 18 August)
Andrew Hearth & Anne Chris Bakker ~ Sollia (Polar Seas, 18 August)
Cameron Graham ~ Becoming a Beach Angel (Phantom Limb, 18 August)
Guitarmy of One ~ The Wave Files (18 August)
Honest John ~ Sweet Travels (18 August)
IKSRE & anthene ~ Seasons Shifting (Polar Seas, 18 August)
Jeannine Schulz ~ Pure (Polar Seas, 18 August)
Jeff Tobias ~ Music from Milky Way Underground (Gold Bolus, 18 August)
Jet Jaguar ~ Epiphytes (sound as language, 18 August)
Josh Mason ~ An Anxious Host (Students of Decay, 18 August)
Kim Moore ~ A Song We Destroy to Spin Again (Blackford Hill, 18 August)
McKenzie Stubbert ~ Waiting Room (Curious Music, 18 August)
Reformat ~ Precursed (Fearbone, 18 August)
Starving Weirdos ~ Atheistsaregods (Discrepant, 18 August)
Hali Palombo ~ Radio & My Voice (20 August)
Babe, Terror ~ Teghnojoyg (23 August)
Adam Lion ~ Gilgul (cmntx, 25 August)
Awadagin Pratt ~ STILLPOINT (New Amsterdam, 25 August)
Chantal Michelle ~ 66 Rue L (Warm Winters Ltd., 25 August)
Euglossine ~ Bug Planet Is the Current Timeline (Hausu Mountain, 25 August)
FLOCKS ~ S/T (Zehra, 25 August)
Kane Loggia Hypothesis ~ Ventilation (25 August)
Ki Oni ~ A Leisurely Swim to Everlasting Life (AKP Recordings, 25 August)
Mad Myth Science ~ S/T (Infrequent Seams, 25 August)
Rampue ~ Bubblebath Trance (A Tribe Called Kotori, 25 August)
Scott Clark ~ Dawn & Dusk (Out of Your Head, 25 August)
Tarotplane ~ Murmuration (npm, 25 August)
Tent Music ~ S/T (Whited Sepulchre, 25 August)
Tjade ~ Les Hautes EP (Polari, 25 August)
Mark Sanders, Chris Mapp, Andrew Woodhead ~ CollapseUncollapse: TIME IN IMAGES (577 Records, 31 August)
Arrowounds ~ The Slow Boiling Amphibian Dreamstate (Lost Tribe Sound, 1 September)
autodealer & The Corrupting Sea ~ Sonic Ablutions (Somewherecold, 1 September)
The Color of Cyan ~ Egress (1 September)
Enclosed & Silent Order ~ Entrainment (Hypostatic Union, 1 September)
Joshua Marquez ~ Recycled Sounds (1 September)
Lisa Lerkenfeldt ~ Shell of a City (Room40, 1 September)
Natasha Barrett ~ Reconfiguring the Landscape (Persistence of Sound, 1 September)
Opal X ~ Environments (Brachliegen Tapes, 1 September)
S A R R A M ~ Pàthei Màthos (Subsound, 1 September)
Tom White ~ Medina Vibrations (Brachliegen Tapes, 1 September)
Miguel A. Garcia ~ Eraginie (Cronica, 5 September)
Gonubie ~ Signals at Both Ears (Metron Records, 6 September)
RRUCCULLA ~ Zeru/Freq (Lapsus, 7 September)
Alabaster DePlume ~ Come With Fierce Grace (International Anthem, 8 September)
Alan Courtis & David Grubbs ~ Braintrust of Fiends & Werewolves (husky pants, 8 September)
Annea Lockwood ~ Glass World (Room40, 8 September)
Channelers ~ Generation/Harvest (Inner Islands, 8 September)
Golden Brown ~ Wide Ranging Rider (Inner Islands, 8 September)
Lapsus ~ Absent Friends Vol. III (Balmat, 8 September)
Matthew Halsall ~ An Ever Changing View (Gondwana, 8 September)
Monopoly Child Star Searchers ~ Barbados Wild Horses (Discrepant, 8 September)
Pauline Hogstrand ~ Áhkká (Warm Winters Ltd., 8 September)
Phase4our ~ Coordinates EP (Machine Records, 8 September)
Salò ~ S/T (Kuboraum Editions, 8 September)
Samuel Adams ~ Current (Other Minds, 8 September)
SATØRI ~ The Woods (Cold Spring, 8 September)
Sawyer G ~ It’ll Be Gone For a Little While (Inner Islands, 8 September)
Siema Ziemia ~ Second (Byrd Out, 8 September)
SPIME.IM ~ Grey Line (~OUS, 8 September)
Veil ~ A Circle in Stone (Other Facts, 8 September)
Pulse Mandala & Distant Fires Burning ~ R Abacus Lndr (Audiobulb, 9 September)
V/A ~ Longform Visions for Earminded People (Futura Resistenza, 11 September)
LANZ & Kris Allen ~ Ballard (Brassland, 12 September)
Swami Lateplate ~ Doom Jazz II (Subsound, 14 September)
Akira Kosemura ~ Rudy OST (Schole, 15 September)
Anthony Davis / Kyle Motl / Kjell Norteson ~ Vertical Motion (Astral Spirits, 15 September)
Async Figure ~ It’s Pulling My Strings (Sea Cucumber, 15 September)
Atte Elias Kantonen ~ a path with no name (Students of Decay, 15 September)
Don Kapot ~ I Love Tempo (W.E.R.F., 15 September)
Elephantine ~ Moonshine (Northern Spy, 15 September)
E-Talking ~ The Cosmic Egg (Love on the Rocks, 15 September)
Haralabos [Harry] Stafylarkis ~ Calibrating Fiction (New Amsterdam, 15 September)
J Forester / N Kramer ~ Habitat II (Leaving, 15 September)
John Butcher, Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, Steve Noble ~ Fathom (577 Records, 15 September)
Kaya North ~ Myths (Lost Tribe Sound, 15 September)
Keope ~ Flikka Flokka (Bigamo, 15 September)
Lusine ~ Long Light (Ghostly International, 15 September)
Pathos Trio ~ Polarity (Imaginary Animals, 15 September)
PCM ~ Dreamland (n5MD, 15 September)
Piotr Kurek ~ Smartwoods (Unsounds, 15 September)
Tenniscoats ~ Tasmania Bootleg (Room40, 15 September)
Tomas Fujiwara ~ Pith (Out Of Your Head, 15 September)
Buildings and Food ~ Infinity Plus One (22 September)
D’luna ~ Child of Time and Earth (22 September)
Drawing Virtual Gardens ~ 22:22 (Lost Tribe Sound, 22 September)
Droneroom ~ The Best of My Love (Somewherecold, 22 September)
Eduardo Ella ~ Una Pregunta, Tres Respuestas (577 Records, 22 September)
Helena Hauff ~ fabric presents Helena Hauff (fabric, 22 September)
Hidden Orchestra ~ To Dream is to Forget (Lone Figures, 22 September)
MrDougDoug ~ SOS Forks A REM II (Hausu Mountain, 22 September)
Mukqs ~ Stonewasher (Hausu Mountain, 22 September)
Spurv ~ Brefjære (Pelagic, 22 September)
Stereo Minus One ~ Everything Is So Beautiful, I Need to Lie Down (Machine Records, 22 September)
WaqWaq Kingdom ~ Hot Pot Totto (Phantom Limb, 22 September)
zeitkratzer – Reinhold Friedl ~ Scarlatti (Karlrecords, 22 September)
Weston Olenki / Anna Webber ~ Several (Astral Spirits, 22 September)
Jessica Ackerley, Yuma Uesaka, Colin Hinton ~ Petting Zoo (Waveform Alphabet, 23 September)
Anna Papij ~ Always Beautiful (29 September)
Christopher Tignor ~ The Art of Surrender (Western Vinyl, 29 September)
Dasha Rush ~ Contemplating (raster, 29 September)
Equipment Pointed Ankh ~ Downtown! (Torn Light, 29 September)
Eric Nachtrab ~ Bastard Ideals (Spiritual Slop, 29 September)
Garreth Broke ~ Conversations (1631 Recordings, 29 September)
Hearsay ~ Glossolalia (Amalgam, 29 September)
Jlin ~ Perspective (Planet Mu, 29 September)
Kenneth Jimenez, Michaël Attias, Francisco Mela ~ Caribú (577 Records, 29 September)
Kilometre Club ~ How to Unravel (We Are Busy Bodies, 29 September)
Metro Riders ~ Lost in Reality (Possible Motive, 29 September)
Nick Dunston ~ Skultura (Fun in the Church, 29 September)
Odalie ~ Puissante Vulnérabilité (Mesh, 29 September)
Oman Breaker ~ Compromat (BITE, 29 September)
Richard Sears ~ Appear to Fade (figureight, 29 September)
Rumpistol ~ Going Inside (Raske Plater, 29 September)
Scott Scholz ~ Whip Sigils (No Part of It, 1 October)
Daniel Villarreal ~ Lados B (International Anthem, 3 October)
Heikki Ruokangas ~ Karu (Orbit577, 3 October)
Kate Ellis & Ed Bennett ~ Strange Waves (Ergodos, 3 October)
Claire Deak ~ Sotto Voice (Lost Tribe Sound, 6 October)
David August ~ VĪS (99CHANTS, 6 October)
Hania Rani ~ Ghosts (Gondwana, 6 October)
Jessica Pavone ~ Clamor (Out of Your Head, 6 October)
John Ghost ~ Thin Air . Mirror Land (Sdban, 6 October)
Jordan Martins ~ Fogery Nagles (Astral Spirits,, 6 October)
Lavelle ~ Contemporary DJ’s from the Past (Somewherecold, 6 October)
Leo Takami ~ Next Door (Unseen Worlds, 6 October)
Up High Collective ~ Koinonia (San-kofa Rhythms, 9 October)
Everything Falls Apart ~ S/T (Totalism, 13 October)
From the Mouth of the Sun ~ Valley of the Hummingbirds (Lost Tribe Sound, 13 October)
Nicole Mitchell & Alexander Hawkins ~ At Earth School (Astral Spirits, 13 October)
Bex Burch ~ There Is Only Love and Fear (International Anthem, 20 October)
Triola ~ Scapegoat (Constructive, 20 October)
Monocot ~ Leave to Cool (Astral Editions, 22 October)
Michael Peter Olsen ~ Narrative of a Nervous System (Hand Drawn Dracula, 27 October)
Thomas Vanz ~ Colors of Invisible (Mesh, 27 October)