A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #46
Fatboi Sharif, The Names of Minimalism, and Recent Reviews
Hello, Dear Listeners, it’s Joseph again. Now that it’s mid-November, we’re well into planning our End of Year features, which means we have a limited number of weeks to post remaining 2023 content. As usual I’m scrambling to finish up some reviews before then, including Armand Hammer’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, which I’ve been listening to obsessively since it came out in late September. I’ve also got a feature on 2023’s AKOUSMA festival, including an interview with Aho Ssan and some quotes from other performers as well. I may even slip in a podcast featuring AGF, discussing her new record Poemproducer, if I can finish editing the episode in time. Plus plenty of great material from all my colleagues as well, and then END OF YEAR season is upon us.
But there’s always so much more to write about than I have time for. One artist I haven’t had time to write about this year is Fatboi Sharif, so I thought I’d remedy that here in this newsletter. You might have heard Sharif feature on a number of higher profile releases in 2022, including billy woods’ Aethiopes, Moor Mother’s Jazz Codes, or one of the guest vocalists on The Bug’s Absent Riddim. He’s only picked up the pace in 2023, and from the sounds of it we’ve got much more coming from him soon. billy woods’ Backwoodz Studioz started the year with High Bias, a label sampler to whet our appetites for the many great projects they’ve had in the works. That tape included “Carousel” by Fatboi Sharif produced by Steel Tipped Dove, hinting that their long awaited collaboration would finally be released this year. And so it was.
Back in June, Sharif released the excellent Decay, produced entirely by Steel Tipped Dove. Dove’s beats have an incredible amount of range, often incorporating samples drawing on traditional rock instrumentation, but somehow his personality always shines though. Sharif is just as versatile, with an even bigger personality, so the combination makes for his most surprising project yet. At 17 tracks, it’s also Sharif’s longest record, and includes no guest features. It’s all just Sharif over Dove’s production. The instrumental “(interlude)” on track 7 makes for a breaking point that leads me to hear the record in three acts, with the final act beginning with track 13, “The Christening.” While many reviewers make the “horrorcore” comparison, due to Sharif’s penchant for movie references and the general apocalyptic vibe of much of his music, there’s a humor to Sharif’s work that balances the darker aspects. We don’t often cover music where lyrics are so central, but I suspect Decay will be of interest to many of our readers.
Sharif first came on my radar due to our friend GENG PTP, and I’ve been following his career closely since the release of Gandhi Loves Children (produced by Roper Williams) in 2021. All of Sharif’s records since then have been single-producer projects, so each has a distinct identity, showcasing different facets of Sharif’s style. With each new release he’s pushed his voice in new directions, and has increasingly relied on parallel vocal tracks, rather than adlibs, giving him a distinct sound. Sometimes this amount to him screaming from another room, while other times the vocal track will feature a delivery in a lower or higher register than used on the main vocal track, but there are almost always multiple Sharifs layered in the mix.
Sharif’s most recent project is Insomniac Missile Launcher, a collab with Bigg Jus (of ‘90s underground legends Company Flow), a psychedelic horror-inflected work which was fittingly released on Halloween. All four songs were produced by Jus under the name JUSTOLEUM KINGSPITTER, demonstrating that El-P isn’t the only CoFlo member who is as nice on the production as he is on the mic. Jus also appeared on King Vision Ultra’s Shook World earlier this year (my review here), and more recently dropped the single “War Teacha” as Nephlim Modulation Systems, his duo with Orko Elohiem, in advance of their first new LP in 18 years.
The Jersey-based rapper has collaborated with so many of the most interesting hip hop artists in the Tri-State, and working with Jus further solidifies his place in history. Released on PTP, 2022’s Preaching in Havana, produced by NOFACE and sonically finessed by labelhead GENG, is a short tape but one that’s easy to keep playing on a loop. All those dense sonic layers and vocal tracks means there’s always something else to focus on and reveal with repeat listens. I mentioned it in my 2022 end of year list for those paying attention, and NOFACE’s production style is the most atypical of any of the projects I’ve mentioned here, all texture and mood. Sharif has also worked with producer LoneSword on 2022’s Cyber City Society, a very different take on apocalyptic paranoia, drawing inspiration from cyberpunk rather than horror. LoneSword also raps under the name Lungs, and is part of AKAI SOLO’s loose Tase Grip collective, which also includes phiik, Amani, iblss, Wavy Bagels, and many other great MCs and producers, including Roper Williams.
Despite all these excellent records, all of which I return to frequently, my favorite Sharif projects are his collabs with Roper. Gandhi Loves Children is still the record I return to most often, with many of the most memorable and accessible tracks, probably the best place to start if you haven’t encountered Sharif yet. Roper and Sharif released a short EP at the start of the year, Planet Unfaithful, with features from ELUCID and Bruiser Wolf, but my current favorite Sharif verse somes from Roper William’s just released solo debut, Infinite Victory Loops. That record features contributions from four MCS they’ve worked with the most: YL, AKAI, Pootie, and Sharif. “Hooptie,” the eighth and final track, features YL, Pootie, and Sharif, and even following two entirely distinct verses, just listen to how Sharif drops in and steals the show around 1:25, with a flow all his own.
SOUND PROPOSITIONS PODCAST
Back in ACL weekly #34 I mentioned I’d interview my friend Patrick Nickleson, discussing his new book, The Names of Minimalism: Authorship, Art Music, and Historiography in Dispute. Patrick was in Montreal for a book launch at Librairie Résonance, celebrating both his book and Aural Poetics, a collection he contributed to, edited by Michael Nardone. I had aimed to have this episode up in early October, but my trip to Europe delayed production until now.
Episode 32: INDISCREET MUSIC – with Patrick Nickleson
Patrick Nickleson is the author of The Names of Minimalism: Authorship, Art, Music, and Historiography in Dispute, an academic study that radically reconsiders the origins and boundaries of musical minimalism. Uninterested in searching for the earliest work of musical minimalism, or even in doing the admittedly necessary work of expanding the canon to include lesser known but equally important figures, Nickleson instead underscores a different set of shared traits that he sees in (early) minimalism: the importance of collective authorship, often collaborating in a form of “bandness”; the priority of recording to tape over written scores; and distinguishing between “(early) minimalism” and the later canonization of Minimalism as we know it since the early 1980s. In addition to the book, we discuss searching for obscure records online, our shared love of Constellation Records, and the influence of Tony Conrad.
Listen over on Soundcloud, or even better, subscribe for free over at any of the podplaces (you know, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, Stitcher, Radio Public, etc, or be like me and download the free RSS Radio app). Just search for “Sound Propositions.”
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.
Aki Onda ~ Transmissions From The Radio Midnight
After acquiring a portable tape recorder with a built-in radio in 2006, Aki Onda’s cassette memory archive gained a new category. Thereafter he made a ritual of listening to the radio late at night whenever he was traveling, capturing interesting moments on tape, especially those where he was able to receive multiple signals simultaneously. Transmissions From The Radio Midnight consists of two compositions, straightforwardly “Part I” and “Part II,” drawn from Onda’s favorite selections from this archive. As with his Cassette Memory series, Onda waited until he had amassed a wide enough collection, and gained some distance, before selecting his favorite moments and collaging them together. Absent any signal processing, manipulation, or layering, the cadence of voices in different languages blend with static and noise, what Onda aptly describes as “something akin to sound poetry.”
Eðvarð Egilsson and Páll Ragnar Pálsson ~ Skjálfti
Scoring for film means accepting certain limitations, the largest of which is the need to compose tracks that fit into small sonic spaces. After composing the score for the Icelandic film Skjálfti, Eðvarð Egilsson and Páll Ragnar Pálsson chose to revisit the music and expand it into a standalone album. The results may surprise those familiar with Pálsson’s earlier Sono Luminus album Atonement, as the music here is far more accessible, although similarly dramatic; those who have followed Eglisson’s scoring work may be less surprised, but similarly pleased. Freed from the constraints of cinema, the composers are allowed to write their own ending. The sedate “Systur” (“Sisters”) is like a reconciliation, although the tone soon turns sadder. Electronic beats offer a modicum of movement, a hint of hope, bursting into bloom in the finale. In a movie, “Klambratún” would normally be playing over the credits, but here it is the end of the story, and what a glorious ending it turns out to be. All the instruments come out to play, genres intertwine, and we imagine a family standing strong and true, having survived the storm.
Guentner | Spieth ~ Overlay
Fans of Kompakt’s long-running Pop Ambient series will recognize the names Markus Guentner and Joachim Spieth. Between them, the two veterans of ambient and house music have appeared on more than half of the PA albums since they first began back in 2001, with Spieth providing the opening track, “You Don’t Fool Me,” to get the whole thing started. The 2022 PA release saw Guentner and Spieth collaborate for the first time on the beatless, looming, crepuscular track, “Kari.” Now the two artists come together again to embark on a series of collaborations with their first full-length album, Overlay, released on Spieth’s Affin label. Oozing with narcotized and eroticized romantic impulses, Overlay feels like a living revenant from a voluptuous dream. One hopes that Guentner and Spieth’s new series will give Pop Ambient a run for its money. In the meantime, play this one loud and feel it on your skin.
Islaja ~ Angel Tape
They say that when a loved one passes away the first thing to fade away is their voice. Something that once was familiar, available and comforting has now become a fleeting memory, a decaying sound, just as sound is always fleeting, decaying. Making recordings is our effort to memorise, make immortal, share and with the passing of time distort, control and own. Islaja’s new release delves in the debris and the decaying memory of a tape, originally from Kansas City, that in the mid-80’s found its way to the Finish religious circles and her mother’s tape player. Called the “angel tape”, the tape was widely bootlegged to serve as many members of the community as possible in order to experience the voices of actual angels singing. Behind, the “angel tape”, lies our wonder to believe that these voices existed and continue to exist and we can find comfort in them so that these mysterious and otherworldly voices are not lost.
Various Artists ~ Relatives Schoensein 2
Relative Schoensein 2 is a beautiful sequel with a philosophical backdrop. The collection asks the question, “Are advertisements information or manipulation?” The answer, of course, is both. But if the answer from Adventurous Music is said to lean in one direction, it is toward the latter, as evidenced in some of the track titles: “Brainwash,” “You Want Things That Tell You Exactly What You Really Are,” “There Are No Gods, Only Commerce,” “Deceptive Tactics,” “Beggars Can’t Be Choosers But Entitled Consumers Can Be.” Advertisements have their own intrinsic appeal, often separate from the goal of selling the product; but there is no secret to the fact that they are manipulative. Sex is used to sell everything from cars to beauty products; children are “groomed” by cartoon characters on adult products; phrases such as “You have to have it” and “You deserve it” are bandied about with aplomb. Advertisements sell not only products, but dreams, and the swift rush of serotonin that arrives at the moment of purchase may or may not be matched by the experience of the actual product.
Various Artists ~ Ukrainian Field Notes
Gianmarco Del Re‘s Ukrainian Field Notes began as a series of articles on our website, and then it became a 567-page book, and now, thanks to система|system, it’s an incredible 86-track album! We are extremely proud of what Gianmarco has done, recording the real-time reactions of musicians to war. The book came out beautifully, and is packed with photographs, a historic document of a harrowing situation, filled with every emotion that one can imagine, but landing – like the wider populace of Ukraine – on resilience. Techno, metal, synthwave, ambient, drone, field recording, dub & noise: all are represented here, and more. Every corner of the scene continues to fight, and in many cases thrive, under the worst possible conditions. Don’t listen to Ukrainian Field Notes as a regular compilation; listen to it as a cry of the creative spirit and an expression of grace under fire.
UPCOMING RELEASES
(complete list with Bandcamp links here)
We’re in mid-November, and year-end lists are right around the corner. Labels and artists are already submitting albums with release dates of 2024. Late-year releases are often lost in the shuffle, which is why we have gathered them here for your listening pleasure. This is the most music we’ve ever seen on a November slate, stretching into early December. There’s something for every taste! New previews are added to this page daily; we hope you’ll find your next favorite album right here!
Olivia Louvel ~ DoggerLANDscape (15 November)
ZÖJ ~ Fil O Fenjoon (Parenthèses, 15 November)
Driftmachine/Komodo Kolektif ~ The Encyclopedia of Civilizations Vol. 5: Babylon (Abstraksce, 16 November)
Ali di Fuoco ~ Sonic Mystics for Poems (of Life and Death of a Phoenix) (17 November)
Andreas Gerth and Carl Oesterhelt ~ Music for Unknown Rituals (Umor Rex, 17 November)
Anenon ~ Moons Melt Milk Light (Tonal Union, 17 November)
Arrowounds ~ The Honeycomb Labyrinth (Lost Tribe Sound, 17 November)
Bassoon ~ Succumbent (Nefarious Industries, 17 November)
Beifer ~ Constant Transition (tunnel.visions, 17 November)
Boris Rogowski ~ A Waste Land Companion (Piano and Coffee Records, 17 November)
Cécile Seraud ~ XAOS (17 November)
Cindytalk ~ When the Moon Is a Thread (LINE, 17 November)
CoLD SToRAGE ~ wipE’out” – The Zero Gravity Soundtrack (17 November)
Colin Webster / Dirk Serries ~ Earthworks (Raw Tonk, 17 November)
Daniel Bachman ~ When the Roses Come Again (Three Lobed Recordings, 17 November)
Danny Daze ~ :BLUE: (Omnidisc, 17 November)
Dead Cosmonauts ~ Parasomnia (Trepanation / Do It Thissen, 17 November)
Drazek / Fuscaldo / Drake / Aoki / Jones / Abrams ~ June 22 (Astral Spirits / Feeding Tube, 17 November)
Eddie Prevost et al ~ The Secret Handshake with Danger, Vol. 2 (577 Records, 17 November)
E/I ~ extension/immersion (Instant Classic, 17 November)
enchanted forest ~ Semele’s Tryst (Jolt Music, 17 November)
Fabio Perletta ~ Nessun Legame con la Polvere (Room40, 17 November)
Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy ~ Near Rudiment Candidates For Snare Drum (Dinzu Artefacts, 17 November)
Joshua Van Tassel ~ The Recently Beautiful (Backward Music, 17 November)
Kate Carr ~ A Field Guide to Phantasmic Birds (Room40, 17 November)
lu ~ Barking at Trees (Between Fields, 17 November)
Nick Joliat ~ Casio Music 2 (people | places | records, 17 November)
Nico Matti-Ahti ~ Looking for a Ruler (Dinzu Artefacts, 17 November)
PRGRPHS ~ Light Refracts, Flickers Back (17 November)
Richard Hronský ~ CLOSURES (Warm Winters Ltd., 17 November)
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe/Lichens ~ Grasshopper Republic (Invada, 17 November)
salad ~ Riverside Ishiyama (Dinzu Artefacts, 17 November)
secret places of the lion ~ Hex (17 November)
Shipwreck Karpathos ~ Being Human (A Thousand Arms / dunk!, 17 November)
Simonel ~ Colmena (LINE, 17 November)
Spencer Zahn ~ Statues II (Cascine, 17 November)
The Telescopes ~ Experimental Health (Cold Spring, 17 November)
Vic Mars ~ The Beacons (Clay Pipe Music, 17 November)
respectfulchild ~ 更新 re:new (18 November)
Novas Trio ~ Time Choir (20 November)
Gianmaria Aprile ~ Losing your bearings in the middle of the day (Torto, 22 November)
Inturist ~ Off-Season (Incompetence, 23 November)
Adam Coney ~ Ashwin & Above (Trestle, 24 November)
Corrado Maria De Santis ~ Over a Long Time (Lost Tribe Sound, 24 November)
Diaspora Unit ~ Hiraeth (Filigran, 24 November)
Diogo Carriço ~ Silhouette Nekropolis (24 November)
Dylan Hammer ~ Città Impercettibili (OOH-sounds, 24 November)
Grand River & Sofie Birch ~ Our Circadian EP (Melatonia, 24 November)
Hand to Earth ~ Mokuy (Room40, 24 November)
Kirk Barley ~ Marionette (Odda Recordings, 24 November)
Liz Helman ~ The Colour of Water (Flaming Pines, 24 November)
Look to the North ~ A Shadow Homeland (Cruel Nature, 24 November)
Massimiliano Cerioni ~ Inner Landscape (Elli, 24 November)
Mikael Tobias ~ As Breath (24 November)
Mister Water Wet ~ Cold Clay from the Middle West (Students of Decay, 24 November)
Mount Maxwell ~ Littlefolk (We Are Busy Bodies, 24 November)
Nicolas Bernier ~ Structures et formes d’ondes (Label Formes-Ondes, 24 November)
Nonconnah ~ Shadows from the Walls of Death (Cruel Nature, 24 November)
Phil Struck ~ Der Ferne (Mondoj, 24 November)
Poltrock ~ Aulus I & II (Whitelabrecs, 24 November)
Richie Culver ~ Scream If You Don’t Exist (Participant, 24 November)
Silent Servant ~ In Memorium (Tresor, 24 November)
Sonologyst ~ Shortwave Spectrum (Cold Spring, 24 November)
Sun Electric ~ Live at Votivkirche Wien (Arjunamusic, 24 November)
V/A ~ Common Ground vol.3 (Safe Ground, 24 November)
Acasta Gneiss ~ Glimmer (Anterior Insula, 26 November)
Katrina Niebergal & Bergur Anderson ~ come, Memory: fieldwork (Futura Resistenza, 28 November)
General Magic ~ Nein Aber Ja (GOTO, 30 November)
MOORIS ~ I (Holuzam, 30 November)
Toada ~ Slow-Paced Tangents (Pluma, 30 November)
Dellarge ~ INRI (Industria Nacional del Ruido Infinito) (Modern Obscure Music, 1 December)
Ensemble 1 ~ Delay Works (Halfmeltedbrain, 1 December)
Ghost Marrow ~ earth + death (The Garrote, 1 December)
GiGi FM ~ Kiwi Synthesis Diary Vol.2 (Sea~rène, 1 December)
Hochzeitskapelle + Japanese Friends ~ The Orchestra in the Sky (Alien Transistor, 1 December)
Jim Perkins ~ Imprints (Bigo & Twigetti, 1 December)
Joshua Marquez ~ Dirt (1 December)
JWPaton ~ Structures (Room40, 1 December)
Lavatone ~ Lunar Mining and Excavation (Lost Tribe Sound, 1 December)
Lea Bertucci ~ Of Shadow and Substance (Cibachrome Editions, 1 December)
Meitei ~ Kofū III / 古風 II (Kitchen, 1 December)
ni ~ Fol Naïs (Dur et Doux, 1 December)
R.A. Sánchez ~ L’Ottava Sfera (Lost Tribe Sound, 1 December)
Robert Honstein ~ The Real Charlie Chaplin (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1 December)
Roedelius &Arnold Kasar ~ Zensibility (7K!, 1 December)
Ryan Pollie Quartet ~ S/T (Perpetual Doom, 1 December)
Samu Hietainen ~ Withered Flowers (1 December)
Serpente ~ Cosmos (Discrepant, 1 December)
Sons of New Soma ~ Fluxus 2071 (Tonzonen, 1 December)
Various Artists ~ 20 Years of Phonica (Phonica, 1 December)
Various Artists ~ WIGS001 (Wigs, 1 December)
Xqui ~ melting ice with ice (1 December)
Christian Kobe ~ Aare (Cubus, 3 December)
Henrik Meierkord & Ni! ~ Ekosystem (Ambientologist, 5 December)
December ~ Transform Part 2, An Accident in Favor of Human Life (Tresor, 8 December)
Emil Friis & Patricio Fraile ~ The Expected Sounds of Minor Music (Fatcat/130701, 8 December)
Gentle Stranger ~ Inner Winter (PRAH, 8 December)
Infant ~ sigla, sone (Warm Winters Ltd., 8 December)
øjeRum ~ Your Soft Absence (Room40, 15 December)
Scott Twynholm ~ Orbits (Bigo & Twigetti, 15 December)
Ben Richter ~ Aurogeny (Infrequent Seams, 22 December)
Trem 77 ~ Vivid Vibration EP (1 January)
Hourloupe ~ Opera of the War (12 January)
thanks for your work and the nice review for Overlay!