A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #55
Back to basics
Dear Listeners, Joseph here for the latest regular newsletter compiling the best of ACL. This installment is straight-up reviews and upcoming releases. Gianmarco’s latest Ukrainian Field Notes podcast just aired on Resonance FM earlier today, and will be on the blog soon, as will the next episode of Sound Propositions, featuring AGF discussing her latest album, poemproducer, the twentieth anniversary of her breakthrough album Westernization Completed, and much more. But that’ll be in the next newsletter. This time, we’ve got reviews from some returning favorites including Clint Mansell (The Fountain is so underrated), Four Tet, Jlin, and more, and our Upcoming Releases list is starting to grow as the schedule begins to pick up. Next week should see a new installment of Out of the Box, and well as the transcript from my interview with Aho SSan from last year, for paid subscribers. Until then, happy listening.
Reviews are at the heart of ACL. Here are selections from a few of my favorite reviews we posted on the blog in the last few weeks.
Clint Mansell ~ Love Lies Bleeding (Original Score)
Clint Mansell‘s prior film work has marked him as one of the greats. He’s been responsible not only for memorable themes, but standalone works such as Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Moon, and Black Swan. Love Lies Bleeding demonstrates his diversity, as the timbre shifts to pulp-inflected, 80s synth. The last such score to win us over was Disasterpeace’s It Follows a decade ago. While none of Mansell’s music is included in the trailer, Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” (1984) is a worthy teaser. The score is propulsive, pulsing with an unrelenting energy. But before it erupts, it lurks, another nod to It Follows. Opening track “Louville” sets the stage with electronic atmospheres before turning into a workout. Mansell is joined by Paris Hurley, performing as Object As Subject, on lyric-free vocalizations. Every time the track slows or grows leaner, one suspects that it is coiling, in the same way as violence seems always ready to erupt in the trailer.
Filax Staël ~ Traces
There’s a lot to unpack in Traces ~ literally and figuratively. The initial rush of wonder occurred when opening the package at work. My colleagues gathered around, all curious about what this thing was: a 10″ record, a large 52-page zine of collage art, an even larger poster and other ephemera ~ a rare collection in the digital age. Even before playing a note, they were fascinated and I was excited. The music induces a fake memory: nostalgia for the late nights of the black and white era, when one could flip through the TV channels late at night and find all manner of haunted tale and tortured narration. We recognize this as misremembrance, because there weren’t many TV stations back then, and those that existed went off the air early. Imagine a radio dial caught in a radioactive storm, broadcasting snippets from long-dead musicians, traveling through space and time, conflating past and present. Filax Staël (Bas Mantel) has been collecting these snippets for years, folding them into mini-compositions. When Simon Taylor writes, “How do we read sound?”, we respond with images of our own. A review is a form of translation. So too are the printed art and videos that accompany these 24 short tracks: abstract impressions that leave the mind free to wander, to draw their own associations. DJ Spooky is quoted in the magazine: “The world is a very, very, very big record. We just have to learn how to play it.”
Four Tet ~ Three
Would it be weird to say “welcome back” to Kieren Hebden, otherwise known as Four Tet? After DJing in front of 100,000 fans at Coachella and Madison Square Garden along with Skrillex and Fred Again.., poking his head well into the mainstream world, the artist has returned to his indie roots; or perhaps he never left, and was just having the fun that he deserves. We’re old enough to remember that Hebden was an integral part of Fridge, so we know that Three is not his third album; his career is now thirty years young, including twenty solo years. Four years have passed since Sixteen Oceans, which includes the sublime, flute-centric “Teenage Birdsong.” … We’ll go ahead and say it, even though this may be the only album we’ve ever reviewed that was simultaneously reviewed by GQ. Welcome back, Kieren!
Jlin ~ Akoma
Jlin’s music is primarily electronic, but shares attributes with modern composition. On Akoma, her stellar collaborators include Björk, Kronos Quartet and Philip Glass, demonstrating the range of her influences. The collaborations are complimentary, no artist ever subsumed by another. Björk may be audible in “Borealis,” but not overwhelming; she comes across as a kindred spirit. The loops of “Sodalite (ft. Kronos Quartet)” skip like stones, swift strings transmuted into percussion. And “The Precision of Infinity (ft. Philip Glass),” which closes the album, mingles rapid-fire piano and rapid-fire drums, a seeming collision that instead becomes a lattice. The mid-piece whistles wink at the disco era, while the shout-out of the closing seconds is reminiscent of a DJ radio show, echoing an earlier appearance on “Speed of Darkness” and echoes in “Open Canvas” and “Auset.”
Kinbrae ~ Cryptophasia
Cryptophasia is a language shared by twins that only they can understand. On the new album of the same name, twin brothers Andy & Mike Truscott (popularly known as Kinbrae) use music to reflect their decades-long relationship. This is the first full-length LP from Kinbrae since Birl of Unmap, their 2022 collaboration with Clare Archibald; their sound has grown subtler, but the beauty remains intact. The album tells a chronological story, beginning with “Vermiculation” (another great vocabulary word) and “Language Development.” The brothers have listed struggles, individual and collective, and there is some melancholy to be gleaned here, but the primary tone is triumphant. For this we can credit the brass, ever present in the background yet occasionally surging to the fore. We have the benefit of knowing that the brothers’ introspection eventually produced this album, so of course it’s triumphant; the very existence of the copper-colored LP implies a happy ending to the current chapter of their lives.
Various Artists ~ Meteorologia
Meteorologia is “not exactly a field recordings compilation,” states Portugal’s sirr-ecords, but field recordings are its raison d’être. The album is awash in meteorological phenomena, with multiple weather systems threaded through its grooves. Inspired by a famous quote from W.B. Sebald (“Meteorology is not superfluous to the story. Don’t have an aversion to noticing the weather”), the album makes connections between mutable weather and mutable timbre, first explored in the waves and shifting directions of Tiago Sousa’s “swirling wind and thin dust,” a 13-minute piano piece that contains no field recordings but connotes sparkle, orbit and tide.
UPCOMING RELEASES
(complete list with Bandcamp links here)
We have finally stumbled across the precipice of spring. As the birds return from their winter homes, they bear on their backs a brand new crop of music. (Where did you think new music came from?) What begins as a series of shoots will eventually become a garden symphony. We’re very excited about the new arrivals, as recently highlighted in our Spring Music Preview. New previews are added to this page daily; we hope that you will find your next favorite album right here!
Liberski/Yoshida ~ Troubled Water (Totalism, 21 March)
Tewksbury ~ Floes: Volumes 1-4 (21 March)
Ben Chatwin ~ Verdigris (Disinter, 22 March)
Chris Russell ~ Noir (Projekt, 22 March)
Christopher Hoffman ~ Vision is the Identity (Out of Your Head, 22 March)
Colin Johnco ~ Crabe Géant (Johnkôôl, 22 March)
come le onde ~ I ritmi improvvisi del silenzio (rohs!, 22 March)
Daou ~ Forgotten Stories (Lontano Series, 22 March)
Derek Monypeny ~ The Oppositional Imagination (Debacle, 22 March)
Dylan Henner ~ The Shepherds OST (Phantom Limb, 22 March)
Filax Staël ~ Traces (REV.lab, 22 March)
Ian Carey & Wood Metal Plastic ~ Strange Arts (Slow & Steady, 22 March)
Jlin ~ Akoma (Planet Mu, 22 March)
julien bayle ~ Attractors (Elli, 22 March)
julien bayle ~ void propagate (Elli, 22 March)
LFZ ~ Raveled Veiled Known (22 March)
Magic Tuber Stringband ~ Needlefall (Thrill Jockey, 22 March)
Menchaca/Noga ~ Activity of Sound (22 March)
MIZU ~ Forest Scenes (NNA Tapes, 22 March)
Ogive ~ Opalecentia (Room40, 22 March)
Ohr Hiemis, Augustin Braud ~ Opal Spine (Wic Records, 22 March)
Perc ~ The Cut Off (Perc Trax, 22 March)
Prefuse 73 ~ New Strategies for Modern Crime Vol. 1 (Lex, 22 March)
Pyramid ~ Beyond Borders of Time (Subsound, 22 March)
Ryan Teague ~ Pattern Recognition (Bigo & Twigetti, 22 March)
SAICOBAB ~ NRTYA (Thrill Jockey, 22 March)
Scott Marshall ~ The Solitude Suite (22 March)
Stefan Goldmann ~ Expanse (Macro, 22 March)
Xuri ~ Serene Trails (Colectivo Casa Amarela, 22 March)
Aron Porteleki ~ Smearing (blindblindblind, 23 March)
Christian Wittman ~ expanding galaxies (Whitelabrecs, 23 March)
Thanos Fotiadis ~ The Hope Realm (Esc.rec., 23 March)
Modern Silent Cinema ~ The Cinema Detective (25 March)
Fake Youth Cult ~ White Light/Black Noise (25 March)
Caldon Glover ~ Metrophagy (Cryo Chamber, 26 March)
Ben Lucas Boysen ~ Falling Into Place (Original Score) (Erased Tapes, 28 March)
Danny Clay ~ No More Darkness, No More Night (LAAPS, 28 March)
T’iju T’iju ~ The Dragon Is Still Alive (MOLK/esc.rec., 28 March)
Aptøsrs ~ Elders (SkyBaby, 29 March)
Arushai Jain ~ Delight (Leaving, 29 March)
Ayumi Ishito ~ Roboquarians, Vol. 1 (577 Records, 29 March)
Between Voices ~ Phantom Pinnacles (Cyclic Law, 29 March)
Carme López ~ Quintela (Warm Winters Ltd., 29 March)
Chelidon Frame ~ Flatline Voyages (Difficult Art & Music, 29 March)
CLARAGULAR ~ Figura (Lapsus, 29 March)
De Beren Gieren ~ What Eludes Us (Sdban, 29 March)
Farah Kaddour ~ Badā (Asadan Alay, 29 March)
Franck Vigroux ~ Grand Bal (Cyclic Law, 29 March)
Gabriel Vicéns ~ Mural (29 March)
Glowworm ~ Harvest (29 March)
Hanno Leichtmann ~ Outerlands (Discrepant, 29 March)
Jim White ~ All Hits: Memories (Drag City, 29 March)
Jinjé ~ Escape from Luna (Mesh, 29 March)
Lamniformes ~ The Lonely Atom (people | places | records, 29 March)
Llyn Y Cwin ~ Megaliths (Cold Spring, 29 March)
Ludwig Berger ~ Species Loneliness (~OUS, 29 March)
Nova Pon ~ Symphonies of Mother and Child (Redshift, 29 March)
o k h o ~ GROUP 1 (29 March)
peachlyfe ~ Permission to Roam (UMAY, 29 March)
PLESS ~ Midnight Buffet (Everest, 29 March)
Stuart Argabright & AfterAfter ~ LA Drones (Room40, 29 March)
Undirheimar ~ Ginnungagaldr (Cyclic Law, 29 March)
Willy Rodriguez ~ Seeing Sounds (29 March)
Jacob Parke ~ Space Cadet 64 – World Record Nintendogs + Cats Speedrun July 17 (1 April)
Lucien Johnson ~ Ancient Relics (1 April)
Daryl Groetsch ~ Above the Shore (2 April)
Mirt ~ Wanderlust (2 April)
Babak Ahteshamipour ~ Violent Violins Exposed (Jollies, 3 April)
Chris P. Thompson ~ Stay the Same (4 April)
Pure Code ~ A Walk Through the Ambient Garden (4 April)
Saint Abdullah & Emac ~ Light meteors crashing around you will not confuse you (Drowned by Locals, 4 April)
Adam Wiltzie ~ Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal (Kranky, 5 April)
A Lily ~ Saru I-Qamar (Phantom Limb, 5 April)
Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie ~ Står Op Med Solen (Aguirre, 5 April)
Azalia Snail ~ Powerlover (Cloud Recordings, 5 April)
Brent Birckhead ~ Cacao (5 April)
Coral Morphologic and Nick León ~ Projections of a Coral City (Balmat, 5 April)
De Wolf & Arpatle ~ Nymokku (5 April)
Empenalas Ilegalis ~ Creepy Mambo: Rooftop Sessions (We Are Time, 5 April)
Ensemble Ambidextre ~ S/T (TELESKOP, 5 April)
Iris Trio ~ Project Earth: The Blue Chapter (NMC, 5 April)
James Rushford ~ Turzets (Blank Forms, 5 April)
Jonny Halifax Indignation ~ Açid Blüüs Räägs Vol.2 (God Unknown, 5 April)
Josh Johnson ~ Unusual Object (Northern Spy, 5 April)
Kabir Dalawari ~ Last Call (Shifting Paradigm, 5 April)
Matthew Shipp Trio ~ New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disc’, 5 April)
Michel Banabila ~ The Unreal Realm (5 April)
missing scenes ~ who is this for? (Varia, 5 April)
NITRITONO ~ Cecità (My Kingdom Music, 5 April)
Om Unit ~ Fragments (5 April)
Red Sun ~ From Sunset to Dawn (Subsound, 5 April)
Shabason, Krgovich, Sage ~ S/T (idee fixe, 5 April)
sleepmakeswaves ~ It’s Here, But I Have No Name for It (5 April)
Ulrich Krieger ~ Aphotic III: Bathyal (Room40, 5 April)
Valley Lines ~ 13_16 (Machine, 5 April)
Haruhisa Tanaka ~ Nayuta (teinei, 7 April)
Tomotsugu Nakamura ~ Moon Under Current (teinei, 7 April)
[Ahmed] ~ Wood Blues (fönstret, 8 April)
Bill Vine ~ Turbulent Flow (Ryoanji, 8 April)
Kjetil Jerve ~ INOCHI 命 (Dugnad, 8 April)
Polygone ~ Tactics Faculty (part 1) (Difficult Art & Music, 8 April)
Sermons by the Devil ~ Baptism of Desire (11 April)
SPECIO ~ S/T (Prohibited, 11 April)
Alex Goldfarb ~ Fire Lapping at the Creek (Infrequent Seams, 12 April)
Apply Triangle ~ Oxalis Triangularis: Complete Volumes (1–3) (cmntx, 12 April)
BLEID ~ Aerosol (eterna, 12 April)
Caroline Davis & Wendy Eisenburg ~ Accept When (Astral Spirits, 12 April)
Celestial Trails ~ Lunar Beachcomber (Fluttery, 12 April)
Chantal Michelle ~ ℎ− 2− ℎ− − 2 ℎ− (Dinzu Artefacts, 12 April)
Ciro Vitiello ~ The Island of Bouncy Memories (Haunter, 12 April)
DJ Marcelle/Another Nice Mess ~ A Different Fridge for Cheese (play loud!, 12 April)
Ghost Trees ~ Intercept Method (12 April)
Griffure ~ Paratonnerre (Umlaut, 12 April)
Hour ~ Ease the Work (Dear Life, 12 April)
9T Antiope ~ Horror Vacui (American Dreams, 12 April)
Odist ~ Cascading Memories (Somewherecold, 12 April)
Pinkcourtesyphone ~ Arise in Sinking Feeling (Room40, 12 April)
Rejoicer ~ This Is Reasonable (Circus Company, 12 April)
Sunburned Hand of the Man ~ Nimbus (Three Lobed Recordings, 12 April)
Teiku ~ S/T (577 Records, 12 April)
Micah Pick ~ Frameworks (Audiobulb, 13 April)
Stefan Goldmann ~ Alluvium (Macro, 15 April)
Camp ~ Commun-e (No Type, 16 April)
Silvia Bolognesi / Dudú Kouate / Griffin Rodriguez ~ Timing Birds (Astral Spirits, 16 April)
FUJI||||||||||TA ~ MMM (Hallow Ground, 18 April)
asher tuil ~ Opus (Room40, 19 April)
Atrás del Cosmos ~ Cold Drinks, Hot Dreams (Blank Forms, 19 April)
Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das ~ AUTO (19 April)
Byron Asher’s Skrontch Music ~ Lord, when you send the rain (Sinking City, 19 April)
Calum Builder ~ Renewal Manifestation (Dacapo, 19 April)
Erlend Albertsen Basspace ~ Name of the Wind (Dugnad, 19 April)
Infinite River ~ Tabula Rasa (Birdman, 19 April)
Innode ~ grain (Editions Mego, 19 April)
Kelpe ~ LP10 (Kit Records, 19 April)
Khôra ~ Gestures of Perception (Marionette, 19 April)
Manja Ristić ~ Ma (LINE, 19 April)
V/A ~ Perceptions Vol.5 (Bigo & Twigetti, 19 April)
Andrew Heath ~ The Cloud Machine (Whitelabrecs, 20 April)
Hill Collective ~ Tonal Prophecy (20 April)
Jacob Audrey Taves ~ The Remaining Functionality of Abandoned States (Honey Farm, 20 April)
Simon McCorry & Wodwo ~ Every Creeping Thing (Whitelabrecs, 20 April)
Leo Genovese, John Lockwood, Nat Mugavero ~ The Art of Not Playing (577 Records, 21 April)
Memeshift ~ Echoes (Chinabot, 19 April)
Splitter Orchester ~ splitter musik (Hyperdelia, 19 April)
Leo Genovese, John Lockwood, Nat Mugavero ~ The Art of Not Playing (577 Records, 21 April)
Venusian Motel Guests ~ All Was Carbon (22 April)
Jos Smolders ~ Textur 2 (Crónica, 23 April)
Limina ~ Coming Home (Sonic Ritual, 23 April)
Noémi Büchi ~ Does It Still Matter (~OUS, 24 April)
Pollution Opera ~ S/T (Danse Noire, 24 April)
Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri ~ Impossibly distant, impossibly close (Black Knoll, 26 April)
Catherine Graindorge ~ Songs for the Dead (Glitterbeat, 26 April)
Dawn Chorus & the Infallible Sea ~ Reveries (Sonic Cathedral, 26 April)
Garth Erasmus ~ Threnody for the KhoiSan (TAL, 26 April)
Gidge ~ Tundra (Atomnation, 26 April)
Lorem ~ Time Coils (Krisis Publishing, 26 April)
Lunar Prairie ~ S/T (26 April)
Meat Beat Manifesto & Merzbow ~ Extinct (Cold Spring, 26 April)
Montgomery & Turner ~ Sound Is (Our) Sustenance (Astral Editions, 26 April)
Nick Dunston ~ COLLA VOCE (Out of Your Head, 26 April)
Otomo De Manuel ~ So Young But So Cold (Ici D’ailleurs, 26 April)
Stephanie Pan & Ensemble Klang ~ The Art of Doing Nothing: a feminist manifesto (Ensemble Klang, 26 April)
Steve Hadfield ~ Donald Byrne vs. Bobby Fischer 0-1 – The Game of the Century (1956) (26 April)
Various Artists ~ GmbH: An Anthology of Music for Fashion Shows 2016-2023 Vol. 1 (studio LABOUR, 26 April)
When Colors Are Fading ~ The Days Gone By… (26 April)
Yosa Peit ~ Gut Buster (Fire, 26 April)
A_A ~ Diskordant (Artificial Owl, 30 April)
STHLM svaga ~ Plays Carter, Plays Mitchell, Plays Shepp (thanatosis, 1 May)
Aimee Aileen Wood ~ The Heartening (Colorfield, 3 May)
Concussed ~ Hactivist Satellite Transmissions (Somewherecold, 3 May)
Darius ~ Murmuration (Humus, 3 May)
Driftmachine & Ammer ~ Sonic Behavior (Umor Rex, 3 May)
Dun-Dun Band ~ Pita Parka, Pt. I: Xam Egdub (Ansible Editions, 3 May)
Guentner | Spieth ~ Overlay Reworks | Pt. I (Affin, 3 May)
Hands Holding the Void ~ In the Absence of Light: Music for Electronics & Console (3 May)
Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead ~ spiraling horn (Irritable Mystic, 3 May)
Kee Avil ~ Spine (Constellation, 3 May)
Phase4our ~ Language Barrier (Machine, 3 May)
Shakali ~ Rihmastossa (Not Not Fun, 3 May)
Steph Richards ~ Power Vibe (Northern Spy, 3 May)
SticklerPhonics ~ Technicolor Ghost Parade (Jealous Butcher, 3 May)
Jessica Pavone ~ Reverse Bloom (Astral Spirits, 5 May)
Andreas Trobollowitsch ~ TRUBA (Futura Resistenza, 7 May)
Lola de la Mata ~ Oceans on Azmuth (8 May)
Derek Piotr ~ Divine Supplication (10 May)
El Jardin de las Mathematicas ~ S/T (Penultimate Press, 10 May)
France Jobin ~ Infinite Probabilities (Room40, 10 May)
Francisco Mela featuring Leo Genovese & William Parker ~ Music Frees Our Souls, Vol. 3 (577 Records, 10 May)
Gordan ~ S/T (Glitterbeat, 10 May)
Jim White & Marisa Anderson ~ Swallowtail (Thrill Jockey, 10 May)
Koshun Nakao ~ Vessel 1 (Bigo & Twigetti, 10 May)
Limpe Fuchs ~ Amor (play loud productions, 10 May)
Luka Aron ~ XV XXVII III XXI IX: Variations & Coda (Warm Winters Ltd., 10 May)
Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements ~ Rain on the Road (Thrill Jockey, 10 May)
Andy Clausen ~ Few III Words: Solo Trombone at the TANK, Vol. 1 (17 May)
Ezéchiel Pailhès ~ Ventas Rumba (Circus Company, 17 May)
M Wagner ~ We Could Stay (Extremely Pure, 17 May)
Various Artists ~ Kuboraum Sound Residency (Kuboraum, 17 May)
Wolfgang Seidel ~ Friendly Electrons (Karlrecords, 17 May)
YRLNG ~ Rbia Harsha Cinta (Antibody, 17 May)
John Ken Nuzzo, HAIOKA ~ East Wind (DL Emerald & Doreen, 24 May)
Room 31 ~ Crazy Town (Positive Elevation/577 Records, 24 May)
Basile3 ~ 43°C (InFiné, 31 May)
Reunion Island ~ Night Words (Tall Corn Music, 4 June)
A Journey of Giraffes ~ Retro Porter (Somewherecold, 7 June)