A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #58
A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #58
AGF, UFN, and a lot of reviews
Dear Listeners, Joseph here.
I’ve been especially enjoying two very different records these past few weeks, Cavalier’s Different Type Time, and Taylor Deupree’s Sti.ll, but I’ll save my thoughts on those until next regular newsletter. It seems like this is always the case, but I am exceptionally busy once again.
As I mentioned last time, I’m organizing a show on 4 May, with Stefan Christoff, Soledad Rosas, Esther B. and Joni Void at Ateliers Belleville to celebrate my birthday. If you’re near Montreal, come check it out.
For this installment, we’ve got the latest from Gianmarco Del Re’s Ukrainian Fieldnotes, AGF featured on the Sound Propositions podcasts, and and extra special helping of reviews!
Sound Propositions Episode 35: DIS/CONTENT – with AGF
AGF is a powerful poemproducer. She first described herself in these terms on a track of that title from Westernization Completed, her Ars Electronica winning breakthrough album. Poemproducer became her “internet name,” and has come to stand in for her idiosyncratic approach to vocal-based electronic music. Last November, AGF quietly released Poemproducer, almost exactly 20 years after Westernization Completed. Channeling her internet name into her first proper solo studio album since SOLIDCITY (2017), Poemproducer is built around mutating bass, freeplayed rhythms, and subtle field recordings. We discuss the evolution of her musical practice, her interest in pedagogy, feminism, collective politics and much more.
Antye Greie-Ripatti (née Greie-Fuchs) aka AGF is a sound artist, poet, and electronic music producer. Born in what was then East Germany, she moved to Berlin after the wall came down, where she developed her unique approach to production and performance, working with early computers, learning MIDI and making beats on an MPC, and especially developing her approach as a vocalist and poemproducer. She asked herself, “What actually can I do?” Coming from a country that no longer exists, out of sync with the contemporary and beginning her process of “westernization,” she turned to her voice, and discovered her artistic mission. “I’m trying to be as free as possible… this is my allegiance to art: to be as free as possible.”
It’s difficult to separate AGF from her origins in East Germany, and expressing her experience as an “Ossi” became an important aspect of her early work. She developed a DIY approach inspired by hip hop’s urban griots, and has ever since used her voice to fight against oppression, support marginalized communities, and call out injustice, be it gender imbalance in music festivals or elevating the voices of women in Rojava.
Sound Propositions should be available wherever you get your podcasts, so please keep an eye out and subscribe (and rate and review, it helps others who might be interested find us). You can support Sound Propositions on Patreon if you are so inclined, or send a one-time donation via PayPal. The first two seasons are also available on Bandcamp. I’m very grateful for any support, which will help ensure future episodes.
Ukrainian Field Notes XXXII
For this month’s episode we talk to Bayun the Cat about poetry, triggering sounds and the making of the collaborative album Blue and Yellow through Black and Gray. Our regular podcast on Resonance FM features Lesik Omodada and Yurii Bazaka from Musicians Defend Ukraine. We discuss the foundations’s work, its structure, its priorities and play a number of tracks selected by them.
We also feature an impressive crop of new releases by the likes of Pep Gaffe; Mary Druganova; anton malynovskyi; Lostlojic; InnerLicht; Zlele; Volodymyr Ponikarovskyi; Anthony Junkoid; Sexual Purity; Alexander Stratonov; Lugovskiy; Nikolaienko; Letromagnetique; Stas Koroliov; ummsbiaus and Khrystyna Kirik.
And to round things off, we feature Inglorious Officers: Russian Torturers in Kherson (with English subtitles), the latest investigative documentary scored by Alexander Stratonov as well as Nascence, the latest video from Ivan Skoryna, made for CTM.
Musicians Defend Ukraine
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.
Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri ~ Impossibly distant, impossibly close
Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri’s Impossibly distant, impossibly close creates an arch between a place physically and remotely encountered by the artists. Consisting of two long pieces titled “Place of Forever” and “Waking Up Dizzy on a Bastion”, the album creates an auditory place of ambiguity. Starting from the finale of the second piece, we become aware that this all about spatial and improvised exchanges. A recording of a live performance the artists did in 2023 as part of the SoundSet Series at Madrid’s Condeduque cultural center, this initial exchange instigated the two artists to further collaborate and remotely create the companion track “Place of Forever”. The two pieces sound beautiful together, creating a portrait of a place (a Bastion maybe) both physically experienced and imagined from a distance.
Andrzej Pietrewicz ~ #8
Andrzej Pietrewicz continues to challenge common assumptions of how sacred music can sound. All too often, devotional albums are so safe that they dilute the creativity of the Creator. This Toronto composer knows that awe comes from the unexpected, and that the holiest of experiences contain a level of surprise. Caleb Yono’s cover art draws the listener in, while Pietrewicz’s music keeps the listener intrigued. Despite its forward trajectory, as the album ends it wraps back around to its beginning, suggesting that not only linear time, but cyclical. There are entry points for many major religions heard here, perhaps not only “to perceive you in all things” but “in all faiths,” the perception of a third, or in this case fourth or even fifth eye.
The Balloonist ~ A Quiet Day
Many people yearn for a quiet day, imagining that they might spend such a day languishing in the yard, reading on a comfortable couch, perhaps taking a walk by the stream. But to a younger person, such days are to be avoided; they can seem sprawling, never-ending, interminable. As the evocative press release puts it, “The silence is broken by daytime TV, school programmes and the odd afternoon cartoon. Daydreams occur against a backdrop of suburban stillness, broken by woodpigeon echoes and swaying trees. Formica table tops, frosted glass panels, traces of 70s décor, wood effect gas fireplaces and the dust motes floating in the afternoon sun.” This was the childhood of “80s child” Ben Holton (The Balloonist), best known for his work in epic45. (As a reminder, January’s LP You’ll Only See Us When The Light Has Gone and its remix companion album A Beacon of Light are still fresh as well!)
Daniel Bachman ~ Quaker Run Wildfire (10/24/23-11/17/23) for Fiddle and Guitar
Quaker Run Wildfire is a sequel of sorts to Almanac Behind, one of our site’s top albums of 2022. But it is not the sort of sequel that Daniel Bachman wanted to make; after recording an LP on the theme of climate change, including samples of Virginia firefighters and a digital rendition of smoke, a massive fire began to approach his own house. Suddenly everything was even more personal and immediate. Fortunately, Bachman’s house survived. The Quaker Run Fire lasted 25 days, a stretch of fear and anxiety for local residents. Bachman channeled his energy into recording the woods and its panicked wildlife, converting photo and video to WAV files and adding music of his own. Nero fiddled in apathy; Bachman fiddles in empathy, hoping that his recordings will help to raise awareness of how climate change affects drought and flammability, creating tinder from areas that were once considered immune.
floating shrine ~ Connecting
Sometimes a micro-genre is lost to the point at which one wonders if it ever existed, apart from candy-glow daydreams. Two decades ago, labels such as Spekk, flau and Noble specialized in a type of ambient glitch that sounded simultaneously like Pop Rocks, snow cones, wind chimes, glitter and melting ice. After a series of trips to Japan, floating shrine has managed to excavate this sound. One imagines these timbres bubbling up from wishing wells and music boxes, yearning to be heard once more. Others walk by, but this artist is in no hurry. The composer listens, writes down their stories, and takes them home to Australia, where he begins to work on Connecting.
Gidge ~ Tundra
Swedish duo Gidge (Autumn Bells) continues its hot streak with Tundra, a five-track EP that contains three potential singles. “Bleak” made an early impact when it was released back in 2022; its inclusion here allows fans to own it on vinyl. A subtle selection, featuring the understated vocals of Maggie Thornton, the track withdraws its instrumentation for short stretches to reveal a bed of flowing water below. The tone is not exactly “bleak,” though it is plaintive; Tracey Thorn would be proud. In terms of releases, Gidge is frustratingly patient, but the end result is that every release is solid. In addition, each occupies its own sonic territory, from the ambient Lulin to the effervescent New Light. Tundra is as a slice of mood: worn out, worn down, but still going, still searching for a place to call home.
Jenny Haniver ~ Haunt Your Own House
First off, what a cover! Zach Hobbs’ art produces immediate intrigue; we want to know how this LP sounds, and we want to know right now. The first born child of recording artists Amulets and Bus Gas, Jenny Haniver sounds a little like each, but has her own personality. The album is hard-rocking, filled with riffs, but not afraid to break down into little ambient segments that may remind listeners of her parents. The mood, however, is as apocalyptic as the cover art. There are also some cool vinyl variants, especially the “Twister” Swamp Green, Bone & Hot Pink edition. Our interpretation of the title and cover art: each house has its own ghosts. On Haunt Your Own House, Jenny Haniver approaches these homes in an unexpected way; the ghosts are not dispelled, but accepted, integrated, and embraced.
Maria W Horn ~ Panoptikon
Maria W Horn‘s Panoptikon began as an installation in the deserted prison “as a multichannel sound and light installation where the imagined individual voices of the inmates were represented by loudspeakers placed in the various cells of the prison.” Horn’s compositions for organ and voice are meant to imitate the effects of solitary confinement, time distortion and constant surveillance on the individual soul. The music is plaintive, yearning, heartrending; but whenever the voices intertwine, hope bursts the boundaries of despair. The album is a testimony to a greater crime than the charges brought against the prisoners. The warning is that it could happen, and is happening, again and still.
Rutger Zuydervelt ~ Kites (music for a performance by Roshanak Morrowatian)
With immigration issues at the forefront of global discussion, Kites could not be more timely. Rutger Zuydervelt‘s score is but one arm of an audio-visual presentation, asking “What is it like to have to flee your homeland at a young age and grow up in an asylum seekers’ centre, in a ‘limbo’ between past and future?” This was the experience of choreographer and dancer Roshanak Morrowatian, who was born in Iran but now makes her home in The Netherlands. As all profits from the music will aid Gaza Children, the project has come full circle.
UPCOMING RELEASES
(complete list with Bandcamp links here)
By mid-spring, life has returned in full. Green leaves pop against azure skies. Cherry trees and magnolias give way to tulips and daffodils. Baby animals tumble in the yard. And a new season of music springs forth from the creative ground. Dozens of new albums are appearing every week, with hundreds on the horizon; there’s always something to look forward to. Fresh previews are added to this page daily; we hope you’ll find your next favorite album right here!
Aimee Aileen Wood ~ The Heartening (Colorfield, 3 May)
Alvaro Rojas ~ Plays Reid Anderson’s “The Vastness of Space” (3 May)
Andrew Hulse ~ Fabric of Light (3 May)
Benjamin Finger ~ Beyond (Roman Numeral, 3 May)
CHXMERAS ~ Terminal City (Virtua94, 3 May)
Concussed ~ Hactivist Satellite Transmissions (Somewherecold, 3 May)
CORBEN ~ Peachland (MM Discos, 3 May)
Dan Loomis ~ Revolutions (Adhyâropa, 3 May)
Darius ~ Murmuration (Humus, 3 May)
David Crowell ~ Point/Cloud (Better Company, 3 May)
Desiderii Margini ~ Bathe in Black Light (Cyclic Law, 3 May)
de type inconnu ~ onze.correspondances (Elli, 3 May)
Driftmachine & Ammer ~ Sonic Behavior (Umor Rex, 3 May)
Dun-Dun Band ~ Pita Parka, Pt. I: Xam Egdub (Ansible Editions, 3 May)
floating shrine ~ Connecting (Decaying Spheres, 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)
Jharis Yokley ~ Sometimes, Late at Night (Rainbow Blonde, 3 May)
Kee Avil ~ Spine (Constellation, 3 May)
Kivig_Gniben ~ Shelter (Vicious-cph, 3 May)
LATRALA ~ S/T (Otherly Love, 3 May)
Matt Mitchell ~ Illimitable (Obliquity, 3 May)
Michael Lane ~ Leeloo (Polari, 3 May)
Modern Silent Cinema ~ The Cabinet of Modern Silent Cinema (Bad Channels, 3 May)
Monday ~ Ascending Primes (Pyroclastic, 3 May)
Napalm Jazz ~ Live @ Lyon (3 May)
NRV ~ Seasons Beyond the Ashes (See Blue Audio, 3 May)
Orme & Wreaths ~ Convocation Upon the Ruins (Trepanation, 3 May)
Phase4our ~ Language Barrier (Machine, 3 May)
Plethora X ~ What U Mean (OOH-sounds, 3 May)
Saapato ~ On Fire Island (sound as language, 3 May)
Samuel Reinhard ~ For Piano and Shō (Elsewhere, 3 May)
Secret Places of the Lion ~ Alexandria (3 May)
Shakali ~ Rihmastossa (Not Not Fun, 3 May)
Shall Remain Nameless ~ Kensington, Philadelphia Soundtrack (3 May)
Steph Richards ~ Power Vibe (Northern Spy, 3 May)
SticklerPhonics ~ Technicolor Ghost Parade (Jealous Butcher, 3 May)
Taroug ~ Darts & Kites (Denovali, 3 May)
Trem 77 ~ Topography EP (3 May)
Tristan De Cunha ~ Hidden Sea (Dissipatio, 3 May)
ULVTHARM ~ 7 Uthras (Cyclic Law, 3 May)
VOLTIJ ~ Acouxtic Volume 1 (3 May)
Jessica Pavone ~ Reverse Bloom (Astral Spirits, 5 May)
Andreas Trobollowitsch ~ TRUBA (Futura Resistenza, 7 May)
nespit & Comfortless ~ Warcrime (Tripaliuum, 7 May)
Thorny ~ Flood (Witherwillow Sounds, 7 May)
Lola de la Mata ~ Oceans on Azmuth (8 May)
Buildings and Food ~ Echo the Field (10 May)
Christopher Zuar ~ Exuberance (Tonal Conversations, 10 May)
Derek Piotr ~ Divine Supplication (10 May)
Du.0 ~ Thoughts from the Future (Gold Bolus, 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)
GALATI ~ Cold as a February Sky (Glacial Movements, 10 May)
Gelsey Bell & Erin Rogers ~ Skylighght (Chaikin, 10 May)
Gordan ~ S/T (Glitterbeat, 10 May)
Hior Chronik ~ Crave for More (Ki, 10 May)
Holland Andrews ~ Answers (LEITER, 10 May)
Jeremy Gignoux ~ Odd Stillness (10 May)
J.G. Biberkopf ~ The Seed, The Sinkhole, The Flower and the Flare (Subtext, 10 May)
Jim White & Marisa Anderson ~ Swallowtail (Thrill Jockey, 10 May)
Juha Mäki-Patola and Tapani Rinne ~ Decaying Light (Bigo & Twigetti, 10 May)
Keeley Forsyth ~ The Hollow (FatCat, 10 May)
Koshun Nakao ~ Vessel 1 (Bigo & Twigetti, 10 May)
Leo Okagawa ~ Density (Dissipatio, 10 May)
Limpe Fuchs ~ Amor (play loud productions, 10 May)
Luka Aron ~ XV XXVII III XXI IX: Variations & Coda (Warm Winters Ltd., 10 May)
Marewrew ~ Ukouk: Round Singing Voices of the Ainu 2012-2024 (Pingipung, 10 May)
Mary Lattimore and Walt McClements ~ Rain on the Road (Thrill Jockey, 10 May)
Massimo Carozzi, Sandrine Nicoletta ~ Interplay (Kohlhaas, 10 May)
Matti Bye ~ Capri Clouds (Denovali, 10 May)
REKK&KUTOBOY ~ S/T (Attention Management, 10 May)
Shane Parish ~ Repertoire (Palilalia, 10 May)
Sisso & Maiko ~ Singeli Ya Maajabu (Nyege Nyege Tapes, 10 May)
SPECIO ~ S/T (Prohibited, 10 May)
Willow Skye-Biggs ~ Dreams in Suspension (Inner Islands, 10 May)
W. Realrider & Kole Galbraith ~ S/T (Obscure & Terrible / Peyote Tapes, 11 May)
Jason Robinson ~ Ancestral Numbers I (Playscape, 14 May)
V/A ~ Source Foray (Somnambulant Drift, 14 May)
marucoporoporo ~ Conceive the Sea (flau, 15 May)
Pentu ~ And I Saw My Devil And I Saw My Deep Blue Sea (mappa, 15 May)
Acid Mothers Reynols ~ Vol. 3 (VHF, 17 May)
Alan Braufman ~ Infinite Love Infinite Tears (The Control Group / Valley of Search, 17 May)
Andy Clausen ~ Few III Words: Solo Trombone at the TANK, Vol. 1 (17 May)
Animal, Surrender! ~ S/T (Ernest Jenning Record Co., 17 May)
Christopher Cerrone ~ Beaufort Scales (Cold Blue Music, 17 May)
Church Andrews & Matt Davies ~ Yucca (Odda Recordings, 17 May)
Ezéchiel Pailhès ~ Ventas Rumba (Circus Company, 17 May)
James Ilgenfritz ~ Stay Logged In On This Trusted Device (Infrequent Seams, 17 May)
Keith Freund ~ Trash Can Lamb (Students of Decay, 17 May)
Ludwig Berger ~ Garden of Ediacara (~OUS, 17 May)
M Wagner ~ We Could Stay (Extremely Pure, 17 May)
Panoram ~ Great Times (Balmat, 17 May)
Purgate ~ Transcend (Aesthetically, 17 May)
Sophia Jani ~ Six Pieces for Solo Violin (Squama, 17 May)
Taylor Deupree ~ Sti.ll (Nettwerk/Greyfade/12k, 17 May)
Various Artists ~ Kuboraum Sound Residency (Kuboraum, 17 May)
Wolfgang Seidel ~ Friendly Electrons (Karlrecords, 17 May)
YRLNG ~ Rbia Harsha Cinta (Antibody, 17 May)
Giannis Gogos ~ Linger (Whitelabrecs, 18 May)
OdNu ~ Ronroco Rococo Memories (Audiobulb, 18 May)
xu & Francis Gri ~ Valley of Languages (Whitelabrecs, 18 May)
Aki Yli-Salomäki & Antti Salovaara ~ Matala (24 May)
Bethany Ley ~ Sundial (Lo Recordings, 24 May)
Frédéric D. Oberland / Grégory Dargent / Tony Elieh / Wassim Halal ~ SIHR (Sub Rosa, 24 May)
Halma ~ Driving by Numbers (Kapitaen Platte, 24 May)
John Ken Nuzzo, HAIOKA ~ East Wind (DL Emerald & Doreen, 24 May)
Mazz Swift ~ Mazz Swift – The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious (New Amsterdam, 24 May)
Natalia Beylis ~ Lost – For Annie (Outside Time, 24 May)
Nightports w/Matthew Bourne ~ Dulcitone 1804 (Leaf, 24 May)
Romain Azzaro & Jeanne Briand ~ Gear(s) (fluxus temporis, 24 May)
Room 31 ~ Crazy Town (Positive Elevation/577 Records, 24 May)
{scope] ~ Nightcap (Kohlhaas, 24 May)
Sebastian Mullaert & Henrik Frendin ~ Hind (Lamour, 24 May)
Suzanne Darre ~ Fragile (Fluttery, 24 May)
Tenhornedbeast ~ Capra Hircus (Cold Spring, 24 May)
Tinkerhell ~ Gatekeeper (Intrepid Hell, 24 May)
Yuni Wa ~ You’ve Come So Far (Doom Trip, 24 May)
UMAN ~ âme soeur (27 May)
Andrew Land ~ (music for an unmade film) (Bigo & Twigetti, 31 May)
Bag of Bones ~ No One Gets Saved (577 Records, 31 May)
Basher ~ May Day (Sinking City, 31 May)
Basile3 ~ 43°C (InFiné, 31 May)
Benny Bleu ~ Banjo Meditations (31 May)
DELTAphase ~ synced (31 May)
Ed Herbers ~ Upper Atmosphere (Passed Recordings, 31 May)
Ezra Feinberg ~ Soft Power (Tonal Union, 31 May)
FIN ~ Cleats (Hausu Mountain, 31 May)
FINAL ~ What We Don’t See (Room40, 31 May)
Lisa Ann Schonberg ~ Old Growth Playback (31 May)
Lorenzo Montanà ~ VION (n5MD, 31 May)
Pablo Diserens ~ turning porous (forms of minutiae, 31 May)
Tobias Wilden ~ A Path to Open Air II (Kitchen, 31 May)
Pablo’s Eye ~ The light was sharp, our eyes were open (STROOM.tv, 4 June)
Peder Simonsen & Jo David Meyer Lisne ~ Spektralmaskin (SOFA, 31 May)
Reunion Island ~ Night Words (Tall Corn Music, 4 June)
Toada ~ Alta Onda 01 (6 June)
A Journey of Giraffes ~ Retro Porter (Somewherecold, 7 June)
Akio Suzuki ~ Stone (Room40, 7 June)
David Cordero ~ Important Small Details (Home Normal, 7 June)
Emma dj ~ Lay2g (Danse Noir, 7 June)
GiGi FM ~ Movements (Sea~rène, 7 June)
The Nausea ~ Requiem (Absurd Exposition/Buried in Slag and Debris, 7 June)
Tashi Wada ~ What Is Not Strange? (RVNG Intl., 7 June)
Fireground ~ Love Letter (Tresor, 14 June)
Hess & Harrison ~ Rogue Signal (BlackCat, 14 June)
KRM & KMRU ~ Disconnect (Phantom Limb, 14 June)
Tam Lin ~ bluelightnospaceflattime (Flaming Pines, 14 June)
V/A ~ 10:10 Kasra V presents 10 years on NTS radio (V-sion, 14 June)
Neuro… No Neuro ~ Mental Cassette (Audiobulb, 15 June)
Braille ~ Triple Transit (Hotflush, 20 June)
Kate Carr ~ Midsummer, London (Persistence of Sound, 20 June)
Black Decelerant ~ Reflections Vol. 2 (RVNG Intl., 21 June)
Blurstem ~ Ocelli (Western Vinyl, 21 June)
d’Eon ~ Leviathan (Hausu Mountain, 21 June)
Solpara ~ Melancholy Sabotage (Other People, 21 June)
Terence Fixmer ~ The Paradox in Me (Mute, 21 June)
Gryphon Rue ~ 4n_Objx (28 June)
SUSS ~ Birds & Beasts (Northern Spy, 28 June)
Unstern ~ Es Geht Der Tag (A L T E R, 28 June)
Droneroom ~ as long as the sun (Decaying Spheres, 19 July)