A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #62
C. Lavender, Ukrainian Field Notes, and reviews galore
Dear Listeners, Joseph here once again for your bi-weekly ACL roundup. We’ve got a lot of reviews this time, both culled from the blog as well as ten of my “mini-review” selections. We’ve also got this month’s installment of Gianmarco Del Re’s Ukrainian Field Notes, and the Sound Propositions podcast featuring C. Lavender. But first, some musings of the week.
I’ve been in St-Louis these last couple weeks, sadly missing my beloved Suoni per il Popolo festival home in Montreal. I grew up in NY and never left the north east until my 20s, so middle America has always felt very foreign to me. I’ve barely scratched the surface of music and culture here (though I was aghast to learn that one of the local venues named themselves CBGB…why invite the comparison?), I was invited to a very fun basement show last week. I lived in Minneapolis for four years before the pandemic, and felt ambivalent about that city’s house show scene. These kinds of shows can be really great (I used to go to basement shows in New Brunswick and various other tri-state locations, and used to book similar DIY shows myself) and fun and important to community building, but they’re also in private spaces and thus not always accessible, in a way that reinforces certain social and demographic exclusions. So I’m always glad to see things going on but worried about the effect it has on public culture more broadly. But that’s America for you, I guess. The music at the house show ranged from plaintive folk to weirdo electro pop, and some dnb bangers to end the night with more of a party vibe. I’m looking forward to discovering more music in this city in the future, but I’ll probably be home visiting my family in New York by the next installment, so I' should have a lot more to complain about by then. ;)
OK, let’s get into it.
Ukrainian Field Notes XXXIV
For the current episode of Ukrainian Field Notes we traveled directly to Ukraine at the end of May, finally meeting a number of artists in person in Lviv, Kyiv and Ivano-Frankvisk.
In Kyiv we got to chat with Clemens Poole about fundraising and drones for drones, while Alla Zahayevich shed a light on the Ukrainian contemporary music scene and Andrii Barmalii described the production process of his debut album autopotrack.
To round up our interviews we also talk to Jordan Dykstra about his score for 20 Days in Mariupol and The Lazy Jesus about the follow up to his album UA Tribal.
We also look at a bunch of new releases by Incorrect Waves, Slavik Dzyga, Soundots, ummsbiaus & Difference Machine, ногируки, Whaler, некрохолод, 58918012, Maxim Kolomiiets and Ross Khmil, Anthony Junkoid and Andrii Strakhov.
But to begin with our monthly podcast for Resonance FM features a conversation with Clasps and lostlojic about mobilisations and their feeling about musicians who left the country.
Following our podcast is our Spotify Playlist for the month of June comprising this month’s interviewees selections and latest releases. Also included in our Spotify playlist is the track “A Version” by DJ Superlite and Arthur Snitkus from the fundraising compilation SESTRO out on система system. Snitkus, a musician and stylist, representative of the queer community, died while performing a combat mission in the Donetsk region. He was 36 years old.
Sound Propositions Episode 36: CREATIVE LISTENING – with C. Lavender [podcast]
C. Lavender is a sound artist, sound healing practitioner, educator, and author of Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives. She has worked with labels including Editions Mego, RVNG, Longform Editions, and most recently iDEAL, who have just released Rupture In The Eternal Realm, a sonic reinterpretation of a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice. In this episode of the Sound Propositions podcast, we discuss the influence of Pauline Oliveros, how working as an educator led to writing Transcendent Waves, and the evolution of the relationship between her practice as a sound artist and sound healer.
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.
Last week, my colleague Maria reviewed Rupture in the Eternal Realm, Lavender’s third full-length record [also included in the reviews below], which she describes as “deeply spiritual and healing soundscapes” that offer a means of “experiencing the fragility and the ephemerality of eternity.” The spirituality of the album is reminiscent of 1970s ambient synth music, such as Franco Battiato or Brian Eno. And while it is inspired by Lavender’s experience with Tibetan Buddhist meditation, Rupture in the Eternal Realm is not a sound healing album. In this episode, Lavender explains her desire to maintain some separation between her practices, stressing the importance of live improvisation and spatial embodiment to her practice as a sound healer, something that can’t simply be re-presented as a recording. But increasingly she has drawn on her experience as a sound healer to develop new compositional techniques and influences.
Maria aligns Lavender’s latest with a “forward-thinking genealogy of music makers that blur the boundaries between the spiritual and the technological, such as Laurie Anderson, Éliane Radigue and Pauline Oliveros.” The influence of Oliveros gets special attention in this episode. Working alongside Oliveros taught Lavender not only patience, but reaffirmed the importance of humor to both music and pedagogy. Lavender continues to use humor as an integral part of her meditations and workshops. Such principles of humor, improvisation, and working with bodies in space have informed Lavender’s approach to both music and sound healing.
Mini-Reviews
Short highlights
Ciro Vitiello ~ The Island Of Bouncy Memories
The debut album from Napoli’s Ciro Vitiello, with contributions from vocalist Zimmy, vocalist/guitarist CRÆBABE and our old friend guitarist Attilio Novellino. A beautiful suite of ethereal and captivating songs.
John Cage / Aaron Dilloway ~ Rozart Mix
During a residency at the Hudson Valley’s WaveFarm, Dilloway and a host of collaborators reimagine this work by Cage originally conceived for Alvin Lucier. Dilloway presents various perspectives on the composition by offering recordings of individual loops and channel configurations, as well as an edited and mixed down version
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton ~ 4
CD re-issue of four mostly longform post-digital guitar noodlings from 2021. The acid blotter paper is already sold out, but don’t make the same mistake on this CD.
Lo.S.O ~ Posted
Lo.S.O. is D Withdrawn and Best Available Technology of Bristol’s Cold Light, the former’s plaintive raps supported by sonics drawn from B.A.T.’s cassette archive from the 1990s. Additional finessing from GENG PTP.
maassai ~ DEC0N$TRUCT!0N
Consistently impressed when she shows on on features since 2020’s An Unknown Infinite, alongside Nappy Nina, on iblss’s Raja’s Sun, and across two records with producer JWords as H31R., Brooklyn rapper maassai just dropped this collection of recent work produced by Brown Buddha, iblss, Nakama., and maassai herself.
Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes ~ The Doober
The latest from the sax and bass duo, following the critically acclaimed Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar (2018) and Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs (2021).
Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day ~ Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day
Joyful bass / drum / guitar trio improvisations mostly recorded outside in one evening, a nice one to get lost within.
Sighwonee ~ newbluesun: chopped, screwed, crushed, slurred, chewed.
What it says on the tin. Grab the tapes if you’re in Oakland. (And please send me one.)
Qoa ~ SAUCO
Beautiful tones from Argentina, released on the always great all-genre label LEAVING. Blending instrumentation, electronics, and nature recordings for a conceptually rich, rhythmic, and rooted exploration of the “tecnonatural.”
Yellow Swans ~ Out of Practice I
See our recent installment of Out of the Box for more info, but in short the first of several new recordings culled from these noise-rock legends 2023 reunion.
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.
C. Lavender ~ Rupture in the Eternal Realm
Eternity is experienced in one fleeting moment. It is not to be anticipated or postponed for the future. Eternity in a way is within us if we feel closely enough beyond ourselves. These are some passing thoughts rather than a deep reflection of the philosophical kind. The profound is often found beyond the self, and in C. Lavender’s third full-length album Rupture in the Eternal Realm, the self is sacrificed to give way to a sonorous plateau of meditative and liberating longform compositions. Beautifully mastered by Taylor Deupree, and accompanied by a fitting artwork by Robert Beatty, Rupture in The Eternal Realm has a certain quality to it that positions it alongside many memorable albums of the seventies that experimented with new ways of working with sound but is also a testimony of a forward-thinking genealogy of music makers that blur the boundaries between the spiritual and the technological, such as Laurie Anderson, Éliane Radigue and Pauline Oliveros, to whom C.Lavender pays homage.
Dalot ~ Aquarium
Dalot‘s Aquarium is a delightful album that can be read on a number of levels: as a diary of parenthood, an ecological parable or a celebration of summer. Or one might simply take it at face value: the story of a lionfish in an aquarium. […] The album’s playfulness is purposeful; drawing from Greek children’s shows of the 80’s and early 90’s, Dalot composed Aquarium as the original score to Caterini Dinopoulou’s dance performance for children of the same name. Not only can one hear childhood in the music, one can also imagine children being fascinated by its sounds, as mesmerized as they might be on a trip to the aquarium.
Dave Brown / Jason Kahn ~ Terminal Analog
The first sounds on Terminal Analog, a collaboration between guitarist Dave Brown and electronic musician Jason Kahn just released by Room 40, is the strum of a guitar, but only just barely. The scraping, screeching sounds of electricity emerge almost instantaneously. Over the course of the track the guitar continues insistently but sparely, Brown almost hesitantly strumming solitary, open-tuned chords alongside Kahn’s raucous chorus of chirping, crashing, squeaking, and more. Over the course of album opener “Merri,” Brown’s guitar playing grows more assertive and more electric, as though it were trying to match Kahn’s splintered chorus of electricity.
Kate Carr ~ Midsummer, London
What is the sound of summer? Kate Carr spent the longest day of 2023 recording the length of London while traveling the Thames. As of today, the summer solstice has come around again, and her soundscape serves as both evocation and invitation. The best way to listen is straight through: to imagine one’s self replicating the artist’s journey. But it’s also important to note the individual track titles, which seem like diary entries. One of the most endearing (and we dare you to request this song by title on the radio): “Crossing the river: I am getting hungry and lots of people are talking about food. Also Jesus loves me.” Keep in mind that one can’t walk the length of London in 46 minutes; the recording preserves the best parts of the tarrying, listening and collating.
øjeRum ~ Cut Paper Flowers
Anyone familiar with the work of the enigmatic Danish musician and artist øjeRum, aka Paw Grabowski, knows of the deep and dreamlike auras he conjures with his prodigious output of music – and the arresting cover art he creates. Using Victorian-era engravings selected from illustrated novels as well as medical and botanical reference books (think Henry Vandyke Carter illustrations for Grey’s Anatomy or Pierre-Joseph Redouté), øjeRum creates evocative Max Ernst – style collages that become startling, sometimes tormented, sometime ecstatic portraits and tableaux. When he combines them with the searching, otherworldly nature of his music, the results are mesmerizing. His latest album, Cut Paper Flowers, released on Richard Chartier’s LINE label, is a spellbinding addition to his body of work.
Otto A. Totland ~ Exin
In a crowded field of felted piano albums, there’s something that sets Otto A. Totland apart. It’s hard to be sure precisely why, but his music has a magical quality that elevates it and makes it transcend the average. Perhaps it is because of his gift for memorable melodies, or his knack for crafting captivating chord sequences, his exquisite timing, the perfect placement of his tenutos, the gorgeous phrasing of his playing, the exceptional sound-design (thanks to Nils Frahms’s Funkhaus Studio), or his openness to referencing other genres—or maybe all of the above. It’s hard to be sure. Whatever it is, there’s a sweetness here that will really brighten your day.
xor ~ May The Forest Outlive Us
One of our favorite labels has returned from a brief hiatus just in time for the changing of the seasons! As a refresher, on every Solstice Day, the aptly-titled Ceremony of Seasons pairs a new wine with a new album as part of their ongoing partnership with VISUALS Wine and the Ritual of Senses Wine Club. The artists all hail from Asheville, North Carolina’s rich music scene, and for the first time, on this latest series release, the artist was in on the ground level. This means that Emerge from Hallowed Land, an aperitif that features the unusual combination of chamomile, lavender and skullcap, reflects the palette of xor. The connection between wine and music has never been so close. As an added bonus, this season’s release is available on cassette and can be ordered in a true box set from Burial Beer in both regular and Art Museum editions along with the wine. The bottle itself looks great next to last fall’s aperitif Reveal the Paradox, which was paired with Dark Sines’ The Space Time Paradox.
Zosha Warpeha ~ silver dawn
An old truth runs through the systems of folk musics: art belongs to everyone, and it is never truly made in isolation. Every melody holds a vast, remote knowledge, a singularity expressed in the moment of playing, each musician embodying a new version of it that is also as ancient as the community for whose ears it becomes immediately intimate. Zosha Warpeha, of US origin, spent some time in Norway learning its folk traditions, particularly those related to the hardanger fiddle, an instrument first registered in the 17th century, its body transformed into a cousin of the violin in the 19th. It is characterized by having sympathetic strings, a set of understrings that pick up the vibrations of notes played, producing an accompanying resonance reinforcing the main tones. Voices within voices, sounds making themselves, versions of the same notes occurring simultaneously; a choir of one would be a good starting point to talk about the folk musician, and the hardanger as an instrument reflects this real-time entwining of old and new.
UPCOMING RELEASES
(complete list with Bandcamp links here)
We’ve waited all year for summer, and now it’s finally here! Schools are out, beaches are open, vacations are in full swing, and we’re looking for the perfect music to accompany our adventures. Whether we’re curling up with a good book, walking in the park or cruising down the highway, there’s nothing quite like a great summer soundtrack in the earbuds or in the car. There’s always something new on the horizon; our ACL playlist stretches all the way to September. New previews are added to this page daily; we hope you’ll find your next favorite album right here!
Ainu ~ Ainu (Subsound, 28 June)
Bartosz Kruczyński ~ Dreams & Whispers (Balmat, 28 June)
Bernocchi/Chaplin ~ The Same and the Other (Curious Music, 28 June)
Charlatan ~ Vapor Tides (Debacle, 28 June)
Denham ~ with love (Sawyer Editions, 28 June)
Deron Johnson ~ Free to Dance (Colorfield, 28 June)
Eden Longsdale ~ Racecar for Rainy Days (Sawyer Editions, 28 June)
Erik Friedlander ~ Dirty Boxing (Skipstone, 28 June)
etchasketch ~ Release (Ombrelle Concrète, 28 June)
Gryphon Rue ~ 4n_Objx (28 June)
Gustavo Denouard ~ Mysterious Wind (Projekt, 28 June)
The Intentional Crack ~ No More Bangers (Cruel Nature, 28 June)
Lee Ashcroft ~ Persons Underground (Cruel Nature, 28 June)
Marika Takeuchi ~ Wandering Notes (Bigo & Twigetti, 28 June)
Nasheet Waits ~ New York City Love Letter (Giant Step Arts, 28 June)
øjeRum ~ Cut Paper Flowers (LINE, 28 June)
Paolo Griffin ~ Supports & Surfaces (Sawyer Editions, 28 June)
Pijn ~ From Low Beams of Hope (Floodlit Recordings, 28 June)
Ryan Seward ~ weathering (Sawyer Editions, 28 June)
R.Y.N. ~ Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (2024 Remaster) (Cruel Nature, 28 June)
Sarah Hennies ~ Bodies of Water (Sawyer Editions, 28 June)
Score ~ Temporary Arrangement (Cruel Nature, 28 June)
SCXLVR ~ S/T (Cruel Nature, 28 June)
SML ~ Small Medium Large (International Anthem, 28 June)
Sun Araw ~ Cetacean Sensation (Discrepant, 28 June)
SUSS ~ Birds & Beasts (Northern Spy, 28 June)
Tarbaby ~ You Think This America (Giant Step Arts, 28 June)
Turiya ~ Bliss (28 June)
ummsbiaus & Difference Machine ~ на півшляху від витоку до краю (Gasoline Records, 28 June)
Unstern ~ Es Geht Der Tag (A L T E R, 28 June)
YELKA ~ For (Karaoke Kalk, 28 June)
Zachary Mezzo ~ Proximity (cmntx, 28 June)
Zheng Hao ~ Harmonium II (Bezerk Tapes, 28 June)
Sinnway ~ Nykloud Veil (30 June)
Victor Benev ~ Five Dreams (enovae, 30 June)
Federico Durand ~ Té De Flores Silvestres (IIKKI, 1 July)
Tomotsugu Nakamura ~ For a Fleeting Moment (IIKKI, 1 July)
Proxima Psychoacoustics ~ Rituals Beyond the Heliosphere (2 July)
Titanoboa ~ Seth (A-Musik, 4 July)
Antonia Nowacka ~ Sylphine Soporifera (Mondoj, 5 July)
Bologna Improvisation Group ~ BIG (Elli, 5 July)
David Vélez ~ Comfort Food (Flaming Pines, 5 July)
Eulipion Corps ~ Kurama (Wormhole World, 5 July)
Fire-Toolz ~ Breeze (5 July)
fthmlss ~ Itinerant (Folded Music, 5 July)
Hypnodrone Ensemble ~ The Problem Is In the Sender – Do Not Tamper With the Receiver (Cruel Nature, 5 July)
John Reidar Holmes ~ Lost in Some Stream of Time (5 July)
Kiasmos ~ II (Erased Tapes, 5 July)
Million Moons ~ I May Be Some Time (5 July)
Mines ~ Warm & Safe (Lavender Sweep, 5 July)
Modern Silent Cinema ~ Anemic Music (5 July)
Samu Heitainen ~ DUST // Sequence (5 July)
Scanner & Neil Leonard ~ The Berklee Sessions (5 July)
Seph ~ Séptimo Sentido (Lapsus, 5 July)
ZULI ~ Lambda (Subtext, 5 July)
Seamus O’Muineachain ~ Liminality (7 July)
Brandon Tani ~ The Road Was Bent From The Way We Took It (LAAPS, 8 July)
Trigger Object ~ Ghost Bros OST (EMS, 11 July)
appian ~ fragments vol. 2 (sound as language, 12 July)
ARK ZEAD ~ Niptaktuk (Glacial Movements, 12 July)
Christopher Lock ~ Ephemerist (Protomaterial, 12 July)
Colin Fisher ~ Suns of the Heart (We Are Busy Bodies, 12 July)
Eyal Mayoz and Eugene Chadbourne ~ The Coincidence Masters (Infrequent Seams, 12 July)
Jiem ~ Laying Down a Path in Walking (Earshift Music, 12 July)
Karen Power ~ … we return to ground … (Other Minds, 12 July)
Kessoncoda ~ Outerstate (Gondwana, 12 July)
Matthew Bourne ~ This Is Not for You (Leaf, 12 July)
Nite Fleit, Unklevon ~ Algorhythm Anxiety (Atomic Alert, 12 July)
Patrick Higgins ~ Versus (Other People, 12 July)
Skyminds ~ Echoes on the Shore (Inner Islands, 12 July)
Spyros Polychronopoulos and Jannis Anastasakis ~ Nyfida (Room40, 12 July)
Wild Up & Christopher Rountree ~ 3 BPM (Grassland, 12 July)
Henrik Meierkord ~ Visitors to Erinnerungen (Audiobulb, 13 July)
Luke Elliott ~ Every Somewhere (AKP Recordings, 17 July)
Dark Sky Burial ~ Solve Et Coagula (Extrinsic, 18 July)
JakoJako ~ Segments (Mute, 18 July)
Alberto Boccardi ~ Apnea (Room40, 19 July)
Droneroom ~ as long as the sun (Decaying Spheres, 19 July)
Elori Saxl ~ Drifts and Surfaces (Western Vinyl, 19 July)
Garrett Wingfield ~ Water Futures (Deadland, 19 July)
Joep Beving & Maarten Vos ~ vision of contentment (LEITER, 19 July)
Jon Rose ~ Aeolian Tendency (Room40, 19 July)
Lilacs & Champagne ~ Fantasy World (Temporary Residence Ltd., 19 July)
Olivier Cong ~ Tropical Church (Room40, 19 July)
Scree ~ Live at the Owl Vol. 2 (Ruination, 19 July)
Circa Alto ~ Faint Structures (Whitelabrecs, 20 July)
Daou ~ Bluebird (Whitelabrecs, 20 July)
Demetrio Cecchitelli ~ Jump (Dronarivm, 20 July)
Glåsbird ~ A Sonic Expedition (Whitelabrecs, 20 July)
Harvestman ~ Triptych Part Two (Neurot, 21 July)
Ayumi Ishito ~ Wondercut Club (577 Records, 26 July)
Devin Maxwell ~ Timebending (Infrequent Seams, 26 July)
Matthew Ottignon ~ Volant (Earshift Music, 26 July)
Øresund Space Collective ~ Orgone Unicorn (Laser’s Edge, 26 July)
Passepartout Duo & Inoyama Land ~ Radio Yugawara (Tonal Unison, 26 July)
Raphael Rogiński ~ Žaltys (Unsound, 26 July)
Yann Novak ~ The Voices of Theseus (Room40, 26 July)
Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman ~ Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On (Clay Pipe Music, 30 July)
David Pedrick ~ Arta (1 August)
Boris Hauf ~ CLARK# – from the edges tongues grow (shameless, 2 August)
Keiji Haino ~ Black Blues (Room40, 2 August)
Pat Thomas & BleySchool ~ Bleyschool: Where (577 Records, 2 August)
Veins Full of Static ~ A House Wrapped in Sleep (Machine, 2 August)
Zack Clarke ~ Plunge (Orenda, 2 August)
Vaux Flores ~ Dawn Chorales (Audiobulb, 3 August)
Braille ~ Triple Transit (Hotflush, 8 August)
Belong ~ Realistic IX (kranky, 9 August)
Bosque Vacío ~ Cantera Oriente (Flaming Pines, 9 August)
Connor D’Netto x Yvette Ofa Agapow ~ Material (Room40, 9 August)
Etelin ~ Patio User Manual (Beacon Sound, 16 August)
Gerard Cleaver ~ The Process (577 Records, 16 August)
Jessica Ackerley ~ All of the Colours Are Singing (16 August)
K. Yoshimatsu ~ Fossil Coccon: The Music of K. Yoshimatsu (Phantom Limb, 16 August)
Melinda Sullivan & Larry Goldings ~ Big Foot (Colorfield, 16 August)
Daniel Curington ~ Composer REACTS / After These Messages (Difficult Art & Music, 21 August)
Federico Balducci & fourthousandblackbirds ~ Succulent Succubus (Difficult Art & Music, 21 August)
John Blum Quartet feat. Marshall Allen ~ Deep Space (Astral Spirits, 21 August)
Brian Gibson ~ Thrasher (Thrill Jockey, 23 August)
Umberto ~ Black Bile (Thrill Jockey, 23 August)
Yui Onodera ~ 1982 (Room40, 23 August)
Loren Connors & David Grubbs ~ Evening Air (Room40, 30 August)
Quintelium ~ Dream and Reality (Somewherecold, 30 August)
SVIN ~ Folklórica (momeatdad, 30 August)
TAU ~ Chants (Fun in the Church, 30 August)
Yuko Araki ~ Zenjitsutan 前日譚 (Room40, 30 August)
CZIGO ~ Actant Theory (Machine, 7 September)