A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #65

Summer Break (New Picks, Reviews, and Upcoming)

Dear Listeners, Joseph here a few days late, but with a whole newsletter worth of music. I was in the middle of a move earlier this week and wasn’t quite able to get this out by the usual Wednesday deadline. Somewhat fittingly, as it happens ACL is on our first ever summer break. We’ll be back to daily posts again from August 12th (that’s tomorrow!) and our queue already has some great posts coming up: a new mix, new podcast episodes with France Jobin and Matana Roberts, and of course our regular reviews. For this vacation installment, I’ve selected nine new highlights and nine recent reviews. More soon, but until then, as always, happy listening.

Mini-Reviews

Short highlights

Color of Time ~ Color of Time II
More emotional drones from the duo of Past Inside the Present label veterans Kévin Séry (From Overseas) and Nick Turner (Tyresta). Full of blurred guitar drones, Séry deploys an OP-1 while Turner augments his sound with the use of a Mellotron, the duo conjure a suite of meditative bliss perfect for those late summer chill outs.

Big Flowers x Messiah Musik ~ Save The Bees
New from PTP, collage artist Flowers raps over Messiah Musik beats, finessed by GENG for maximum impact. 17 tracks full of guest appearances (KAYANA, Moor Mother, Sleep Sinatra, Quelle Chris, Nelson Bandela, Sharif and many others), Save The Bees is as much a community statement as it is a singular vision. Dont’ sleep.

Fatboi Sharif and Duncecap ~ Psychedelics Wrote The Bible
More unclassifiable hip hop from the reigning king of weird by way of the real. Raps by Sharif with full production by Dunce, Psychedelics Wrote The Bible clocks in at five tracks, and just one guest feature from the great SKECH185, (with the vinyl including the instrumentals on the B-side). Sharif has been prolific with his releases since 2021, though he’s not been shy about experimenting with unusual formats and presentations: digital only EPs, 20 minute tapes, a ten minute single. There’s clearly more full-length projects coming just over the horizon, but don’t overlook this one.

Fuubutsushi ~ Meridians
Men’s Health magazine’s favorite ambient dad jazz returns with the full-length follow up to 2021’s quartet of seasonal EPs. The quartet of Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage, and Patrick Shiroishi started out as an exercise in remote collaboration, quickly coalescing into something that transcends their individual styles. Having since performed in person, Meridians reveals an even greater range of expression between these four gifted players.

Jake Muir ~ enmixed
We love the enmossed label, and we love Jake Muir’s weird mixes, so of course we love this mixtape of Muir digging into and remixing the enmossed archive, “a super-compendium of the global sonic underground.” I’ve already got my tape, I suggest you grab a copy while they last.

Other Light Ensemble ~ blue fifty​-​one
Past collaborators Jonathan Hill, Chris Jones, Matthew Redfern and Ryan James Mawbey have adopted the name Other Light Ensemble for their collective improvisations. Here they are joined by Neck’s drummer Tony Buck and Sardinian percussionist Alessandro Cau, making this a must hear for fans of minimal contemporary percussion. Also joined by everyone’s favorite saxophonist, Patrick Shiroishi, this staggering team-up produced a 28-minute long composition, “Body of Ritual Tapestry.” Tapes still available.

Red Hot Org ~ Outer Spaceways Incorporated : Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra
David Harrington and the Kronos Quartet tackle the music of Sun Ra, with many guests; Georgia Anne Muldrow, Jlin, Laraaji, Laurie Anderson, Marshall Allen, and that’s just the first four songs. Anderson and Allen appear together on tracks 4, 6, and 9, adding some narrative coherence to the album as a whole. The back half explore a different side of Sun Ra’s legacy, with contributions from Armand Hammer, RP Boo, 700 Biss (Moor Mother and DJ Haram), and Evichshen. The groovey noodles of Secret Chiefs 3 and Trey Spruance “Love In Outerspace” makes for fitting tonal balance, while Terry Riley and Sara Miyamoto’s “Kiss Yo' Ass Goodbye” (with its “Nuclear War” samples) is the perfect closer. There’s got to be a second pressing of these coming, right?

Wendy Eisenberg ~ Viewfinder
Forthcoming on American Dream, Wendy Eisenberg (voice, guitar) presents a song cycle for improvising musicians inspired in part by an experience of clarity following a Lasik eye surgery. With Tyrone Allen II, Zekereyya el-Magharbel, Andrew Links, Chris Williams, Booker Stardrum, and Carmen Q. Rothwell.

ØKSE ~ ØKSE
Debut from ØKSE: NYC based drummer Savannah Harris, Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen, Haitian electronic musician Val Jeanty, and Swede Petter Eldh on bass, synths and sampler. Backwoodz continues to surprise, taking a chance on this unusual experimental jazz project. Even after verses by billy woods, ELUCID, maassai., and Cavalier, ØKSE lands its most face twisting moments with the instrumental closer.

RECENT REVIEWS
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.

Calcou ~ Murmuration
Murmuration may be Calcou‘s first album, but it’s not his first appearance.  The Berlin-based artist has been releasing music for five years, beginning with three EPs followed by seven singles, each of which appear here, tying the number of singles on Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  For those who have been following the artist, there’s no risk in buying the set, as it’s already proven its worth. Like the recent albums from Tinlicker and Catching Flies, Murmuration lands between house and trance, with a mix of instrumentals, cuts with vocal snippets and the occasional song.  This variety opens it up to various markets, including ours.  Calcou knows the value of injecting a universal phrase with a soupçon of romance.  But he also includes a vocabulary word, antrhophyllite, which refers to the cool rocks that look ordinary on the outside but display crystals when sliced in half.  The same might be said of the album, which contains many tiny delights; or the inspirations from nature, most apparent in the tweets (no, not those tweets) in “Birdsong.”

Christopher McFall ~ I Throw the Switch on the Midnight Snake
The fixed point: the train lines of Kansas City East Bottoms, Missouri.  The unfixed point: the train lines of the mind.  Christopher McFall humbly suggests that “everyone will experience (the new album) in different ways.” In the liner notes, Lucas Schleicher thinks of Zeno’s Paradox, his own grandfather and the motion of time.  These five untitled soundscapes will likely lead listeners in different directions, like the trains of memory and the tunnels of impression.

Jashiin ~ Ten Poems by Birhan Keskin
Only a few days ago we wrote, “more albums should be inspired by poems,” and already we’ve gotten our wish.  Ten Poems by Birhan Keskin is an aural reaction to, and reflection upon, the work of a famous Turkish poet, but it’s much more than this; it’s also a treatise on national identity and the attempt to find one’s place in the world. After emigrating to Türkiye (Turkey) two years ago, Jashiin became immersed in the local culture, and while engaging in works of translation was especially enamored by the work of Birhan Keskin. Poetry and music each offer windows through which one may peer intently while seeking a deeper connection.  … Her early work also pulses with the vagaries of love. … While the music is instrumental, the surprise is that it is not placid: an echo of Keskin’s tone, which is often turbulent beneath the surface.

NFNR ~ Fragility
Fragilty is one of the strongest musical statements to emerge from Ukraine this year; it is also surprisingly tender.  Kyiv’s NFNR (Olesia Onykiienko) was tired of being dominated by the “anger, hatred and despair” brought on by the russian invasion, and while these emotions still haunt the artist, they do not dominate.  Instead, she writes of a deeper appreciation of life, love, family and community: the reasons why one fights in the first place. The tensions of an ongoing occupation are difficult to comprehend.  Any moment a bomb could fall, a school might be wiped out, a museum or library destroyed, a family lost, whether at the front lines or in civilian territory.  The rest of humanity remembers its fragility only in times of immediate loss: the death of a loved one, a natural disaster, an act of terrorism ~ and then returns to its pre-traumatic bubble.  Ukraine has no such luxury, and has been plunged into a state of seemingly unending fragility.  NFNR sees this as a potential asset, in that it can also spark a corresponding sense of unending gratitude for the ephemeral.  The title track places bright, sparkling chords atop dark, swirling undercurrents, highlighting the contrast.  This is dance music, but it is also thought music.

Salt of the Sound ~ Meditations Vol. 6
What is ambient music for?  Some might say ambient music is meant to be played in the background. Others say it is meant to help listeners to relax.  A third form of ambient music offers something deeper: a spiritual connection.  This potential for rejuvenation be found on Meditations Vol. 6, reflective of I will consider all your works and meditate on your mighty deeds.  Husband and wife duo Anita and Ben Tatlow, known as Salt of the Sound, are joined here by special guests whose contributions are seamlessly integrated.  The point of the album is to offer peace, perhaps even the peace that passeth understanding, as made apparent in track titles such as “Peace, With You,” “Quietude” and “Be Still, The Waves.”

Sculpture ~ Max Ax
What’s the last physical release that you were excited about ~ not only because you enjoyed the music, but because you wanted to cherish the object and show it off to your friends?  In a comeback year for exquisite packaging, Sculpture‘s Max Ax may be the pièce de résistance.  The audiovisual duo of Dan Hayhurst and Reuben Sutherland has already been responsible for some of the most beautiful vinyl of all time, as well as some of the most beguiling videos, and the new album doubles the fun: a pair of zoetrope 10″ records whose images can be unlocked using a Smartphone.  (For an example of what this feature looks like, see the Paris exhibition video The Zoetropic Gallery.) The music is just as fun.  Max Ax sounds like an amalgamation of early 21st century machines, from handheld video games and dial-up to bank machines and multi-flavor soda dispensers.  The music seems abstract at first, but begins to make internal sense.  As the record spins, wild associations may begin to tumble: anime, foam makers, popcorn poppers, laser guns.  The title track and lead single jumps right into the fray, with a synthetic layer, a percussive layer and even an ambient layer: a multi-colored cake that one simply must eat, if only to know how it tastes.

Throwing Snow ~ Isthmus
After releasing a quartet of singles over the past year, Ross Tones returns as Throwing Snow with another exciting collection of beat-driven music.  The flow of Isthmus is so smooth – imitating water around land – that it almost seems like a DJ mix; yet in a twist, the most dynamic track contains no drums at all.  These tracks allow one to interpret the album as a voyage; in the end, one lands safely on the opposite shore, shaken yet intact.

Wil Bolton ~ 23
23 musical ideas in 23 tracks spanning 23 minutes, recorded in 2023 and released on 23 July in a limited edition of 23 copies, each containing one of 23 photos: the theme brings to mind 23 pairs of chromosomes, Dr. Pepper’s 23 flavors and Michael Jordan’s jersey number.  The EP is a whole lot of fun, and brings a smile to the face simply by existing. Wil Bolton writes that these pieces were inspired by a series of walks near his East London home, and that he was “fascinated by the mixture and contrast of old and new businesses located beneath the train lines, from mechanics and scrap merchants to micro breweries and artisanal bakeries.”  Field recordings emphasize the aural richness of the community.

WaqWaq Kingdom ~ Mind Onsen
WaqWaq Kingdom‘s music sounds like it looks, and always looks fantastic.  The EP cover art is once again phantasmagoric, filled with detail and allusion.  This time we also get an appearance from Lucky Cat.  If there’s something a little different about the new EP, it is an emphasis on the centering of the mind, which is shown to contain its own hot spring, or onsen, a place where every creature can be content.  The same might be said of every style, as the duo of Shigeru Ishihara and Kiki Hitomi continues to introduce international genres, stretching from their familiar, beloved minyo footwork to “Tanzanian Singeli-inspired rave thump and Indonesian koplo dangdut dance music.”  Even the subgenres have subgenera.  While listening, one imagines strolling through a Byzantine bazaar and discovering things that one didn’t know existed, all cultures co-mingling joyfully in a single place.  By extension, one might imagine the healing of a fractured world, beginning with the peace of an individual soul.

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UPCOMING RELEASES

(complete list with Bandcamp links here)

We’ve arrived at the dog days of the summer, the hottest days of the year, when our minds and hearts gravitate to long stretches of August beach.  Here at A Closer Listen, we’re in the midst of our first summer vacation (in our 13th summer!), but fear not ~ we’ll still be updating this page!  There’s always something new on the horizon; our ACL playlist now stretches all the way to November.  We hope you’ll find your next favorite album right here!

Braille ~ Triple Transit (Hotflush, 8 August)

ehh hahah ~ nigdy nie jest dobrze (wojtek) (BFF Musić, 8 August)

Shall Remain Nameless ~ A Bleeping Mess (8 August)

And So I Watch You From Afar ~ Megafauna (9 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)

Gaetha ~ Flawed (élan vital, 9 August)

galen tipton & Holly Waxwing ~ kepsakeFM (Orange Milk, 9 August)

Gwennaëlle Roulleau & Reinhold Freidl ~ strata & spheres (Room40, 9 August)

NINA EBA ~ MORPHO (9 August)

Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers, Tony Levin ~ The Good Feelings (577 Records, 9 August)

Terry Riley ~ Descending Moonshine Dervishes (Beacon Sound, 9 August)

Various Artists ~ Antechamber Music 3 (Accidental, 9 August)

Various Artists ~ Sound on the Fringe (Megastructure, 9 August)

ZAKLADKI ~ Roller Coaster (Fuselab, 9 August)

Hélène Vogelsinger ~ Ethereal Dissolution (Microsmose, 11 August)

Francisco Meza ~ Textures (15 August)

BBSitters Club ~ Joel’s Picks Vol. 2 (Hausu Mountain, 16 August)

Chuck Johnson ~ Sun Glories (Western Vinyl, 16 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)

Gregory Paul Mineef ~ I Knew You Once (Whitelabrecs, 17 August)

Paper Relics ~ Time to Start (Whitelabrecs, 17 August)

Liew Niyomkarn ~ in all possible places at once (Chinabot, 20 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)

kraftwitch ~ Liminal Home (Three Wands, 21 August)

Brian Gibson ~ Thrasher (Thrill Jockey, 23 August)

delving ~ All Paths Diverge (Blues Funeral Recordings, 23 August)

Lyndsie Aguirre ~ time is but the drawing of a sword (Hush Hush, 23 August)

The Mercury Impulse ~ Records of Human Behavior (23 August)

Philip Weberndoerfer ~ Tides (Shifting Paradigm, 23 August)

Umberto ~ Black Bile (Thrill Jockey, 23 August)

Yui Onodera ~ 1982 (Room40, 23 August)

Daniel Vickers & Sergio Mariani_MRN ~ New Dawn (Audiobulb, 24 August)

bvdub / Brock Van Wey ~ In Iron Houses (29 August)

Mylan Hoezen ~ Sunkissed (Futura Resistenza, 29 August)

C6Fe2RN6 ~ S/T (Astral Spirits, 30 August)

Gonçalo F. Cardoso ~ Exotic Immensity (Discrepant, 30 August)

Jan Berrocal + David French + Vincent Epplay feat. Cossi Fanni Tutti and Jah Wobble ~ Broken Allures (Cold Spring, 30 August)

Lars Bech Pilgaard ~ Folklórica (momeatdad, 30 August)

Lia Kohl ~ Normal Sounds (Moon Glyph, 30 August)

Loren Connors & David Grubbs ~ Evening Air (Room40, 30 August)

Markus Guentner ~ Kontrapunkt (A Strangely Isolated Place, 30 August)

Quintelium ~ Dream and Reality (Somewherecold, 30 August)

Roman Nagel ~ Home (Bigo & Twigetti, 30 August)

TAU ~ Chants (Fun in the Church, 30 August)

Yuko Araki ~ Zenjitsutan 前日譚 (Room40, 30 August)

Eventless Plot | Yorgos Dimitriadis ~ Entanglements (INNOVO Editions, 1 September)

Ontzeiling ~ All These Moments Will Be Lost (esc.rec., 5 September)

amelia courthouse ~ broken things (S P I N S T E R, 6 September)

Arsenal Mikembe ~ DRUM MACHINE (Nyege Nyege Tapes, 6 September)

Blurstem ~ Silence Spoken (Bigo & Twigetti, 6 September)

Daniel Carter, Leo Genovese, William Parker, Francisco Mela ~ Shine Hear, Vol. 2 (577 Records, 6 September)

Destro ~ Night of Vengeance (Avantgarde Music, 6 September)

DHÆÜR ~ Supercinema 05 (Supercinema, 6 September)

400 Lonely Things ~ The New Twilight (Cold Spring, 6 September)

Isak Hedtjärn ~ Kvarpan (fönstret, 6 September)

Francesco Leali ~ Let Us Descend (UNTIL RIOTS, 6 September)

Glacier ~ A Distant, Violent Shudder (Post. Recordings, 6 September)

Heli Hartikainen ~ CHRONOVARIATIONS (6 September)

Henrik Pultz Melbye ~ Drømmene (Wetware, 6 September)

Jeff Snyder ~ Loom (Carrier, 6 September)

Laurence Pike ~ The Undreamt-Of Centre (Leaf, 6 September)

Luke Sanger ~ Dew Point Harmonics (Lapsus, 6 September)

Mads Emil Nielsen ~ Heartbeats (arbitrary, 6 September)

Masayoshi Fujita ~ Migratory (Erased Tapes, 6 September)

Ocoeur ~ Breath (n5MD, 6 September)

Oneironaut ~ Alien Gnosis (Avantgarde Music, 6 September)

Party Dozen ~ Crime in Australia (Temporary Residence Ltd., 6 September)

Purple Decades ~ Fraction of Centuries (Beacon Sound, 6 September)

Solars ~ A Fading Future (Ripcord, 6 September)

Zimoun ~ Dust Resonance (Room40, 6 September)

CZIGO ~ Actant Theory (Machine, 7 September)

Build Buildings ~ Ecotone (LAAPS, 9 September)

Dextro ~ Respire (12 September)

Ümlaut ~ An Auxiliary View (Audiobulb, 12 September)

Aidan Baker & Dead Neanderthals ~ Cast Down and Hunted (Moving Furniture, 13 September)

Allan Gilbert Balon ~ The Magnesia Suite (Recital, 13 September)

Jos Smolders ~ Testur 1 (Moving Furniture, 13 September)

Max Jaffe ~ Reduction of Man (Whited Sepulchre, 13 September)

Michael Serian ~ Life at Cliff Bell’s (Shifting Paradigm, 13 September)

Nídia & Valentina ~ Estradas (Latency, 13 September)

Paradise Cinema ~ returning, dream (Gondwana, 13 September)

Sarah Davachi ~ The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir (Late Music, 13 September)

Transatlantic Trance Map ~ Marconi’s Drift (False Walls, 13 September)

Tulpas ~ Atisbo (Astral Spirits, 13 September)

V/A ~ Dekmantel Ten: A Decade of Dekmantel Festival (Dekmantel, 13 September)

We Are Winter’s Blue and Radiant Children ~ “No More Apocalypse Father” (Constellation, 13 September)

Zeno van der Broek, HIIIT, Gagi Petrovic & Machines ~ Relatum (Moving Furniture, 13 September)

Alaskan Tapes ~ Something Ephemeral (Nettwek, 20 September)

Alan Licht ~ Havens (VDSQ, 20 September)

Alex Henry Foster ~ A Measure of Shape and Sounds (20 September)

Anthony Vine ~ Sound Spring (kuyin, 20 September)

Başak Günak ~ Rewilding (Subtext, 20 September)

DEFTR ~ Run Away (npm, 20 September)

DJ Stingray 313 ~ Industry 4.o EP (Tresor, 20 September)

Malcolm Pardon ~ The Abyss (Leaf, 20 September)

more eaze ~ lacuna and parlor (Mondoj, 20 September)

Nico van Wersch ~ Psychose (Naked, 20 September)

Otay.onii ~ True Faith Ain’t Blind (No-Gold, 20 September)

Bruce Brubaker ~ Eno Piano 2 (InFiné, 25 September)

Black Brunswicker ~ Been Around Here Before (Nettwerk, 27 September)

Klara Lewis ~ Thankful (Editions Mego, 27 September)

the Man from Atlantis ~ Spirits Align (Ramble, 27 September)

mu tate ~ wanting less (Warm Winters Ltd., 27 September)

Sandy Evans Trio ~ The Running Tide (27 September)

Tam Lin ~ Mutant Tangle (27 September)

Telekaster ~ Lontano (Empanada Music, 27 September)

Twin Talk ~ Twin Talk Live (Shifting Paradigm, 27 September)

Cape Canaveral ~ Ghost Rips (Machine Records, 4 October)

mHz ~ Material Prosody (Room40, 4 October)

Leo Genovese ~ Forward (577 Records, 4 October)

Nichunimu ~ Calados (577 Records, 4 October)

Unicorn Ship Explosion ~ There’s a Rhinoceros in the Mega Church (Sound Records, 4 October)

V/A ~ Cybernetics, Or Ghosts? (Subtext, 6 October)

Brad Shepik ~ Human Activity: Dream of the Possible (Shifting Paradigm, 11 October)

B.Visible ~ Life Is My Hobby (Matches Music, 11 October)

Marysia Osu ~ harp, beats & dreams (Brownswood Recordings, 18 October)

Oliver Coates ~ throb, shiver, arrow of time (RVNG Intl., 18 October)

Pat Thomas ~ This Is Trick Step (577 Records, 18 October)

Ueno Takashi ~ ARMS (Room40, 18 October)

Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Perry, Rebecca Foon ~ First Sounds (Envision, 1 November)

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