A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #74
2024 Mini-Reviews Marathon
Dear Listeners, Joseph here for another bi-weekly newsletter, but this one is a special one. I hope you’ve been enjoying our ACL 2024 year end coverage. Our genre and top 20 lists are about to begin dropping, but Richard has been busy with our specialty lists, such as Music For Stained Glass, which has been a big hit this year, and our perennial favorites like Happiest Music, Best Album Covers, Film Scores, Music Videos and more. Just today, we announced our pick for favorite label, which should have hit your inbox shortly before this missive. So this week things will be a bit different. First I’ll run down some of what I’ve been listening to and reading recently. I’ve also got a few reflections on some live performances I’ve attended in my recent travels, and then I’ve got an extra special Mini-Review Marathon, working through my long queue of 2024 releases I’ve yet to mention in these pages.
Non-profit activist music label Red Hot Org’s full 46-track compilation TRAИƧA is finally out, bringing together over 100 artists to raise awareness and funds for social change, in this case by bringing together the most imaginative trans and non-binary artists working today. The release features beautiful music from L’Rain, Sade Adu, André 3000, Sam Smith, Bill Callahan, Ana Roxanne, Jlin and Moor Mother, and so many others. I may be biased, but especially proud of my friend Cole Pulice, who makes two contributions here, one with actress Hunter Schafer reading a poem by Eileen Myles and the other with their longtime collaborator Lynn Avery and Fleet Foxes. Have a listen and support if you can. There’s also a TRAИƧA: selects vinyl available featuring Sade, L’Rain, Three Stacks, Beverly Glenn-Copeland + Sam Smith, and Lauren Auder + Wendy and Lisa.
This was waiting for me when I returned home from my recent travels. I’ve mentioned my deep appreciation for Caltrops Press here many times, which I’ve been collecting since issue #1, which accompanied my purchase of Sleep Sinatra and August Fanon’s tape ROUTES released on PTP. Caltrops has since made a name for their incredible zines exploring the literary, historical, and musical resonances within the Backwoodz Studioz extended family, for instance A Skeleton Key to billy woods' Aethiopes. Joe’s latest is Hellhounds on His Trail: E L U C I D's REVELATOR, and while you can read that and much more at the link, if you can throw him a few bucks and snag a physical while you can. As Caltrops’ tag line says: Fuck The Noise, Get Off The Internet.
Do y’all mind more personal stuff from me? Indulge me a bit. I won’t get into the details, but for personal reasons I left Montreal, my longtime second home for many years, and for related personal reasons I returned for a visit last month. I also released two new tapes, one with Stefan Christoff on OKLA, which I previously dedicated a post to, and another with Jordan Christoff out on Global Pattern, about which more soon. But Stefan had just returned from some shows in Europe, the second tape wasn’t out yet, my attempts to get a live show together fell through as did my scheduled live radio performance on CKUT. Par for the course, this year, which has been a particular struggle I’m trying to chalk up to some combination of mid-life crisis and something about Pluto. Despite that part of the trip not working out, it was good to be back and catch up with many friends and comrades. I was there for about ten days, and while there were some excellent shows that first weekend (Jan Jelinek, France Jobin), I wasn’t able to attend. Still, just being back in a city that has excellent, often competing, opportunities to catch live experimental, electronics, and/or improvised musics on any given night was a soul booster I needed.
That said, of course I caught a few live shows while I was in town, including at my favorite spots Casa del Popolo and Sotterenea. I was impressed by DahL, a quartet of drums / guitars / bass/ synth, which while essentially a vocal rock band writing pop songs managed to be much more captivating than that sounds. They cite post-punk and trip-hop as influences, and that tracks, but they’re also doing something that feels quite fresh, and has me excited about the prospects of the return of bands to the scene after such a long focus on solo artists. They had catchy hooks, but more importantly they grooved, with a deep low end synth, sometimes combined with electric bass, setting them above and apart from similar outfits. But I was there to see Toronto’s LAL, performing as a quartet celebrating their 25th year with a new album and short film called SPECTACULAR. The projections by Jose Garcia and lighting and show design by Yann Garcia really made it a special evening. My crummy phone pic doesn’t do them justice.
Also shout out to the homie Jean Néant aka Joni Void who was a big help on my return trip to MTL. I’m not sure it’s been announced yet so I won’t say too much, but he’s got a new record for Constellation coming out in the new year you’re going to want to check out. He’s also officially launched a new moniker for his SP404 beats called LOUD LIFE with the tape Lo-Life Dead Beats to Worry/Panic About 24/7. (More on that below.) He’s also got some really exciting stuff coming from that project down the road as well, again I’m not at liberty to discuss, but I assure you hip-hop fans you’ll want to smash that Bandcamp follow button.
After Montreal I headed back to my actual hometown of NYC, mostly to catch the rare Thanksgiving at home with my extended family. As I’ve said, this has been a difficult year for me, personally professionally financially and otherwise, a year of many transitions and changes, and so it felt right to spend time with family being grateful for what we do have. After meeting a dear friend at the Brooklyn Museum on December 1, we headed to the edge of SoHo for the second night of Harvestworks’ OTO ZONO festival of electro-acoustic sound + visuals. I’d recently written about Schumacher’s Living Room Pieces, so it was fortunate timing to see him do some of his classic live spatialization.
I was very happy to find Dave Seidel doing a version of CC Hennix’s masterpiece The Electric Harpsichord, which he performed on an Ableton Push, or maybe a Novation Launchpad. In retrospect, what an obvious way to perform some of these pieces written for unusual tunings, and fun to watch. I agree with Seidel that her work is almost criminally under-appreciated, though friends like Henry Flynt and labels including Die Schachtel and Blank Forms have done important work in raising her profile, not just as a musician, but as a poet, mathematician, philosopher, and visual artist. I believe I heard Seidel identify Hennix as Dutch, as while she was based in Amsterdam in the 1990s before relocating to Istanbul close to the end of her life, she was born and raised in Sweden. She came to NY in the late 1960s where she fell in with the wider Fluxus movement, including close friend and collaboration Flynt, and became a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, transforming her artistic and spiritual trajectory.
The final performance that night came from the duo of Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams as HxH. I’ve been a fan of each individual for some time, and I believe I first saw HxH pop up on PTP’s RESIST compilation earlier this year, but they’ve just recently put out two releases, East River Transverse I and East River Transverse II, featuring recordings from live performances during 2023-24. For HxH, rather than their usual cello and trumpet, the pair focus on field recordings, electronics, laptops, and synths, for a delicate and subtle exploration of texture and tone. Their debut studio full-length will be out next year.
Finally, on my way back to St. Louis I stopped in Chicago to catch billy woods and Kenny Segal on their Hiding Places fifth anniversary tour. I wish I could have stuck around in New York long enough to catch their hometown gig at Warsaw, which featured guest performances from ELUCID, AKAI SOLO, Fatboi Sharif, the Juggaknots, Illa Ghee, and Despot. Not only a celebration of woods and Segal’s breakthrough record, but of Backwoodz’ wider legacy as a bastion of NYC underground hip hip, from giving Vordul a post-CanOx home to raising up so many important contemporary voices. But still, I’m grateful I got to catch the tour where I did, in Pilsen, Chicago’s beautiful Thalia Hall. I’ve seen woods and Armand Hammer live on a number of occasions, but never in a spot like that, which felt right for an album as important as Hiding Places.
ShrapKnel, the duo of PremRock and Curly Castro opened, playing a short set full of tunes from their latest with Controller 7 as well some choice tracks from earlier work. I’d previously seen them open for Armand Hammer and am a fan of Castro’s podcast, Call Out Culture. They make a good combo, with Prem a master of breath control and densely written rhymes, while Castro remains the dream hype man even after recovering from cancer a short while back, full of energy and spitting like his life depends on it. Prem also played “Bardo,” produced by Evidence, though this was a bit of a tease because of course woods didn’t come out to do his verse, which remains one of my favorite woods’ story raps.
The main event began with Kenny Segal doing some solo beats on his SP and synth, before woods joined him and they more or less go straight through Hiding Places, just skipping ELUCID’s verse on “Crawlspace” and pretty much all of “Speak Gently.” And of course no “Red Dust,” because woods never has or will perform that tune. In the special book that was made to accompany the fifth anniversary repress of Hiding Places, the page in the lyric book for that song is left blank, though woods’ characteristically beautiful essay at the end looking back on the making of the record provides some insight into why, for those who may be wondering. They also performed a bunch of songs off their second collaboration, 2023’s equally excellent Maps, which was expected, but it was the unexpected that made the show extra special. They brought out Chicago native Defcee to do a joint from his Backwoodz record with Messiah Musik. woods performed the opening track from Aethiopes, a strong contender for his greatest artistic statement, as well his verse from Mach-Hommy’s “383 Myrtle.” But all that said, it was an amazing opportunity to hear Hiding Places performed in (near) entirety and celebrate that important record and the unparalleled run woods has been on this last decade.
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Alright, I’ve got so many releases in my notes app, I usually write up 9 or 10 in every bi-weekly newsletter, but I want to clear out 2024 before the new year begins, so here we go. Or anyway let’s make a serious dent in that list, with 21 short blurbs about recent or overlooked 2024 releases.
Mini-Reviews
Short highlights
7X3=21 + August Fanon ~ The Intentional Whatever
Fanon is just endless making beats, with many of his collaborators speaking about his never ending beat packs that never miss. His catalog includes career bests with Mach-Hommy, Armand Hammer, Vic Spencer, and more. This year alone he’s solo produced records for DøøF & Escee Tha Chemist, blackchai, and Vic Spencer, released several beat tapes (including the split with iLL-Sugi I wrote up previously), and there’s been talk of a collab with Child Actor, after the pair did a set together in NY earlier this year. Fanon has become one of those producer’s I always check for. Here he’s joined by Minneapolis rapper and Rhymesayers Entertainment manager Kevin Beacham aka 7X3=21 for an LP of classic hip hop.
AKAI SOLO ~ DREAMDROPDRAGON
After breakout features with billy woods, Armand Hammer, and Amani, and a shout out from Earl, AKAI’s rise seemed secured, including an excellent EP / LP combo released on the mighty Backwoodz. His profile seems to have dropped a bit since turning to self-releasing his subsequent records on his GRIP collective’s own Break All Records, particularly when he released two records back to back late in 2023, late enough to get lost in the end of year shuffle. 2024 has been quiet, but once we again we have a late year entry from AKAI with DREAMDROPDRAGON, the latest solid installment in the rapper respectable body of work. I need more time to absorb his lyricism, but he always makes it worth the effort. The production is solid as always, though, as I’ve said before, TwentyFifthNight’s production does nothing for me. Since he’s never worked with any other rappers as far as I can tell, I suspect it might be AKAI’s producer alter ego, and if so I wish he’d stick to rhyming. But it works in this context as the intro and outro tracks, with samples talking about Freudian dream analysis. Wavy Bagel’s joints on here on here are hitting though, with tracks from Roper Williams, August Fanon, Wifigawd, and Theravada all very worth your time.
Amirtha Kidambi's Elder Ones ~ New Monuments
This is the third record from Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones, but I must have missed those first two, both on the eminent Northern Spy label. I first encountered Kidambi’s unique vocal stylings via her collaborations with Lea Bertucci, in which the latter manipulates the former’s voice using reel-to-reel tape players and effects. Kidambi also appears on Moor Mother and billy woods’ excellent BRASS, where she has a standout vocal feature on “Maroons.” She’s also collaborated with Mary Halvorson, Matteo Liberatore, Luke Stewart, Darius Jones, and Che Chen, among many other groups and projects. Trained in Western Classical singing, she also draws on the traditions of Carnatic vocals, free improvisation, rock and folk, a unique and versatile singer and composer, in other words. As a curator at the influential Brooklyn DIY spot The Silent Barn, she demonstrated a commitment to community building, which is on display here in her work as bandleader, bringing together many of NYC’s most exciting improvisors. For New Monuments, released on We Jazz, the ensemble is rounded out by saxophonist Matt Nelson, Eva Lawitts on bass, Lester St. Louis on cello, Jason Nazary on drums and synth, with all of the members also deploying some form of electronics or effects on their instruments. New Monuments four compositions channel the last few years of collective rage, grief, and protest into a transformative act of dissent and radical transformation.
Anna Butterss ~ Mighty Vertebrate
Adelaide, Australia-born bassist and composer Anna Butterss has been known for their collaborations with artists as diverse as Jeff Parker, Andrew Bird, and Phoebe Bridgers. On Mighty Vertebrate, their International Anthem leader debut, Butterss, joined by Parker, Josh Johnson, Gregory Uhlmann, and Ben Lumsdaine, Butterss commands center-stage, playing not only upright and electric bass, but also guitar, synths, flute, and drum machine. More bassist lead ensembles please.
awakened souls, Benoît Pioulard, zakè ~ My Heart, My Beloved
Past Inside the Present is an ever-reliable source of peaceful ambient music, and has for years now been my go to when I need sonics to impart some peace on my disordered internal mind. Quiet comes. But this is a particularly special release, on label head Zach Frizzell’s personal Zakè Drone Recordings imprint. My Heart, My Beloved is a touching tribute to Frizzell’s wife and main inspiration, Julia, whose poetry has turned up on PITP releases over the years. Frizzell commissioned two tracks from awakened souls (aka Cynthia and James Bernard), and two from Pioulard, both of which adapt Julia’s poems for their contributions, ranging from the breathy ethereal bliss of awakened souls to Pioulard’s signature lo-fi folk. And of course Frizzell closes out this gift for his wife with two songs under his alias zakè, with some help from friend and collaborator Damien Duque (aka City of Dawn), who adds some gorgeous textures of his own to these already rich compositions. Lovely music and a touching tribute to Julia as she celebrates a landmark birthday.
de’ Lamperi ~ Addio esseri di polvere
Francesco Toninelli is an interdisciplinary artist based in Florence, and I believe this is his full-length debut under the moniker de’ Lamperi. Addio esseri di polvere [Farewell, dust creatures] was conceived as a sound-focused multidisciplinary performance, and there is an ambiguous yet theatrical narrative across the unfolding of this haunting soundscape. A delicate and at times disconcerting blend of sounds and influences, abstract sounds merge with 17th-century instrumentation, field recordings, and voices in a hallucinatory phantasy.
Fennesz ~ Mosaic
Christian Fennesz carved out a space for himself in the 90s pioneering laptop processed live guitar music, and he still sounds like nobody else today. But I surely don’t need to explain this to our readers. Endless Summer (2001), Venice (2004), Bécs (2014), and so many other albums are certified classics, particularly for a certain type of listener, and Fennesz was such an important part of what made Mego the label they were. While he hasn’t exactly been quiet, this is his first full-length studio LP since Agora (2019) released on Touch. He’s returned to Touch for Mosaic, a record whose production takes inspiration from its title. Fennesz adopted a new working method, a 9-5 approach of dedicated work, cobbling together this mosaic from the fragments he produced during his new found work day. Mosaic finds the Austrian pioneer exploring ever new areas, including some less than obvious deployments of odd time signatures, but in the end the cinematic landscapes and dense textures add up to another classic from Fennesz.
Flora Yin Wong ~ Trigram for Earth
There’s a B-Side to this latest edition of Portraits GRM series, but excuse me for focusing solely on Flora Yin Wong’s contribution in this space. Her Cold Reading for Andy Stott’s Modern Love imprint topped out best of charts last year, and all 18:34 of Trigram for Earth is a triumph. Inspired by traditional eight-sided Pakua mirrors and the trigrams inscribed on each of their edges, this single composition finds the composer on a multi-faceted investigation of reality warping sound.
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet ~ The Way Out of Easy
Legendary guitarist, composer, and member of Tortoise has been as responsible for the modern Chicago sound as anyone else. On his latest, he’s joined by his ETA IVtet with saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose. This quartet held down a weekly Monday residency at LA’s ETA club from 2016 until it was sadly shuttered in December of 2023. As you’d expect from musicians of this calibre who’ve played together for regularly for so long, the quartet is locked in and unafraid of long, transcended, groove-oriented jams. The Way Out of Easy is a must-hear.
Jim O’Rourke ~ steamroom 65
O’Rourke, what’s there to say. Like many of my generation I first discovered him through his association with Sonic Youth, but this man can do anything, from abstract noise to simple pop songs to academic electroacoustic music with equal aplomb. His steamroom series over on his bandcamp page collect archival recordings of various quality, and while 65 isn’t the greatest thing he’s showcased there, even his random guitar noodling captured on cassette in the late 80s is worth a listen.
Kenny Segal x K-the-I??? ~ Genuine Dexterity
Kenny Segal and K-the-I??? are both East Coasters who honed their craft in LA’s legendary Project Blowed, and though it didn’t happen until K returned East, this combination makes sense on a deep level. Two titans pushing underground hip hop forward, K-the-I??? hasn’t yet risen to the level of attention he deserves, despite pushing experimental hip hip forward as both a rapper and producer. Segal has steadily risen in profile due to his work with RAP Ferreira, billy woods, Armand Hammer, and as a member of The Jefferson Park Boys. Not to keep going all fan boy, but everything Backwoodz releases is worth a listen, and Genuine Dexterity is no different.
LOUD LIFE ~ Lo-Life Dead Beats to Worry/Panic About 24/7
Joni Void (fka Johnny Ripper) launches a new moniker as LOUD LIFE, featuring music made solely with his trusty SP-404, the closest thing he has to a signature instrument, and Cloud Bud, a scrapbook of loops & beats from the Inner Studio, a personal sample bank, edited into a cassette narrative over the last 4 years. Some of the beats are straightforward loop juggling over drum breaks, while other times the music is much closer to the kinds of sound collage we’ve come to expect from his work for Constellation or his previous life on soundcloud. But the vibes are chill and there’s a lot of variety to keep things interesting. Looking forward to more LOUD LIFE soon.
Moka Only ~ Martian XMAS 2024
The 20th in the BC rapper’s annual xmas mixtape tradition, blending his signature blend of witty lyricism, smooth flows, and infectious beats with holiday themes. Only had a chance to listen through once since this dropped but it’s fire on all 17 tracks.
Nour Sokhon ~ Beirut Birds (طيور بيروت)
The solo debut from multidisciplinary artist and composer Nour Sokhon, Beirut Birds (طيور بيروت) is a sonic memory capsule honoring (inter)personal stories of migration, displacement, and the cyclical turbulent circumstances in Lebanon. A multi-year project long in the works, the live version is accompanied by juxtaposed images of the Lebanese capital’s city life and avian migration across the Mediterranean Sea, representing themes strongly woven into the music. I know Richard will have much more to say about this in his eventually review, but this is a truly gorgeous album and one which I urge you all to absorb with the greatest attention. All digital album sales are donated to Haven for Artists, a feminist arts initiative from Beirut that is currently helping displaced families in Lebanon.
Roper Williams ~ Too Beautiful to Die
I’ve been consistently checking for these NJ producers since Fatboi Sharif’s Gandhi Loves Children, with last year’s Infinite Victory Loops high on my end of year lists. Roper dropped the Zack and Bodie beat tape back in September, but Too Beautiful to Die’s 19 tracks rise even higher. While still mostly instrumental, there’s a spattering of features from collaborators old and new: YL, LORD JAH-MONTE OGBON, AKAI SOLO, Lungs, Fatboi Sharif, and Blu. Soulful, accessible, but often pleasantly unusual beats from some of the best doing it today.
Sandy Chamoun / Anthony Sahyoun / Jad Atoui ~ Ghadr - غدر
I first encountered the work of electroacoustic artist Jad Atoui in tandem with that of his brother, Tarek Atoui, whose sound sculptures blew me away during the 2019 Venice Biennale. Here Jad Atoui joins Beirut scene stalwarts Anthony Sahyoun and Sandy Chamoun (SANAM) “in a reckoning with tradition that’s fueled by stuttering sub bass, searing guitar textures, and layers of melancholy vocals.” Mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and mastered by Jesse Osborne-Lanthier in Montreal, another triumph for Ziad Nawfal and Fadi Tabbal’s Ruptured Records, and another important document of Beirut’s thriving cultural scene.
Seefeel ~ Squared Roots
One of those Warp groups that I often forget about for long stretches and then fall in love with all over again. I was too young for their original run in the early-mid 90s, so my first experience with them was their reemergence in 2011 with Seefeel, which blew many of us away. But time passed and I revisited their music less and less often, until now they’ve emerged again with Squared Roots, seven tracks of dreamy, ambient electronic exploration mostly unmoored from traditional song structures yet as dynamic as ever in the way that can only be captured by musicians working together.
Shabaka ~ Possession
A new EP from Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, etc) following the gorgeous Perceive its beauty… released earlier this year. Since giving up the sax late last year, Shabaka has been focusing on a variety of flutes, appearing with Andre 3000, Armand Hammer, and Esperanza Spalding among many others. I haven’t had a chance to dig into the whole EP yet, but the first single “Timeless” features billy woods, so you know I’m in. And woods previously featured on Shabaka’s Kofiflexxx, a much more electronic and dark record, which I’ve written about previously, so it’s nice hearing woods on Shabaka’s softer side. Looking forward to the rest.
Sly & the Family Drone ~ Moon is Doom Backwards
A new record from Matt Cargill’s neo-jazz wreckin' crew, the UK collective is at their best. Circular rhythms, radiophonic noise and electronically-abstracted vocals are all present but we find the group at their most patient and restrained, the atmosphere periodically bursting as James Allsopp’s reeds often steal the show. Fantastic stuff, especially for fans of sludgy rock, skronking jazz, and free form but grooving psychedelia.
Sun Araw ~ Lifetime
The tenth album from Cameron Stallones’ ever-changing but always psychotropic Sun Araw. I was always a fan, but I was much more an evangelist of Sun Araw Band member Alex Gray’s work as Deep Magic and D/P/I, about which I’ve written a great deal over the years. I saw Cam and Alex in Mexico City back in 2013, where they were doing a screening of the Congos documentary and doing some live gigs. I sort of lost track of this project for a while after that, and the last I saw Cam was in Rome in early 2019 or so, around the time he was promoting a film score, I think, and I remember liking his contribution to Longform Editions, but he’s put out some records about whales and some live recordings more recently that renewed my attention. I enjoyed his recent Invisible Jukebox feature in the Wire so much I dug into these new jams immediately. Solid stuff, and interestingly yet another 2024 record departing from the concept of stasis.
Whettman Chelmets ~ Refine
A surprise EP of loosies from Whettman Chelmets, an artist who we’ve featured quite a bit on ACL over the years, for instance here and here, as well as with this mix he made for us. You wouldn’t expect a coherent concept from a collection of odds and ends, especially compared with the personal significance and conceptual weight of his proper full lengths, but great stuff nonetheless. Three long form process oriented tracks in the front, with three looser acoustic sketches to wind things down. For those unfamiliar with Chelmets’ work, perhaps an odd place to start, but on the other hand Refine makes for a nice sampler, demonstrating his range as an artist.
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