A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #76
Ukrainian Field Notes 50, an interview with Ored Recordings, and new releases reviewed
Dear Listeners, Joseph here with another regular newsletter, our first of 2025. After our lengthy End of Year features and Winter Music Previews, we’re finally back to basics with daily reviews, many of which I’ve assembled below for your listening pleasure.
On that note, I’m pleased to announced that I’ve started an ACL internet radio show over at CAMP, airing every other Sunday at 6pm CET, with the second episode going live this coming weekend. Mixes will later be reposted to CAMP’s mixcloud. The first episode was drawn from our top 20 records of 2024, while this week features selections from our most recent reviews. Future editions will tend to focus on recent reviews, but I’ll also be featuring some additional new music we haven’t reviewed, as well as special episodes with narrower focuses and special guests.
I’m currently on the final day of my sound art residency, leaving tomorrow for a week in Madrid before heading back to North America, so I’m in a bit of a crunch time as I finish up some work and clean and pack, so I won’t belabor this introduction any longer. We’ve got the fiftieth installment of Gianmarco Del Re’s Ukrainian Field Notes, as well as an interview GM conducted with Ored Recordings, and an extra large serving of reviews. Happy Listening!
Ukrainian Field Notes XL
Size matters! Ukrainian Field Notes has gone extra large having now reached episode XL with 300+ interviews to date!
To celebrate, UFN has partnered with Music Export Ukraine, an independent initiative, which helps Ukrainian artists to build international presence 🇺🇦. MEU is also the founder of the Eastern European Music Academy a hybrid capacity-building project that helps independent music professionals advance their careers.
In this episode we travel to Crimea with Tetiana Khoroshun, we get into a whirlpool of Ukrainian poetry with DakhTrio, and we visit what has effectively become a ghost town with Delirium.
Human Margareeta, Lenoczka, Vladyslav Putistin
We also explore LGBTQIA+ rights and the queer club scene in our latest podcast for Resonance FM together with Human Margareeta, Lenoczka, Lvcerate and Vladyslav Putistin.
Tracklist
Vladyslav Putistin & Lvcerate – Between Joy and Fear
Lvcerate – Velvet Suspense
Lyudska Podoba (Lyric & singing: Arthur Snitkus, Сomposer: Gosha Babanski) – Petite Mort (excerpt)
Human Margareeta – Kryshtal
Lenoczka – Just chilling in a hammock over the abyss
Heinali – Beatrice (excerpt)
New releases include Ukr Reggae with CJ Plus, and latest offerings by Cluster Lizard, equii, Saturated Color, SHARKO, Natalia Tsupryk, Vlad Yakovlev, and Хвоя будить сов.
Beyond museification, an interview with Ored Recordings
Over at Ukrainian Field Notes we have long been delving into Russia’s colonial history and have been finding the output of Ored Recordings, a label that has been unearthing music from the Caucasus for over ten years now, an essential tool in helping deconstruct the complex history of this troubled part of the world.
Originally hailing from Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, Ored Recordings’ main focus is the music of the Circassian people, although they are happy to stray beyond the confines of Circassia to encompass the whole region, from Dagestan to Sakartvelo.
Founded by Bulat Khalilov and Timur Kodzoko from the band Jrpjej, Ored Recordings takes traditional music not as a historical artefact, but as a constantly evolving, living and breathing organism.
Their extensive liner notes are an integral part of their releases. To give a flavour of the context within which they operate, we reproduce an extensive quote from a pdf available as a free download with the album Şefitse: Circassian Songs of XX Century.
“The 20th century is an important period for Circassians from a decolonial perspective. The consequences of the Russo-Caucasian War, Soviet cultural policies, and later contemporary language policies have created a set of problems with Circassian self-identification, self-exoticization, and the image of Circassians for others.
Perception of Circassian culture and history is largely built on the romantic and colonial narrative of Russian writers and officers, as well as European travelers, diplomats, and agents of the 18th-19th centuries. Circassians themselves read about themselves the thoughts and conclusions of those who either came to conquer the Caucasus or looked at the region with sympathy, but still with arrogance and condescension.
In addition, the inability to have public scientific or public discourse on the colonization of the Caucasus creates new complexes and traumas. Genocide and victimhood have become part of the identity of many Adygs. In the public consciousness of Circassians, the period of the war for independence and pre-colonial life is romanticized, and all events of the 20th century and the present are perceived as a continuous process of degradation.
We wanted to show that nostalgia and imposed romanticism do not allow us to see the obvious: our culture is not a museum exhibit, not a utopia, but a living practice.”
Ored Recordings is considered “an active player in cultural resistance, memory preservation and updating, and decolonisation efforts in a region with a complex history of Russian colonialism and oppression.” Do you consider yourselves activists rather than musicologists?
In the classical sense, we can hardly be called activists. Activists go to protests, openly express dissent and help those in need. For a long time we tried to be apolitical and to raise political issues only in passing. Perhaps some part of our activity can be called activist: since 2015 we have been talking about Circassian genocide, Russian colonialism and the colonial structure of the world music industry. And since 2022 these topics are our priority. In general, if we take the Circassian context, I believe that any deep work with one’s culture, history and modernity is already part of activism and resistance. But it is also important to try to break down internal Circassian colonial attitudes – self-exoticization, nationalism and myth-building.
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.
Alma Laprida ~ Pitch Dark and Trembling
Excitement can be felt as an uncanny event. Excitement is a form of expanding the bodily self beyond its own limits. Excitement becomes vibration and thrill through space. Argentinian Improviser Alma Laprida’s latest work titled Pitch Dark and Trembling experiments with the limits of excitement as a purely vibrational event where sound occupies space on multiple levels and often in a confrontational manner. More than a listening experience, Pitch Dark and Trembling becomes an observatory of how improvisation can be come a balancing act between a perhaps fixed idea of how an instrument or technology may or can work and its dynamic and unforeseen metamorphosis through the vibrational spell that sound casts on space, time, matter and everything in between.
Cole Peters ~ A Recasting of Indices
Two new releases from the reliable Brussels label Unfathomless tackle questions of memory and the weight of the past, each in a personal yet distinctive fashion. Cole Peters returns to a series of childhood homes, recorder in hand, renewing acquaintances with ghosts. … I feel a sense of kinship as I read Peters’ liner notes. My family lived in five homes before I reached the age of ten; Peters moved nearly every year until he was thirteen. In A Recasting of Indices, he makes a series of returns, seeking not only to recollect, but to reassess. There is no indication that the sounds are presented in chronological order; instead, one imagines a metaphorical order. Soft nature sounds are the first to arrive, connoting comfort, safety, home. But soon a storm approaches, an upheaval, a threat; then transit, other voices, a shift in location and perspective. Did the movement make the man, or did the man impose his interpretations on the movement? Both are likely true.
enmossed ~ in essence
in essence is the sort of tape that shouldn’t exist, and yet it does. Years from now, someone may find the cassette at a thrift sale, take a chance and be rewarded with a crate digger’s thrill. It seems like a soundwalk through multiple disciplines at once, a mix tape that isn’t a dance tape, a collage of field recordings, music, poetry and song. The project began when Chanelle Alessandra “prepared a floral tincture” and sent it a wide variety of artisan and medicinal friends. Twenty (including two pairs of collaborators) responded, and Glyn Maier mixed the concoction into a mesmerizing miasma of sound. Alessandra calls it an “affirmation of communion,” a giant living puzzle in which every piece has found its perfect space.
Explosions in the Sky ~ American Primeval
A quarter century to the month after Explosions in the Sky recorded their first album, How Strange, Innocence, the Austin band returns with the album they’ve always seemed destined to make. American Primeval is the original score to a dark Western series on Netflix; the only thing that would be more perfect would be to score a fireworks display. American Primeval reunites EitS with Peter Berg, the director they worked with on Friday Night Lights. The new series also stars Taylor Kitsch, although it’s a lot more violent; in response, the score’s tone is the polar opposite of Big Bend, while retaining the band’s sense of gravitas.
Gaspar Claus ~ Un Monde Violent OST
The Academy Awards nominations for 2024 have just been announced, and already we have a contender for 2025 in the category of Best Film Score. Un Monde Violent is a French thriller about two brothers who decide to hold up a truck of smartphones bound for the warehouse where they work. The trucker ends up dead, and the brothers end up in a world of violence. Someone should have told them this was a really bad idea. A really good idea was to commission cellist Gaspar Claus to write the music. We’ve followed Claus ever since he appeared on FareWell Poetry’s Hoping for the Invisible to Ignite back in 2011, and this is one of his best works to date. The tension is translated into the soundtrack, whose internal buzz draws the listener into this criminal landscape.
Hasco Enjoyments ~ Wow!
We almost missed the announcement of this album, as the post-Christmas subject line “Hasco Enjoyments – Wow!” made it look like an ad for toys or chocolates or perhaps even chocolate toys, and thus spam. Luckily, we like both toys and chocolates, and so we clicked on it, only to be momentarily disappointed to learn that it was an album. But Wow!, as one can see from the cover, falls into the same general category of the things above, as it looks like pop-out pieces for a children’s game board and sounds like the score to an animated adventure. The LP comes with “buildable souvenir paper models” and the CD is offered in a vinyl replica sleeve; the deluxe disc comes in a clamshell box. Hasco Enjoyments – John-Peter Hasson and half a dozen friends – are described as “an ensemble of iridescent bubbles.” The first track is titled, “It’s Okay To Put Ketchup On A Hot Dog, If That’s What You Like To Eat.” We know they are having fun before hearing even a single note. So let’s play a single note. That was a good note! It came from a flute. Buy the album.
Jana Irmert ~ When I Dissolve
When I Dissolve is a fitting title on multiple ongoing levels. The album collects Jana Irmert‘s compositions for Henrike Meyer’s autobiographical documentary To Be An Extra, which is about Meyer’s attempts to be noticed in the movie industry while she films her first movie, financed by work as an “out of focus extra.” As conveyed by Journey Into Cinema, “Meyer’s work as a background actor taught her to be nothing; to be seen but not seen, to be essential but also extraneous.” In the movie trailer, she intones, “my contours become blurry. I am melting. I am becoming permeable.” Irmert’s impressionistic music creeps around the edges, there and not-there.
Marcelo Cugliari ~ Void Sessions
Void Sessions is a forty-minute work of art, ruptured at the edges by signal and static. While no external mention is made of EVP, the association cannot be disregarded, as these clusters of flutter and noise seem to burst with whispers. Cugliari seeks not to hear the actual voice of his father, but to recapture memories and feelings and consider how they have abraded or evolved in his absence. It is also impossible not to conjure up an image of a man in a chair, turning into his radio or TV for evening entertainment, perhaps with a bottle of wine or a good book. But few listeners would prefer these detuned sounds, reminiscent of radio dials stuck between stations or a television after the end of the programming day.
Nour Sokhon ~ Beirut Birds
Teeming with urgency, Beirut Birds is an example of an album released at exactly the right time. Nour Sokhon began working on this album in Lebanon in 2018 and continued after her move to Berlin in 2021. Her poetic soundscapes and piercing interviews are site-specific, but with a universal appeal, as migrant crises continue to unfold around the globe. “To be in-between,” she repeats in the opening piece; the artist’s heart and memory are now split, cleaved not only by her move, but by violent conditions in Lebanon. The Beirut Birds are heard literally on this release, flapping their wings as Sokhon intones, “to find one’s way.”
Saba Alizadeh ~ Temple of Hope
“How can a sense of beauty be found amidst fear and cruelty?” asks Iranian composer Saba Alizadeh, who addresses his country’s history through historical radio sequences, music and song. In so doing, he builds a Temple of Hope. The diversity of the music, as well as the emotional content, makes it seem like a radio play or the score to a theatrical performance; it will be intriguing to see how these tracks translate to live performance. The title track begins with powerful drums and stuttered voice, an organ tone growing in power behind the percussion. By “To Become a martyr, one has to be murdered,” the tone has plunged into darkness, the cinematic synth and strings underlining the drama. “Beauty of Politics,” one of the album’s vocal tracks, seems like a literal cry in the darkness, a voice above the drone, a metaphor of yearning. If the tone keeps shifting, it’s because Alizadeh is mirroring the mercurial moods of a nation caught between tradition and modernization, war and peace, culture and religion.
Various Artists ~ For LA Vol. 1
As of today, three blazes are still burning in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, two weeks to the day after the start of the devastating wildfires. Spread by Santa Ana winds that reached 100 mph (160 km/h), the fires have so far resulted in the evacuation of 205,000 people, the death of 28, the burning of 63 square miles and the loss of 12,400 buildings and homes. These losses are spread across all social classes; fire shows no favoritism. We applaud the efforts of Hollie and Keith Kenniff, who worked swiftly and tirelessly to put together this initial round of a relief compilation, calling on friends and colleagues to contribute, mastering 33 tracks in an incredibly short window, and releasing it prior to the upcoming three-volume Nettwerk version, which will contain many extra tracks. The need for donations is immediate, and all proceeds of Vol. 1 will benefit We Are Moving the Needle and Give Directly, two frontline organizations which are helping the impacted families. The Kenniffs also mention that those inspired to help animals in need may give directly to Pasadena Humane.
V/A ~ Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide
Rust Belt Artists Against Genocide begins with horror and finds its way to hope, which some might say is unrealistic or idealistic, but others would say is necessary in order to keep one from being paralyzed with depression and crushing inevitability. As Gianmarco Del Re has so often noted in his interviews with Ukrainian musicians, an indomitable human spirit continues to shine through the harshest of conditions. So one might be surprised to see happy art in the booklet, including Anthony Carson’s illustration of children flying kites and Raiden Kubiak’s lovely “Dancing Under the Olive Trees.” Poems, photographs, redactions and a chilling “game” are all found within these pages, representing different reactions to the crisis: a cooperative effort with a cumulative effect.
UPCOMING RELEASES
(complete list with Bandcamp links here)
That’s Terje Isungset in the photo, making music on ice instruments. CD and vinyl versions of Ice Quartet are expected this spring after the instruments melt. For those of us who are surrounded by ice and snow, but not as good with our hands, there’s still plenty of great music to look forward to. We’re tracking hundreds of midwinter releases, many of which are already available in pre-order, with links below. We hope you’ll find your next favorite album right here!
Billy Malm ~ SPÄTZLE (Strategic Tape Reserve, 30 January)
Laughing at Oblivion ~ Undefined Form (30 January)
Brandon Lopez, DeYeon Kim ~ Syzygy, Vol. 1 (577 Records, 31 January)
Delta IV ~ Radium Arc (31 January)
Jon Rose & Erik Griswold ~ Unnamed Road (Harrimans Lane Collective, 31 January)
Lawrence English ~ Even the Horizon Knows Its Bounds (Room40, 31 January)
Leit Motif ~ Vestige (See Blue Audio, 31 January)
Olga Anna Markowska ~ ISKRA (Miasmah, 31 January)
Pierre Gerard ~ Full Yellow Cylinder (Moving Furniture, 31 January)
Rontronik ~ Zero Nine (31 January)
Sarah Belle Reid + Vinny Golia ~ Accidental Ornithology (Infrequent Seams, 31 January)
[something’s happening] ~ Buzz (Flaming Pines, 31 January)
Thibault Mechler ~ All Vanished Forms (31 January)
30 Door Key ~ A Warning to the Curious (Subexotic, 31 January)
Various Artists ~ Folks II (Deardogs, 31 January)
Will Long ~ Long Trax 4 (31 January)
Charlemagne Palestine & Seppe Gebruers ~ Beyondddddd The Notessssss (Konnekt, 1 February)
Matt McBane ~ Buoy (1 February)
Alanna Thornburgh ~ Shapeshifter (2 February)
nesso ~ Algorave Express (Gin & Platonic, 2 February)
Sara Persico ~ Sphaîra (Subtext, 4 February)
Ben Seretan ~ astral projecting into flavortown (sound as language, 7 February)
Bryce Hackford ~ Reflections in the Space of No Space (Dinzu Artefacts, 7 February)
Christopher Dammann Sextet ~ S/T (Out of Your Head, 7 February)
David Wallraf ~ Crudeltá Necessaria (Karlrecords, 7 February)
Dennis Mitcheltree & Johannes Wallman ~ Holding Space (Shifting Paradigm, 7 February)
Domiziano Maselli / Tommaso Rolando ~ Enjoy Country Music (Tonto, 7 February)
Ido Bukelman ~ Then I Heard the Clear Voice of the Flute (Ramble, 7 February)
Jeff Kimmel & Jack Langdon ~ The other side of the air (Dinzu Artefacts, 7 February)
Max Andrzejewski / Ensemble Resonanz ~Summen (SN Variations, 7 February)
Peace Flag Ensemble ~ Everything Is Possible (We Are Busy Bodies, 7 February)
Pye Corner Audio ~ Where Things Are Hollow: No Tomorrow (Lapsus, 7 February)
Sairen ~ Penumbra (Fluttery, 7 February)
Simon Grab & David Meier ~ Porœs (~OUS, 7 February)
Stereocilia ~ Phases (7 February)
tsuadatta ~ Blue-Gray (Dinzu Artefacts, 7 February)
Zack Clarke & Chris Irvine ~ Stereotaxi (New Focus, 7 February)
Amba Downs ~ kinjarling studies: soundtracks (five years on) (Room40, 14 February)
Benjamin Fulwood ~ The Stars Are Very Far Away From All This (Room40, 14 February)
Gaiko ~ S/T (Nous’klaer Audio, 14 February)
Jean-Claude Vannier ~ Jean-Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines (Ipecac, 14 February)
Joke Lanz & Thomas Rehnert ~ Combination Without Repetition (Dumpf Edition, 14 February)
KALI Trio ~ The Playful Abstract (Ronin Rhythm, 14 February)
Marshall Allen ~ New Dawn (Mexican Summer, 14 February)
Noémi Büchi ~ Liquid Bones (~OUS, 14 February)
Park Jiha ~ All Living Things (Glitterbeat, 14 February)
Stephen Davis Unit ~ The Gleaming World (577 Records, 14 February)
Various Artists ~ Scale, Vol. 2 (Bigo & Twigetti, 14 February)
Yama Warashi ~ At My Mother’s Piano (PRAH, 14 February)
Jacek Doroszenko ~ Environmental Practice: Resin Arpeggio (Audiobulb, 15 February)
Guy Buttery ~ Orchestrations (20 February)
Julek ploski ~ Give Up Channel (mappa, 20 February)
Banha de Cobra ~ Lava Love (Discrepant, 21 February)
The Cabalists ~ S/T (Watusi, 21 February)
Cleartran ~ Voyage to the Other Side (21 February)
Enxin/Onyx ~ In Rupture (Other People, 21 February)
Haswell & Hecker ~ UPIC Diffusion Session #23 (Editions Mego, 21 February)
Impérieux ~ Rezil (Macro, 21 February)
Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim & Joey Chang ~ Muzosynth Orchestra Vol. 1 (21 February)
Laurie Torres ~ Après coup (Tonal Union, 21 February)
Martina Bertoni ~ Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone (Karlrecords, 21 February)
Maya Bennardo, Etienne Nillesen & Kristofer Svensson~ For Violin, Snare & Kacapi (kuyin, 21 February)
Nina Garcia ~ Bye Bye Bird (Ideologic Organ, 21 February)
Rafiq Bhatia ~ Each Dream, A Melting Door (Anti-, 21 February)
Tim Hecker ~ Shards (kranky, 21 February)
Wrekmeister Harmonies ~ Flowers in the Spring (Thrill Jockey, 21 February)
The Young Mothers ~ Better If You Let It (Sonic Transmission, 21 February)
Modern Silent Cinema ~ Passages XXII-XXXII (for Solo Piano) (24 February)
Raed Yassin ~ Phantom Orchestra (Morphine, 24 February)
Blendreed ~ Tales of Tides (Tenorio Cotobade, 28 February)
Daniel Carter, Ayumi Ishito ~ Endless Season (577 Records, 28 February)
Devin Maxwell ~ Selfies (Infrequent Seams, 28 February)
Grup Ses and Gökalp K ~ S/T (Souk, 28 February)
kilboure ~ If Not To Give A Fantasy (Hammerhead, 28 February)
Le Motel ~ Odd Numbers / Số Lẻ (Balmat, 28 February)
Matt McBane ~ Buoy (Gradient, 28 February)
Max Cooper ~ On Being (Mesh, 28 February)
Saffron Bloom ~ S/T (Delicate, 28 February)
Thierry Holweck ~ Giraffes (Ombrelle Concrete, 28 February)
Darcy Gilkerson ~ Acteon (3 March)
Dennis Egberth ~ The Dennis Egberth Dynasty (577 Records, 4 March)
Alaskam ~ Fusion (7 March)
Believers ~ Hard Believer (Shifting Paradigm, 7 March)
A Journey of Giraffes ~ Emperor Deco (Somewherecold, 7 March)
Nicole McCabe ~ A Song to Sing (Colorfield, 7 March)
Patrick Shiroishi & Piotr Kurek ~ Greyhound Days (Mondoj, 7 March)
tenebrous LIAR ~ Hell Never Called (7 March)
Serpentskin, Zanies ~ Serpentskin EP 1 (Fleisch, 10 March)
Whatever the Weather ~ Whatever the Weather II (Ghostly International, 12 March)
Yumiko Morioka & Takashi Kokubo ~ Gaiaphilia (Metron, 12 March)
Amp ~ Ambient Love Darkness Share (14 March)
dream brigade ~ dream brigade (Infrequent Seams, 14 March)
Evan Gildersleeve ~ Wake (Mesh, 14 March)
Golem Mécanique ~ Siamo tutti in pericolo (Idealogic Organ, 14 March)
Hekla ~ Turnar (Phantom Limb, 14 March)
Inturist ~ Tourism (Incompetence, 14 March)
Kate Carr ~ Rubber Band Music (Flaming Pines, 14 March)
Owls ~ Rare Birds (New Amsterdam, 14 March)
Zoë Mc Pherson ~ Upside Down (SFX, 14 March)
Igor Cavalera/Shane Embury ~ Neon Gods/Own Your Darkness (Cold Spring, 21 March)
Nick Storring ~ Mirante (We Are Busy Bodies, 21 March)
Puce Moment ~ Sans Soleil (Parenthèses, 21 March)
Various Artists ~ Shorts (Bigo & Twigetti, 21 March)
Yoko Ono/The Great Learning Orchestra ~ Selected Recordings from Grapefruit (Karlrecords, 21 March)
Dawn After Dawn ~ Home is where You Are (577 Records, 28 March)
Gagi Petrovic ~ Music for Dance and Theatre 2011-2024 (Moving Furniture, 28 March)
Pierce Warnecke ~ Music from Airports (Room40, 28 March)
Sullivan Johns ~ Pitched Variations (Moving Furniture, 28 March)
Andreas O. Hirsch ~ The Salamander Treaty (makiphon, 4 April)
Calming River ~ Macdui (4 April)
Gūsū ~ The Ending Was a Typical Part (Subject to Restrictions Discs, 4 April)
Penelope Trappes ~ A Requiem (One Little Independent, 4 April)
Simon Heartfield ~ The State of Social Movement (Machine Records, 4 April)
David Handler ~ Life Like Violence (Cantaloupe Music, 16 May)