A CLOSER LISTEN weekly #90

Reviews, Recommendations, and Upcoming Releases

Dear Listeners, it’s Joseph here for our latest bi-weekly best of the blog, and what a two weeks it’s been!

I’m once again back in NY for some family stuff, and last night I had the incredible fortuity to witness Vordul Mega (of the legendary Cannibal Ox) return to the stage in Brooklyn, alongside Breez Evahflowin, ShrapKnel, Creaturenomics, and Alaska with Steel Tipped Dove. Vordul spit some of his classic verses from Cold Vein and the title track from Megagraphitti. According to Creature, Vordul is working on some new music (perhaps for Backwoodz), which is good news indeed. All the performers and DJs killed it, the energy in that backroom bar in Park Slope was undeniable. ShrapKnell played some tracks from their recent hat trick of LPs, and I’ve got to say those Raphy beats sound amazing live. Alaska’s new material with Steel Tipped Dove set off the room right, Creature’s set was nonstop good vibes, and Breez Evahflowin held it down. There are some videos over on our Insta. Peace to Call Out Culture podcast for organizing this amazing free event.

I’ll be headed back to Montreal soon, and have some events to announce, probably in the next newsletter. But for now, this regular edition is jammed packed with new music for your deep listening pleasure.

Happy Birthday to Zach Frizzell aka zakè, the boss man behind the great ambient label Past Inside the Present, a drone master in his own right, and most importantly all around great dude. I made sure to get this edition out early so you can join in the listening party for zakè & friends’ Silentium, today, Wednesday 10 September, beginning at at 1:00 PM EDT. Those friends include many PITP regulars and many ACL favorites: William Basinski, Benoît Pioulard, bvdub, Drum & Lace, marine eyes, City of Dawn, From Overseas, James Bernard, and so many others. Join us if you can to take in two hours of drones and wish Zach many more happy returns.

Speaking of the homies, I also wanted to note that my friend Renato Grieco aka kNN—contributor to Riccardo La Foresta’s ZERO, 999…—has released a new single, “The brief story of a spoonmaker,” to help him raise funds in a time of need. His instrument, a beautiful bass viola da gamba, was badly damaged, and he could use some help to afford the repairs as well as to rent a replacement in the meanwhile, so he can continue to develop his practice. Have a listen and please donate if you can.

Here’s your regular reminder to check out my bi-weekly internet radio show for CAMP, playing some music from our recent reviews. Listen on CAMP this Sunday at 6pm CET, and available on their Mixcloud soon after. I’ve also begun uploading some of these to the ACL soundcloud, where so far you can download my Palestine mix and my tribute to Riccardo La Foresta. This Sunday, a selection of tracks from recent reviews, as well as a few artists featured in the upcoming return of Ukrainian Field Notes!

Recommendations

Chuck Johnson ~ Caoine 5

Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke ~ Pareidolia

Farah Kaddour & Marwan Tohme ~ Ghazel

Giuseppe Ielasi / Jack Sheen ~ The Vestige

Jasmine Guffond ~ Muzak for the Encouragement of Unproductivity

Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs ~ EVERY DAY → ALL THE WAY

Mark Templeton ~ Two Verses

Marv ~ Keyboard Suite II

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters ~ The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Thomas Ankersmit ~ The Dip

Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart ~ BODY SOUND [STONE PIECE]

Zeena Parkins ~ Modesty of the Magic Thing

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.

Emil Friis ~ Moving Images
The most overused cliché in instrumental music is “the soundtrack to a movie that has never been made.” Emil Friis flips the script – literally – by commissioning filmmakers to produce short films for all fifteen tracks on Moving Images. At this website, one can track the progress of the films as they arrive. The tracks are purposely cinematic, sparking visual imagination, and filmmakers were given free rein to express their own readings of the sonic material. The images are indeed moving, in both senses of the word. Did I get it “right?” The subsequent film releases may provide clues, but the answer is, “There is no right.” There is only the invitation to an unmapped form of synesthesia, sound evoking vision, word invoking sound, vision evoking word.

Gwenifer Raymond ~ Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark
One of the most fascinating performers we’ve been privileged to cover, Gwenifer Raymond has a PhD in astrophysics, operates as a video game and A.I. programmer, and is fascinated with sci-fi and folk horror. In particular, she is drawn to the mystical aspects of speculative fiction, which proposes a world beneath this world, a subsystem that might explain all of the insanity and instability, an underground map akin to the ley lines of Umberto Eco. Falling in love with fingerpicking, she has played with some of the greats and is well on her way to becoming one of the greats herself, founding a style called Welsh Primitive that blends all of the above aspects and more. Try to imagine John Fahey crossed with Folklore Tapes, and one may be ready to enter these sonic woods.

Lyndhurst ~ Tapes
Lyndhurst (Oscar Ball and Dan Carney) is the rare act to impress out of the gate; we were immediately enamored by [their EP] Platforms, our initial impressions confirmed by Caves. Tapes seals the deal. While the quality here is just as high, the difference is that the set flows beautifully from beginning to end, a difficult trick when one composes electronic music in contrasting shades. The simple cover seems to convey a simple message: while many things may be dark and bleak, there is always comfort somewhere, a message that is translated into their music. This is the impact of Lyndhurst: appearing out of nowhere, gracing us with their music year after year. We scan the horizon, yearning for yet another album, another EP, even one more note.

Patrik Berg Almkvisth ~ Life Above
What if the trip to Everest were not about the summit? Two springs ago, composer Patrik Berg Almkvisth journeyed through Nepal to the famed mountain, stopping at base camp. The journey was not what he expected; it began with a local funeral and ended with the sight of the sun rising over Everest. The composer encounters rubble where there once was ice and his heart momentarily hardens. In the title track, he relents, seeing the sunrise break over Everest, a vision of such power that he wonders at the fact that such beauty can still exist in the world. As he reaches this spiritual and emotional summit, Almkvisth reassesses his journey, and turns his heart – and his music – toward the light.

Riccardo La Foresta ~ ZERO, 999…
The cover of Riccardo La Foresta’s ZERO, 999… depicts an impossibly tall spiral tower vanishing into the sky, an aptly disorienting visual metaphor for an album that dismantles traditional notions of drumming. Here, drums are not rhythmic anchors but vessels for breath, sustain, and drone—gestural yet devoid of traditional pulse, animated by instability and flux. La Foresta’s practice centers around the drummophone, an instrument of his own invention he began developing in 2015, when he first experimented with blowing air through a cymbal attached to a drum. Forged from a decade of research expanding his process—through live performance, improvisation, and installation—ZERO, 999… is a conceptually focused and compositionally sophisticated album worthy of the status as La Foresta’s official debut.

Snorri Hallgrímsson ~ The Importance of Birds
Icelandic composer Snorri Hallgrímsson kicks off the fall in fine style with The Importance of Birds, an EP perfectly timed to score the upcoming migration. How many will make it to their destination? How many will return in the spring? Will we miss them in the quieter months, when we are awoken not by birdsong, but by a vast and empty silence? When the set circles back to “I’ve Been Here Before,” we remember the cyclical nature of avian life. As autumn flocks pass overhead, we already anticipate their return.

UPCOMING RELEASES

(complete list with Bandcamp links here)

Suddenly, the local kids started to disappear. No, it’s not the movie Weapons, they just went back to college. Vacations are ending, school is starting, the nights are getting cooler and we know the days are numbered. Fortunately there will be some great music around to ease the fall; a sneak preview is below. We hope you find your next favorite album right here!

zakè (feat. Various Artists) ~ Silentium (Zakè Drone Recordings, 10 September)

Jansen Interceptor ~ Interception (International Chrome, 11 September)

Arnold/Schwer ~ Terra Formica (12 September)

Blue Earth Sound ~ Cicero Nights (DeepMatter, 12 September)

David Occhipinti ~ Camera Lucida (Elastic Recordings, 12 September)

Dun-Dun Band ~ Pita Parka, Pt. II: Nim Egduf (We Are Busy Bodies, 12 September)

Emery Dobyns ~ Improvs (Hammock Music, 12 September)

Holly Palmer ~ Metamorphosis (Colourfield, 12 September)

Ida Urd & Ingri Høyland ~ Duvet (Balmat, 12 September)

Isambard Khroustaliov / Ben Carey ~ Field Recordings From Other Constellations (Not Applicable, 12 September)

Katharina Ernst ~ EXTRAMETRIC II (Extrametric, 12 September)

Kety Fusco ~ BOHÈME (A Tree in a Field, 12 September)

Lawrence English ~ WhiteOut (Room40, 12 September)

Mark Vernon ~ Memento Mori: Brussels (Flaming Pines, 12 September)

Matt Bachmann ~ Compost Karaoke (Orindal, 12 September)

Modeselektor ~ DJ-Kicks: Modeselektor (!K7, 12 September)

Oren Ambarchi & Frederik Rasten ~ Dragon’s Return (Viernulvier, 12 September)

Rosie Turton & Miryam Solomon ~ maar (12 September)

Tomas Fujiwara ~ Dream Up (Out of Your Head, 12 September)

Venera ~ Exinfinite (PAN, 12 September)

Verses GT ~ Verses GT (LUCKYME®, 12 September)

Vicki Chow ~ Frank Horvat: The Banff Suite (Redshift, 12 September)

Phenomenal World ~ SAME (13 September)

The Dwarfs of East Agouza ~ Sasquatch Landslide (Constellation, 15 September)

Marta Forsberg ~ Archeology of Intimacy (Warm Winters Ltd., 15 September)

SANAM ~ Sametou Sawtan (Constellation, 15 September)

Tristan Honsinger, Riuichi Daijo ~ We Met Tomorrow (DPS Recordings, 15 September)

arid landscapes ~ S/T (19 September)

Arvin Dola ~ O Ghost (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, 19 September)

Automatic Candy ~ Amuse Bouche (19 September)

Brunhilde Ferrari ~ Errant Ear (Persistence of Sound, 19 September)

Christopher Stark ~ Fire Ecologies (New Focus, 19 September)

December ~ I Stumble, I Walk (Drowned by Locals, 19 September)

Glass Museum ~ 4N4LOG CITY (Sdban, 19 September)

Kieren Hebden & William Tyler ~ 41 Longfield Street (Temporary Residence Ltd., 19 September)

Larum ~ Treatise by Cornelius Cardew (12k, 19 September)

Oasis Boom ~ Cactus Dust (Dur & Doux, 19 September)

øjeRum ~ Drømme I Langsomt Stof (Glacial Movements, 19 September)

Patrick Shiroishi ~ Forgetting Is Violent (American Dreams, 19 September)

pdbq ~ Sermons of the Electrifying Messiah (Synaptic Cliffs, 19 September)

Rafiq Bhatia ~ Environments (Anti-, 19 September)

Teruyuki Nobuchika ~ SUONO (Nature Bliss, 19 September)

Weston Olenki ~ Broadsides (Outside Time, 19 September)

Wonderful Aspiration of the Source ~ S/T (Centripetal Force, 19 September)

Tapes and Topographies ~ Partial Holograms (Whitelabrecs, 20 September)

Deadman’s Ghost ~ A Votive Offering (Cruel Nature,22 September)

Model of Truth ~ Songs for F**k (Onoeno, 23 September)

Danek Lipko ~ Eclipsoid (Somewherecold, 24 September)

Alien Trackers ~ Dubs from Vortex Beach (Jahtari, 25 September)

Annette Vande Gorne ~ Tutti Frutti (Persistence of Sound, 26 September)

BABON ~ Tropical Desert (Wonderwheel, 26 September)

Bruno Duplant & Judith Wegmann ~ Univers Parallèles – Des Nuits Et Des Jours (Moving Furniture, 26 September)

cheryl e. leonard ~ near the bear (forms of minutiae, 26 September)

Cristina Lord ~ if it all falls (people | places | records, 26 September)

Daniel H. Harmann ~ Versailles (26 September)

Donny McCaslin ~ Lullaby for the Lost (Edition Records, 26 September)

Early Fern ~ Wetland Interiors (sound as language, 26 September)

Fani Konstantinidou ~ Undertones (Moving Furniture, 26 September)

GARBAAAGE ~ Live at Hošek (Bokashi, 26 September)

Garreth Broke ~ Life Through Loss (Neue Meister, 26 September)

Gideon Broshy ~ Nest (New Amsterdam, 26 September)

Grandbrothers ~ Elsewhere (_and_others, 26 September)

Hatis Noit ~ Aura Reworks (Erased Tapes, 26 September)

Heirloom ~ Familiar Beginning (Shifting Paradigm, 26 September)

hyphyskazerbox ~ BPD SUPERSTAR ULTRA (Suite 309, 26 September)

I Hold the Lion’s Paw ~ Potentially Interesting Jazz Music (Earshift Music, 26 September)

Margos ~ End of Greatness (Rhizome, 26 September)

Marmalade Knives ~ Paradigm Lost (Electric Valley, 26 September)

Nastia Reigel ~ Identity (Infrastructure New York, 26 September)

Nobukazu Takemura ~ knot of meanings (Thrill Jockey, 26 September)

o[rlawren] ~ The Intimate Overlap (Dronarivm, 26 September)

o[rlawren] ~ Poiesis (Dronarivm, 26 September)

Pulse Emitter ~ Tide Pools (Hausu Mountain, 26 September)

Sam Prekop ~ Open Close (Thrill Jockey, 26 September)

Spyros Polychronopoulos & Yorgos Dimitriadis ~ Nearfield (Room40, 26 September)

Sven Wunder ~ Daybreak (Piano Piano, 26 September)

SYBAX ~ TWIN (TC Prog, 26 September)

Tessie Overmyer ~ Tidelines (Earshift Music, 26 September)

Webber/Morris Big Band ~ Unseparate (Out of Your Head, 26 September)

wndfrm ~ WVLT (A Strangely Isolated Place, 26 September)

Yea Big & Greg Saunier ~ No Timing (Personal Archives, 26 September)

Gamardah Fungus ~ Trees and Roots (Whitelabrecs, 27 September)

Call Super ~ A Rhythm Protects One (Dekmantel, 28 September)

Ben Horton ~ Flowers Made of Light (Wayside & Woodland, 29 September)

Michaël|le Grébil Liberg/Guillaume de Machaut ~ L’Ymage (Sub Rosa/Thödol, 29 September)

ØjeRum ~ Ensomheden Vi Deler (The Loneliness We Share) (IIKKI, 29 September)

Free Country (IV) ~ Liberty Now! (Corner Store Jazz, 1 October)

Kelly Moran ~ Don’t Trust Mirrors (Warp, 1 October)

Anna Högberg Attack ~ Ensamseglaren (Fönstret, 3 October)

Blue Lake ~ The Animal (Tonal Union, 3 October)

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio ~ S/T (Mississippi, 3 October)

DNA?AND? and Lampeknusekontoret ~ Hot, Hot, Hot (Den Pene Inngang, 3 October)

Eva Novoa ~ The Freedom Suite, Novoa/Carter/Mela Trio, Vol. 2 (577 Records, 3 October)

Hekura ~ Two Lonely Space Pilots (Hegoa, 3 October)

Iiris Viljanen ~ So much of you was sleeping (sing a song fighter, 3 October)

Jana Irmert ~ Portals (Portraits GRM, 3 October)

Lambwool ~ Ashes (Cyclic Law, 3 October)

Lophae ~ Imagine More (3 October)

Marc-Etoine Barbier ~ Musée Des Espèces (3 October)

Marta Forsberg ~ Archeology of Intimacy (Warm Winters Ltd., 3 October)

Raphael Weinroth-Browne ~ Lifeblood (3 October)

Sergio Merce ~ Archipiélago (Room40, 3 October)

7038634357 ~ Rope (Portraits GRM, 3 October)

Širom ~ In the Wind of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper (Glitterbeat, 3 October)

Various Artists ~ Common Ground vol. 4 (Safe Ground, 3 October)

The Corrupting Sea ~ Symphony of a Radical II (Somewherecold, 4 October)

David Caulet ~ UKW (label formes ondes, 6 October)

Yoichi Kamamura & Olli Arni ~ Kōri no ryokō / Jäämatkailu (mappa, 6 October)

Mateusz Kowal ~ T-Bop: Prologue (Lamour, 7 October)

Wataru Abe ~ Oblivion (8 October)

乃٥乃 & Ougdol ~ GN (Riforma, 9 October)

Buildings and Food ~ Provincial Park VIP Mixes (10 October)

David Aimone ~ Changes (Passed Recordings, 1o October)

Ellen Fullman and the Living Earth Show ~ Elemental View (Room40, 10 October)

James Bowers ~ My Quartet Album (Earshift Music, 10 October)

Lomond Campbell ~ Transmission Loss (One Little Independent, 10 October)

Luca Formentini ~ I Am Ghosts (Curious Music, 10 October)

Mohammed Reza Mortazavi ~ Nexus (Latency, 10 October)

The Necks ~ Disquiet (Northern Spy, 10 October)

Neti-Neti ~ Echo of Being/Grace in Rot (Dinzu Artefacts, 10 October)

Richie Culver ~ I Trust Pain (Supernature, 10 October)

Roméo Poirier ~ Off the Record (Faitiche, 10 October)

SOHN ~ Albadas (APM, 10 October)

V/A ~ TD10 (Timedance, 10 October)

Yara Asmar ~ everyone i love is sleeping and i love them so so much (Time Released Sound, 10 October)

Umlaut ~ Musique de Film III (Audiobulb, 11 October)

Melvin Gibbs ~ Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 1 (Hausu Mountain, 14 October)

Carrie Frey, Rhythm Method ~ Seaglass: Music for String Quartet (Gold Bolus, 17 October)

Dylan Henner ~ Star Dream FM (Phantom Limb, 17 October)

Fatan Kanan ~ Diary of a Candle (Fire, 17 October)

f0ment ~ Variable Apesar Vol. I (Editions Polyhymnia, 17 October)

Joe Harvey-Whyte & Paul Cousins ~ in a fugue state (None More, 17 October)

Jon Camp ~ Proceed (Centripetal Force, 17 October)

Lea Bertucci ~ The Oracle (Cibachrome Editions, 17 October)

Martina Berther/Philipp Schlotter ~ Silence Will Never Die (Hallow Ground, 17 October)

Orphax ~ Embraced Imperfections (17 October)

Quartz Sand ~ Stratigraphy (Flaming Pines, 17 October)

Raphael Loher ~ Hug of Gravity (Hallow Ground, 17 October)

Rural Tapes ~ Oneiric (Clay Pipe Music, 17 October)

shedir ~ We Are All Strangers (n5MD, 17 October)

Steve Hauschildt ~ Aeropsia (Simul, 17 October)

Travis Laplante & JACK Quartet ~ String Quartets (New Amsterdam, 17 October)

Vessit ~ Chapter Two: Reflections (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, 17 October)

William Covert ~ Dream Vessel (Coup sur Coup, 17 October)

will sōderberg… ~ let the machines sing… [2] of desire to salvage (Machine Records, 17 October)

Yuhan Su ~ OVER the MOONs (endectomorph music, 17 October)

Zane Trow ~ Ibis (Room40, 17 October)

Faith Coloccia + Daniel Menche ~ Smelter (Room40, 18 October)

Michael Begg ~ Lulu and the Blacks (Omnempathy, 20 October)

Montanha ~ Alvorada (Favela Discos, 20 October)

Alex Kozobolis ~ Assymetry (24 October)

Ben Stapp ~ Uzmic Ro’Samg (Live Solo Tuba) (577 Records, 24 October)

Chimehours ~ Underneath the Earth (Cold Spring, 24 October)

Isak Ingvarsson ~ The Calling (Haphazard Music, 24 October)

Jessica Moss ~ Unfolding (Constellation, 24 October)

Many Pretty Blooms ~ They Still Sing Songs About You (It’s Only Me, 24 October)

Mikę Majkowski ~ Tide (Room40, 24 October)

Nadja ~ cut (Cruel Nature, 24 October)

Ryuuta Takaki ~ Jewels (Kitchen, 24 October)

Tortoise ~ Touch (International Anthem, 24 October)

Alister Spence ~ Within Without (Room40, 31 October)

claire rousay ~ a little death (Thrill Jockey, 31 October)

CxBxT ~ .After (Constructive, 31 October)

Leandro Cardenas ~ Against the Jazz Police (577 Records, 31 October)

Mark Harwood ~ or, Urim (Penultimate Press, 31 October)

Mark Harwood ~ Two Actors (Penultimate Press, 31 October)

µ-Ziq ~ 1979 (Balmat, 31 October)

Ohm ~ The Architects (Shifting Paradigm, 31 October)

Penelope Trappes ~ Æternum (One Little Independent, 31 October)

Richie Culver ~ I Trust Pain (Supernature, 31 October)

Stephen Vitiello & Edwin Torres ~ sublingual infinities (Room40, 31 October)

Charlie Hooper-Williams ~ The Book of Fixed Stars (5 November)

Ian Power ~ Brace (Semayd, 6 November)

Beckton Alps2 ~ Side (Machine Records, 7 November)

Debit ~ Desaceleradas (Modern Love, 7 November)

Pauline Hogstrand ~ Chants (SOLEN, 7 November)

CoLD SToRAGE ~ wipE’out” – The Zero Gravity Soundtrack Vol. 2 (Lapsus, 14 November)

Kalia Vandever ~ Another View (Northern Spy, 14 November)

Keiji Haini & Reinhold Friedl ~ truly, slightly, overflowing, whereabout of good will (Zeitkratzer, 21 November)

Rie Nakajima + David Toop ~ Is Spring a Sculpture? (Room40, 28 November)

aus ~ eau (Em, 6 December)