MELOMANIA brings you eight slices of NEW MUSIC across a wide swath
Like an unearthed IPod on shuffle, we veer into many subgenres this week.
HOOVERIII - A Round of Applause [LP](Reverberation Appreciation Society/The Orchard)
Los Angeles’ Psych-Rock sextet HooverIII (Hoover Three) pushes their uptempo Garage-meets-Jam Rock in a variety of different directions. “A Round of Applause” is at its best when Hooveriii just sits in the pocket (thanks to the creative drummer Owen Barrett) on instrumentals like “Cruisin.’” These are far-out songs that do not necessarily have to feel stratospheric. Their use of keyboards and ability to pull in Pop elements (the very Bowie-esque “The Pearl”) and ground down some serious Funk (the standout single “Twisted and Vile.”) “Water Lily” opens almost so quiet you reach to turn it up - however, Hooveriii rage in with a Prog-ish King Gizzard-ian mostly one-note rocker that must catch serious fire live. If anything, “A Round of Applause” puts Hooveriii on the same map as their labelmates and all those artists who also want to leapfrog genres.
FLORIST - Florist [LP](Double Double Whammy)
On Emily Sprague's fourth album leading her band, the lengthier cuts reveal far more about her songwriting than the short, intimate pieces. "Sci-Fi Silence" is both eerily meditative and puzzlingly poetic. Nonetheless, as the instruments enter and exit the mix - the six minutes of it makes you feel like you too are in a capsule floating. The lo-fi Big Thief-ism of "Spring In Hours" beautifully dovetails into saxophones and keyboards in the end and responds to Sprague's confessional writing. The whole album is far moodier than the previous effort with Sprague's double-tracked vocals filling all the space in the center of the mix, while the band seems to tap her on the shoulder and interject their parts. When "Florist" both as an album and a band all merge into one, it is enthralling.
M.GEDDES GENGRAS - Expressed, I Noticed Silence [CS](Hausu Mountain/Redeye)
The spate of records that were released under the aegis of "New Age" did a lot of damage to the process of listening as meditation. By filling an album with enough steady streams of "pleasant" sounds, one's immersion was supposedly the equivalent of having an "experience." The problem with purposefully seeking out sounds and languid ideas associated with the culture of meditation is that you turn what is in fact a very individual process into a cliche. The best records to enjoy while seeking a state of higher consciousness should more than likely give you the feeling of "traveling without moving." There are moments on Keith Jarrett's "The Koln Concert" where Jarrett, as an artist and creator, is pursuing a higher plane for himself and everyone in the audience. The magic comes from his discovery of sounds happening as you too discover those sounds. M.Geddes Gengras is clearly out to discover those sounds and record the experience to share with you. His most sweeping track "A Rhythmic Stillness as Root Had I" plays with layering his synth ideas but never loses that slow triplet-and-quarter note "drip" in the background. The album opens without a flourish. The Tangerine Dream-with-instruments approach to "Discovered Endstate Always" pays off richly as Gengras' synths take over. Finally, at its most meditative, "Expressed" gives you "The Harmony and Also I Became Square Movement," the most song-like melodic cut on the album. The sitar-like synth line spins away like a dreamy steel guitar while miles below Gengras' synths ooze and breathe. No cut is ever too long. At an average of six minutes a piece, the six cuts together could play as one (think movements in a larger composition.) However, the whole experience is again Gengras taking you on his voyage of discovery.
REVELATOR SOUND SYSTEM - Revelators EP [LP/CD](37d03d/Secretly/AMPED)
Without divulging who is responsible, Revelator Sound System is a lot like a jam-based version of an On-U EP - minus the hardcore reggae. The fact that this duo can make music this instrumentally dense but never leave the Ambient realm is a feat on its own. The ten minutes of "Grieving" comes at you like a slowed-down Miles Davis circa 1972. Woodwinds wrap around the groove and strangely it is the pianos that provide its earthiness. In its quietest moments, you hear the saxophonists breathe in their "his truth is marching on" Soul Jazz-ish parts and producer Cameron Ralston quickly warps the existing sounds. "Collected Water" is melodically close to "Grieving" as it opens, but there is a point when JC Kuhl's saxophone hangs on one high note that distorts enough to reintroduce tension to the piece. Soon, all the players are building their parts to peak at a similar hair-raising moment. Later, "Bury The Bell" will do the same with a reverb-drenched clarinet whose notes and runs (on serious sustain) almost match the Eastern-tinged strings and steel guitar that creep in. "Revelators" closes with a dubby production as they turn a loose-limbed groove on "George The Revelator" into the equivalent of a jam band playing with Norman Whitfield's strings behind them. However, what M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger and Ralston do best is coax this collection of musicians to make minimalist music with some big ideas.
THE TRYP - My Brain Collapsed [LP](Trading Places)
When studios were separate from homes, the original home studio was a handful of microphones and a small multi-track recorder. The limitations of these devices were sometimes enough to turn simple riffs and recordings into magic. This 1986 recording from a nonexistent and/or "hoax" band captures just how weird and far-out one could get with effects pedals, fuzzy guitar, and a few other items. "My Brain Collapsed" continuously plays with the sanity of what you are hearing. "I Dream In Black and White" begins as a fantastic C86 song with jangle guitar before its minor chord romp turns darker. "So many colors shining through/The trees are green, the grass is too," the Tryp paints during the sunny portion. However, when "the colors fade to black and white," the pitch is bent and its wobbliness gives you that Lewis Carroll-esque moment of thinking the tea is spiked. "Psychedelic Surfer" hits the waves and continues the wobbly vocals adding double-tracked teasing guitar lines and synth bubbles. "My Auntie Lives In Russia" kicks off with a backwards Camper Van Beethoven runs through the poppy fields before dissolving into near Residents-like wildness whose guitar sounds may be your only attachment to reality. Finally, "My Brain Collapsed" swells around gated, swirling guitars and a yowling singer who screams a lot over a pre-Spacemen 3/Gene Vincent-esque trip. As a whole, "My Brain Collapsed" is another late 80's lo-fi wonder. Inspired by The Palace Wonders's single "Trip Up," The Tryp longed to be like the other Acid Tapes that were being generated for a local music magazine called Mardenbeat. As always with small insular scenes, inspiration cannot lead to imitation. So JP Sunshine and Christine Cotter initialized this experiment and finished with help from Paul Ricketts of Unhinged magazine. After imbibing mushrooms, here is the product of their trip. A perfect glimpse into Psychedelia weaving itself into another generation of musicians.
GOOD POSTURE - Changin' EP [LP](Tip Top Recordings UK)
Leipzig's Joel Randle enters the Dance/Pop fray with a stellar four-song EP that is packed with commercial potential. "Last Time" is a bubbly Lou Hayter-esque blast of effervescent Pop - that like all good singles ends too soon. "Changin'" flips the formula to a strummable Rex Orange County/Benny Sings-esque song of longing with a fantastic drop-off that beautifully renews the hook. "I Feel Fine" is a bold and bright Eighties-esque Phoenix-esque SynthPop wonder. If they are all a little light on lyrical content, that is understandable given Randle's ear for hooks. "Changin'" wraps up with one of Randle's first recordings, the very Mac Demarco-esque "Italy." Good Posture is going places.
CARACARA - New Preoccupations [LP](Memory Music)
Philadelphia’s Caracara is that great combination of the emotional push and pull of Emo without too much sturm und drang. Even in their most stripped-down moments (The Dismemberment Plan-esque “Colorglut” with Anthony Green,) they stay well aware that the best Emo songs constantly build (and not necessarily to a shouting or screaming conclusion.) The standout on “New Preoccupations” is evocative “Ohio” which navigates its steady chord changes over an unchanged beat that drops in and out. Unlike the other tracks here (many of Caracara’s songs have powerful lockdown-era couplets like “Nocturnalia” and harrowing narratives like “Strange Interactions In The Night,”) “Ohio” always hangs on to a faint glimmer of hope. When the keyboards join in on the song’s chord patterns, that constitutes a large enough peak so that numerous stops and strikes that wind it up actually are downplayed.
CHAT PILE - God’s Country [LP/CD](The Flenser/Revolver)
As big fans of their 2019 “Remove Your Skin,” entering “God’s Country” is an entirely different experience. Chat Pile’s sludge/screaming Metal has grown apocalyptic. “Slaughterhouse” is brutal with a bassline that is dangerously low. Raygun Busch’s angry howl is a descendent of Big Black. “God’s Country” is a scathing indictment of American society. For the Metalheads, their songs consistently veer between early Melvins and guitarist Luther Manhole’s Jesus Lizard-isms (Viva Duane Denison!) “Why” is one of the most rage-filled jeremiads you will hear this year. When Busch asks “Why do people have to live outside?” over and over again, his shriek of “Why!” actually makes your eyes widen. However, Chat Pile always stays firmly in control of their abrasive but effective music. When they tackle memories of “Pamela” on the spoken-word piece, it grows dark fast as Busch intones “waiting to die” with the dislocated loss of fear associated with awful actions. When they plunge headfirst into the walloping Rollins Band-ish “Wicked Puppet Dance,” things only get more frightening on the spartan Butthole Surfers-esque chorus. “God’s Country” is a sludge album that is out to break a lot of rules. “Anywhere” dares to speed up to a slower Nirvana-esque tempo. The jackhammer drums on “Tropical Beaches, Inc” explode with distortion against Manhole’s lithe guitar lines. As the cut builds in intensity, it has more in common with Eighties Industrial music. The unifying facet has to be the bass playing of Stin whose strings are at times so loose (“The Mask”) every sound is not only menacing - but can hit your ears like it might be your last.
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The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
Oscar Wilde - “The Portrait of Dorian Gray”
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In 1965, Duke Ellington was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to the Arts. Namely 3000 songs in his lifetime. This would mark the first time that both an African-American and a Jazz musician received this honor. The Pulitzer board instead decided to simply not give an award for that year. Two of three board members even resigned. The slot remains empty - and you can help fill it thanks to Ted Gioia.
Let's Give Duke Ellington the Pulitzer Prize