LANNDS - lotus deluxe [LP](Run For Cover)
This North Florida duo raise the stakes on Indie Rock-meets-R&B minimalism. Singer Raina Woodard has a sweet quality to her voice and hits some high notes that resonate well. Underneath her voice, Brian Squillace is manipulating her voice, synths, drum machines and more. “Lotus Deluxe” does of course fit in with the Toro Y Moi-to-How To Dress Well period of Indie music. However, like R&B and Hip-Hop records, you can tell Squillace found a good beat and gave room to Woodard (“o.o.w”) to sing from her inspiration. Their twin inspirations just take songs to lofty heights (“HITEM” is a stone cold JAM) without feeling to postured or imitative of anyone else. Very promising.
THE DELINES - The Sea Drift [CD](Jealous Butcher/Redeye)
Portland, OR’s Delines love to write songs about the South - namely the Gulf Coast. Guitarist Willy Vlautin is also a novelist and he approaches writing like condensing the story details with the emotional push-and-pull of well-composed songs. 2019’s “The Imperial” packed a real punch (Amy Boone’s quiver on “Eddie and Polly” tells the story beyond the page.) Back again with mostly “mini-movies” to be turned into songs, The Delines are now blessed with fantastic production and horns. “Little Earl” does not announce itself as a tale, it sort of slips it in beneath the meditative piano line. The drama of the songs on “The Imperial” does continue here. However, Vlautin and his band steer it down and make the music the focus. The beautiful “Past The Shadows” is poignant but uses its soft and soulful undercurrent to sell the chorus - without making it obvious. “The Sea Drift” is definitely a grower. Rich, multilayered production that will, over time, reveal its story - not just tell you another.
PANORAM - Acrobatic Thoughts [LP](Running Back GER)
As abstract as Electronics can be, when it all but abandons structure to become “experience -based listening,” it sacrifices its repeat playability. Raffaele Matirani never spells his sound out over these 10 songs. There are gurgling synths, vocal samples stretched to their physical limits and beds of artificial Eighties-sounding atmospheres that never lose your attention. “Pseudolove” sounds like a duet between a whale crying and a computerized choir. “Wandering Frames” is like druggy New Age layered over uneasy beats with a hint of classic Public Access TV. Like a homemade Orb album, the dance beats creep in and never sound too similar. “Seabrain” bobs and weaves over the legato chording with its ancient sample technique. The MBV-meets-Philip Glass feast on “Monocielo” is just beautiful. “Acrobatic” bounces you everywhere and never sounds the same twice.
EXEK - Advertise Here [LP](Castle Face)
The Australian band Exek plays Post-Punk like an Eighties relic in the modern world to toy with previous sounds. The slow, methodical drone of “Unseasonable Warmth” is less an evocative departure (as it could have been on the entrancing staple “A Hedonist” on their 2016 debut “Biased Advice” (reviewed here 4.1.21)) and more a palette for bouncing new sounds. Trumpet and an Eno-esque voice duel for the five minutes of “Sen Yen For 30 Min of Violin.” The single “(I’m After) Your Best Interest” has a !!!-style cowbell part and a distorted sample part that is hypnotic. Albert Wolski has a lot going on vocally here as well, tangling with a female singer makes the piece sound primitive but strangely warm. Then the synths come out and “Beyond Currency” winds up like Human League fronted by Ian Curtis. While Exek remains Post-Punk to the core (those basslines are always the engine,) this band is growing into something closer to a stripped-down Tortoise or Post-Rock without all the dramatic turns.
SPIRIT WAS - Heaven’s Just A Cloud [LP/CD](Danger Collective)
Like a Slowcore Elliott Smith, Nick Corbo hits you with this mixture of Folky strum and metal crunch. Most of the songs are paced just above Codeine, but it is necessary because the chords whether distorted or not need to spread out around Corbo singing tacet with his guitar. “Olive Branch & Brown Dove” contains a monster riff that just spirals higher. The opener “I Saw The Wheel” perfectly acclimates you to this shifting sound (that never really jars you after the first encounter.) The almost heartening chorus of “Here Comes My Man” even produces a song that is single-worthy.
JOEL FAIRSTEIN - Umbra [LP](Mad About PORT)
WILLIAM S. FISCHER - Circles [LP](Real Gone/Redeye)
The private presses of the Seventies often reveal what was missing in their chosen field of music. In Jazz, artists were struggling to find a direction that could maintain their compositional/recording habit and still push the music forward. Knoxville’s Joel Fairstein clearly has the Fusion of the day in mind, but with a few exceptions. Surprisingly, the pianist/producer Fairstein does not always compose with his instrument and acumen in mind. The title cut is composed with a Chuck Mangione-ish horn in mind. However, as Fairstein and his band navigate it - it slowing warms up and cooks. “Tn” starts out with a Lady Madonna-esque piano figure before developing into a very Todd Rundgren’s Utopia style jam with overdubs, guitar chording, and swooping bass. The finger snapping “That and the Other” is a hard swing number a la Steely Dan with a great hook and Van Morrison-esque sax solo. For 1978, “Umbra” fit right in to where Radio was going - not necessarily Jazz.
In 1970, composer/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Shelby, MS-born William S. Fischer clearly had more on his mind than he could work out as a studio musician and sideman to Ray Charles. So, Fischer put together a crack band (Billy Cobham on drums and Ron Carter on electric bass) and cranked his angst out through these guitar-based explorations of acidic funk. The mixture of strings and the striated punch of guitarists Hugh McCracken and Eric Weissberg dueling on the tense “Saigon” sounds like David Axelrod with a funk band. Fischer even delves into strange Moog textures on “Electrix.” As a whole, “Circles” is tough. Fischer’s idea of Funk/Soul/Jazz is ahead of its time. Fischer did continue to record (1972’s “Omen” is out there too) as well as play with Roberta Flack, Yusef Lateef and Pharoah Sanders.
KAHIL EL’ZABAR QUARTET - A Time For Healing [LP](Spiritmuse/Redeye)
Chicago’s intrepid Afrofuturist Jazz leader El’Zabar created a real beauty in 2020’s “America The Beautiful.” His orchestration of “standards” brought out the paradox of their existence in a world that has been enduring so much in the past two years. Making simple songs complex to bring out more deeper meaning was the focus of “America.” His new album with a stripped-down quartet is closer to his older work as the band just finds the rhythm and the groove (“Eddie Harris”) and layers solos and incongruous “storm” like parts above it. “A Time for Healing” is far more meditative. Like Seventies Miles, El’Zabar keeps the central rhythmic force a constant while letting the other parts bubble up around it. Songs begin and end before you know it. Even the lengthy central focus title cut is about setting you adrift from all the distractions of the world at large. Once you give in to it, you will welcome it again.
HANGMAN’S CHAIR - Loner [LP/CD](Nuclear Blast)
This new French slowcore Metal band is out to sound like a heavier version of the MetalGaze (think Nothing with more tom work.) With “Loner,” they are definitely on to something. The vocals are great and the way they can stretch their Doom-ish crunch across the walls of effects is enticing as well. The lengthy (show opener or closer?) “An Ode to Breakdown” shows all their talents, while with a small edit the booming “Cold & Distant” could be an Active Rock single.
STANDER - Vulnerable [LP/CD](The Garrote/Redeye)
Post-Rock led a lot of people into Metal a while ago. Chicago instrumental trio Stander are a throwback to the days of Russian Circles when changes were everything and you waited for that giant push in every song. Stander pays a great deal of attention to each other, their best songs are built from interaction (“Wither”) not piecing parts together. To top it off, the fantastic Seth Manchester’s (The Body/Big Brave and Full of Hell) crystalline production makes these melodies and the spaces between live and breathe.
BARRERA - Visiones Nocturnas [LP](La Vida Es Un Mus UK)
KILL ALTERS - Armed To The Teeth [LP/CS](Hausu Mountain/Redeye)
There are a lot of noise records out there. Some lumbering and industrial, others random and possibly more to make than listen to. These are two artists who have their finger on the pulse of how Noise music is supposed to make you feel. In a little over 10 minutes, Spanish Punk band Barrera shred mightily and shed everything in revealing an anger and angst that you understand intristically. Like Flipper or Butthole Surfers, they use the constant echo and guitar squelching to raise your hair. On the other hand the fuzz bass and big drums are what maintain your attention. Songs are performed with great conviction (“Silencio”) and menace - even when fast.
Bonnie Baxter discovered a passel of tapes that belonged to her mother. As she worked through the very personal fighting and emotional violence she captured, Bonnie found a way to take her fright and anger about it and make music. Kill Alters is a dangerous band. Like Death Grips, these cuts are no holds barred. The songs are brutal. The beats are punishing. Synths and screams punctuate nearly every emotion they dredge up in you. However, as tumultuous as the album is, there is a sense of reward. The frustration of figuring this chapter of her mother’s life has given them the ability to communicate teeth-clenching anger but with fantastic beats and sounds that erupt from every channel. These two are new sources of power.
NURSE WITH WOUND - Gyllenskold, Geijerstam and I at Rydberg’s EP [2CD](Rotorelief FRA)
On this 1983 EP, Nurse With Wound pull their wild noise and weirdness in a couple of different directions. After the pair that start it Captain Howdy style (especially “Several Odd Moments Prior To Lunch,”) it is refreshing to let them drift into the sample-based/drone circus collage of “Odd” and the propulsive beats, musical stabs and lonesome saxophone on the striking “Aquarium.” While it may not have the impact of a full album, given the freedom of only a few tracks - Nurse With Wound experiment concisely enough to draw in new fans. This new package adds all the alternate versions and reworked tracks as well.
Well, another week, another list of several different styles and pursuits in music for you. Enjoy. Listen again. Share as you wish.
NEW RELEASES lovingly compiled for you from this very week!
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