Monday, January 7, 2019
SOPHIE/LINN DA QUEBRADA COLLAB WHEN?!
no, I ain't been banging the MC Bin Laden collab on the Tommy Cash album...
Friday, January 4, 2019
Goddess Bless June Jones
Sword Songs is the most perfect antidote possible to midnight dysphoria triggered by viewing Jazz Jennings and friends shop for prom dresses. White soul-analogue music at its most analogous. AOTD, no doubt, where the D is decade. *hugs*
5 Star Review: Heather Leigh Murray - Throne
Somehow it didn't make much news that the greatest 70s hard rock album of all time was released a few months ago, and it wasn't even released by any kind of rock band.
Heather Leigh Murray's Throne is the sound of Zeppelin at their most mystical, Sabbath at their most bludgeoning, Leaf Hound, High Tide, Amon Duul II and Mellow Candle sucked through a black hole and forced to build a Stargate for the fusion tyrant demiurge that used to be Jennifer James Herrema and Kenneth Anger. It's not deconstructed as much as sublimated - the skein of hot Critic Words that best describe it is the "nocturnal, hushed, somnambulant" cluster, but also "quicksilver, mercurial, alchemical." It levitates, just Murray and her pedal steel spinning/summoning the simultaneously lightest and heaviest filigree of soundstuff. And it's heavy in a way that has nothing to do with its musical quality, like a Clarice Lispector novel or summat.
The songs seem to recount a loosely-connected tale of lust and magick, shot through with vintage 70s lingo and a blending of the intensely personal and the cosmic. Hypnotic opener "Prelude to Goddess" can barely contain its insinuation of macho swagger and latent menace and "Lena" plays with slang to spin a memory that may only want you to think that it's about incest.
In the end, the album plays like apologism for the entire edifice of 70s cock rock that it teases and appropriates - like a sage nod in the direction of your secret belief that "Kashmir" still kicks more ass than any New Order or Depeche Mode song if we're going to be perfectly honest, and it does it without ever actually sounding a damn thing like Grand Funk or Deep Purple or apologizing for the musicians' celebrated debauchery, thank the Goddess.
Heather Leigh Murray's Throne is the sound of Zeppelin at their most mystical, Sabbath at their most bludgeoning, Leaf Hound, High Tide, Amon Duul II and Mellow Candle sucked through a black hole and forced to build a Stargate for the fusion tyrant demiurge that used to be Jennifer James Herrema and Kenneth Anger. It's not deconstructed as much as sublimated - the skein of hot Critic Words that best describe it is the "nocturnal, hushed, somnambulant" cluster, but also "quicksilver, mercurial, alchemical." It levitates, just Murray and her pedal steel spinning/summoning the simultaneously lightest and heaviest filigree of soundstuff. And it's heavy in a way that has nothing to do with its musical quality, like a Clarice Lispector novel or summat.
The songs seem to recount a loosely-connected tale of lust and magick, shot through with vintage 70s lingo and a blending of the intensely personal and the cosmic. Hypnotic opener "Prelude to Goddess" can barely contain its insinuation of macho swagger and latent menace and "Lena" plays with slang to spin a memory that may only want you to think that it's about incest.
In the end, the album plays like apologism for the entire edifice of 70s cock rock that it teases and appropriates - like a sage nod in the direction of your secret belief that "Kashmir" still kicks more ass than any New Order or Depeche Mode song if we're going to be perfectly honest, and it does it without ever actually sounding a damn thing like Grand Funk or Deep Purple or apologizing for the musicians' celebrated debauchery, thank the Goddess.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Chevalier - Chapitre II
Oh FUUU-- this ticks about every metal box I have. The first thing you'll notice on the opener is the bass, which is wrong and should not be, but which straightens out later, foob. The vocals are androgynous banshee wails, but with goddamn hooks, and the bookending tracks have backing vox that are literally just banshee howls from the void. The production is both wall-of-noise and somehow dubby? and the structures are knotty but intuitive - I suck at metal comparisons but I'd say it's not entirely unwarranted to put this at least in the parking lot of the ballpark of Flames of Hell's Fire and Steel, which couldn't possibly be a bad thing to be compared to. In a way, it's the perfect mixture of everything right and just and honest and true and sweet about metal in 1986 and 2018 - atmo-trad, anyone? Fucking amazing.
Monday, December 24, 2018
I always make sure the year is good and dead before I make my AOTY list, or; Two Talisman That Hate Teens!
5
__________________________
Heather Leigh Murray - Throne
Chevalier - Chapitre II
Hi & Saberhagen - Light on Leaves
***
4.75
__________________________
Freya Josephine Hollick - Feral Fusion
Chancha Via Circuito - Bienaventuranza
Rabit - Cry Alone
Tierra Whack - Whack World
Koenji Hyakkei - Dhorimviskha
Kali Malone - Organ Dirges 2016 - 2017
Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling
Make a Change... Kill Yourself - IV
The End - Svårmod och vemod är värdesinnen
Foodman - Aru Otoko
Nazar - Enclave
SS Thaman - Toliprema
***
4.5
___________________________
Elg - Vu Du Dome
Janusz Jurga - Duchy Rogowca
Daphne & Celeste Save the World
Niño de Elche - Antología del cante flamenco heterodoxo
Extra Large Unit - More Fun Please
Typhonian Highlife - The World Of Shells
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani
Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness - Emakhosini
Serpentwithfeet - Soil
Cucina Povera - Hilja
Gutter Instinct - Heirs of Sisyphus
Migos - Culture II
Pink Siifu - Ensley
Georgia Anne Muldrow - Overload
Teki Latex - the Naked King
Devi McCallion & Katie Dey - Some New Form of Life
Amnesia Scanner - Another Life
Le1f - Blue Dream
Galen Tipton - Nightbath
Lorde Fredd33 - NORF: The Legend of Hotboy Ronald
Black Dresses - Hell is Real
Gurrumul Yunupingu - Djarimirri
700 Bliss - Spa 700
Frontierer - Unloved
Kendall :) - Hey
Ravyn Lenae - Crush
Maxo Kream - Punken
Black Mecha - Counterforce
***
4.25
______________________________
Mustie=DC - A Future Meows
Spectral Wound - Infernal Decadence
Vishal-Shekher - Naa Peru Surya Naa Illu India
Hamoudi Karma - Folklore Sétifien
Joris Roelofs + Han Bennink - Icarus
Drawn and Quartered - the One Who Lurks
Rae Sremmurd - 3
Noah Creshevsky - Reanimator
Moozlie - Versus
Rockwell - User
Anthroprophh - Omegaville
Erik Friedlander - Artemisia
The Cyclist - Beat At The Heart Of The City
The Pyramids - An Angel Fell
Coffin Torture - Dismal Planet
Elvenstorm - the Conjuring
Sudan Archives - Silk
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Five Star Review: Max Roach Drum Soli
Drum soler gedda bad rap. It's twue. I remember some no doubt sage old RYMer (pro)claiming that hating drum solos made you rockist. And it's true, no lisp thith time. John Bonham and Ginger Baker were cackhanded wack mechanix but letting that taint Art Blakey or Famadou Don Moye is like claiming Moor Mother must be a racist because she's a rapper and so is 6ix9ine.
There's only been like five good rock drummers anyway and all but one of them doubled in jazz and improv and only one them ever really took solos, and he could do that because he was motherfucking Jaki Leibezeit.
I honestly love the sounds of a well-recorded, well-played solo trap kit more than the vast majority of more traditionally melodic instruments (and when there's like four of 'em at once? mmmmmmmmmmmm, that's nice.) And when I fished from the always significantly delicious Inconstant Sol (blog) an entire album of Max Roach, a Particularly Epochal Person (P.E.P.) in the history of jazzerations, slamablamming by his lonesome, you know I was Highly Anticipatory. And it smacks! Kisses, mwah! I always thought that Roach, like Ellington and Mingus, was far more important and worthwhile for his arrangements and ideas and talent-nurturing than pure performance skillz (that's why I dunnae like Junney Mongle.) Blakey was the thunderballstrike to your earpins - Roach was a little more polite. Well, if Art Gardrumkle invented rock 'n' roll, then Maximillian Roachispierre was busy doing things a little more... This Heat. Yeah, I hear a metric h*ckt*n of Charles Hayward here! Or am I chronologically backwards, ladies and gems? These drums don't just go talking, they rant, they pant, they conversate, they chitterchat. These are not dumdrums or humdrumdrums. This is pure virtuosity on Heifitz/Menuhin/Annapurna Devi-levels and they will wash your mindmouth out with "Toad"-Forgetting Soap.
I'll never forget sage old RYMer avant-classical-president/demagogue docperkins (pro)claiming that the drummer on Obscura should/could perform Xenakis' percussion compositions. Well, here Roachee (not that one) one-ups Danny L. Harle sneaking ballet Stravinsky into the snare programming of some innocent k-pop ditty by performing an Autechre tribute on solitary hi-hat... in the 70s!
There's only been like five good rock drummers anyway and all but one of them doubled in jazz and improv and only one them ever really took solos, and he could do that because he was motherfucking Jaki Leibezeit.
I honestly love the sounds of a well-recorded, well-played solo trap kit more than the vast majority of more traditionally melodic instruments (and when there's like four of 'em at once? mmmmmmmmmmmm, that's nice.) And when I fished from the always significantly delicious Inconstant Sol (blog) an entire album of Max Roach, a Particularly Epochal Person (P.E.P.) in the history of jazzerations, slamablamming by his lonesome, you know I was Highly Anticipatory. And it smacks! Kisses, mwah! I always thought that Roach, like Ellington and Mingus, was far more important and worthwhile for his arrangements and ideas and talent-nurturing than pure performance skillz (that's why I dunnae like Junney Mongle.) Blakey was the thunderballstrike to your earpins - Roach was a little more polite. Well, if Art Gardrumkle invented rock 'n' roll, then Maximillian Roachispierre was busy doing things a little more... This Heat. Yeah, I hear a metric h*ckt*n of Charles Hayward here! Or am I chronologically backwards, ladies and gems? These drums don't just go talking, they rant, they pant, they conversate, they chitterchat. These are not dumdrums or humdrumdrums. This is pure virtuosity on Heifitz/Menuhin/Annapurna Devi-levels and they will wash your mindmouth out with "Toad"-Forgetting Soap.
I'll never forget sage old RYMer avant-classical-president/demagogue docperkins (pro)claiming that the drummer on Obscura should/could perform Xenakis' percussion compositions. Well, here Roachee (not that one) one-ups Danny L. Harle sneaking ballet Stravinsky into the snare programming of some innocent k-pop ditty by performing an Autechre tribute on solitary hi-hat... in the 70s!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)