Playlist 10.11.24

Utility Fog

As we wake up to a world that’s just a little (lot) more fascist that it was last week, there’s some righteous anger, some despondency, and beauty for you tonight. Don’t forget, everything is political: dancing is political, crying is political, music is political, standing up to fascists is political – and critical.
OK then.

LISTEN AGAIN – another world is possible. Stream on demand on FBi’s website, podcast here.

the body – End of Line [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
the body – The Building [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Each of the body‘s albums, whether their many collaborations or their single-artist albums, takes them on another path through the beauty of extremeness, and for the last 10 years, the melding/welding of technology into the core of what they do. The Crying Out of Things is their second album of 2024, with their Orchards of a Futile Heaven collab with Dis Fig released in February this year and garnering them the cover of The Wire just last month. Once again this new album is enriched by the Machines With Magnets wielded by Seth Manchester, as you can hear on both these tracks – chopped vocal loops, massive drums, massive glacial riffs. The voice of Felicia Chen aka Dis Fig can be heard on the second track too. As incredbile & crushing as ever.

Bell Monks – Before Dawn [Wayside & Woodland Recordings/Bandcamp]
Bell Monks – Dim The Lights [Wayside & Woodland Recordings/Bandcamp]
On Wayside & Woodland Recordings, the label run by Ben Holton and Rob Glover aka epic45, here’s a quite lusciously beautiful album of OG postrock (think late Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis) from Jeff Herriott and Eric Sheffield aka Bell Monks. Ben Holton says he was taken by this instantly, and I can see why – it’s wonderful, and it’s incredibly suited to epic45’s aesthetic. Sensitively-programmed drum machines, guitars, synths and emotive vocals – highly recommend this.

The Declining Winter – Eyes On Mine [Second Language/Bandcamp]
Another band that Bell Monks clearly recall is one of epic45’s biggest influences, Hood. While that band is long gone (and sadly mourned), their members’s side- and post-projects are many, and the core was brothers Chris and Richard Adams. Rich is now The Declining Winter, and his songwriting and production has only gotten better & better over the years since Hood’s end. Last April is an intimate collection of songs all written on one night, playing through his trauma and grief at the loss of a loved one. Adams’ voice, guitar and piano are almost alone, but joined by his longtime collaborator Sarah Kemp on multitracked violins, ratcheting up those emotions.

claire rousay – Listening to Every Vocal Track on sentiment (Andrew Weathers remix) [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
When I heard claire rousay‘s touching, self-alienated confessional album Sentiment earlier this year, I never expected it to be followed with a remix album. With the likes of genre-crossing experimentalist more eaze, Iranian-American beatmaker Maral and ambient saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi featured, it’s out now. Colorado sound-artist Andrew Weathers has, er, listened to every vocal track on sentiment, and fed them into granular algorithms. With accompanying strings & synths also granulated, it’s strangely touching, like the vocoded second-hand speech on rousay’s original.

Elsa Hewitt – Kazimi [forthcoming on Elsa Hewitt Bandcamp]
British producer Elsa Hewitt inhabits an idiosyncratic space that blurs songwriting with ambient soundscapes, guitars and vocals with electronics. Her new album Dominant Heartstrings, due in January 2025, leans mostly away from “songs”, using the voice and guitars texturally. The upcoming single “Griselda” features a lovely b-side, “Kazimi”, made of stuttery instrumental loops with clickity almost-beats. Much folktronic bliss.

E L U C I D – BAD POLLEN (feat. billy woods) [Fat Possum Records/Bandcamp]
E L U C I D – IKEBANA [Fat Possum Records/Bandcamp]
While we tend to hear more from his Armand Hammer partner billy woods, E L U C I D is just as distinctive a rapper, and a weird & creative producer himself. His latest album REVELATOR is his best yet, with incisive lyrics about this current era, and dense, uncompromising music. “BAD POLLEN” is produced by the brilliant Saint Abdullah, with desolate lyrics and a verse from woods. “IKEBANA” is co-produced by Elucid with Jon Nellen, juxtaposing artful Japanese flower arranging with… I think, feeling out of place or out of step in a complicated world. Intense stuff.

Lewis Spybey – Castle Neptune [Upp/Bandcamp/ eMERGENCY heARTS /Bandcamp]
I’m always drawn to any projects that Edvard Graham Lewis, from the groundbreaking postpunk of Wire to the experimental sounds of Dome, the avant-pop of Hox, the sound-art of his two solo releases on Mego, the psych/krautrock of UUUU and the experimental kraut-punk-tronica of Elegiac with Ted Milton of Blurt and Sam Britton of Icarus (see below). The project Lewis Spybey teams Lewis up with Mark Spybey, another legendary UK musician – as Dead Voices on Air, as a member of influential industrial/drone act :zoviet*France:, and as an inveterate collaborator. So on debut album LEWISPYBEY these two together create dense soundscapes and electronic grooves, manipulated field recordings, decontextualised samples. The album exists in two slightly different forms: a CD from US label eMERGENCY heARTS and an LP from Lewis’ Upp, based in Uppsala, Sweden.

SLUTPUNK! – ursine i see you [caybee calabash Bandcamp]
SLUTPUNK! – ursine imax [caybee calabash Bandcamp]
UK-based caybee calabash releases music under a variety of pseudonyms, one main one being apollo bitrate, and SLUTPUNK! being another. I’m not sure if there’s a massive distinction between them, but self-declared mini-album don’t forget ursine, out under the SLUTPUNK! name, mixes meticulous breakcore & IDM in with lo-res sound design and noise. As is their wont, there’s a surprising emotive quality to this work.
Next week, the Retrac label run by River Everett, caybee’s other half in Bagel Fanclub, releases their RETRAC 5ELEK double LP, which I will most certainly be spinning for you. I just saw them described as “the furry Planet Mu/Not Not Fun”, which is just too good.

Icarus – Gandalf Speedway [Not Applicable/Bandcamp]
This one’s close to my heart. Icarus is the duo of London cousins Ollie Bown and Sam Britton, who started off in the mid-90s making pitch-perfect Photek-styled drum’n’bass but soon strayed into electro-acoustic experimentation and folktronic deviation. The d’n’b/jungle has never really left, though – it just got weirder and weirder. It’s my fandom of Icarus that led me to meet Ollie when he lived in Naarm/Melbourne, and somewhere between then and Ollie moving to Eora/Sydney we founded Tangents with a few other musicians who all admired each other, and the rest is history. Fortunately, despite the two living on opposite sides of the world, Icarus continues (slowly!), and their new album An Ever​-​growing Meridional Entertainment Transgression At The Edge Of The Multiverse is nearly upon us. It’s everything an Icarus album should be: complex beats referencing jungle & IDM, and mad sonic manipulation. Gird your loins.

Coco Em – Kwa Raha Zangu (Emile Papandréou Remix) [InFiné Music/Bandcamp]
Emma Nzioka is a filmmaker and electronic producer from Nairobi, Kenya, known as Coco Em. Less of a club anthem than some of her other music, her new single “Kwa Raha Zangu” is a more contemplative, downcast song influenced by Lingala music. However, it’s released with a remix by Emile Papandréou that takes it back into the dancefloor (although I can’t find anything out about Emile Papandréou!)

Berke Can Özcan & Jonah Parzen-Johnson – A Cloud [WeJazz/Bandcamp]
Finnish label WeJazz has an unreasonable hit-rate at releasing forward-thinking jazz music crossing genres (and not at all limited to Finland!) Here two innovative musicians find themselves utterly simpatico: Turkish drummer Berke Can Özcan often works with samplers & electronics along with myriad percussion, across Turkish psych-rock, electro-acoustic and pop music as well as jazz; Brooklyn saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson stretches the limits of his saxophone and flute, but also combines these with modular synths. On the recordings that make up It Was Always Time, the electronics are woven into and around the live instruments; it’s all part of the one thing. This is highly intuitive improvisation, with expertise both on acoustic instruments and electronics.

Flock – Meet Your Shadow [Strut/Bandcamp]
Here’s some forward-thinking jazz from the UK. Flock is a supergroup of sorts, including among others composer, percussionist and instrument-maker Bex Burch (whose solo album came out on International Anthem last year), and Sarathy Korwar, whose solo albums have fused jazz and Indian music with political urgency. They’re joined by reeds/woodwinds player Tamar Osborn and two keyboardists: Danalogue and Al Macsween. Electronic music, minimalist composition, krautrock, Afrobeat and more inform the music on their second album Flock II, and one can’t help thinking it would rock live.

Tomin – Life [International Anthem/Bandcamp]
Tomin Perea-Chamblee released a series of solo Bandcamp EPs during the 2020-21 lockdowns, and makes his music work around his day job as a bioinformatician. For his album A Willed and Conscious Balance he’s gathered a full band with keyboards, bass, drums, trumpet and TWO cellists, with Tomin on various reeds, woodwinds, brass and synth. This is lively and expressive music, with room for all the musicians to solo, but also well-thought-out arrangements. There’s something about it that’s very International Anthem-esque.

Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz – Invisible Road [Freedom To Spend/Bandcamp]
Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz – Botehcheen [Freedom To Spend/Bandcamp]
It was sad hearing of the death of composer Richard Horowitz in April this year. A celebrated film composer who’d worked with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell, David Byrne as well as jazz masters, I nevertheless knew him best as the husband and longtime collaborator with the extraordinary vocalist Sussan Deyhim. Although I’d heard Deyhim’s voice in various contexts, it was the seeing Deyhim’s extraordinary vocal performance in the installation of Turbulent by Shirin Neshat in an art museum in Portugal which made me a fan. Two years ago, Crammed Discs reissued Deyhim & Horowitz’s celebrated 1986 album Desert Equations: Azax Attra, combining electronics, traditional Persian music, and the New York avant-garde. Now Freedom To Spend are gifting us a whole missing album from the duo, The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985​–​1990. Like Desert Equations, there are beats and electronic funk here which is very much of its 1980s era, but Deyhim’s multi-tracked vocals transcend any time or place, and much of the electronics and arrangements still impress. At its best, stunning.

Ida Duelund – Odisa [Probably available at Initiated Records/Ida Duelund Bandcamp soon]
In 2022 I discovered the Danish duo Lueenas, featuring Ida Duelund on double bass and Maria Jagd on violin. It turns out Duelund had spent some time studying in Melbourne, but is back in Copenhagen now. Her debut solo album Sibo will be out in January on Initiated Records. Duelund sings and plays bowed double basses and picked acoustic guitar, and is joined by Nils Gröndahl’s detuned violins and Liss Wessberg’s trombone, making for a sound that’s by turns murky and precise, lugubriously avant-garde but jazzy. The second & third tracks are either out now or soon – very slow-moving, otherworldly songs.

Mat Eric Hart – Deuil [Objects & Sounds/Bandcamp]
Supermoon Blues – One Evening [Objects & Sounds/Bandcamp]
When Allie Hatch of Ghent-based store and label Objects & Sounds lost her mother in late 2023, she found her grief was profound, and music was part of what helped her feel a little less alone. She had the idea of inviting creative artists to contribute their own expressions of grief, and Sounds on Grief came together as a book as well as an album. The music on the album is very varied, from the strangely peaceful to the dangerously detached to the heart-pulling. On the peaceful but unsettled end is English sound-artist Mat Eric Hart, blending field recordings with drones and rhythms. Supermoon Blues aka Drea, a poet from Botswana based in Amsterdam, reads an evocative poem about memory & loss over beautifully simple piano and electronically-treated sounds.

Antelope Tapes – Banksia Sequence [Antelope Tapes Bandcamp]
Denmark, WA-based sound-artist Tom Allum has appeared on these airwaves a number of times with his sound-works that draw from the natural and human environment in unexpected ways. He’s one-fifth of the instrumental band Antelope Tapes, who began over a decade ago, but were on pause from 2015 or so until last year. Their new Tivoli EP is strange in a number of ways: its four tracks are intended to be listened to while enjoying Tivoli wine, made by a sister of one of the bandmembers. Each track is spliced together from old recordings found on members’ hard drives, plus new bits. For that reason, it’s a little abstracted from postrock as such, but that suits Utility Fog to a tee. I’m sure you’ll agree.

Driftwood – New Moon [Room40/Bandcamp]
Out soon on Room40 is the self-titled album from Driftwood, a new duo of Naarm/Melbourne musician Aviva Endean and nipaluna/Tasmania’s Nick Ashwood. Both have circled around the free improv scenes involving the likes of Splinter Orchestra and Australian Art Orchestra among others. This is a very intimate album of music based around acoustic instruments – in particular reed organs tuned in just intonation, along with Aviva’s clarinets and Nick’s acoustic guitar. It’s uncanny music because of the tunings, but it’s also striking what a natural musical pairing the two musicians are. The full album’s out in less than 2 weeks.

Deepchild – America [Seppuku Records]
Released by Eora/Sydney’s Deepchild just days before the US election confirmed what we’d hoped would not come to pass, Vows/America is Rick Bull in contemplative, yearning mode. Now it feels like a eulogy.

Rafael Anton Irisarri – Dispersion of Belief [Black Knoll Editions/Rafael Anton Irisarri Bandcamp]
The roots of Rafael Anton Irisarri‘s new album Façadisms came in 2016 as the Trump presidency loomed: a diner in Milan intended to mean “The American Dream” was instead called “Il Mito Americano”, or “The American Myth”. Eight years later, as the façade presented by the American Myth is even closer to collapse, Irisarri’s album is finally released just as Trump is ushered in as President once more, with explicitly fascist intentions. The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters. Irisarri offers up a collection of uneasy drone-works, filled with minute detail, worth listening on headphones.

Listen again — ~201MB