I feel like I get bleak as hell in these intros a lot of the time, so I’m going to try and stop doing that. I know things are brutal (and something genuinely new and horrible seems to happen every day), but y’all can get that anywhere. So, I’m trying.
First, this week’s Songs of Our Lives is so much fun. I had Sarah Hennies on the show, and she is just an absolute joy in every way. I have so much admiration for her and her work – it continues to challenge me and just open my ears and mind in different ways. But beyond that, Sarah is hilarious. Anyone who has met her (or used to follow her on twitter before she left) knows. So, this episode is hilarious. (and the Patreon version is even more so unless you’re a big fan of Spoon… then it might not be so fun).
Here’s something completely random that kind of made me happy last week. So, Natasha Pickowicz is an old acquaintance and former Foxy Digitalis writer who just happens to be a badass chef in New York. (Related side note: if you haven’t listened to her episode of Songs of Our Lives, you really should rectify that now). She shared something last week or maybe two weeks ago on Instagram about her love of passionfruit. In the last couple of years – and last 12 months especially – I have become a diehard passionfruit champion. It really might be the greatest of all fruits. Well, the part that got me excited was when she started talking about passion flowers and posted a picture of one. Why did this excite me? Eden has been talking about wanting to grow passion flowers in our garden for the last few years, but we prioritized other plants instead. Full disclosure, I am a total idiot, but I had no fucking clue that passion flower vines also grew passionfruit. WHAT! Hell yes. When my smooth little brain connected those dots, I started researching and getting excited. So, for 2024, I am hoping to grow some goddamn passionfruit so I can freeze my own for my dang morning smoothies. We gotta take the little gifts where we can, eh?
Alright, some real, next-level bangers this week (another next-level banger is the new QNDFK I released on The Jewel Garden last week, heeyyyyyy). Get in there with these.
Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Odean Pope The Lighthouse (Jam All)
There’s nobody out there like Jamaaladeen Tacuma, and on The Lighthouse, one of the all-time great bassists joins up with sax hero Odean Pope for a cross-genre runaway. Joining the duo is a stellar ensemble of G. Calvin Weston, Paul Giess, Marc Cary, and Ru-Deep, all of which amplify the cosmic energy on The Lighthouse, creating new sonic worlds. Crawling basslines bounce on Weston’s lithe, exploratory rhythms while Pope moves skyward, leaving Giess to cover the ground level with trumpet ruminations. Everywhere these pieces go, Tacuma finds the pinnacle. His bass cuts are electric. Every run will get bodies moving and heads shaking, all the while giving a lane for spacious guitar stints and brass-colored reverie. Every time I listen to The Lighthouse, I want to get up and move and scream “hell yes” until my voice is gone. Essential.
Loula Yorke Volta (Truxalis)
Pointillist sound waves trace out ephemeral, sonic constellations like free-flowing magic spilling from a celestial spring on Volta. Loula Yorke has this knack for creative and catchy melodies spliced together in surprising ways. Arpeggios become these fantastical, winding mazes in her hands, moving from bouncing effervescence to gilded stoicism in only a few bars, running an emotional gauntlet that leaves me breathless. She packs so much into each piece that it’s a joy to get lost in the constantly moving spaces. Cadences trip into polyrhythmic valleys, dancing between spurious bpms like a shapeshifting kaleidoscope. Layer-upon-layer of synthetic fantasy bursts from every corner of Volta, and we’re lucky to be snuck inside for a peek. Highest recommendation.
Jim Marlowe Mirror Green Rotor in Profile (Medium Sound)
Everything is rusted shut and enclosed in a case of retrofitted concrete on Jim Marlowe’s crucial new joint, Mirror Green Rotor in Profile. Prefab remonstrations are taken apart in the midnight whimsy sprinkled throughout machine-like grooves and sonic paeans to dead pop stars. I can’t help but be smitten with the catchy, laid-back melodies tied to basement piano stomps curled around minimalist, motorik rhythms. Marlowe melts circuits into hard-wired, improbable kosmische drifts that find themselves baked inside a ramshackle pizza oven that’s never seen better days but still kicks out stellar guitar riffs and delicious pies. It’s all so timeworn and comforting, quick musical glimpses of places we once haunted and days we never really lived. A record for all times and every day, but one that hits really close to home if you lived in certain places at certain times. Incredible.
Yama Uba Silhouettes (Ratskin)
Silhouettes is a neon shockwave. Channeling the eternal flame into a cacophony of gritty, industrial beats, and resounding bass grooves, this duo of Akiko Sampson and Winter Zora cut fluorescent goth hymnals out of sonic glass. Venom-laced vocal incantations spiral into ageless melodies, melting away the cold embrace of Zora’s skeletal guitar magic and snaking saxophone motifs. All of it is fueled by an infectious rhythmic energy propelling coarse synth arrangements into gauzy, ethereal dust shaded by reverb gloss. And when those horn arrangements slink back into frame, a doomed romance waves the white flag so these songs can finally cut us to pieces. Silhouettes is an enthralling album that won’t let go of our throats until the final note.
Alexandre St-Onge / Hazy Montagne Mystique Garou Loup (Jeunesse Cosmique)
One of my favorite labels around ended 2023 with another slice of can’t-miss electronic fireworks. Alexandre St-Onge joins up with Hazy Montagne Mystique and stacks plasticine timbres on flickering waves, building hypnotic circuitry that never quite feels stable. All of this is buoyed by expanding drones and shimmering aural patterns that spill into wide-angled, noise shards. Garou Loup contains countless explorations fused together, building new narrative conventions with concrète palettes and abstract arrangements. Together, St-Onge and HMM are magicians, pulling invisible strings to bring a whimsical edge to these acidic transformations. This music changes shape and form faster than light, but every moment is part of a larger story, waiting for the next full moon to shift and scowl again. Highest recommendation.
Matt LaJoie Lilac of the Valley (Flower Room)
In the night sky, vivid star patterns take flight, channeled through light-soaked guitar loops and an everlasting resonance. Matt LaJoie’s music always has a transcendent quality, as though these sparkling tones and patterns have been pulled down from some place beyond our reach. He taps into an effusive flow like he’s stitching together ageless memories into an aural portrait. Lilac of the Valley is in constant motion, even in the more reflective moments where time slows down and our inner lives dream of eternity. So beautiful.
Astrid Sonne Great Doubt (Escho)
Great Doubt is like a world on stilts, perched high and seemingly impervious, but vulnerable at its roots, one step away from collapse. Astrid Sonne’s voice stands at the center of winding compositions fueled by a combination of synthetic reveries and organic paraphernalia. Cascading piano stabs climb a stochastic ladder, pushed upward with percussive force as Sonne languidly asks, “Do you want to bring people into this world?” with discordant strings burning in the background. Flute patterns hint at whimsy, but spin circles in darkness with dub-inflected rhythms metering out an escape plan amongst the electronic haze. An enchanting eerieness takes hold in between breaths, at the margins of Great Doubt, coloring this stellar, hypnotic album with a thousand shades of gray.
Ibukun Sunday & Darragh Morgan Transcendentalist (Self-Released)
This is an interesting mix of violin timbres and abstract synthesis. Dissonant atmospheres from Morgan’s inventive playing are heightened through vaporous electronics and Sunday’s minimalist approach. Each sound on Transcendentalist is a focal point, from the wistful melodies to textural, ASMR-like bows and scrapes. Static tonal shapes are turned into lively, angular echoes through quiet circuitry, and the inward curve finds solemn answers on this sonic path. Morgan and Sunday give each other plenty of space, with mournful drones finding solace next to blackened oscillations. Good stuff.
øjeRum Your Soft Absence (Room 40)
Listening to Your Soft Absence is like being held in a soft embrace where time is slowed. Sine waves harness a tight glow and advance with subtle timbral shifts, finding moments of wonder in between high points and low drifts. We’re ghosts haunting the places øjeRum explores, following gossamer harmonic tendrils into a glowing core. This music is fertile ground for memories to come in from the ether, long forgotten but reimagined in lilting sinewy patterns. It pushes us forward while keeping one foot stuck in the past. Spirits evaporate into windswept, melodic shadows, beautiful to watch as each sweet note fades into another. Like light from distant stars, we watch the past move further away from us, just out of reach.
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