It’s Valentine’s Day – woo! If you listened to last week’s Foxy Digitalis Podcast, you know that Nina Dante converted me, so I’m celebrating today in a multitude of ways, most of which don’t apply to anyone reading this. Ha!
Let’s start with the thing related to Nina. So, we’ve been working on some music together for the last six months or so, and (outside of the Patreon) are so thrilled to share the first bit of it with the world today via The Jewel Garden. “Weep You No More Sad Fountains” is an adaptation (loosely) of the John Dowland poem featuring Nina on voice and myself on a host of samples and electronics (of note, a sweet cat purring loudly). I hope you’ll check it out.
Yesterday, I finally shared the Dis Fig episode of Songs of Our Lives. We recorded it in late November, but it was one of my favorite episodes to record because Felicia and I just totally hit it off. It’s kind of part 1 or 2 – the second part coming next week with Lee Buford of The Body – celebrating the release of Orchards of a Futile Heaven next week.
Lastly, here are two videos that made yesterday a lot brighter. First, Agalisiga Mackey, a Cherokee singer and songwriter here in Oklahoma who writes songs in Cherokee. This is so great. Second, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer with Chao Tian – a Chinese and Appalachian mashup.
Weston Olencki & Laura Cocks Music For Two Flutes (Hideous Replica)
The physicality of air forced through confined spaces is invigorating and sometimes terrifying on Music For Two Flutes. Weston Olencki and Laura Cocks are two of the best around and each of their pieces here is obliterating. Olencki’s “ceòl meadhonach” doesn’t so much as exist within boundaries as it ignores the idea of them. Relentless barrages of visceral flute shout become a fragile noise wall. Layered timbres distill serrated tones into a visceral, sometimes acerbic, pathway until they break into the hollows. On Cocks’ “SLUB,” slow-growth sonics spread outward like spindly, wind-shorn tendrils. There’s a captivating fragility to these asymmetric patterns, the feeling that everything could scatter and break without warning. All the while, Cocks is plugging holes in a sinking ship with sharp breaths and extended techniques, but the water level keeps rising until we’re underwater. “SLUB” feels like it could swallow us whole. A spellbinding duo of tracks. Highest recommendation.
Osmanthus Between Seasons (Self-Released)
Each of these pieces feels like a whisper from days long past, alive again for a moment before fading back into the ethereal dust. Krzysztof Sujata’s textural, emotive worlds built from synths, keys, and tape loops are a playground for Laura Reid’s magic touch. Her violin expressions float between moods, hopeful in the sweet morning light while at peace in the melancholy of deep night. Together, Osmanthus navigates silhouettes cast by our memories, passing a torch back and forth to where it’s most needed. Plucked strings are like inquisitive aural raindrops, and beneath the hazy surface a whole life blooms in snaking melodies and reflective arrangements. Between Seasons holds a breath for what’s to come. An absolutely beautiful album.
HMOT The Moon Turned Into The Sun (Beacon Sound/Kota Tones)
Mysteries unravel in the inquisitive sonic sparks of The Moon Turned Into The Sun. HMOT grafts haunted electronic arrangements with a roaring blast furnace, twisting sharp-angled melodies into razor wire. Patterns fade in and out of view, a slow descent into a howling void. The abrasive textures covering every passage of The Moon Turned Into The Sun only make this music more electrifying. Rhythmic progressions blunt the immovable force, piling blown-out quray tones into a firewall that keeps us moving forward. This music is stacked. Dichotomies build chaos, and in its wake we find focus in the broken shards of a world breaking apart at the seams.
Mai Sugimoto Sunlight Filtering Through Leaves (Self-Released)
Sunlight Filtering Through Leaves is celebratory. Saxophonist Mai Sugimoto, joined by Joshua Abrams and Isaiah Spencer, dances through these seven pieces, finding ecstasy, reflection, and, perhaps most importantly, communion. Small moments bloom into restrained grooves, buoyed by Abrams and Spencer’s tight, propulsive cadence. Textural accouterments filter through the percussive elements and shade the contours of this music. Sugimoto goes off when the moment calls for it, her dexterity fueling a dynamic ferocity as she bounds across scales and patterns. And when Sugimoto switches it up and plays flute? I’m totally hooked. Special music.
Goldmund and Hollie Kenniff “Holding Hands” (Self-Released)
With a single touch, the whole world can fade into obscurity. “Holding Hands” hangs in a gentle wistfulness, an appreciative glow surrounding the elegant aural palette. Piano chords hold galaxies, and their gravity pulls everything, and everyone, in close. So much warmth gathers in the spaces between each note that it’s felt long after the last elegiac drone disappears from our memories. The simplest things often feel the most special, and “Holding Hands” is no exception. This luminous sonic murmur extends into nothing, and into forever.
Koenraad Ecker Raw Materials (LINE)
Cryptic aural messages break fragments off an electronic matrix. Aqueous, processed field recordings drench everything, saturating the foundational cogs of Raw Materials and keeping every piece on the sonic chessboard in perpetual motion. I’m almost woozy, overwhelmed by the multidirectional propulsion of this music. It’s an incurable infection thickening fluids and blistering these immersive toneworlds with tactile decay. There’s no escaping these brutal, inviting soundscapes. Stellar.
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