I didn’t really expect last week to be as exhausting as it was (my daughter was on spring break) because we didn’t travel or anything, but it absolutely took it out of me. Everybody got back to normal on Monday, but I was just in a total daze all day (which made it especially weird that I got so much done. Maybe the takeaway is that I’m at my best when I’m only partially aware of where I am or what I’m doing. Hm.)
Anyway, killer episode of Songs of Our Lives yesterday with the one and only Rosali. I hope you’ll check it out (and the extended Patreon episode is even more fun). Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the Patreon – it truly does keep the site going. I am forever grateful.
In the meantime, here’s some other music you should get on your speakers.
more eaze, pardo & glass paris paris, texas texas (OOH-sounds)
Soft-spoken curses are released into the bliss of made-up memories, adrift through the midnight dawn of everything. Pedal steel clouds float by in slow motion, hanging flickering candles over the edge of our moon signs. Mari Maurice’s voice arises like a pearlescent hologram at the center of it all. Words become veils. Doors are locked for good. pardo and glass conjure elegiac guitar streams wrapped in granular wool. Details glitter in the chord progressions and timbral patterns, building an organic foundation of nylon and steel. Maurice layers violin laments into the openings, like phantom lullabies from her past lives and future selves. Under the warm sonic blanket, drama grows in sparkling arpeggiations and immersive synthscapes, but the quiet core of paris paris, texas texas is never out of reach. Immaculate.
Kane Pour The Last Wave (sound as language)
Kane Pour made one of my favorite guitar albums back in 2010 under the moniker Pospulenn, and The Last Wave channels that same energy, that same feeling into the future. Sunkissed guitar patterns spill through aqueous prisms, pulling melodies from the bright morning sun. Kane Pour’s music is relaxed and fluid, but in the process of setting us at ease, something deeper is unlocked. This music is grounded in empathic emotions, in the spaces where new life grows from dark corners. It’s as fun as it is inquisitive. Moments of sonic effervescence – a lilting inquisition or looped harmonic reveries – turn our inner midnight into a cascading glow that surrounds us and holds us close. The Last Wave is another chance for whatever we need it to be. Highest recommendation.
Dave Harrington, Max Jaffe, Patrick Shiroishi Speak, Moment (AKP Recordings)
Speak, Moment is a series of exploratory questions. Harrington, Jaffe, and Shiroishi’s first meeting is documented here, and a dichotomy of tender care and visceral reaction emerges through these five pieces. This music is swimming in texture, coloring each passage with a real-life sheen that heightens its emotional impact. Harrington’s guitar fizzes with electricity, grinding through stone in one moment before kissing stars the next. Percussive layers cut a path as Jaffe spreads metallic fervor and heart-pounding, scattering rhythms like seed, setting the stage for endless blooms. I am continually drawn to the flowing cadence driving this music into countless directions, and how Jaffe’s movements anticipate every turn in the sonic landscape. Shiroishi shines as ever, pouring hypnotic spells into the growing shadows circling the edges of Speak, Moment. The fact that this is the first time these three played together in this setup is remarkable because this music sounds like an effortless aural conversation developed over years. Fantastic.
Pablo Selnik Posthumous Gift (Hera Corp)
A series of solo flute incantations that evoke time displacement, leaving me wondering what era I’m in. Pablo Senik explores a wide range of timbres and techniques on Posthumous Gift, gliding through shifting passages with grace. It’s as though he cuts a winding, illuminated line between dimensions, pulling us through the emptiness in between with an emotive flourish. Senik’s melodic expressions are invigorating and lithe. There is so much movement packed into Posthumous Gift that my focus never wanes, I’m following each run with a sense of wonder. Resonant textures imbue these tones with shadow, casting the whimsical edge against a cracked wall where new ideas emerge. Wonderful.
Manja Ristić & Murmer The Scaffold (Unfathomless)
The Scaffold contains worlds. Familiar sounds, textural and ghostly, combine to build immersive sonic environments. Ristić and Patrick Tubin McGinley (Murmer) find common ground and common language across these two side-long pieces. Aqueous soundscapes are woven into the underlying fabric, the repeating blocks elevating The Scaffold. Hollow drones fueled by loose air caught between enclosures sing wordless, phantom recitations. Life begins in the water and moments of movement and electricity are highlighted in the drips and swings. Chanting monks become shrouded paeans of solace in the frenetic darkness, imbued with footsteps to nowhere, a tension building in metallic echoes. A thousand listens will reveal a thousand new details on The Scaffold, each piece an evolving universe of sound.
Adnata Ensemble Oku (cow: Music/Fallen Moon Recordings)
One of the biggest surprises of Oku is that a quartet of double bassists (Scott Colberg, Ari Folman-Cohen, Michael Isvara Montgomery, and Ran Livneh) is not the sonic equivalent of a black hole. Yes, there is considerable gravity in these 14 pieces, but this album is highlighted by its openness and lightness. Varying techniques intersect in surprising ways – sharp staccatos dancing across undulating drones to create a dizzying, inward spiral; melodic layers beating out gentle, forward-moving cadences tinged with whimsy and joyfulness. Oku opens the world wide to push our focus into ourselves. Vibrations sing at gut level, deep in the recesses where our minds try not to go, but where Adnata Ensemble thrives. Notes bent and held for extra moments, extra thoughts pulled from the ether and set alight by harmonic exchange. There’s a narrative to be unlocked in the journey of Oku, and once the bouncing patterns of “Tyme” pop over the horizon, we find ourselves in front of a mirror ready to dig further.
Frituuur Aconcagua s/t (Kraak)
When the mountains of decay begin howling and peering well beyond the void, neon streams come to life and reconfigure the landscape. Frituuur Aconcagua harnesses that alien energy into multiple sonic personalities and smashes it all together in tape-encrusted spectacles. Flutes tease the grating drones of yesterday across the spatial plane before guitars lose their tuning to sharp frequencies in the sky. Shapeshifting atmospheres drift from concrète spellcasting into grayscale environmental meditations and swamp-style dancefloors. Horns chirp with cut-up vocal samples like weird digital birds hanging out in dead trees. But when things die, the elegies come out through sweet synth missives colored in starlight. This whole thing is a wild, fun trip transmitted from a distant planet and captured in the steel-eyed plucks of midnight dust.
Amkarahoi Uncle Reed In The Purple Mine (Patience / Impatience)
Uncle Reed In The Purple Mine is a record informed by washed-out club elements stuck in glass at the end of the night. Across eight tracks, Amkarahoi, the duo of Nikita Chepurnoy and Sergey Dmitriev, intertwines dark, contemplative sequences, blending opposing facets into a unified whole. Pads swell as daylight breaks bathing underlying chord progressions and electronic patterns in warmth. Emotive synth layers and vocal samples provide a framework for the emergence of intricate, emotionally charged sonic structures. Rhythmic musings are more oblique than straightforward, cadences rise from the ethereal tonescapes with understated propulsion that still anchors these pieces. Tonal passages, initially divergent, converge through Amkarahoi’s distinctive perspective, serving as a conduit through the perceived polarities of the world. Beautiful.
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