And so it’s March. You know, my horoscope for this year keeps promising good things, BIG things. And that’s great and all, but mostly I’m just BIG EXHAUSTED. Basically, it’s the same as ever.
Anyway, there’s a new Field Studies out on The Jewel Garden today featuring Lee Evans, Floating House Ensemble, Stefan Christoff, and ut mutem. I am so, so happy with it and am really loving doing this series (if you make music and might be interested in contributing, get in touch).
Anyone in the Tulsa area reading this, on March 21 from 12 – 3 PM at the Really Really Free Market at Mass Movement Community Arts (jeez, that’s a mouthful), I am launching a new project I have been working on quietly for the better part of a year. It’s called Stupid Dreams and is about listening, collectivity, and what happens when we treat our dreams and the sounds around us as shared infrastructure rather than private property. It’s participatory, it’s messy, and it involves field recordings, zines, and a community soundbank that anyone can contribute to. Come hang out if you’re curious. The launch is centered around Issue #0 of the Stupi Dreams zine (A Manifesto for Collective Imagination). It’s free. Hell yes! If you’re not in Tulsa and want a copy, I will send out leftover copies for the price of shipping.
Now, let’s read about some awesome music.
Sibyl s/t (Gold Bolus)
Sibyl opens a door to a secret world where two voices weave intricate harmonic gardens from the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Chloe and Lily Holgate’s vocal entanglements are transportive, their soprano tones ephemeral yet inviting, as they build complex sonic havens from simple melodic forms. Plucked, dampened strings add soft textures beneath chamber cascades and swirling voices. The music feels imbued with stillness even as the arrangements remain in constant motion, dark and whimsical in equal shades. Birds sing, strings ripple like lyrical incantations, and these songs balance gentleness with ferocity. Incredible.
Rachel Beetz Tone Keepers (Outside Time)
With opener “Gate,” I keep wanting to call this album Time Keepers. Rachel Beetz’s breath moves with a sharp cadence, but it’s all so specific, so precise, and that gets to the heart of Tone Keepers. Every moment, every note, every breath is so considered. There’s this great combination of rigid approaches and times where she just opens the floodgates and lets things fly. That duality is everything. Something like academic whimsy? I don’t know, but I need more of it in my life. Each of the four compositions revolves around a simple but inventive technique, spinning out variations that crystallize rather than expand. Flute in countless colors. The result glows with the delight of discovery, crafted with equal parts play and precision.
Masayo Koketsu, Nava Dunkelman Veins of Rain (Relative Pitch)
A sonic storm charges the air when Masayo Koketsu and Nava Dunkelman meet for the first time on Veins of Rein. Some moments are like sharp, pointillist conversations between the saxophone and percussion, while others sprawl into full-bodied tonal worlds where deeply embedded resonance cuts against high-pitched bowed frequencies. Dunkelman’s raucous percussive blasts are imbued with enchanting cadences that break foundations and set Koketsu’s horn free. Her endless textures create a charged atmosphere with connective electricity. Whimsy finds its way into some of these sax runs, but Koketsu is deft at bouncing from restraint to full-force, embodied aural spellcasting. The album’s quieter moments are most rewarding when the riot settles, and the wonderful back-and-forth becomes inquisitive rather than explosive.
Antonio Gallucci Hope for Nothingness as Something (Dinzu Artefacts)
Strings march forward across a bed of horns with shifting cadences and a disjointed rhythmic quality that turns raucous at points. Antonio Gallucci’s Hope for Nothingness as Something unfolds like a midnight fantasy where synths swell into full enclosures, creating sonic movement across the spatial plane. Everything here is so detailed. Electric glow searches for harmonic escape while tonal textures pop and explode. Feedback blooms and recedes, building new aural environments. The beautiful, immersive sound design finds drones emerging from wild, tactile gloss, tracing a path from structured composition into algorithmic abstraction. There’s so much happening across Hope for Nothingness as Something, it’s overwhelming in the best possible way. Fantastic.
Sirsé lullaby for a tree / chiaroscuro (Bonambi)
Lithe, subtle movements define Sirsé’s lullaby for a tree / chiaroscuro, where aerated textures form wordless prayers, and voice becomes an escaped ghost, free and flying. Strings pull taut, lamenting the dawn. Enchanting harp passages and ethereal vocals create sound as glass, melodies continuously pulled into downcast arrangements that saunter into fields of nothingness and return with the world in their grasp. Rain recordings become a conduit to floating away, while harsh moments surprise but fit into the narratives at play. The simplicity at the heart of some of these pieces is a disguise; this is well-considered, deeply felt music with a timeless yet well-worn spirit, mournful and reflective across two interconnected bodies of work.
Wilson Tanner Smith Perpetual Guest (Sawyer Editions)
Perpetual Guest glows outward with beautiful harmonium resonance, drones as monuments, chords as altars. Exultation gives way to dissonance through subtle shifts, while the cello opens vast aural spaces as an invitation. Deep music. Sustained tension runs through the incandescent sonic layers with small moments trying to break through, textural string tones seeking reprieve and release. Recorded in the reverberant rooms of Estonia’s historic Kreenholm Textile Factory, the album becomes a curtain pulled back, revealing that emptiness is actually magic, holding the weight of borders and histories made audible through a restored harmonium and cello improvisation. This is great.
David Vélez loss (Unfathomless)
Endless textures cover all the sonic surfaces of David Vélez’s loss, tactile music built from grieving rituals through processed sound. Metallic resonances repeat like infinite reminders, the emotional weight never far from the surface. Tonal elements are emotive and inviting, drones that embrace, mournful, while still imbued with something beautiful, some kind of distilled magic. Earthy. The album is patient and unfolds in a considered way, each piece emerging from daily studio sessions that became ceremony. Field recordings are more than just background here; banal sounds become moments that hold memories, transforming routine into refuge.
Paolo Tortora Waves of Fading Memories (Torto Editions)
Intricate aural moods and silhouettes emerge across Paolo Tortora’s solo debut, much like memories taking physical form. Guitar lines become bellows, and chords become sails. Field recordings of waves exploding and water gently lapping against the shore move in opposite directions, building grand narratives into the album’s four long chapters. Melancholic melodies flicker throughout in search of release. Synths breathe space between the close confines of processed guitar drones and tape-warped ambience, creating a searching energy throughout. Full of interesting sonic textures and familiar motifs, this is a deep record worth exploration.
微風ゾーン Bifuu_ZONE The West (Constellation Tatsu)
A wonder. Muted tonal sequences and soaring, emotive horns are cast in grayscale and wrapped in vapor. Points of colored light emerge from the sonic haze across 微風ゾーン Bifuu_ZONE’s The West. These melodic and calming, aqueous atmospheres are punctuated by crystal tones, like being inside a relaxed maze. When it slows down, a sensuous gaze emerges, guitars flickering in cascading patterns like stars in a midnight sky. Deep, rich hues dance, imbued with real tenderness. Each track imagines a specific architectural space west of Osaka, building these worlds in vivid, sonic detail. Gentle cadences and secret codes thread through this site-responsive ambient work, reimagining liminal space as quiet comfort rather than unease. So lovely.
