Foxy Digitalis
There are so many times in my life where something happens and it seems like I’ve somehow ended up on another similar, but adjacent timeline. Certain things seem slightly off, the air smells a little different. There’s an underlying hope that maybe this timeline is better. On Norah Lorway’s second album for Distant Bloom, Another World, she taps […]
Green open spaces come to life on this dazzling collaboration between two of Texas’s best, CC Sorensen and Gretchen Korsmo. Collaborating remotely, the duo fills the distance with thoughtful, resonant landscapes and the sound of stars falling in the West Texas expanse. Disappearing into the parched terrain, Korsmo’s magnetic passages on Rhodes are like light […]
When it comes to dream teams of improvisers, there’s honestly about a million different combinations that would qualify. That said, this quartet of gabby fluke-mogul, Matteo Liberatore, Joanna Mattrey, and Ava Mendoza is right near the top of any list. Death In the Gilded Age is like looking through backward through time with a rusted-out […]
In the middle of the night, that’s when it hits hardest. The embrace of emptiness; the cold internal monologues that can’t be easily switched off; divergent paths, all leading to the same fate. When these thoughts pervade and overwhelm, the journey back toward the light is long, difficult. Yann Novak’s Lifeblood of Light and Rapture captures this […]
On Johannesburg composer and bassist Shane Cooper’s Happenstance, drama unfolds. From the opening piano notes on “Static,” Happenstance had me hooked. Reminiscent of Breath of the Wild’s stunning soundtrack, there’s a soft and sentimental feeling that rises from the dew-laden grass. The irregularly-spaced piano notes glisten as Cooper’s bass accompanies the opening steps of this furtive journey. So […]
The desert is forever. Unjust Intonation, part of Trouble in Mind’s stellar Explorer tape series, expands on a few ideas from Monypeny’s fantastic The Hand is Dealt. Across two expansive sides, Monypeny utilizes a time-stretch technique, feeding ringing guitar drones through a processing matrix toward starlit skies where galaxies of dust await. On the A-Side, Monypeny opens things up […]
Ben Vida and Marina Rosenfeld’s last two collaborative efforts, Feel Anything and Vertice, are striking sound worlds. On their latest collaboration, Leaving, they take elements (literally and figuratively) from those pieces and grind them through the prism of our current situation. Leaving is a heavy meditation on our current reality. It’s an invigorating listen, almost alien at times, but imbued with […]
On In Light of Blues, Will Long creates a series of miniature worlds. Most times with his work as Celer, I expect expansive, longform pieces that stretch to the limits of physical space and find a more welcoming home in infinite space. In Light of Blues channels that same evocative energy, but shrinks it into a capsule size. […]
Purchase directly from Takuroku Lithuanian instrument builder and composer Gong Girl (aka Guoda Dirzyte) hits home with her new effort, Shortcoming, for Cafe Oto’s Takuroku label. On this release, Dirzyte takes inspiration from poet and thinker Sigital Krutulys-Sygis (1967-1996) and creates a bizarre, haunting rumination on what it means to fail meeting certain contemporary societal standards. […]