Foxy Digitalis
Matt Weston’s new joint is massive. Even if it only clocks in at a little over 50 minutes, the depth and the maze-like journey it goes on feel huge. I tend to associate Weston with percussion-based work and while that is a major element of Four Lies in the Eavesdrop Business, his sonic weaponry is varied […]
Is there anyone as prolific and consistently excellent as Kevin Drumm? I can’t think of anyone. Few artists have such a sprawling, massive discography absolutely littered with incredible piece after incredible piece. It’s overwhelming, obviously, but more so inspiring. On Sundays, we get a gentler side to his oeuvre, and the result is blinding. Soft drones […]
Matt LaJoie’s organ and synth project, Thick Air, is such a great change of pace from what I normally expect from his work. Transorbital Cantrips kicks things off by going full boar channeling the rippling arpeggios and glowing patterns of Terry Riley into a spiraling astral projection on “Sky-Clad Robes.” LaJoie is incandescent, traveling into the deep […]
Last year’s Endlings album (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich) was a grinding multipronged effort and the duo join up with ex-Black Spirituals percussionist, Marshall Trammell to plant dynamite across the country, seeding aural revolts throughout the land. White People Killed Them is like a three-headed monster that moves in articulated unison, breathing fire at every […]
If you call a song “All Our Happy Days Are Stupid,” I’m probably going to be curious. It’s such a great, on-the-nose title and reflects something that crept through my mind often during lockdown. Thankfully, Toronto’s Ben McCarthy delivers the good on his new album, Decorative Arts. Synthetic worlds emerge from a glowing glass sea funneled […]
Records made from graphite provide the foundational pieces of multidisciplinary Illinois artist Allen Moore’s second album, Lived a deviL, his first for the Monastral label. Moore’s visual art centers around the use of graphite, whether in drawings, paintings, or sculptures and on his debut, Solar Church, he brought that medium to sound. Lived a deviL expands on this work, […]
When Ripley Johnson laments, “Fever broke, I won’t hurt anymore. I come home to stay,” on the opening track, “Silver Roses,” his delivery is quiet and understated, but the impact hits hard. Inside these soft, laid-back rooms, Johnson reminds us of the weight held by simple pleasures and familiar pathways. It’s not always about the […]
When Angel Bat Dawid sings through raw emotion and subtle auto-tune on “Heathen Practices at Funerals,” “There is no one like you. There is no one like me,” she feels it. Angel Bat Dawid s a singularity. There’s never been anyone like her and there never will be again. I often quote Oui Ennui’s description of Dawid […]
On his fifth album, Theo Alexander shows how far a limited palette can stretch. Reflecting on the fucked-up times we live in, a sense of muted drama emerges as a common thread throughout Sunbathing Through a Glass Screen. Alexander worked with visual artist and electronic musician Omar El Sadek to create a complete video accompaniment to […]