We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults.
The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings.
The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine.
Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna.
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This is one of the more enigmatic and compellingly inscrutable albums that I have heard in quite some time, but I could probably say the same thing about a half dozen other Aki Onda albums at this point. This particular project began in 2006 when Onda acquired a slim handheld AM/FM radio/cassette recorder and began bringing it with him whenever he traveled: each night when he went to bed, he would turn on the radio and scan the dial in search of something interesting to soundtrack his descent into sleep.
Unsurprisingly, that nightly ritual was soon enhanced by Onda's fascination with the spaces on the dial in which multiple frequencies overlap in surreal and unpredictable ways and his nightly hunt for entertainment soon transformed into a sound art project. Naturally, the spontaneous and unique juxtapositions of colliding transmissions are the album's most immediate/obvious pleasure and there are some great ones strewn throughout the album. However, those surface-level pleasures are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as any inquisitive mind will easily find a host of deeper layers and meanings to contemplate.
In the album's description, Onda explains his long fascination with the airwaves by equating them to "an ocean of languages," adding that radios "continuously project a million chatterings happening simultaneously all over the world." In theory, everyone knows that, but it is a thought that few choose to linger on. If one does choose to linger on the fact that we are immersed in a constant chaos of invisible chatter in hundreds of languages every second of our lives, however, the world suddenly seems like a much more magical and mysterious place than our day-to-day reality might otherwise suggest.
On a less conceptual plane, Onda was also intrigued with how languages that were foreign to him became abstracted into aural textures or unintended sound poetry. Naturally, I had a similar experience, as I quickly became absorbed in the musicality, rhythm, and emotional shadings of those languages that I do not understand. Moreover, once I became accustomed to appreciating words and languages decontextualized from their intended meanings, I began hearing understandable phrases with fresh ears as if I were an alien wondering what human beings in the 21th century were endlessly blathering about. Regarding the aural textures, at least one passage amusingly reminded me of Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room" feedback loop and there are several others that feel like they could have been plucked from a Phillip Jeck set or a minimalist electronic composition, but it is mostly the voices themselves that do most of the album's heavy lifting. On a related note, it was interesting to occasionally pick out understandable words and to know that Onda presumably understood a different set of words than I did, as those few words that I was able to grasp played a significant role in how I perceived what I was hearing (at one point, for example, I caught a date that coincided with Woodstock in an otherwise unintelligible monologue).
In keeping with that theme, another mental rabbit hole that I explored was wondering why Onda chose some of the passages that made it onto the album. Given that he distilled more than a decade of recordings from all over the world into just under forty minutes, there must be something special about every single passage that made it onto the album, but that "something" is not always easy to grasp. On the more graspable end of the spectrum, some highlights from the album's first half include a distorted and ephemeral snatch of a hauntingly beautiful pop song, something that sounds like cartoon robots starting their lunch break at a factory, a voice that resembles a sultry Spanish android, and a host of more abstract sonic surprises (at one point, I found myself appreciating a squall of crackles and pops as I would a picturesque snowfall). The second half, on the other hand, features some leftfield pleasures of its own: a brief klezmer intrusion, a religious chant, a probable mariachi band, and a vibrant conversation that is unnervingly and arrythmically disrupted by heavy thuds. There are also a couple of moments on the album that feel like something incredibly strange and beautiful has supernaturally materialized from the ether, such as the haunting alien whimper that emerges from a squall of crackle and hiss on the album's second half or the passage near the end of the first half that impressively evokes a literal ocean of voices.
Naturally, the big caveat with this album is that it is literally just unenhanced snatches of decontextualized/recontextualized radio, which is fundamentally a niche endeavor (familiar terrain for Onda, of course). Anyone could have made this album, but the crucial bit is that Onda actually did make it and the fact that these recordings are presented as art by someone who knows a thing or two about art makes them something worth thinking about deeply. One could also argue that the artistry lies in how Onda curated these passages (some of which previously appeared on 2013's Voice Studies 17 cassette) or in how he "played" the radio, but his greater achievement was simply that he was 1) thoughtful enough to realize that moments of sound collage magic are spontaneously and organically happening all around us, and 2) patient enough to devote himself to capturing as many such moments as he could. Composing and recording music is certainly cool and all, but being great at listening can be an art as well and very few artists understand that better than Aki Onda.
Having dabbled in other styles and methods of instrumentation in recent years, Afterlife finds Polish composer Robert Piotrowicz returning to modular synthesis, the mainstay of his career thus far. Rather than using that complex array of modules and patch cables to generate bizarre, idiosyncratic sound effects, as many do, he instead intentionally utilizes it to emulate traditional, physical instrumentation, with the pipe organ being the most utilized. Combined with harmonic structures that the physical instrument would be unable to replicate, the result is familiar, yet alien, and is a wonderful demonstration of the psychoacoustic properties of electronic sound.
"Rozpylenie (Overdusting)" leads off the disc with a massive church organ like swell of sound, although there is a hint of modular squeal to be heard peppered throughout. Overall, though, the layers of massive shifting, enveloping sound are almost overwhelming at times, sounding both like it could have been captured in a medieval church as much as a state of the art recording studio. The forceful dynamic he utilizes throughout makes the abrupt conclusion all the more jarring.
"Noumen" does not clearly have the organ-like properties as noticeable in the introduction, but there is a massive blast of physical sound right up front. It resembles almost everything from pipe organs to brass instruments to car horns blurtinig and blasting all at once. The end product is not far removed of some of Hermann Nitsch's compositions, which tend to be scored less for tones and more about (intense) dynamics. As the composition develops, Piotrowicz manipulates the electronics into sounding like trumpets and accordions (again, a great emulation of the physical instrumentation with just a slight offset). This is especially a memorable work given his playing with dynamics throughout.
The lengthy final piece, "Afterlife," sees him going back to low register organ sounds, again heavily focused on constructing dramatic layers upon layers of ghostly tones. However, things are different here, as he eventually reigns the sound back into more restrained spaces, focusing on tones rather than blasts. He briefly adds a layer of distortion and grime to the synth layers before pulling them away, ending the disc on a gentle, spectral note.
Robert Piotrowicz's goal of modeling the virtual (electronic) into the physical instrumentation of sounds is clearly achieved throughout Afterlife. Conjuring spaces and instruments that are not truly there, the sound of wind generated via oscillators and frequencies is impressive enough. When coupled with his unconventional approach to harmonic structures, there is an added, distinctly alien quality throughout. It is captivating, no question, but also a bit unsettling due to the sonic uncanny valley type approach to instrumentation, that comes close to faithful replication, while intentionally being something else entirely.
I have not encountered Dan Colussi's work before this album, but the Turin-born artist is a bit of a lifer, as he has been steadily releasing music and touring for the last 20 years with various Canadian bands "of varying degrees of obscurity." His solo project, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, first surfaced back in 2020 with the acclaimed Desire cassette. This latest release is his second for Soft Abuse (and his first for Quindi) and it is something of a bold creative leap forward, as returning collaborator/producer Sandro Perri has steered the project into a more synthpop direction with the addition of synths, drum machines, and other electronic touches.
Notably, Colussi is an artist who makes no secret of his influences (Robert Wyatt, Lou Reed, Annette Peacock, etc.), but the main one definitely seems to be Leonard Cohen and this album amusingly mirrors Cohen's own stylistic evolution from his acoustic beginnings into the kitschier, more jazz-influenced work of his later years. I cannot say that I was entirely thrilled by that move in Cohen's case, but Cohen did not have Sandro Perri in his corner: the louche "yacht rock" charm of these arrangements is frequently the perfect counterbalance to Colussi's wonderful literary melancholy.
The album opens with "Lightning On A Sunny Day," which is the centerpiece and beating heart of the album for a whole host of reasons. For one, it is simply the most perfect iteration of Colussi's current vision, which is notable because he has previously described his style as "poetic jazz rock." Those three words generally do not inspire much enthusiasm in me (quite the opposite, actually), but "Lightning" is pure synthpop nirvana, as it features a charmingly bouncy groove, strong hooks, and some lovely vocal harmonies from guest Jessica Delisle. There is still some jazz and poetry to be found, however, as the spaces between verses are nicely filled with sax licks from Alex Hamlyn and Colussi remains a sneakily unconventional and moving lyricist. Notably, the album's second major highlight is also "Lightning On A Sunny Day," as the album closes with a slower, more sensuous alternate version crafted by Perri. The melodies and lyrics remain the same, but the transformation is otherwise quite a dramatic one, as Perri adds some very cool tweaks to the original arrangement (flutes, dreampop guitars, some subtly killer psych touches) and the slower pace places a greater emphasis on bittersweet poetry of Colussi's words ("a wish made in a dream dissolves just as it arrives"). In short, both versions of that piece are sophisticated art-pop perfection.
The album's other seven pieces depart from that winning formula with varying degrees of success. To my ears, the strongest of the remainder is probably "Misfit Streams," which feels like a sexy slowed-down soul groove filtered through the kitsch of yacht rock (plenty of fretless bass and stilted funkiness). It is admittedly quite a challenge to articulate why it works, but Colussi and Perri work some counterintuitive miracles in their execution and the piece's wonky charm prevails despite the moodier drama of the chorus and the surreal bleakness of lines like "The jet plane aches to be an explosion; circling the abyss, the satellite orbits the lips of a black hole's kiss." I was especially charmed by the dragging chug of the slow-motion disco groove in the chorus. That '80s Cohen "lounge jazz on a Casio" vibe is revisited once more with "Clerk of Oblivion," but the remaining songs explore some other curious and eccentric directions. To my ears, the most successful of those other veins is the one where it sounds like Colussi went back in time to borrow the softly swinging backing band from prime Van Morrison, such as "The Flowers" and "The Movie of Your Life" (flutes, strings, and electric piano abound).
Amusingly, my appreciation of this album has gone through several distinct stages over the last few weeks. My initial impression was that this was a generally enjoyable album bookended by two stone-cold hits, but the casually soulful charm of Colussi's lyrics and deadpan, half-spoken singing has grown on me quite a bit since. Lately, I have reached a third phase in which I still only love a few songs, but find myself continually struck by great lines and cool arrangement touches that I had previously failed to fully appreciate ("The Movie of Your Life" is an especially big winner in that regard lately). Notably, Soft Abuse's description of one song includes the phrase "breaking wave of dubby, decaying grandeur" and that unintentionally hits upon the crux of this album's appeal for me: Colussi comes across like a great writer who abandoned fame and fortune to live alone in a van by the beach and now just spends his time drinking scotch and writing haikus about sunsets. Or perhaps like a Nick Drake that never died and instead flourished as a Michael McDonald-esque purveyor of blue-eyed soul. Either way, it is an unexpectedly wonderful niche when it works. Ultimately, this still feels like a bit of a transitional album to me, but it is a transition in the right direction and Colussi is one hell of a compelling guy when he finds the optimal backdrop for his songs.
An artist who always has something in progress or forthcoming, Mark Solotroff's has been most prolific under his own name as of late. Different from the frenetic, yet organized chaos of BLOODYMINDED, the doomy bombast of Anatomy of Habit, or the murky improvisations of The Fortieth Day (and those are only a few examples), his solo material in recent years has been more introspective and meditative, at times drifting into almost ambient territories. Following 2020's You May Be Holding Back and 2021's Not Everybody Make It,Today the Infinite, Tomorrow Zero continues his focus on using analog synths alone with a four track, but creating a depth and variance of sound that belies its rather Spartan origins. Compared to these recent albums though (and the Return to Oneself compilation of digital singles), the depth is even greater and further realized, and the sound has expanded to one that is almost musical, without ignoring any of the intensity expected from Solotroff.
From a structural standpoint, Today the Infinite features shorter pieces than the previous two, with You May Be Holding being a pair of 30-minute pieces, and Not Everybody Makes It's six, ten-minute segments. He once again imposes that rigid hour-long duration on the album, but in smaller, six-minute increments this time. Because of this, the sound and style differ more notably from song to song than it did on those previous albums, emphasizing both noise and melody throughout.
Additionally, the fade in/fade out dynamic he utilizes on each piece gives a vignette like quality, a passing state or emotion that comes and goes, but fully realized and self-contained. Opener "The Weight of Your Own" is a perfect example of the balance on this album: fading in via gauzy layers of synth, underscored by an engine like hum, he balances the noise and the musicality, with carefully controlled feedback giving a bit of spikiness to an otherwise understated work. This combination is also a defining facet of "You May Slip Between," with a lush melody buried under fuzzy synths, occasionally rising up to take focus, to only retreat again into the fuzz.
Melody is something that is even more apparent on this album than his previous synth works, such as the delicate shimmer of "Almost All Promises" that overall makes for a surprisingly gentle, flowing piece. Solotroff retains the melody but generates a bit more overall force via more low-end elements on "Desire Without Wounds," with the full spectrum of sound well represented. There is also a prominent rumble throughout "Keeping Themselves to Themselves," which transitions to lighter frequencies towards its conclusion, but the heaviness remains.
Of course, it would not be a Solotroff work without some noise and abrasiveness, although even that is kept in check to make for an album with notable consistency. The cavernous rumble of "The Study of One" eventually shifts into a metallic, clanging echo chamber of scraping metal, and "Restoring Contact with Experience" stays distorted and noisy even with some almost psychedelia snuck in. Much like the opening piece, "The Hold on Life" brings both extremes together, with churning, mechanical pulsations paired with melodious drifts, making for an overall pleasant conclusion to the album, albeit with some distinct dark moments as well.
Ultimately, there is a bleak beauty to this album, a sonic pairing of the hopeful and the hopeless, a sense clearly conveyed from the album's title. This is a sensibility that has been imbued in his recent work, both solo and in group settings. For BLOODYMINDED and Anatomy of Habit, Solotroff clearly conveys this via his vocals and lyrics, but here, with only synths and magnetic tape, he manages to deliver a similarly wide array of experiences and emotions that perfectly encapsulates the complexities of life.
This latest full-length from NY-based composer/multi-instrumentalist Lea Bertucci features two longform Just Intonation commissions composed for small ensembles. Given that, it is no surprise that Of Shadow and Substance is a unique album within her discography, but the added participants and the non-standard tuning were not the only new elements, as Bertucci embraced a "textural approach to composition" as well.
The results are quite unique and compelling, as Bertucci and her collaborators nimbly avoided any missteps or predictable decisions to produce a shapeshifting and emotionally intense drone album like no other. In fact, even Bertucci herself was a bit surprised with how Of Shadow and Substance turned out, as she notes that these two pieces feel informed by a "sense of deep, ancestral knowing" beyond herself as an individual, which seems like a valid and insightful claim, given that she shared the driver's seat with both ancient mathematical relationships and textural affinities and was also inherently prevented from falling back on any familiar scales or melodies. Ladies and gentlemen, Lea Bertucci has just crossed over into The Twilight Zone (or at least into releasing a killer album that borrows its title from that show's introduction).
The opening "Vapours" was commissioned and performed by Italy's Quartetto Maurice and was partially inspired by the dual meaning of the title (the elusive/precarious physical state and the "pseudo-scientific term to diagnose types of hysteria in women"). The musicians were instructed to visualize both meanings during their semi-improvisations and Bertucci's hand is additionally felt through her control of "the sonic space" through "subtle processing and spatial mixing." More importantly, it is one hell of a piece, as it gradually transforms from sensuously seething and simmering drones and whines into a visceral and heaving crescendo. Both halves are fascinating and beautifully executed and I especially enjoyed the spiraling intensity near the end, which calls to mind a swirling supernatural flock of birds. Moreover, there is plenty to appreciate in the details as well, as the various instruments enigmatically and organically "blur and coalesce into one entity, drifting from consonance to discordance in harmonic clusters." Few things reliably delight me more than incredibly sophisticated compositions that feel like spontaneous living entities that just miraculously sprang into being.
The following title piece for double bass, cello, harp, percussion and electronics was commissioned by the Philadelphia-based ARS Nova Workshop. The presence of percussion is the most immediately obvious difference between the two pieces, but the first half of "Of Shadow and Substance" is also quite a bit more groaning and convulsive than its predecessor. Given that prickly nature, it took me a little longer to warm to it, but it certainly features some sublime passages of its own. Bertucci's inspiration for the piece was "the accumulation of events over glacial periods of time as a metaphor for social and environmental shifts," which she evoked by mixing "loops and layers fragments of the performance in real-time, resulting in a diffuse, swirling, self-referential mass of experience." While it may sound a bit academic on paper, the reality is quite churning and physical, as the ensemble unleashes an inventive miasma of shudders, whines, moans, and squeals en route to an unexpectedly haunting final act that feels like viscous waves lapping at the shore of charred ruins (a fine way to end an album, I'd say). Of the two pieces, I still consider "Vapours" to be the album's clear centerpiece, yet Bertucci is in especially inspired form for the entirety of this album and Of Shadow and Substance may very well be one of her strongest releases to date.