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Showing posts from 2018

Laurel Halo - Raw Silk Uncut Wood (Latency, 2018)

Mini album from Laurel Halo after last year's excellent Dust, this is more of an experimental side to Laurel I suppose - or rather a different experimental side. Six tracks all instrumental and all fairly straight forward dubby, drone-y pieces featuring cello and percussion but overall didn't stir much in me. Last track "Nahbarkeit" was good.

Jan Jelinek - Zwischen (Faitiche, 2018)

Last year's reissue of Jan Jelinek's Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records put him on his radar for me forever. This is an shortened version of a radio play he put out called Zwischen. Jelinek sources interview clips from a pretty diverse cast - John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Slajov Zizek, Lady Gaga, Yoko Ono, Marcel Duchamp - and extracts all the pauses, silences, gaps, ums, ehs, ahs, hahas, etc from their answers. So you get track titles like "Yoko Ono, you were born into a rich, aristocratic family in Tokyo. Do you see that in yourself?" and "Karlheinz Stockhausen, which difficulties are involved in conserving electronic music on magnetic tape?". On top of that the audio cues present trigger synthesizers creating undercurrents of sound amidst the quasi-verbal utterances. It's a cool concept, interesting listen - all the responses have different moods. Zizek's is particularly stressed as he seems to be rushing through an explanation of something important

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Get Wet with the Animal (Manhand, 2018)

I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.

Kamal Keila - Muslims and Christians (Habibi Funk, 2018)

Pretty cool album compiling two long-lost tapes of a long-lost Sudanese musician Kamal Keila and his band. The songs are sung in both English and Arabic and the backing band is lightly jazzy, punchy, RnB...talented for sure. Not the most far-out interesting thing Habibi Funk has ever put out but nice.

Abstracter - Cinerous Incarnate (I, Voidhanger, 2018)

I was not aware of these guys, who formed in 2010 as a noise duo, and slowly evolved and added more members and turned into a kind of death/blackened doom metal project. They've got ties to other noise acts I don't know (Sutekh Hexen) and other industrial acts I don't know (Only Now). Quite a stew and the band pulls of something that sounds truly different. It's got a tentacle in each of the aforementioned genres but blends them really well. It's quite hard to pin them down in fact. Big, heavy riffs with a production level along the lines of a sludge/black metal record but sharp instrumentation and just a dirty atmosphere...ambient noise passages separate a couple tracks as a nice diversion...very cool

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani (Rudra Veena // Seattle // 9 March 1986) (Ideologic Organ, r. 2018)

Here's the other album, an intimate session recorded at a friend's house who used to put on this sort of thing. Imagine? Must have been something. Two ragas here 30 and 40 minutes a piece. The fidelity is obviously a little rougher here and the percussion is muted compared to what ramps up on the previous disc, which I prefer but still pretty cool.

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - Raga Yaman (Rudra Veena // Seattle // 15 March 1986) (Ideologic Organ, r. 2018)

Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic Organ bringing Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar into the light, not somebody I was ever familiar with. From North India and a master of the dhrupad, and also a master of rudra veena, which Stephen describes as "a kind of noble deeper bass relative to the sitar". Over 65 minutes Dagar stretches out the Raga Yaman. It sounds more spacious, slower paced and more "open" than most sitar ragas I would be familiar with. There are some vocalizations but for the most part instrumental, and easy to get lost in Dagar's dreamy, ensnaring strings. This was recorded at a public performance in Seattle in March 1986, a stop on Dagar's final US tour but also as I understand it a place where he did some teaching. There's an accompanying release that I'll check out next, this is good stuff.

Grouper - Grid of Points (Kranky, 2018)

I've never really liked Grouper much, lots of other wogs go ga-ga over anything she puts out but it all leaves me cold. I wrote her off for a while, heard some hype for this new one, and I'm back to writing her off again. It's the same ghostly vocal samples/quasi religious/hymnal vibes..haunting and ethereal and...nothing that gets me all wound up. Pass.

猫 シ Corp. - Luxury Girls (no label, 2018)

Latest Cat System Corp. transmission purports to be a soundtrack of a TV...series or something. It chops up clips of fashion model interviews, pageants, etc. (Trump's voice wafts in at one point, unmistakably and uncomfortably). I really like this one best of all CSC stuff lately, the beats are chunkier and more aggressive than anything remotely "mallsoft", it's just a cool album. There's a couple of reworks on the B-side here, one of "Sussudio" and another of "Cruel Summer", of course both totally slaughtered...almost as disorienting as when I fell asleep with the album on and half-woke up to a French model speaking and thinking/dreaming I was inside a French fashion TV show...nice.

A.A.L. (Against All Logic) - 2012-2017 (Other People, 2018)

Nicolas Jaar released this album of odds n' sods under a seldom-used moniker, one solely relied upon for the house/disco edits and sample-heavy club bangers collected here for the first time. I don't recognize almost any of the samples, but pop/disco/soul cuts are scrambled into kick-laden techno thumpers - at times the songs seem a little faceless and maybe facile, I don't know Jaar too well but I figure he's more sophisticated than some of these straight-forward club hitz...nevertheless this set bumps and even if it's not a total revelation it's a head-banger and I could see myself coming back to this one when I need banger therapy. Neat.

MKWAJU Ensemble - KI-Motion (We Release Whatever the Fuck We Want, r. 2018)

DOPE re-ish of Midori Takada's 1981 debut album as MKWAJU Ensemble - you may recall last year WRWTFWW released Takada's Through the Looking Glass LP, but this one's even better - a wild mix of Japanese ambient and African rhythms played on marimba, vibraphone, synthesizer and percussion. RIYL Terry Riley or Tubular Bells, or even more new age-y weirdness like Vangelis, but these rhythms are so wild I wouldn't bat a lash at all if you told me the Animal Collective bros stayed up nights listening to these. Check out "Angwora Steps", totally out of pocket. "Hot Air" is a spacious breather, the other tracks pile up the rhythms in slowly-shifting crescendos...crazy stuff.

Leviathan - Withered Upon Her Kingdom of Was (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

And here's a new 7" from Leviathan, a one-sider with the 9-minute long titular track. It's sludgy, with a couple of mood changes and some dope military-style drumming in the first half. Not bad.

Nachtmystium/Leviathan - In the Valley of Death, Where Black Metal is King: An Homage to the Roots (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

What the fuck is that title. Okay I get the first part is a Judas Iscariot tribute, but did we really need "an homage to the roots" in there? Hey wouldn't it be funny if these were actually covers of the band The Roots? Anyway. This album was supposed to come out 10 years ago, but it was blocked by the bands' respective labels. Now I guess they've figured out a way, or Blake Judd needs money for drugs so he's figured out a way, to put this out. The Bandcamp version has 8 tracks, 5 from Nachtmystium and 3 from Leviathan, but I've seen a 10-track tracklisting elsewhere. On the version I have, we have Nachtmystium covering Judas Iscariot, Ildjarn (twice), Von and Burzum. Leviathan tackles Ildjarn (twice) and Von once. I seem to be missing Leviathan's Judas Iscariot cover ("Where the Winter Beats Incessant") and one of Nachtmystium's Von covers ("Von"). Weird. Wonder if there were some licensing issues or something. All four Ildjar

Meyers - Struggle Artist (Shelter Press, 2018)

Real strange one. Justin C. Meyers is an instrumental builder, sound artist, label head, etc. Struggle Artist was created during on breaks from his job at a hospital and, later, in his free time once he got laid off (hence the title?). It's a collection of 14 micro-compositions, each one closing in anywhere from 1 to 4 minutes - quickly building, densely layered collections of sounds - field recordings, keyboards, synths, acoustic instrumentation. There's a lot to digest in each of these tracks. It was more admirable than enjoyable but I can't think of anything else it really sounds like. Interesting. I'll keep tabs on Mr. Meyers for what comes next.

Eartheater - IRISIRI (Pan, 2018)

Eartheater first came on my radar (and many others) with 2 Hausu Mountain tapes in 2015. She makes glitchy, disorienting music, combining electronics and synthesized percussion with voice, guitars and who knows what else. The whole thing is a confusing stew, kind of reminiscent of Inga Copeland but I would say even more detached from "song". Didn't do much for me.

Abu Obaida Hassan - Abu Obaida Hassan & His Tambour: The Shaigiya Sound of Sudan (Ostinato, 2018)

Neat collection of recordings of Abu Obaida Hassan, the Sudanese tambour player once rumored dead. Few recordings exist, this collection was co-curated by Hassan himself, and the tracks were cleaned up beautifully. Hassan plays his electrified tambour alongside vocalists and percussionists (and dancers) and his music is rhythmic, hypnotic, swirling and ensnaring. Good listen.

Kevin Drumm - Jury Prize (Karl Schmidt Verlag, 2018)

Here's a new kd album on Tom Smith's Karl Schmidt Verlag label that's very much the opposite of some of the kd we've heard earlier this year - namely, it's loud as fuck. There's one 53-minute track here, "Schmickedtwice (Jury Prize)" and it sounds as chaotic and unhinged as anything from Drumm, certainly a return to the noisy Sheer Hellish Miasma days but sonically on par with analog Merzbow. Recorded this year though so not an old recording. It sounds like there's vocals buried way deep, somebody screaming through the TV static, maybe even some percussion? This one's a heater.

Sun Ra - The Cymbals/Symbols Sessions: New York City 1973 (Modern Harmonic, 2018)

This is a genuine "lost album" (unlike the Coltrane "ehhh kinda not really" lost album) recorded by Sun Ra and members of the Arkestra in 1973 for Impulse!. Seems the relationship between Ra and Impulse! soured quickly and a couple albums that were scheduled got shelved - Cymbals/Symbols and another one due for a reissue later this year called Crystal Spears. This one is an oddity in a discography of oddities - the Arkestra here is only an 8 piece and they perform mostly in smaller configurations like quartets throughout the album. Stalwart Marshall Allen is completely absent, and John Gilmore only plays on one piece. Strange. The first disc is the actual Cymbal/Symbols album remastered, and the second disc is from an unnamed tape recorded at the same sessions. Given we're looking at a smaller lineup without many mainstays, Cymbals/Symbols is a little flat. It opens with an awkward, stuttering "The World of the Invisible" and then torpedoes into the 1

HRNS - After the Angels EP (ACR, 2018)

I really liked FARWARMTH's Immeasurable Heaven earlier this year on ACR. HRNS ("harness") is a duo with FARWARMTH and Rui P. Andrade. There's three tracks here totaling about 20 minutes, and then three remixes respectively of those tracks equaling about the same length. From the originals, most successful to me is the title track, a rainy sounding piece with a female vocal sample that sounds real ethereal. I liked Wim Dehaen's remix of "Royal Blue" which stretches a droning piece into something flatter, longer, slightly harsher. But overall nothing here excited me too much.

Galcher Lustwerk - 200% Galcher (Lustwerk Music, 2018)

I still remember where I was the first time I hear 100% Galcher - on a packed, sweaty, humid bus in Lachine on the way home from work. Standing. Stuck in traffic. I heard about it from a one-liner in a Pitchfork article or review about something else and was intrigued. Like many others, I was blown away and played it endlessly. I thought it was interesting how just as Galcher blew up, he almost immediately shelved the project and focused on Road Hog or Studio OST releases, which were interesting and occasionally brilliant but weren't...Galcher. His first full-length finally came last year and it was okay. So here he is following up that immortal mixtape with this, and lightning didn't strike twice for me. The problem, I think, is that Galcher Lustwerk came out of the womb fully formed. 100% Galcher was such a disruption, unlike anything else and a revelation. Not something that was built up to after years of honing his craft. 200% Galcher, for starters, is noticeably cleaner -

Skullflower - KK Kobra (no label, 2018)

Described by Mb himself as "kind of rock sort of thing" which it kinda is - four untitled tracks, relatively brief by Sf standards (the longest clocking in at 8 minutes). #1 and #3 appear to feature some form of percussion buried beyond the usual cascade of psychedelic guitar woozle. I always liked Sf in the Rock Mode vein, hopefully we get more like this.

Father John Misty - God's Favorite Customer (Sub Pop, 2018)

Almost everything Josh Tillman says or does annoys me, and after being beaten over the head with it so many times I finally gave in and listened to Pure Comedy last year, and it wasn't that bad. There were some good tunes, good lyrics, good ideas on it even though overall it's Not Really My Thing. I can't take Tillman's irony-bathed in honesty-bathed in irony shtick and even the "Funny Lyrics" that most Serious Rock Journalists jack themselves off into a frenzy over (omg he made a Taylor Swift joke!!!) make me want to roll my eyes into the back of my head. But the man can sing, and play guitar, and turn a phrase and write a good song or two so here we are with God's Favorite Customer - I don't know if it's the New FJM Album or just an in-between. Compared to the sprawling Pure Comedy it feels very lite indeed - under 40 minutes and the longest song clocking in at a tidy 5:22. But honestly this did less for me than Pure Comedy. If it's not lite

Blanck Mass - Odd Scene/Shit Luck (Sacred Bones, 2018)

Blanck Mass' Worldeater from last year didn't move the needle much for me. Gave this new 7" a spin. It's Blanck Mass at by far his most metal yet (well he sez punk rock but...). These two tracks are noisy, dirty, mostly black metal inspired thrashes: "couple of anti-macho pop songs about a pair of walking hardons I surreptitiously observed at a truck stop". I never listened to buddy's old project Fuck Buttons much but maybe that was more inline with this. Interesting as a taster, wonder if it's an omen of things to come - BM from BM (not to be confused with BM).

Doon Kanda - Luna (Hyperdub, 2018)

Never copped Jesse Kanda's first for this project, Heart, released last year. Was that on Hyperdub too? That's the main reason I copped this one, plus I heard some buzz, plus that album art has been in my nightmares 5ever. This is an EP, a pretty Warped collection of weird, squiggy beats. It starts pretty abstract with the "Bloodlet" opener but then settles into a nice alien funk. I didn't love it but it was still cool. Kinda reminded me maybe of...Gonjasufi? Less hip hop and more...Hyperdub/Warp? Flying Lotus? Ya know.

Isserley - Cutest Girls Suicide Cult (Tigersquawk, 2018)

Again - no real recollection of how this one ended up in my wishlist. I keep tabs on some witchhouse stuff and I guess I heard of Isserley somewhere...then again maybe it's the rad album title and kool art that pulled me in. Isserley is the "self proclaimed saddest girl in Australia" and these are kind of witchy beats, although more distorted and noise-y than is typical...of which I approve...but overall the album (it's more like an EP) didn't do much for me. Apparently a lot of these trax are culled from previous Isserley projects and given makeovers. Good to know! But not my bag.

Moderator - Sinner's Syndrome (Melting Records, 2018)

This album is dope. I can't even really figure out why I wishlisted it on Bandcamp. Maybe it was one of those that got recommended to me so much I finally said fuck it, I'll listen. Glad I did! Really knocked me for a loop. Moderator is a young Greek producer who apparently has a couple of albums already under his belt, but I don't know if they can stand up to Sinner's Syndrome. Here he cobbles together wholly new songs, most around the 3 minute mark, from old movie soundtracks, Spaghetti Westerns, spy movies, giallo, the like, augmented with some seriously thick, banging BEATZ...Dan the Automator is a good comparison, indeed some of these sound like they could be Gorillaz instrumentals, or maybe Danger Mouse...definitely a Tarantino vibe to the types of sounds selected here...and while I wouldn't say this sounds like any one thing Mike Patton has done, it sounds like something that would be right at home on his Ipecac label or opening for Fantomas or something. In

Death Grips - Year of the Snitch (Third World/Harvest, 2018)

Exmilitary and The Money Store are two A1 albums. Then No Love Deep Web came which was a little more hit and miss, and Government Plates followed which was okay but still more miss than hit. The first disc of The Powers That B, Niggas on the Moon, dropped and it was mostly blah. About that point I checked out for good. It's roughly the same time they went silent and worked on the second disc of TPTB, Jenny Death, for about a year. One day I saw they released a cut from that disc, "Inanimate Sensation", and it rocked my face off. I was back. DxG was back. Jenny Death was released and by far the best thing they'd done since the Exmilitary/Money Store days. Since then they've only gotten more erratic - a couple of instrumental EPs, a one-off with Les Claypool, a 20+ minute "megamix". The next album they released in and amongst those, Bottomless Pit, was fine, not terribly adventurous but not bad. Year of the Snitch falls into that category too and kind of

Unreqvited - Stars Wept to the Sea (Avantgarde, 2018)

Gripped this album at random, thought it would be a little bit weirder, post-black metal, atmospheric/ambient thing...it's a one-man project but still hyper-produced, too many keys, too many synths, vocals are good but not enough riffage. Not for me.

Crazy Doberman - Th' Basement Mother 2 (Fag Tapes, 2018)

Last latest missive from the Heath Moerland's Crazy Doberman project, seemingly just a duo configuration here with Heath and John Olson. Heath starts on percussion and moves to electronics (and maybe guitar?) and Olzone is on sax. Two 25 minute pieces, thoroughly basement in sound, clattery and cement-floor scraping and dank. I prefer the other two but this one's OK too.

Crazy Doberman - Get Lost Pens of Baldwin Particle Two (Fag Tapes, 2018)

Second particle, same group, feels the aforementioned heavy horns mix (do I detect guitar too at some point??) but some really zonked tribal hand percussion style on A. B is completely unlike any of the previous four sides, really airy/spacy with thudding clatter drums and empty-horn breath blowing before shaking out into something almost Sunburned-ian getting these guys on a whole different pitch. The Sunday morning hangover to the preceding roar. Real kool.

Crazy Doberman - Get Lost Pens of Baldwin Particle One (Fag Tapes, 2018)

Part one of two tapes from a Nov 2017 sesh featuring Heath Moerland (Sick Llama), Becky Mahay (Mirror II Rorrim), John Olson (Wolf Eyes) and Shelby Murphy (???). Lots of horns on here, certainly Olson but who else??? Great drowned female vox on the A and ghostly intonation on B. The whole thing moves like a river of haze & yr being led by ghost pipers. Nice.

Lena Raine - ESCISM (ESC Original Soundtrack) (Radical Dreamland, 2018)

Lena Raine released the mindblowing Celeste soundtrack this year, still one of my favorites. Checked this out on the strength of that alone and ESCISM ("escapism", I gather) is meant to be played alongside the reading experience of ESC, the game. Maybe for that reason it just doesn't work as well or sound as interesting to me as Celeste. For the most part it's very ambient, electronic-based melodies and boasts little of the color that made Celeste so original and interesting.

The Righteous Yeah - Oiseau de Paradis (no label, 2018)

Michael Morley's Righteous Yeah project stampedes on with two more long tracks of crackle and hiss soaked ambience. These two tracks share titles (but no discernible sonic similarly) with a couple punk tunes - "Gimme Gimme Gimme" (Black Flag) and "Carbona Not Glue" (Ramones). Are those the source tracks for these monstrously distorted slow drones? No idea. "Carbona Not Glue" is the more interesting of the two, sounds almost like pan flutes with the customary crackle and an intermittent background whirr.

Felicia Atkinson - Coyotes (Shelter Press, 2018)

Felicia Atkinson released a pretty highly acclaimed album last year called Hand in Hand that I didn't really care for, but I checked out her new EP Coyotes...and didn't really care for it either. Atkinson was inspired by a trip she took to New Mexico and her electronic bloops and blorps do an impressive job of recreating an imagined-desert landscape populated by the titular animal, dustswept and wind-torn, but it's like an art exhibit more than an enjoyable piece of music. Admirable but not terribly enjoyable. Pass (again).

John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!/Verve/UMe, 2018)

This newly-unearthed set of recordings is from 1963. Unlike many posthumous sets that promote new recordings (but really contain a bunch of alternate versions of old cuts) this one actually delivers. Aside from "Vilia" which made some compilation appearances all these tracks have never been heard before, two of them not even given titles just referred to by their master numbers. These recordings were made at a pivotal moment in Coltrane's career with his "classic quarter" including McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones - not long after "My Favorite Things" took off and not long before this same quartet recorded the world-beating A Love Supreme. The two untitled tracks here are really interesting. "Untitled Original 11383" is really distended, with loose-limbed drumming from Jones and a Middle Eastern soprano flair. "Untitled Original 11386" is more expansive, with a repeating theme and some seriously funky drumming. In the no

J. Cole - KOD (Dreamville/Roc Nation/Interscope, 2018)

Never been much of a J. Cole fan, he always struck me as kinda...lame. But I've been enjoying "KOD" (the track) and "Motiv8" for a while now so I decided to give the album a spin, and it's not bad. It's overly portentous (those voiceovers about how the greatest drug of all.......is love = gag) and Cole is trying too hard to be Kendrick, but it's a pretty solid album - some other good cuts in addition to those mentioned ("ATM", "Brackets", "Friends") and overall just a nice, pleasant listen. That's how I'd characterize it - pleasant. If a little goofy.

Neil Young - Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live (Reprise, 2018)

Another welcome entry in the Neil Young Archive series - back when the Roxy in LA first opened in 1973 they asked Neil Young and his band the Santa Monica Flyers to perform. They were fresh of rehearsing and recording for Tonight's the Night and that material makes up the bulk of this album - excluding, understandably as it was included on TTN more as tribute to the recently-deceased Danny Whitten, "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown" and "Borrowed Tune", one of my favorites but a piano ballad that would've been out of step with the rest of the material here. "Lookout Joe" is also absent (it was performed by the Stray Gators on TTN) but "Walk On" from On the Beach closes the set. Interspersed throughout the set are the banter ("raps") that have become signature to the live entries in the Archive series. The sound quality here is pristine, and Young & Co. are in a jovial mood from the get-go - something of a countenance to

Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth (Young Turks, 2018)

I'm glad Kamasi Washington is out here doing his thing and making jazz cool again and in the hip hop world and making these massive huge albums, but I'm just not wild for him. I liked his last album The Epic more because it was a little more out there, a little more psychedelic. While both are masterfully composed and performed, Heaven and Earth is a little more soul jazz, which is less interesting to me. And it's a 3-disc album, like The Epic, so at a certain point I end up tuning out. Not my bag but like I said I respect the man.

Playboi Carti - Die Lit (AWGE/Interscope, 2018)

Playboi Carti has never really been on my radar too much, but then Pfork gave this one a rave review, and I figured I was sleeping...but man, this album didn't do anything for me. Barely any song made any kind of impact. The production is interesting at times but Carti himself gets lost in both that and the whole mass of features all over the album. Nothing gelled for me, so I guess for me I wasn't missing much after all. Oh well.

Thou - Inconsolable (Community, 2018)

Thou have taken a lot of departures from being the doom metal band they're Supposed to Be, and Inconsolable may be the wildest departure yet. It's an all-acoustic EP, the 2nd of three leading up to their new full-length Magus later this year, and supposedly inspired by Nirvana's MTV Unplugged album. Vocalist Bryan Funck is absent - rather, he's written the lyrics and given them over to a cast of women to sing in his stead. The Nirvana album was evoked only intermittently with me - the first track, "The Unspeakable Oath", sounded more like Mogwai and I was preparing myself for a really interesting album. The rest of the album scores only so-so for me. Like "The Unspeakable Oath", "Come Home, You Are Missed" has a downtempo Thou feel (remarkable given there's no metal to be found here) and sonically could slot alongside Nirvana, Alice in Chains, or similar downtrodden alt/metal fare. "The Hammer" is a longer, more prog-ish piec

Kids See Ghosts - Kids See Ghosts (GOOD Music/Def Jam, 2018)

I'm flabbergasted at how much better this album is than Ye. I don't understand. It's so good it's actually making me question if Ye is better than I thought it was, which I don't want to do. What's the reason? Did Kanye and Cudi just push each other? Every song on here is a gem (OK "Fire" is maybe a little weak) - "Feel the Love" with a snarling Pusha verse and an insane machine gun scat chorus. "4th Dimension" with its unreal production and amazing warping of a Louis Prima Christmas song. "Freee", the much-better, insanely catchy sequel to "Ghost Town" from Ye. "Reborn" an absolute corker of a single with Kanye and Cudi getting real about their mental health struggles. "Kids See Ghosts" with a great Yasiin Bey feature although probably my 2nd least fave track. And "Cudi Montage" built around a spiraling scratchy Kurt Cobain demo sample. And just like that it's over and you want

The Righteous Yeah - History of Love (no label, 2018)

Getting tough to keep up with Mr. Morley and he's released about 5 or 6 more since this one...this one's similar to Goodbye, a mournful classical loop that distorts with thick crackle. The first one sounds like guitar, the second one sounds like piano, both last over 20 minutes.

Kevin Drumm - Final Protracted Spillings (Vol. ?) (no label, 2018)

Per KD "speakers and low volume please". Unfortunately I listened on earbuds, but in a quiet room in the dead of night (morning?). There's two tracks here, "A" at 25 minutes and "B" at 15. "A" is very interesting - incredibly low frequency oscillations that are so quiet you have to strain to hear and almost threaten to explode into violence at any second. It's a very engaging piece. "B" is similar but louder, more in your face, the same kind of electronic oscillations but without the challenge posed by "A" just doesn't do it for me in the same way.

None - Life Has Gone On Long Enough (Hypnotic Dirge, 2018)

Grabbed this off Bandcamp both because it had good reviews and because Hypnotic Dirge has done some good, but I wasn't terribly enthused - it's a well made but relatively uninteresting depressive USBM album. Not much to recommend.

Jenny Hval - The Long Sleep (Sacred Bones, 2018)

I enjoyed Jenny Hval's 2016 album Blood Bitch. This is her first release since, a 20-plus minute EP where she collaborates with several jazz musicians and the album has a loose, organically flowing feel. On "Spells" and the titular 10-minute track her compositions unfurl slowly and patiently. "Composition" is the key word as Hval is a composer in the true sense of the word. I didn't find this EP as interesting as Blood Bitch but she is obviously a talent and I'll stay tuned for what's next.

Uniform & The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing (Sacred Bones, 2018)

I wasn't a fan of The Body's I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer from earlier this year, mostly because the guest screams of Michael Berdan who is the vocalist of...Uniform. So here's The Body and Berdan's Uniform in full-on collab mode although the album is a scant 27 minutes. But I actually like this a bit better. Berdan's vocals only have one setting, and it's Marv From Home Alone 2 Being Shocked All The Way Up To 11, so it grates after a while. But his vocals are pitched down in the mix here, and he sounds like an insane person screaming in the next room being picked up on the tape, and that's not bad at all. I've never heard Uniform outside of their collabs with The Body and they're a more industrial unit, so that's the flavor of this album - it sounds a lot more like Whitehouse, Ramleh or even Ministry than the pop/doom metal brand of The Body. It was OK enough but nothing that excited me terribly. Big fan of that "Cr

Travis Scott - Astroworld (Grand Hustle/Cactus Jack/Epic, 2018)

Driving to work this AM and saw on Spotify this thing finally came out and ended up spinning it there and back. I've never been a big Travis Scott fan but this album has been in the works for so long and boasts such a ridiculous array of collaborators that I figured I'd have to at least check in on it. It's a monster, really. 17 tracks, I don't know the total length but gotta be in the 70 minute zone, and packed to the gills. Drake, Frank Ocean, Swae Lee, Kid Cudi, James Blake, a Stevie Wonder harmonica feature, Pharrell, The Weeknd x 2, 21 Savage, Quavo & Takeoff, let alone the production credits, which for me is the best part. For me, there are some good tracks here - the album starts very strong with "Stargazing", a total headtrip, Frank Ocean on "Carousel" and "Sicko Mode" with Drake. All 3 are legitimate bangers with some really adventurous, head-turning production. "R.I.P. Screw" is messy and disjointed but in a wonderf

Amado/McPhee/Kessler/Corsano - A History of Nothing (Trost, 2018)

Collaborative improv LP between 4 giants, definitely feels like Amado is the centrepiece here on tenor, McPhee on pocket trumpet and soprano, Kessler on double bass and Corsano on the kit. Not an exceptionally new configuration just four skilled musicians playing in harmony. Pleasant.

猫 シ Corp. - A Class In...Crypto Currency (no label, 2018)

Something of a mini...project...thing from Cat System Corp. It's about 10 minutes long and just features his typical nostalgic vaporwave/mallsoft tunes over some spoken instructions about crypto currency. You can skip this one.

DNMF - Smelter (Moving Furniture, 2018)

DNMF = Dead Neanderthals + Machinefabriek, I'm only familiar with the latter and apparently the former is a "droning free jazz" ensemble so I gave it a shot and this is a pretty cool record, a single 39-minute track that's a gloomy, darkly ambient, thudding, post-rock/doom metal ish churn. All right.