Various Artists - Spiritual Jazz 8: Japan Parts I & II (Jazzman, 2018)

Gotta say, I didn't know there were 8 of these. I bought an LP called Spiritual Jazz back at Cheap Thrills in the day and thought that was the end of it. Turns out over the years Jazzman has been putting out a survey of spiritual jazz across the globe? I thought Japan would be a good country to jump back into the series on. It's a cool set, I'll let someone else argue over just how much of these are spiritual, but some killer cuts - Tadao Hayashi with an absolutely stomping rendition of "My Favorite Things", the queasy weirdness of Keitaro Miho's "Kikazaru", Takeo Moriyama combining traditional Japanese instrumentation with bebop on "East Plants" and the only artist I knew off the top of my head coming in, Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction For the Arts' "Sun in the East". Good stuff.

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Corrupted - Felicific Algorithim (Cold Spring, 2018)

For whatever it means, this is the beginning of Corrupted's "Hollow" series. Maybe the clue is in the music? Unlike Corrupted's traditional ultra-slowed down, Spanish-sung, Japanese doom metal this is instrumental harsh noise. Still filthy and angry and depressive but sans vox and also more or less sans metal. Both untitled sides are meant to be played at either speed. The result? Meh. I miss Corrupted's brand of doom, this relatively anonymous harsh noise is fine and all but if I'm listening to Corrupted...well I know what I want. Skippable.

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

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.

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