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 - it's still druggy, but not QUITE as hazy and dreamlike as the former. Galcher's lyrics - equally dreamy, full of free association and catchy couplets (you're lying if "I Neva Seen" isn't still in your head) - feel lazier here. "This N' That" just repeats the title over and over. "Niggas" is just a series of glib sentences ending in the titular word - "I'm a nigga, you a nigga, she my nigga, ask the nigga, we some niggas, greet the niggas". Instead of evoking that same dreamy atmosphere, it's annoying and kind of corny. Elsewhere Galcher tries his hand at more electro-based rhythms, to average results - "This N' That" feels overproduced for Galcher, or like an underproduced Daft Punk track. On the other hand opener "Wristbands" is a monstrously slow build where layers are slowly added to built a quietly intricate and busy tune that works. I'm a little more harsh on this record than it probably deserves but I just can't see myself ever reaching for this before its predecessor, alas.

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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.

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.

Albums of the Year 2017 // New Releases

//40 Migos Culture (300 Entertainment) //39 Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein Stranger Things 2: A Netflix Original Series Soundtrack (Lakeshore) //38 Unsane Sterilize (Southern Lord) //37 Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch Blade Runner 2049: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Epic/ASG) //36 Ricardo Villalobos Empirical House ([a:rpi:r]) //35 Brockhampton Saturation II (Question Everything Inc./Empire) //34 Fire-Toolz Drip Mental (Hausu Mountain) //33 Clams Casino Instrumental Mixtape 4 (no label) //32 Yves Tumor Experiencing the Deposit of Faith (no label) //31 Lil Yachty Teenage Emotions (Virgin/EMI) //30 Thriftworks The Feather and the Sword (no label) //29 Paul White & Danny Brown Accelerator (R&S) //28 Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke & Oren Ambarchi This Dazzling, Genuine "Difference" Now Where Shall It Go? (Black Truffle) //27 Nazoranai Beginning to Fal...

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