Propulsion and stillness coincide in the atmospheric “State of Motion,” an early single from this third volume in the Nanocluster series. Vibrations build and surge, their overtones merging in limpid pools of sound. A pedal steel arcs over ambient tones, a drum beat pushes it onward, but mostly this music doesn’t develop so much as it exists. You can float on it, on your back, like a swimmer in salt water, effortlessly taking in the liquid tone and pulse of it.
Nanocluster Vol. 3 pairs Wire’s Colin Newman and his creative partner Malka Spigel with cosmic country’s SUSS, two sets of musical talents that Dusted has long admired. We’ve covered works by Spigel and Wire since moving to the Tumblr and Githead in the before times. As for SUSS, of the 2024 Birds and Beasts,…
Category: ***
If you thought Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal evoked the feeling of deepest winter, you should check out this beautifully odd and solitary project from Arkansas-based multi-instrumentalist Chaz Knapp to hear how it’s really done. Chaz is a traditional instrumentalist and field recorder, whose Microfolk series highlighted him as a musical collagist. Winter Music contrasts Microfolk (which was recorded in the summer heat) in that Chaz took his instruments to various locations in the rugged terrain of Northwest Arkansas in the depths of winter, recording with tape loops and improvisations while his fingers froze and his nylon string guitar neck shrank in the cold.
The result is something of a remote and isolated audio diary, as much documenting…
TAKAAT began (and still operate) as the rhythm section to Mdou Moctar, the breakout Nigerien rock band named for its charismatic frontman.
This puts Ahmoudou Madassane (guitar/vocals), bassist Mikey Coltun (the sole American in the group), and drummer Souleymane Ibrahim in the same realm as Calexico. That indie band started out as part of alt-country weirdos Giant Sand, but TAKAAT aren’t seeking to branch out from or expand the sound of their parent outfit. They might have more in common with one of Bob Weir’s non-Dead outfits. Like Weir, Madassane has had to invent his own method of playing rhythm guitar to accommodate a brilliant, dynamic leader–and when that leader’s not in the picture, there’s a lot of space left to fill.
Are we approaching The End? A quick global vibe check points to the affirmative. From non-stop doomscrolling pummeling our neural pathways to climate scientists throwing up their hands in despair, the near future might be a wrap on the world as we know it. Philosophers like Slavoj Žižek and Amador Fernández-Savater have already gone as far as to argue that the apocalypse has already occurred. For so many of us, it feels like we are just drifting through dystopian fallout, waiting out the days until inevitable societal collapse.
So, where to turn when confronted with such dire and defeatist predictions? Hieroglyphic Being (AKA Jamal Moss) offers a few avenues of spiritual release on his latest album, The Sound of Something Ending. The title track drops…
Tucked into the Caribbean Sea are the islands of Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Saint Lucia. Guadeloupe is an overseas department of France, while Dominica and Saint Lucia are independent nations. All three boast volcanic beaches, high mountain peaks, and lush tropical landscapes — coral reefs, palm trees, and sapphire blue waves make them instantly mesmerizing. The island’s cultural histories, shaped by the displacement of native Arawak peoples, centuries of colonial conflict between Spain, France, and Britain, and the enslavement of West Africans, continue to shape their musical output. Today, modern mixtapes (largely circulating on YouTube) pulse with intercontinental influences such as Angolan kuduro, Portugal’s batida, and trap, to name a few.
One of the traits of what is loosely dubbed as modern classical music is that the classical composition concept serves solely as the base, where other elements are brought in, coming from the musical ideas developed further elsewhere – it could be pop in all its shapes and forms or just a figment of the artists’ imaginations.
That is basically a manner in which Vanbur, a collaboration of Bristol-based composers Jessica Jones and Tim Morrish, seem to be building their music upon their (formal) debut album Of Becoming. Actually, the manner in which the duo were to develop their music could have already been visible/audible with their debut EP Human (2020), and its remix version (2022), including versions by Mogwai, Alexandra…
DERBY’s debut album Slugger presents an interesting paradox: How can an album this derivative also feel authentic, even original?
Single “Gold” seems like a slick attempt to recreate Dijon’s fast and free songwriting magic, his big-feeling bravado, his Americana-twanged R&B; “Jenny” draws clear inspiration from Alex G; his frequent use of pitch-shifted vocals and flanged guitars are siphoned from the Bible of Blonde. Yet DERBY — a Houston native who now lives in New York and whose real name is Craig Caldwell — has talent that continues to reveal itself even after you clock the comparisons and a perspective that cuts through the references. Slugger captures a world of quotidian intensity and rural nostalgia: shooting a deer through the eyes with…
At first glance, it seems like Horse Vision build their debut album, Another Life, from wholly familiar ingredients. Its drop-D tuning, rhotic vocals, and pastoral guitar passages would slot in nicely on the shelf between Alex G and Pinegrove. But then the Swedish duo of Johan Nilsson and Gabriel von Essen will throw in something unexpected: They interpolate a classic pop song, or get Swedish singer Tiffi M to sing an Auto-Tuned chorus straight out of a Porter Robinson track, or drop what might be the most heartwarming MIDI airhorn riff ever put to tape. Another Life isn’t strictly Americana, but it does feel informed by an American attitude, winking at the tropes of U.S. pop culture right now — gratuitous mashups, unblinking earnestness, shaky irony — in a way…
The progressive post punk ramble and rock of Infinite Games, by Consumables, the fierce NYC-based art punk quartet, is a big bass laden banger with funky sax embellishments, with snappy free form drumming, layers of guitars and a super dense vocal patter expanding the sonic narrative more as the song pushes forward, rolling and picking up intersecting musical layers as it goes.
Razor-cut licks, shout-along choruses and surprising bouts of vulnerability — this new project produced and co-written by Ben Hozie shares much with his other outfit, Bodega. The band, formed around the dual guitars of frontman Kyle crew and Dylan Joyce, bassist Miles Fox and Hector Guillen on drums sweetens mayhem with a touch of melody. A sax floats through, blearily,…
There’s a reason that To Live and Shave in L.A. (TLASILA)’s The Wigmaker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg opens up with samples of free jazz. Shave mastermind Tom Smith is explicitly trying to connect his work with the music he loves — the record’s liner notes contain a Nurse With Wound-like list of those influences. That list is multidisciplinary, covering his love of usual suspects like “Poe, Baudelaire, Joyce, Man Ray,” but also “Theremin and all Russian avant-gardists,” “Lee Marvin,” “all atomic test footage,” “global student revolt and the inevitable erotic aftermath,” “Fluxus (in doses),” not to mention digressions on Funkadelic, Hendrix, the “titanic Electric Eels,” and provocative music-nerd statements like “Stooges purists prefer Asheton, but…
With a repertoire of unusual and rarely played regional tunes alongside more familiar session favourites, The English Fiddle Ensemble bring joyous harmonies and striking rhythms to traditional English tunes.
…This is a debut album from a quartet of English fiddlers, all with firm reputations on the English traditional dance scene.
The sheer scholarly detail of the sleeve notes, explaining the provenance of each tune, reveals the dedication and respect with which they all embrace the English tune tradition.
Leading the ensemble is Bryony Griffith, a Yorkshire fiddler who will be familiar to those who’ve heard bands such as Bedlam, The Demon Barbers and The Witches of Elswick.
David Garland may not be a household name for many, but he’s a singer-songwriter, composer, instrument designer, illustrator, graphic designer, journalist, and former New York City radio personality. Over the years, he has recorded with a diverse range of artists, including John Zorn, Sufjan Stevens, Meredith Monk, and Sean Lennon. The latter described Garland as someone who “pushes the limits of acceptable harmony and dissonance, yet never at the expense of beauty”. It’s an impressive resume that barely scratches the surface, and his wild, eclectic work continues on a new album that sees the multifaceted artist grappling with loss, specifically his wife’s death from cancer six years ago.
The Spark was recorded primarily in Garland’s…
Composer/producer Paul Russell (Axes/Tough Glove) returns with Thank You, the fourth album to be released by his Human Pyramids project. Featuring members of Axes, Suicide Bid and Modern Studies, the album was recorded all over the world and mastered by Alan Douches (Sufjan Stevens/Animal Collective).
…The twelve-strong ensemble, anchored by Russell, still pulls out all the stops. Almost every track is a party, with generous servings of brass and strings. Guitar, accordion, marimba, vibraphone and hammered dulcimer fill in the buffet. The music’s propulsive energy keeps the spirts high; the opening track (titled “Shut Down,” since the music stops and restarts in the second half) eases the listener in with…
It’s quite a distance from New York City to Water Valley, Mississippi, a small town in the deep south of the USA, not too far from Tupelo. With its thriving music scene, it was here that native New Yorker Pete Mancini chose to record his fourth solo album American Equator. Produced by Drive-By Trucker Matt Patton in his studio, Dial Back Sound, the pair had also collaborated on Mancini’s Killing the Old Ways in 2020.
With Patton again producing and playing terrific bass lines alongside fellow Trucker Jay Gonzalez on keyboards and guitars, comparisons are inevitably made with Drive-By Truckers. While it’s true to say that their many fans will find much to love about this album, there are other influences at work here. With hints of Blondie and…
Gravity is a pivotal album from Monolake’s nearly 30-year career. It’s the first to feature Robert Henke more or less on his own, following the departure of Gerhard Behles.
It also finds Henke transitioning into the sound and style that makes Monolake one of the most legendary techno artists of the 21st Century. Now, thanks to this essential vinyl reissue from Field Records, you finally have a chance to hear it in deep, rich, sparkling high fidelity.
Henke’s third LP as Monolake is an anomaly. A good chunk of the underground electronic music from this time focuses on the conceptual and cerebral, with genres like microhouse and glitch filling raves and art galleries alike. Even more belongs to the burgeoning minimal…
a sad song for A. brings together Stefano Gentile, Giulia Dal Vecchio, Gigi Masin, Fabio Orsi, Anacleto Vitolo, and the multimedia project Hiseka to explore emotional states through music, text and photography. Originating from an informal conversation about anxiety, the project evolved into a creative dialogue in which inner experience became shared expression.
Structured around four stages we may recognise – Panic, Anxiety, Light and Dream – each contributor shaped one phase in their own language. Gentile provided imagery, Dal Vecchio translated feelings into words, and the musicians responded with original works reflecting each emotional shift. The result is a thoughtful constellation of perspectives that invites listeners to…
ātamōn, the first full-length release from Swedish composer Amina Hocine, was born from a foghorn organ built by the composer herself, made from everyday objects taken from hardware stores. Listening to ātamōn without any context, it would not be immediately apparent that the music was made utilizing any acoustic instruments, let alone one so rudimentary.
The most immediately noticeable aspect of ātamōn is how icy and synthetic its drones sound, almost feeling like a digital condensation of Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures.
ātamōn was recorded in an abandoned iron mine in rural Sweden, a process reminiscent of Pauline Oliveros’ cistern experiments, but the record doesn’t sound anything like her…
…it is no exaggeration when Zane Mclaughlin of Oldstar, a band from Panama City Beach in Florida’s panhandle, sings, “Let’s pray for my tires / So they don’t spread like wings.” Florida tires need prayers, especially when they have to live through all the driving that happens on Oldstar’s latest project, Of the Highway, a focused, heartfelt country rock record about, mostly, the highway. Oldstar’s first few projects, while showing hints of this album’s country inflections, drew more on a kind of post-Alex G bedroom — slowcore that continues to pervade alternative music — not an uncommon breeding ground for a contemporary alt-country band. But rather than translating that genre’s songwriting norms into the sonic language of major chords, pedal steel, harmonica,…
…doesn’t it seem like lovers with hubris, short-sightedness, and a lack of sentimentality are the ones most likely to get divorced — or, if you prefer, the quickest to get divorced? And yet, whatever the circumstances were in that scenario, fictional or otherwise — centrifugal force Mary Claire proves on their debut that they are an outlier. The musician also makes the very convincing points that the power of love is much, much stronger than statistical data; far more precious than the way we carelessly bandy about the word in our degraded and thus devalued lexicon.
Slake have carved out a wry sub-sub-subgenre called “lesbian doom folk.” The indie band hails from somewhere in the Bay Area, but it’s unclear exactly where, since Slake’s…
The Worm Moon is the fifth full length LP from New Hampshire’s Footings, home to the songs of underground music lifer Eric Gagne. Out now on Feeding Tube records, The Worm Moon is an immersive set of brief skeletal folk-rock missives and instrumental interludes that rewards repeated through-listens. Thematically The Worm Moon deals with attempts to find peace and growth within spaces of decay and stagnation, reflecting its title which refers to a full moon in March. A time when the worms start moving again, and all the new possibilities of spring are just around the corner – but we are also reminded of all that living tissue which fell the previous Autumn, upon which the worms feast. Like many works of art surfacing at this point in history, this…