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dustedmagazine · 4 years ago

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Dust, Volume 7, Number 6

Shannon McNally

We’re halfway through the year now and, aside from a disconcerting proliferation of double albums, things seem to be returning to normal. Some of us have been to in-person concerts. Most of us are at least thinking about it. After all, things seem pretty safe now, and if 2020 taught us anything, it was do it now, or you may not be able to later. But meanwhile, the flood of new music continues, from wild free improvisers and mind-turning droners, from doom-death metal outfits and gritty country singers and the assortment of hard to classify experimenters. We knock off another batch of worthy recordings in this mid-year Dust with contributors including Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Justin Cober-Lake, Chris Liberato and Jennifer Kelly.

Alberto Braida / Giancarlo Nino Locatelli — From Here From There (We Insist!)

from here from there by alberto braida, giancarlo nino locatelli

Pianist Alberto Braida and clarinetist Giancarlo Nino Locatelli have been performing, sometimes as a duo and sometimes with additional associates, for 25 years. And while their partners have included such uncompromising figures as Gino Robair and Peter Kowald, in spirit they’re closer to Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron. It’s not so much the straight horn and piano parallels as the deep jazz roots spiked with studiously applied dissonance, all shared with a congeniality that clues you in to the fact that you’re listening in on a friendship that runs quite deep, and no matter how deep it goes, the warmth persists. This performance was recorded in Lodi, Italy in 2012, and one suspects that the record might still be on a hard drive in someone’s back shelf if the lockdown hadn’t landed when it did. After all, why spend your time editing and mixing when you could book a gig and have another tete-a-tete as rewarding as this?

Bill Meyer

Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage — Blues Alif Lam Mim (Blank Forms Editions)

Blues Alif Lam Mim by Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage

This is the fourth emanation from Blank Forms Editions of Catherine Christer Hennix’s music, and it mines a vein that is more contemporary than past releases, which focused on archival recordings from the 1970s. Presented on vinyl for the first time, this pair of platters reveals the inaugural 2014 performance of the Hennix composition “Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Mode of Rag Infinity/Rag Cosmosis.” With this piece, the Swedish musician and composer sought to locate the origins of the blues in the musical traditions of Indian raga and Turkish makam. It was performed by her ensemble Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which included live electronics, a brass section, and multiple vocalists singing a hymn written by Hennix in Arabic, praising Allah. The music unfolds similarly to how multiple wafts of smoke eventually fill a room. Many simultaneous tonal colors combine into a multi-dimensional sonic organism, becoming a voluminous drone. It feels as if the infinite frequencies and timbres of the universe are weaving themselves together. This immensity causes the listener to become entrained within the sound itself, feeling like part of the proceedings. The vocals add additional hallucinatory sensations to the already vortex-like drone cloud. Getting lost in these sounds is easy, such that when they disappear at the end of each side of vinyl, the sudden shift back to reality is jarring.

Bryon Hayes

Coffin Lurker — Foul and Defiled (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Foul and Defiled by Coffin Lurker

The title pretty much says it all, but just to be clear: If the words “filthy,” “cavernous” and “suffocating” are meaningful to you in relation to death doom, then you’ll know what you’re in for. And even if they aren’t, and hence you don’t, spend a few seconds considering the terms’ semantic baggage and you’ll be at least halfway there. Where? Somewhere chin-deep in a moist hole in the ground. Do you really want to dig these sounds, to unearth them from their tomb? Should you? Does the prospect of moping with a vague sense of menace in your local boneyard’s fetid shadows hold any appeal? If not, why the heck are you still reading this? For those of you still slogging along (or sliming or sleazing — Coffin Lurker is a death-doom outfit, out on the grosser, grimier end of that spectrum), the players involved might further pique your interest: Rene Aquarius is one half of Cryptae, whose Nightmare Traversal was one of the most interesting death metal records released last year, and Maurice De Jong hopefully doesn’t need any contextualizing introduction. The combination of the men’s sensibilities is quite effective, and perverse as it may sound, all the unhappy gruesomeness ends up constructing a really good record. Songs like “Crypt within a Crypt” and “Cadaverous Odor” sound massive and simultaneously oddly muffled, as if all their weighty, woeful noises were attempting to rumble and blast their way out of a sarcophagus, up through rock and clay and beyond the grave. That may be the idea — but songs this doom- and deathstruck might be better off following the hopeless endeavor suggested by the band’s name. Dig it, dig down, dig in.

Jonathan Shaw

Emily Duff — Razor Blade Smile (Mr Mudshow Music)

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Emily Duff brings a healthy dose of New York grit and attitude to the ten tracks of classic country rock on her latest album Razor Blade Smile. Duff has a raspy lived-in voice that calls to mind Bonnie Raitt and particularly Maria McKee as she inhabits songs of loves troubled and true. The twang is there but never overplayed and her lyrics play with the tropes without resorting to cliché. She is well-served by her band, especially keyboard/accordion player Charlie Giordani who adds Garth Hudson like flourishes to tracks like “Done And Done” and “Feelin Alright.” Duff’s songs are hooky, toughly defiant and tenderly bruised odes to longing and survival. While Razor Blade Smile doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it is the work of a gifted songwriter backed by a very good band. It’s an excursion with much to enjoy.

Andrew Forell

Paul Dunmall & Mark Sanders — Unity (577 Records)

Unity by Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders

Unity may bear only half of the name of Albert Ayler’s E.S.P. debut, but it’s by no means music of half measures. Paul Dunmall hoists three horns from his big bag o’ saxophones and plays each with equal measures of grace and muscularity; Mark Sanders balances his partner’s sonic heft with drumming that makes a virtue of airiness. These two English musicians have played and recorded together many times, including on the little big band records Dunmall made for Cuneiform a dozen or so years ago, but they’ve never waxed a duo. It’s probably a good thing that they waited, because younger, less confident musicians might not have been so willing to let their singing and swinging be complemented by so much blank space. As it is, Dunmall’s calory-rich tone and each man’s fluent management of undulating sound shapes say all that needs to be said.

Bill Meyer

EXEK — Good Thing They Ripped Up The Carpet (Lulu’s Sonic Disc Club)

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Effectively melding and updating sounds from late 1970’s inner Melbourne, EXEK’s new album is a terrific blend of spacious, snarky electronic post-punk that mixes the cerebral jazz funk experiments of Clifton Hill bands like Asphyxiation and Equal Local with the more anarchic sounds of Little Band Scene stalwarts Whirlyworld and The Primitive Calculators. Good Thing They Ripped Up The Carpet runs on dubby bass, bleepy synths, flashes of sax and guitar, fractal drumming and leader Albert Wolski’s sardonic half-sung, half-spoken lyrics, all disaffected put-downs and dismissive observations of lives lived by remove. There are echoes of better-known bands — Cabaret Voltaire, The Pop Group, Tuxedomoon — but this is a record steeped in the eclectic dissident spirit of Melbourne’s avant underground. Well worth your time and if it leads you to explore some of EXEK’s progenitors even better.

Andrew Forell

Exhumation — Exhumation – Opus Death (Transylvanian Recordings)

EXHUMATION - OPUS DEATH by EXHUMATION

Indonesia’s punk and metal scenes can appear endless: so many tapes, so many records, so many bands. That’s not surprising, given how endless Indonesia itself seems: so many islands, so many cultures, so many languages. It can all be a bit daunting — where to start? This reissue of Exhumation’s 2014 Exhumation – Opus Death, originally released as a small-batch cassette by Morbid Bastard Records, may be as good a place as any to locate some listening. Exhumation refuses, with an unyielding attraction to the atavistic, to move on from the sounds of mid-1980s. The band’s musical touchstones are pretty apparent, especially early death metal records like Macabre’s Grim Reality (1987) and especially Possessed’s Beyond the Gates (1986); Exhumation’s extended piano interlude “The Sleeping Darkness” even sounds like a lo-tech tribute to the bombastic synth “Intro” to that crucial Possessed record. Old school stuff, indeed. But Exumation’s music also feels sort of timely: while the death metal vibe runs deep, there are also blackened edges, a punk production sensibility and thrashy riffs that respond to our current moment of endless sub-sub-subgenres and cross-pollinations. That last metaphor might be the wrong figure to invoke in relation to a tape that includes tunes like “Labyrinth of Fire” and “Death Dealer”; life-sustaining biological processes are less important to Exhumation than soul-destroying sonic violence. “Opus Death,” indeed.

Jonathan Shaw

Flanafi with Ape School — The Knees Start to Go (Boiled)

The Knees Start To Go by Flanafi with Ape School

Flanafi is the musical moniker of Philadelphia’s Simon Martinez. On this new collaboration with Ape School (Martinez’s former university tutor, Michael Johnson), there’s a decidedly hazy, whirlpooling quality to the songs, as hushed vocals turn circles offer muffled beat-work, pitch-shifted guitars and washes of keys. Though the ingredients suggest they might melt into the background, the way they’ve been treated brings them to the foreground to jostle and tumble amiably. One of the songs is called “Birds Toss and Turn in Their Sleep,” which is an apt image for the atmosphere created: small and appealing creatures dreaming fitfully. At its simplest, such as the nylon-string guitar and vocals of the lovely, meandering “Habra,” it could almost be a soft-focus singer-songwriter record. Elsewhere it feels like Boards of Canada have had most of their high-end gear stolen and are woodshedding with what’s left. Though these 36 minutes pass by easily, while the album’s on it’s like being gently massaged while wearing a well-worn jumper: warm and fuzzy, mostly lovely and comfortable, but also, at times, a little itchy.

Tim Clarke

Paul Haslinger — Exit Ghosts II (Artificial Instincts)

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Austrian composer and former Tangerine Dream member Paul Haslinger follows up 2020’s Exit Ghost with another collection of piano-based compositions augmented with strings and occasional electronic touches. While it pushes no boundaries, this is a quite lovely collection of short pieces that radiate cautious optimism and hope for better days after long months of darkness and fear. Haslinger moves easily from the Phillip Glass-like chordal progressions of “Cambium” to the kaleidoscopic string arrangements on “Meristematic.” His music is stately, considered and calm. Elsewhere he references the beguiling simplicity and unselfconscious eccentricity of Satie, as well as literary figures like Dostoyevsky’s impossibly selfless hero Prince Myshkin and Goethe’s lovelorn Werther as he explores reactions to isolation and trepidation about the new social realities. Exit Ghost II offers consolation and prompts questions: “Who were we?” “Who are we now?” “Who do we want to be?” The latter is as vital as the former, the answers perhaps more so.

Andrew Forell

Intersystems — #4 (Waveshaper Media)

#4 by Intersystems

The Toronto-based multimedia art experience called Intersystems rubbed elbows with many counter-cultural figures during its brief existence in the late 1960s, but never did get much renown during the Flower Power era or afterward. It wasn’t until 2015 when Alga Marghen reissued the three LPs that comprise the totality of the group’s recorded output that many heads became attuned to their consciousness-altering sight and sound productions. The quartet combined poetry with elaborate stage setups and exploratory electronic sound into what they referred to as “presentations,” which must have been amazing to experience first-hand, but are just as intriguing when absorbed via the eardrums. In the decades since, musician John Mills-Cockell has enjoyed moderate success in Canada, and poet Blake Parker passed away. Artist Michael Hayden and Mills-Cockell have reignited the flame, creating new material which is captured in this recording. Dik Zander, who rounded out the original quartet, was not involved. Parker appears as a spectre, his poetry delivered by a computer programmed to utter language in a variety of eerie vocal temperaments. Coupled with Mills-Cockell’s brooding synthesizer soundscapes, #4 continues the pattern that the first three LPs established back in the 1960s. If you were into the pan-generational experiments that William S. Burroughs was doing near the end of his life, this record will certainly appeal.

Bryon Hayes

Charmaine Lee / Zach Rowden — Butterfly Knife (Notice)

Butterfly Knife by Charmaine Lee and Zach Rowden

For music on the cutting edge, this stuff sounds quite antique and better for it. Vocalist Charmaine Lee’s electronics tend towards sounds people once wished their CB radios would not make when they aren’t nicking tonalities from the songs insects sing on overheated summer afternoons, and her mouth sounds are resolutely pre-linguistic. If no one told you he plays double bass, you might wonder how Zach Rowden got away with slapping so many contact mics onto a functional galleon’s rigging. But their interactions are undeniably in tune, albeit in a manner closer to the gravitational push and pull of cosmic bodies than the to and fro of the well-schooled improvising musicians they happen to be. Sometimes you want music to stir your feelings; this is for when you want the music to feel like something.

Bill Meyer

Magic Tuber Stringband — When Sorrows Encompass Me ‘Round (Feeding Tube)

When Sorrows Encompass Me 'Round by Magic Tuber Stringband

Magic Tuber Stringband is a pair of fresh-faced North Carolinians who share a birth month, if not year, with Tony Conrad, John Cale and Angus MacLise. Since the stars are not to be denied, they’ll pour more than a couple fingers of raw drone into your glass. But since they’re also true to the earth, they churn up enough happy hoofing cadences to make you salt the ground with your sweat. It’s tempting to compare guitarist/banjoist Evan Morgan and fiddler Courtney Werner to the Black Twig Pickers, but they seem less concerned with receiving and re-projecting the elders’ wisdom into ongoing decades than they are with the practical application of this music to keep one’s joints loose. So set your tape player on repeat and proceed to trample the ground.

Bill Meyer

Magda Mayas’ Filamental — Confluence (Relative Pitch)

Confluence by Magda Mayas' Filamental

Concept dictates content on this concert recording. Pianist Magda Mayas has long aspired to assemble a string ensemble of size. When the Music Unlimited Festival in Austria gave her the chance, she chose the geographic circumstances of another Alpine burg to guide the paired cellos, reeds, harps and single violin that accompanied her prepared piano. She used a series of photos of the confluence of the Rhône and Arve rivers in Geneva, Switzerland as a score that proposed degrees of resistance and surrender to the inevitable convergence of their flows. Sighing harmonics, agitated whorls and drizzling metallic tones swirl and splash, forming vectors that arc around each other and never completely combine. This music rewards the active spotting of eddies and rippling currents more than the passive drifting; consider it a present to your pattern-seeking brain.

Bill Meyer

Shannon McNally — The Waylon Sessions (Compass)

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The idea behind Shannon McNally's The Waylon Sessions makes it sound like it's an academic experiment, an exercise in recontextualization or a feminist statement. The singer-songwriter's plan to cover a record's worth of Waylon Jennings songs does, of course, do those sorts of things, and it's hard to hear the album apart from the current conversations about women in country music (particularly on the radio). Fortunately, the album does something more. McNally digs into these songs with the enthusiasm of a long-time fan and then performs them with the skill of a stellar artist. Although she gets help from guests like Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Jessi Colter (Jennings' widow, but not only that), McNally makes each of these tracks her own. If we find more nuance here and there (“a feminine perspective hidden” in the songs, according to McNally), that's a tribute to Jennings and the songwriters behind the cuts, but it's also a comment on McNally's own artistry. This album could be a statement in a variety of ways, but mostly it's just a set of great songs performed wonderfully.

Justin Cober-Lake

nubo — Nu Vision (Western Vinyl)

Nu Vision by nubo

Japanese electronic artist Yuji Namiki, working as nubo, taps into an idealized, transcendental vibe. These compositions blend traditional Japanese percussion with serene patterns of synthesizer. “Rain Won’t” begins with sharp thwacks of percussion at odd intervals, bells, shakers, a bit of space age satori in the wandering bits of flute. “Ennichi” runs a bit faster, alluding, perhaps to the time nubo spent working on hip hop beats. It clatters and frolics with a middle eastern swerve in its whistling melody, a polyrhythmic intensity in its tonal percussion foundation. “Thinking With Your Soul” glimmers and glitters in edge-less, timeless calm, making space for meditation and wordless, still-centered calm.

Jennifer Kelly

Rambutan — Parallel Systems (Sedimental/Tape Drift)

parallel systems by Rambutan

Eric Hardiman, who records with Michael Kiefer as Spiral Wave Nomads, spent the pandemic months soliciting original music from some 69 well-known and less well-known collaborators, then working the source material into 33 distinctive collages, collected on this two-CD set. The pieces vary a good deal, one to another, though they share a certain open-ended willingness to experiment, a disdain for the straight-jacketing qualities of structure and an appreciation of natural and found sounds. “Parallel 32,” for instance, opens with a Scottish-accented voice proclaiming, “I’m listening to the stork” and the birds’ squawks layered over striated sounds of bowed violin (Jenifer Gelineau apparently, though the cut also credits Ali Robertson, Euan Currie, Holland Hopson, Pete Fosco and, as always, Eric Hardiman.) “Parallel 3” starts with the domesticated sounds of water pouring, as Karen Schoemer, a poet who plays with Hardiman in Sky Furrows, declaims “with spineless scales/with pyramidal whorls” amid a mess of birdsong and Loren Connors-ish guitar frame (that’s Jeff Barsky from Insect Factory). Jon Collin, whose last album emphasized the sounds of water and stone, turns up for “Parallel 10,” conjuring a pastoral atmospheres out of languid guitar licks juxtaposed with the buzz and twitter of the natural world. Not all these cuts are quite so bucolic. Mike Watt makes one of two appearances in “Parallel 4,” laying down an ominous bass mutter, while electronic whistles and melodic tones grow up around this resonance. Sound artist Gayle Brogan who records as Pefkin and Glasgow experimental guitarist Andrew Paine conjure an eerie mesh of ringing tones and moody atmospherics around the steady progress of Watt’s bass. Hardiman’s Spiral Wave Nomads partner, Michael Kiefer contributes to a number of these tracks, adding surging drum rolls to the stately “Parallel 2” and thoughtful, introspective bursts of clatter to “Parallel 5,” which also features Glenn Galloway, once of Trumans Water. Elsewhere Fugazi’s Guy Piccioto, Mission of Burma’s Peter Prescott and Blues Control’s Russ Waterhouse chip in, though none of them sound much like their other projects. The point is that every track is its own world and none relate too closely to places you’ve been before. The pandemic left all kinds of artists with unexpected time on their hands, and even Hardiman might have been surprised by how many people decided to participate. At 33 tracks and two and a half hours, Parallel Systems is just too unwieldly to appreciate as a whole, but taken in small doses, bit by bit, it does the trick.

Jennifer Kelly

Rivet — On Feather and Wire (Editions Mego)

On Feather and Wire by Rivet

Rivet’s music vibrates with chilly intensity, edging right up to the hedonism of body-moving techno but never going over the line. “Ordine Kadmia,” for instance, rides a denatured rock and roll beat — the same boom cha boom foundation that Phil Spector used— but chilled and reserved to an extraordinary degree. Synths construct something like a syncopated guitar scramble atop it, but again, it is nothing like guitars. There is a blooping, looming keyboard melody, the notes slippery and changeable. Crank the heat up just a few degrees and you’d have a triumphant dance floor celebration, but that is not to be. A bit later, a voice declaims in clipped, echo-shrouded fragments, sputtering a harsh, consonant heavy language. That makes sense since when not recording as Rivet, Mika Hallbäck records and produces records under the Grovskopa name. He’s the head of Kess Kill, a label influenced by 1970s German new wave and post-punk. And so, while there are certainly references to punk, dance and techno in these artfully constructed rhythmic meditations, that energy has been diverted into unreal, electronic channels. When you hear a voice, as in “Pearling Woes,” it sounds like a wounded animal, wordless, moaning, penned in pixelated captivity. Not that Of Feather and Wire isn’t enjoyable. “Mag Mich” rumbles and clatters like machinery rolling downhill, a deadpan chatter narrating its progress. “Sooty Wing Flecks” hazards a wobbling treble line across rattling wireframe beats. The synth sounds gain shape and confidence as they go, now blurting like a sax, now playing tag with a reedy keyboard line. There’s something precise and contrapuntal about the way different parts move together, slipping into the chilly interstices left by the other’s silences.

Jennifer Kelly

Theodore Cale Schafer — It’s Not a Skill, It’s a Curse (Longform Editions)

It’s Not a Skill, it’s a Curse by Theodore Cale Schafer

Every month or so, Longform Editions releases a handful of pieces of music intended to be conducive to immersive listening. While what any particular listener wants to rise above their ears may vary, most LE contributions meet the criteria for ambient music. In other words, they’ll satisfyingly tinge an environment if you run them in the background, but they’ll also justify your attention if you choose to tune in. The contributors are split between people that you’re fairly likely to have heard of, and names that’ll be new to most. Detroit-based composer and musician Theodore Cale Schafer is new to this correspondent, but he sounds like a guy who has been at it long enough to have found his compass and to know where he wants it to point. “It’s Not a Skill, It’s a Curse” starts off in chamber music territory, with quicker, higher pitches sighing over a denser, unhurriedly evolving sound field. But as it progresses, one can hear voices conversing behind the strings. They never get too high in the mix, but their presence invites the listener’s ears to prick up, so that when shimmering electronics overtake the strings, you’ll be sufficiently tuned in to perceive the gently tectonic nature of their passing.

Bill Meyer

Cicada Waves by Ben Seretan

Ben Seretan — Cicada Waves (NNA Tapes)

Cicada Waves is the sound of adaptation. While recording at an artist’s retreat in rural Georgia, with the noise of the natural world competing with the sound of the Steinway, Ben Seretan only saw one option: In classic “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” fashion, he threw the windows open wide and let the outside in. The result is a set of sparse and tentative piano explorations that marries the approaches of the Jewelled Antler Collective and Morton Feldman. On “Cicada 1” Seretan’s playing slips softly forward through the unblazed field of sound that is the insect’s pulsing song. The album’s six other tracks — mostly named for the environmental accompaniment and time of recording — follow a similar approach, with Seretan’s musical ideas acclimating to storms of bugs and rain. By the final song, “Fog Rolls Out of Rayburn Gap,” his playing has been noticeably affected by his surroundings. When a songbird joins Seretan for a duet midway through, his phrasing mirrors the sound of the rainwater dripping, or maybe the dancing sparkle of the sun peeking out from behind the clouds post-storm. In our everyday lives, the sounds of the world around us are not always so complimentary to the task at hand, though, and in this regard Cicada Waves provides solace. Note to my neighbor: there’s a reason that none of the tracks on this album are called “Homicidal terrier mix, 7 am.” My response during little Charlotte's remarkably slow walks around the neighborhood is to pull a reverse-Seretan, shut my windows tight and turn Cicada Waves up. I’m “adapting.”

Chris Liberato

The Van Dammes — Finally There (Rockstar)

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As of today, June 10th, Finland’s national soccer team is one day away from its first-ever appearance the European Championships. The team qualified for a berth in Euro 2020 in November of 2019, but after generations of misfires, close-calls and heartbreaking squeakers, the Finns were again delayed for a year by COVID-19. They will be playing Denmark on Saturday, and after that who knows? (Ed. Note: The Finns won a bizarre opener against Denmark, in which one of the Danes had a heart attack and nearly died, but then were eliminated in the first round.) But if you’re asking, instead, who cares, allow me to introduce you to the Van Dammes, a gleefully bare-bones garage punk band with much owed to the Ramones and a big crush on the Finnish team. The Van Dammes care so much that they have recorded a three-song EP for the occasion, which is, footy fan or no, 100% fun. Its centerpiece is “Finally There,” a blistering romp of punk pop, pummeled by drums and manic guitars and some sort of antique keyboard. The main verse insists that the band doesn’t care whether the band wins or loses, because they’re “finally there,” which is probably untrue but charming, nonetheless. Go Finland!

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists—DJ Amir Presents Strata Records: The Sound of Detroit Volume 1 (BBE)

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Strata Records only released 10 records in its 1974 to 1975 heyday, but the label, run by Kenny Cox shepherded a diverse array of jazz, funk, soul and world music artists in its brief run, defining a mid-1970s Detroit sound. The label’s archives have been in the hands of 180 Proof since DJ Amir (aka Amir Abdullah) of 180 Proof struck a deal with Cox’s widow, and over time, 180 Proof has been re-releasing Strata’s catalogue. The project got a boost in 2018 when Amir discovered a long lost recording of the Charles Mingus Quintet laid down at Strata’s Concert gallery in 1973. For this set, Amir has selected 23 tracks representing the full spectrum of Strata artists, starting with founder Kenny Cox’s infectious, Caribbean-flavored “Island Song” and running through two extraordinary selections from the Mingus concert, “Pithecanthropos Erectus,” and “Dizzy Profile.” Along the way, Strata mainstays like Detroit Artist Workshop founder Larry Nozero and Afro-Cuban organist Lyman Woodard take the spotlight, and Elvin Jones protégé Bert Myrick leads a rendition of “Scorpio’s Child” (written by Kenny Cox) that cool enough to induce shivers. It’s not all jazz either. Sam Sanders croons a quiet storm up in torch song “Face at My Window,” and a little known outfit named the Soulmates gives Curtis Mayfield a run for his money. There’s quite a lot of different music here, but it fits together remarkably well for continuous listening.

Jennifer Kelly

Various Artists — Pick ‘N’ Mix, Volume 1 (EEG Recordings)

Pick 'N' Mix, Volume 1 by EEG Recordings

This benefit compilation for the Climate Emergency Fund intersperses space-age guitar drones with folky meditations from mostly six-string up-and-comers of various stripes. Adeline Hotel’s “Untangling” unfurls flurries of acoustic picking while Toby Oler’s “Doubles to Dozens” (one of a couple with vocals) tips a hoedown guitar riff into dark and ominous territory. Tarotplane’s PJ Dorsey is, as always, intriguingly open-ended, his “Allowing for Space” doing that, but also bending it and time in mystic, reverberating ways. Not all the cuts are guitar-centric. Petridisch, from Boston, kicks in a blippy, twitchy, techno-operetta in “In the Red,” while the Modern Folk’s eerie, echo-shrouded, “Don’t Let My Heart Grow Cold,” gets its point across with keyboards, voice and electronic effects. Ragenap’s “A Nod Is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse (Long Version)” is, as the title implies, extended, but nicely conceived out of gentle guitar licks and hovering after tones. It’s a nice mix of sounds, and a bit of the entry price goes towards saving our beleaguered planet. What’s not to like?

Jennifer Kelly

Mike Uva — Are You Dreaming? (Self-Released)

Are You Dreaming by Mike Uva

Mike Uva, long one of my favorite unjustly overlooked songwriters, spent some quarantine time with the bedroom recording set, distilling a year and a half of nothing much into sleepy, low-key pop. “I’m wandering around these halls, bouncing off the painted walls, I see Tina and she laughs at me, did you have a couple drinks or three?” asks Uva on the next-to-opening “Safety Zone,” encapsulating as well as anything a COVID year spent in sweatpants and stupor. These eight fuzzy meditations are even more homemade and loosely put together than usual, made of offhand guitars, some keyboards, a rattle of programmed and actual drums. And yet, there’s a Sebadoh-ish flare of melody in the chorus, a bit that lifts off briefly before sinking back under the surface. The title track ambles in on scratchy, waltz-time rock guitar strumming, a bemused survey of cobwebby interior landscapes. “When the day doesn’t measure to much in events, anything to remember of how it was spent, do you paint a wild painting or take to your bed?” croons Uva, and somehow the answer is both.

Jennifer Kelly

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