#we see Miles in the studio - perfectly normal; he IS recording a solo album...

[paperlovesadness]

We're barely keeping up with these TLSP aknowledgements from Miles & Domino Records

What is this alternate universe. Why now. Why not every other year??? 🧐 Hmmm???? 🧐🧐

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Horse Lords

Baltimore-based Horse Lords have been forging their own take on experimental rock music since 2012. The quartet, Andrew Bernstein (saxophone/percussion), Max Eilbacher (bass/electronics), Owen Gardner (guitar) and Sam Haberman (drums) weave together pieces drawing on divergent sources that include everything from 20th and 21st century classical music to just intonation tuning to African and Appalachian musical traditions to intricate polyrhythms and studio experiments. In a recent interview, Gardner talked about their approach to putting pieces together. “We generally write right up to the edge of our abilities. And sometimes slightly beyond. We’d had to scrap quite a few songs because they proved to be basically impossible to play... It keeps it interesting.” Ian Forsythe covered their newest release, The Common Task, noting that “Their nearly ten-year core pivots rhythmic and tonal ideas athletically, and their ability to pull elements from anywhere and everywhere is seemingly more fluid with each record.”

For this Listed, the four members runs down a list of live shows, recordings, blogs, movies, and books that have been on their minds.

Gleb Kanasevich plays Horațiu Rădulescu’s “Inner Time II for seven clarinets (Op.42b),” Baltimore. 2018 (Owen Gardner)

A near-hourlong ear workout, combining impressive sonic and structural brutality. The interaction of what these close dissonances do inside your ears with what the clarinets do in space (Gleb played live with 6 recordings of himself, meticulously arranged around the audience) is a haunting experience, celestial but with no concession to human music.

Maryanne Amacher — Perceptual Geographies, Philadelphia 2019 (Owen Gardner)

https://issuu.com/bowerbirdphilly/docs/amacherprogramonline

So much revelatory material has come out of the Maryanne Amacher archive so far, and particularly these loving reconstructions of her instrumental music. A lot more attention seems to have been given to “Petra,” which is certainly gorgeous and shows fascinating symmetries with the spatial/timbral concerns of her electronic music, but “Adjacencies” struck me as the Major Work of 20th Century Music. She wrote the damn thing in 1965 and it sounds fresh half a century later, which we can say of no previous piece of percussion music and not much written subsequently. I am slowly losing my mind waiting for Amy Cimini’s book on Amacher to come out, craving a deeper dive into her theory and methods.

Sarah Hennies, Bonnie Jones, Lê Quan Ninh, and Biliana Voutchkova at the High Zerofestival, Baltimore 2019 (Owen Gardner)

One of at least three great things Sarah Hennies did last year (Reservoir 1 on Black Truffle and the 90 minute cello/percussion duo “The Reinvention of Romance” being the others) was to take part in Baltimore’s High Zero festival, four mind-frying days devoted to free improvisation. This set was one of the highlights of 2019’s festival; each of the four performers having at least one foot in composed music (Ninh is a long-time Cage interpreter and Biliana has collaborated with Peter Ablinger) seemed to lend it a certain sureness and serenity, but ultimately their combined strength as improvisors (fastidiously captured by High Zero’s crack recording team) is what makes it such an engaging listen.

El Chombo — Cuentos de la Cripta (Owen Gardner)

A relentless tetralogy that nicely balances the rawness of ‘90s proto-reggaetón productions (the first volume self-identifies as “Spanish Reggae”) and the slicker, synth-oriented sound and settled genre conventions we’ve come to enjoy (or not) in the 21st century. This was helpful when working on “People’s Park,” not least for its insistent connection to Jamaican music. I can understand very little Spanish but I'm guessing the lyrics are not unproblematic; signifying language always disappoints.

Wallahi Le Zein! (Owen Gardner)

http://thewealthofthewise.blogspot.com/

An invaluable resource for anyone interested in African music, much more consistent and informative than the often yucky reissue market, which seems to prioritize awkward (and marginal) attempts at Western musical fads—as if what was available was not an impossibly rich and heterogeneous network of self-sufficient musical cultures but merely a broken mirror facing America. The archive of Mauritanian music alone makes this the most worthwhile stop on the information superhighway. There’s plenty of goofy drum programming and appalling sound quality if that’s your bag, but the rich variety of traditional musics is what keeps me coming back.

Miles Davis — On the Corner (Max Eilbacher)

Some might say Stockhausen serves imperialism but he did his little part to help cook up some of the most twisted American Jazz/funk jams ever. Davis only kept one cassette in his convertible sports car during the On the Corner sessions, a tape of “Hymnen.” He would take each member of the band on highspeed joy rides with the car’s stereo system on full blast. That same energy was channeled in the arrangement and editing. The convergence of a lot of different elements keeps this record on my top 10 list ‘til the end of time. The little detail of Americans taking concepts from European Neu Musik and making something incredibly funky and pleasurable is the cherry on top.

Olivia Block & Marcus Schmickler at Diffusion Festival, Baltimore 2018 (Andrew Bernstein)

This was an amazing pairing, with both artists playing in 8-channel “surround sound.” Marcus’ set was incredibly intense. Pure synthesis with a lot of psychoacoustic inner ear tones and unending overlapping melodies. It felt like the sonic equivalent of watching a strobe light at close distance. Olivia’s set was a slow creep, laying samples to create lush textures that were truly immersive. This was the kind of concert that reminds you of the awesome power of music.

Blacks’ Myths at the Red Room, Baltimore 2019 (Andrew Bernstein)

Blacks' Myths II by Blacks' Myths

I’m there for anything bassist Luke Stewart touches (see Irreversible Entanglements, his solo upright + feedback work, frequent collaborations with too many people to name). Blacks' Myths, his bass and drumset duo with Warren Crudup, is loud, noisy, and intense, and this set at the Red Room last year was particularly transcendent.

“Blue” Gene Tyranny — Out of the Blue (Andrew Bernstein)

Out of the Blue by "Blue" Gene Tyranny

I have probably listened to this record more than any other the last few years. Perfectly crafted pop songs segue into proggy funk jams and then into stream of consciousness drone pieces based around the doppler effect. I’ll put it on over and over again, an experience with an album I haven’t really had since I was in high school.

Bill Orcutt — An Account of the Crimes of Peter Thiel and His Subsequent Arrest, Trial, and Execution 2017 (Max Eilbacher)

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CRIMES OF PETER THIEL AND HIS SUBSEQUENT ARREST, TRIAL AND EXECUTION. by BILL ORCUTT

Legendary underground American guitarists from the most important American rock band also makes top notch conceptual digital audio art. Years ago I thought computer music lacked a certain sub cultural attitude. While this was/is not true, this 2017 release feels like it exists in its own world. High and low brow are in perfect harmony for this patterned enjoyable hellride of a listen. What if Hanne Darboven had to make art while working a full time job and dealing with mild substance abuse?

Lina Wertmüller — Seven Beauties 1975 (Max Eilbacher)

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42000553

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Beauties

During this pandemic I have been talking film shop over emails nonstop. I went through a big Wertmüller phase in 2018-2019 and as people are trading recommendations I usually try to recommend something by her. This film is the one that I keep reaching for. The email recommending this film usually starts as a draft with “this is really intense” and then I try to hearken back to my film school days and write about the male gaze, patriarchy, communism or something of that nature. I end up writing a bit, feeling like it’s way over the top for a casual email and then I end up deleting everything except “this is a really intense and beautiful film.”

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill (Sam Haberman)

https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/tom-oneill/chaos/9780316477574/

The last book I managed to check out of the library before it closed. Though it in some ways resembles works of conspiracy theory, Tom O’Neill is always straightforward in telling the reader that, though the official story of the Manson case is almost certainly not true, the actual details don’t cohere into any kind of Meaning. Every new discovery is its own digression that points to a new unknowable truth or unverifiable claim. This really inverts the normal thrill of conspiracy theory, which invites you to either buy into the story being presented or reject it all together, either path offering its own sort of comfort. Chaos offers no such comfort.

[grimelords]

My March playlist is finished! This one is slightly more diverse than usual, swinging all the way from vibraphone jazz to Bhad Bhabie to black metal so I’ve taken the liberty of actually sequencing it properly for you. So if you’ve got 3 hours you can listen to this straight through and be taken for a hell of a ride. No matter what you like I’m sure you’ll find something in here that you love.

Tahiti - Milt Jackson: For an unknown reason I had a big jazz vibraphone phase this month and when you're talking jazz vibraphone you're talking the Wizard Of The Vibes himself, Milt Jackson. I feel insane even having an opinion on this but it's a shame that some of the best vibraphone performances were made at a time when the actual recording technology wasn't really there, they all have this very thin quality that I think misses a lot of the great character of the instrument.

Detour - Bill Le Sage: Like compare this from 1971 to Wizard Of The Vibes from 1952, the sounds is miles warmer and gives so much more of the full range and detail of the instrument. I also listened to this song five times in a row when I first heard it, the central refrain is just so fuckin good. Like I said, big vibes vibe and who knows why.

Blowin' The Blues Away - Buddy Rich And His Sextet: Superhuman playing aside, it's unbelievable how good these drums sound. The whole first minute just feels like a tour of each specific drum and I absolutely revel in it. I feel like flute and vibes is a relatively rare combo so it's extremely nice to hear Sam Most and Mike Manieri go ham in tandem.

Yama Yama - Yamasuki Singers: A friend sent me this song that he's had stuck in his head for ten years ever since it was in a beer ad from the days when beer ads were incredible strange for complicated legal reasons about not showing people enjoying the product or something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORfkh0OojxY and this incredible song is apparently from a 1971 French concept album where a couple of guys wrote a bunch of psychedelic songs in Japanese for an unknown reason that later became a massive drum and bass breaks album, and one of the guys was Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk's dad! Music is crazy.

Alfonso Muskedunder - Todd Terje: I'm starting a petition to get Todd Terje to write the soundtrack for the next Mario Kart. I absolutely love this song and this whole album because it's so joyful and strange and it just sounds like nothing else I've ever heard. He seem to truly operate in a world entirely of his own.

Pala - Roland Tings: I love this song. It's like he wrote it with normal sounds and then went back and replaced every instrument with the party version. This song hands you a coconut and says welcome to the island where bad vibes are punishable by firing squad.

Keygen 13 - Haze Edit - Dubmood: There's a fucking album of keygen music on spotify and it's absolutely great and so good that someone's doing the work to recognize the value of the music this extremely weird scene produced and preserve it. If you don't know, back in the day when you pirated photoshop or whatever, you would download a license key generator which was a program made by extreme nerds who had cracked the license key algorithm to give you a fake one, and for unknown reasons they would make the keygen program play original chiptune music that someone in their nerd crew would compose. Who knows why but god bless them.

My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Remix) - Feist: The very concept of a Boys Noize remix of My Moon My Man is hilarious and it turns out it sounds absolutely amazing as well. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Low Blows - Meg Mac: I had a big Meg Mac phase this month too, listened to her album a lot and it's extremely solid. Great timing too cause her new one comes out in a month or so too. I really am excited to hear her next album because she's so good but I've always got this feeling that she hasn't reached her full potential yet, she's only going to get a million times better in an album or two.

Patience - Tame Impala: I love that the cover of this single is a pic of congas because it feels like that's the central thesis here. Kevin Parker bought some congas and is making disco Tame Impala now and I really couldn't be happier about it.

Unconditional (feat. Kitten) - Touch Sensitive: I love a 90s throwback done with love. There's nothing cynical or ironic about this it's just fun as hell!

Last Hurrah - Bebe Rexha: Get a fucking load of this Bebe Rexha song that interpolates Buy U A Drank by T-Pain for the chorus! It's a testament to how good that song is that she's using the verse melody as the chorus. T-Pain will quite literally never get the respect he deserves. Also this song goes for 2.5 minutes. There's something happening where pop songwriting is getting more and more compact, completely trimming the fat and ornamentation and it's very interesting.

Hi Bich - Bad Bhabie: Also I'm fully six months late on Hi Bich but I'm of the opinion that it's extremely fucking good. A perfect little reaction gif of a song and it only goes for 1m45!

Friends - Flume: I'm doubling down on my thesis about emo rap from last month but this song literally sounds like a Flume remix of a Hawthorne Heights song. The whole melody of it, the overlapping yelled/clean vocals. The lyrics obviously. I don't know it's just very odd how close it is. A sort of emo trojan horse to trick people into thinking The Used are cool again. 

How To Build A Relationship (feat. JPEGMAFIA) - Flume: I've been meaning to check out JPEGMAFIA (AKA Buttermilk Jesus AKA DJ Half-Court Violation AKA Lil' World Cup) for a while but this is the song that convinced me. There's just so much to digest in this. Every line is gold and delivered with massive conviction even when he realises it's total nonsense like 'dont call me unless I gave you my number'.

Bells & Circles (feat. Iggy Pop) - Underworld: Underworld alive 2019?? I love this song becuase Iggy Pop has been riding a fine line between punk provocateur and old man yells at cloud for a while now and this song is the perfect mix of both. You can't hijack airplanes and redirect them to cuba anymore and as a result it's over for liberal democracies. Just yelling about air travel for six minutes and it's good.

Guns Blazing (Drums Of Death Pt. 1) - UNKLE: This beat is some of my favourite DJ Shadow work I think. The menacing organ bass throughout, and especially the distorted drum freakout near the end. It's just great all the way through.

Homo Deus IV - Deantoni Parks: Another Deantoni Parks track like I was raving about last month. This whole album is great and flows together as a single piece of work amazingly. I love the purposefully limited sample palette of each track forcing an evolving groove throughout. He absolutely wrings every bit of variation he can get out of every single sound he uses and once you get into the groove of it it's absolutely mind blowing.

Boredom - The Drones: I love that The Drones can write a song about joining ISIS that's also a lot of fun. Spelling out radicalization in a way anyone can understand and sympathise with and then switching it in the second verse to spell out how we got into this situation anyway. 

Loinclothing - Hunters And Collectors: I love how much this song sounds like a voodoo celebration in christian hell.

The Fun Machine Took A Shit And Died - Queens Of The Stone Age: There's a good bit on the live dvd they put out after Lullabies To Paralyze where they play this song and they say it was supposed to be on the album but somebody stole the master recordings from the studio, which is an incredible and brazen crime. Then when they put it out on Era Vulgaris as a bonus track Josh Homme said in an interview "The tapes got lost. Actually, they were just at another studio, but we falsely accused everyone in the world of theft" which is extremely funny. This is really one of their best songs and I sort of really with it had been on Lullabies because it fits perfectly between The Blood Is Love and Someone's In The Wolf type of vibes, I love how it just kind of keeps shifting ideas and riffs throughout. An absolute jam overflowing with ideas.

10AM Automatic - The Black Keys: This song is an all time great in my opinion. It's so straightforward and so effective. I wonder if we'll get a blues rock revival ever or if Jack White still being alive and bad is souring everyone on that idea. This song also has one of my favourite guitar sounds in history I think - the outrageously huge sounding solo that comes out of nowhere and swallows up the rest of the mix like a swirling black hole near the end.

Gamma Knife - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: I've never gotten much into King Gizzard and because of their one million albums already it's hard to know where to start but I've been listening to Nonagon Infinity a bit and it's great, it's just good old fashioned 70s prog jams front to back.

Gina Works At Hearts - DZ Deathrays: I absolutely love this song and I absolutely love the second guitar sound in the chorus of this song that sounds like it's made out of thin steel.

Black Brick - Deafheaven: When I saw Deafheaven the other month I was right up the front and it was a life changingly great experience AND they played this new song live for the first time before it went up everywhere like three hours later which was very exciting to be given a sclusie like that. After they finished a guy behind me whispered to his friend "Slayer..." which was very funny to me.

Gemini - Elder: I found this band because one of my Spotify Daily Mixes was all stoner metal for a while, which is a good genre to see all lined up because it'll have Weedeater, Bongripper AND Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats right there in a row for you. Anyway this album is extremely good, the very best kind of stoner metal where it's groovy and fun and has big meaty riffs and ripping big solos and it's extremely easy to listen to three times in a row.

The Paradise Gallows - Inter Arma: My big obsession the past little while has been Inter Arma ever since Stereogum posted The Atavist's Meridian from their new album. It is just so fucking good and I can't believe I've never heard of them before. You know when you find out about an amazing band and then you find out they've been around for nearly ten years and you can't believe everyone in your life has been selfishly hiding them from you?

The Atavist's Meridian - Inter Arma: I think a big part of my enjoyment of this band has also been that I discovered them at the same time as I'm listening to an audiobook of the complete Conan The Barbarian omnibus so I'm very much in the brain space for music that sounds like it would be nice to swing an axe to.

Untoward Evocation - Impetuous Ritual: I love how halfway through this kind of just turns into a big swirling mist of dark sounds. It feels so formless and dark that it could just shake apart and dissipate at any moment and you'd look down to realise your skin is gone.

Eagle On A Pole - Conor Oberst: from Genius: 'In an interview with MTV news, Oberst stated “We were on the bus one day and a friend of ours that travels with us and works for the band kind of came out from the back of the bus and said that first line: ‘Saw an eagle on a pole… I think it was an eagle.’ And then this guy Simon Joyner, who is a great songwriter from Omaha and one of my great friends, he was on tour with us and sitting there and he was like, ‘You know, that’s a great name for a song.’ We kind of had a contest where he wrote a song with that first line, and [then] I did, and a couple of our other friends. We kind of all played them for each other. Simon’s is better than mine, but it is a good line to start a song.” Another version–Mystic Valley Band drummer Jason Boesel’s interpretation–is on the next album, Outer South.' The idea that such a good song has such a braindead origin only makes me love it more.

Lake Marie - John Prine: When I saw John Prine the other month he played this song that I had never heard before and I had to look it up after and now I'm completely obsessed with it. It feels like falling asleep during a movie and missing a critical plot point so the rest doesn't make sense when you wake up but is thrilling nonetheless. Also he absolutely screamed "SHADOWS!!!" when he played it which was a fucking cool thing to see a 72 year old man do.

Little White Dove - Jenny Lewis: The drums on this whole album are absolutely huge for some reason and I love it. My favourite recent sound is in the first chorus where there's a funny little pitch correction noise as she sings 'dove'. It's very strange and very very good.

Locked Up - The Ocean Party: I only found out The Ocean Party existed as they announced their farewell show this month which is a real shame but I'm glad I got to hear of them at all because they're very good. A very good song about that feeling we all know and love: driving for a long long time.

Plain & Sane & Simple Melody - Ted Lucas: I found out about this song from Emma Ruth Rundle's Amoeba Records video and she makes a good point about this whole album sounding like something's gone wrong and it got accidentally pitched down slightly in the recording process. It's unclear if that's what happened or that's just how he sounds but it adds a very softly spooky undercurrent to a very nice song.​ 

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