#bill meyer

Davies and several other members of the twelve-piece ensemble are part of the community of musicians for whom Radigue has developed new pieces, known collectively as the OCCAM series. Most, but not all of them have been performed on acoustic instruments. While it might be tempting to consider Asymptote Versatile to be a foreshadowing of OCCAM, because it is played on acoustic instruments, it is methodologically quite different. Each OCCAM piece is developed collaboratively and transmitted orally. This music, on the other hand, employs notation, albeit idiosyncratically. Radigue developed a series of mathematically determined curves, which she placed on transparent acetate sheets, which were in turn laid upon pages containing notation. As with OCCAM and her electronic works, Asymptote Versatile is made up of long, patiently changing tones. But these tones are fashioned into arcing passages which swell and contract as instruments are added and removed. The resulting music has a harmonic component that is absent from Radigue’s other music, and changes come at a quicker rate than in her later work. It is also a bit less demanding, although that’s a relative statement when made about a piece that lasts three quarters of an hour. A listener can easily lay back and let this stuff wash over them, unlike Radique’s subsequent music, whose subtle rate of change demands close attention.

This album’s packaging is, like the music it contains, austere and beautiful. The double-gatefold digipak opens up to reveal excerpts from the score, and the booklet contains texts by Davies and violist Julia Eckhardt that explicate the music’s methods.

The original Indian Talking Machine might not have changed how we understand our world, but it did provide reliable transportation to a couple of them. First, it enabled a listener to steep in the sounds of musical traditions that had been around for centuries, but had not yet been transformed by capture and reproduction. Second, it introduced its audience to the surviving Indian 78 rpm culture. The album came as a 245-page hardcover book that presented both reproductions of sleeves, labels, gear, advertisements, and ephemera from back in the day, and color photos that Millis had taken of the places where you can still find them and the people who make that possible. It was possible to treat its two CDs tucked into pockets in the cover as accessories, which was a shame given the musical riches they contained.

That won’t happen with Indian Talking Machine Part Two. It contains the same number of sides as the first volume, this time on two LPs. The transfers subdue most of the 78s’ noise without compromising the sounds of the instruments. While it does include a booklet with a dozen pages of images of records, players, and the animal byproducts used to make shellac, the annotation is much more bare-bones, conveying only the names of the artists and the instruments featured on each track.

And what music! By narrowing the focus to instrumentals, Millis has foregrounded two elements of Indian music of the early 20th century. One is the concentrated power and beauty of the music that made it to disc. Reproducing hour-long ragas and other musical forms that had evolved ungoverned by the small amount of music that a 78 could contain was out of the question, so these tracks capture foundational themes and climactic moments; just the good stuff. The other is the spectacular virtuosity of the playing and the easy but focused rapport between the musicians (usually just a couple per performance); in a culture where music was made mainly by people playing every day, they got really good at playing it.

Indian Talking Machine Part Two is not a musicological enterprise, and anyone looking to be told anything about what they’re hearing will be disappointed. This volume presents the music as something you listen to, period.

Angine de Poitrine — Vol.II (Spectacles Bonzaï)

Who picked it? Ian Mathers.

Did we review it? Yes, Ian wrote, "Precision, abandonment, spectacle; that’s Angine de Poitrine’s second record in a nutshell."

Ray Garraty’s take:

These Canadian mutants draw their origins from two distinct influences. One is Arto Lindsay and his contemporaries; the other is much more recent: the various punk and weirdo rockers who populated underground tape labels in the 2000s. It is difficult to figure out why this band generated so much buzz when similar weirdos still struggle to sell their home-dubbed tapes. Perhaps it is because Angine de Poitrine is cleaner, less punky and more visually oriented (it wasn’t even the music that initially drew attention to them). Still, the album offers 36 minutes of pure fun. It is hard to highlight just one track out of the six; the entire tape is catchy and deserves repeated listens.

Juliana Barwick and Mary Lattimore — Tragic Magic (Infiné)

Who nominated it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes, Ian wrote, “However singular or slightly uncanny their work together seems, one thing that’s much less mysterious is just how good it sounds.”

Christian Carey’s take:

Vocalist/electronic musician Juliana Barwick and harpist Mary Lattimore are a simpatico duo. Barwick’s use of vocal processing and gently wrought electronics matches well with Lattimore’s atmospheric harp playing. Their Infiné recording Tragic Magic embraces the ambient aesthetic while never succumbing to its cliches.

Barwick has a beautiful soprano voice, which in “Perpetual Adoration” is deployed in ethereal overdubs, reveling in reverb. Lattimore responds with cascading arpeggios that swirl around the vocals, both supporting their harmonies and extrapolating from them in nimble passage work. There are some aphoristic selections, like “Temple of the Winds,” where a modal sequence of chords underpins a simple, eloquent vocalise. “Rachel’s Song” features soaring singing and some of Lattimore’s most florid arpeggiations.

Elsewhere, such as on the multilayered yet still ethereal “Stardust,” the music is stretched out, building into multifaceted textures. “A Haze With No Haze” uses successive stacking of loops to good effect. Particularly winning is “The Four Princesses,” which begins with a folk-like melody on the harp that is gradually morphed into syncopated lines and augmented by haloing vocals and mellifluous counter melodies on synths. On the final track, “Melted Moon,” cascading polyrhythms in harp lines create a phase-like rhythmic structure, over which Barwick provides ostinato synth passages. The belated arrival of vocals finds them nimbly fitting into the already detailed musical landscape, with chorused singing leading the music aloft, a stirring valediction to an arresting recording.

Bobbie — Lessons (Orindal)

Who nominated it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “There’s real pleasure to be had in watching these cuts take shape like pictures in the clouds, the swell of electronic sounds accumulating into melodies, then sputtering out like sparkler trails.”

Christian Carey’s take:

On bobbie’s second full length recording, Lessons, they lean hard into the glistening textures made by an Omnichord, a synth where you make harmonies by pressing a button and then sliding fingers across the “strumplate” found on main body of the instrument, kind of like a Casio crossed with an autoharp. Reverberant guitars, synthesizer drones and delicate singing are also part of the atmosphere, and the session’s engineer, Felix Walworth, adds a judicious dose of drumming to the proceedings. These coalesce beautifully in the song “I Could Call You,” on which strumming and shimmer appear in equal measure. “To My Core I’m a Lover” takes an ambling path through a set of classic pop chord changes, with bobbie earnestly singing a gradually unfurling melody. The title song has a diaphanous cast and a lilting vocal, with the Omnichord providing a seraphic accompaniment. It builds into a yearning chorus of multitracked singing awash in ambient electronics. The final track “I Don’t Wanna Stay” luxuriates in reverb and sustain, with a long-breathed vocal accompanied by distorted Omnichord, guitar and a glockenspiel countermelody.

Boldy James X Rome Streetz — Manhunt (Mass Appeal)

Who nominated it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? No but Ray has been all over Boldy James in the past.

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Two veterans of Detroit’s Griselda Collective trade molasses-paced noir-ish narratives, surrounded by a woozy blend of dragging beats, electronic shimmer and old style soul hooks in this brief, between-albums EP. Luxe, decadent violence lurks in the lyrics of “Hot Plate,” doing battle with brutish income inequality; says Boldy, “With Percival on the river, he servin' 'em with inflation/Work for the low, brodie got the chirps and them bitches takin'/Shinin' and they flakin' like the diamonds in my bracelet.“ Throughout, the two mcs drop references to rap forebears and peers, naming Big Daddy Kane and nodding to verses from Nas and Kendrick Lamar. The heartfelt tribute, however, comes up in “Like Biggie Did.” Here lavish soul vocals and spattered rhymes coalesce in genuine, positive affirmation. Says Streetz, “I left it all to faith like Biggie did /Now we so far ahead in this race, ain't no one in this shit.”

Bill Callahan — My Days of 58 (Drag City)

Who picked it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan Shaw wrote, “My Days of 58, Callahan’s new LP, is a return to the sustained unease expressed on a record like Apocalypse, for this listener the highwater mark in the singer’s career."

Ray Garraty’s take:

It’s often said that poetry doesn’t translate well into other languages. It seems age doesn’t translate, either. My Days of 58 is memoiristic and intimate, featuring clearly stated lyrics, and it is heavily preoccupied with thoughts of death. While death is something we all share, our perspectives on it are not universal. Callahan’s view of mortality is distinctly that of an urban white male from artistic circles. This will certainly resonate with some listeners, but isn’t it the aim of art to transcend the differences between us?

Cancer House — The Moth (Motion Ward)

Who Picked It? Tim Clarke

Did We Review It? No

Alex’s take:

In the beginning of “Flowers Over There,” we hear a see-saw sound. I say sound but I really mean there’s something. As in, something see-saws. This is such a cinematic, corporeal record. Bodies emerge from the otherworldly sonics, giving definition to the often muffled, somewhat obscured music. In fact, “Flowers Over There” is a bit of an exception, given the raw rock power of its crescendo. Within the deep folds of the record’s atmosphere, I felt a jolt when the bass bubbles up and the hopeful, progressive guitar rides a strident beat forward. The Moth tends to linger, wandering its fog and bog, but here the music accelerates, building a ragged, undulating wall for the vocalist’s scratched scream to batter against. When I say cinematic and corporeal I mean tactile and formed and visual, full of character. I’m thinking of the banshee synth howling over the morass on “Bloodchimes” and the long, drawn strings of “In My Pocket A Letter, A Red Wrecked Line.” Those strings have a slow, shifting personality, at times mournful and at times a little nauseating in their complaint. Either way, unsettling. The drums are almost spat, which I’ve never thought about drums before. This sort of monstrous presence meant I never quite lay back into the record, despite the aforementioned deep folds. The more literal personification is also notable. The way the strangled, nasal voice on “Waterscene” gets most of the way to vocoded Tom Fec without, to my ears, a vocoder, or how the compressed-to-indecipherable conversation on “Camera Obscura” is at once intimate and intriguing and unreachable. Speaking of monstrous presence, I recently saw the movie Obsession. Besides an array of sinister voices and violent impacts, it shares with The Moth a grim, scrappy artistry in which the effects aren’t high gloss but all the more satisfying and disturbed for it.

Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie EXTENDED — Live at Moldejazz (Sonic Transmission)

Who nominated it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Danish saxophonist and composer Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie was already a large-ish ensemble when it won Danish Music Awards Jazz single of the year in 2024. At its core, it was a quintet comprised of Dahl, Oscar Andreas Haug (trumpet), Jørgen Bjelkerud (trombone), Nicolas Leirtrø (bass) and Veslemøy Narvesen (drums). But for this live performance at one of the oldest jazz festivals in Europe, she expanded her group to include no less than 12 musicians, with multiple acoustic bass players, two drummers, horns, woodwinds and several varieties of keyboards. That sounds like a crowd, but the sound is often lean and focused, for instance. letting silvery chimes and high, metallic keyboards dominate a long passage of “Floating” or focusing intently on the woozy roar of bowed bass at the opening of “Drifting Turning.” Still, the exciting parts are the all-hands bits, such as the bass-thumping, synth-squiggling, drum battering, horn spattered climax of that same cut, which almost literally lifts you up off your feet and carries you off. Bill Meyer would doubtless have more to say about the individual players, but even I recognize the name of Dahl collaborator Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, whose double bass skitters and thuds and rumbles and dances like a very large man who is surprisingly adept at soft shoe. The music cascades and eddies, with different parts taking precedence at different points in the mix. It’s a big, ambitious sound, wildly energetic but always in complete control.

Damaged Bug — ZUZAX (Deathgod Corp)

Who nominated it? Byron Hayes

Did we review it? Yep. Byron wrote, “Vocals, synths and drums form the core of ZUZAX, as [John] Dwyer and his pals pit vintage tech against beefy rhythms.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

My sharpest interest in John Dwyer’s continuous cataract of music peaked with Thee Oh Sees’ Warm Slime (2010), a terrific record, and started to peter out when he changed that band’s name for the third or fourth time — who can keep track? I have sometimes felt about his musical output the same way I feel about Karl Ove Knausgaard’s often insufferable books: dude needs an editor. When I have tuned back in to Dwyer’s stuff, here and there I have heard some very good records. A Weird Exits (2016) and Endless Garbage (2021) represent markedly different but effective modes of Dwyer’s creativity that sustain themselves beyond three or four songs. This record, his fifth under the Damaged Bug moniker, includes some of the best elements of listening to Dwyer. ZUZAX has the benefit of hanging together as a record, sounding like a band at work rather than an intractable studio rat at distractable play. I really love “Over-Exposed,” and I really like “Sike Witch” and “End of the War.” The strength of those songs makes misfires like “Man Without a Planet” easier to take. The best tunes here are not equal to Thee Oh Sees’ “I Was Denied,” or even “Plastic Plant,” but they are interesting in their own Damaged Bug sort of way. They often make me want to dance, a useful quality in this shitty, shitty Spring of 2026.

Caroline Davis — Fallows (Ropeadope)

Who nominated it? Christian Carey

Did we review it? Yes, Christian wrote, “Fallows may be conceived for a soloist, but it contains multitudes.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

While I’ve been aware of alto saxophonist Caroline Davis for a couple decades, the overlap between her preferences and mine is small enough that I’d barely written about her before Accept When, her collaboration with Wendy Eisenberg, knocked me off my perch in 2024. This project, the product of a month-long residency in Wyoming, continues Davis’ effort to shake off old habits, and the further she goes, the more I like it. So, her overtly lyrical treatment of “Barbara Allen” is a little too soft-centered for me, but I’m all in with the echocardiogram beat on “Flower Sway.” I don’t know how often I’ll play Fallows moving forward, but it’s heartening to hear an artist push themselves harder this far into their career.  

Knockout Artist — Ramshackle Deluxe (Knockout Artist)

Talk about 80s music, and you’re liable to get gushy pledges of allegiance to gated drums and gravity-defying hair. But there was a counter-movement of rock musicians who rejected artificiality by tapping into country sounds and themes. Whether by design or happy accident, Knockout Artist, a quintet from Chapel Hill NC, nails that vibe. While Phil Venable drawls alternately defiant and shame-faced sentiments, a triple front of guitars and steel snarl and spiral over crisp drum cadences that’ll dispatch rock critics of a certain age to their basements to pull out their Long Ryders, Eleventh Dream Day, and Band of Blacky Ranchette records. If those names mean nothing to you, well, maybe Knockout Artist will.

Bill Meyer

LDL — The Eerie Glow Of Jellyfish (Relative Pitch)

LDL = soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber + analogue synth player Thomas Lehn + amplified spinet player Jacques Demierre. This Swiss/German combo has roots in an earlier trio that, with Demierre on piano and the late, august bassist Barre Phillips occupying the space now held by Lehn, had a fine two-decade run. Changes in gear and personnel contribute to the simultaneously bruising and delicate dust-ups that play out across this concert recording. Amplified, the spinet (an old parlour harpsichord) emits a whirlwind of brittle textures that shatter and coalesce with the synth’s alien squelch. Long, lacerating sax thrusts puncture and stir the action, resulting in a group sound that is remarkably unfamiliar given how long these guys have been around.

Bill Meyer

Donny McCaslin / Ingrid Jensen / Bruce Barth / David Ambrosio / Victor Lewis — Civil Disobedience (Blue Frog Records)

Turbulent times can bring out the best in artists, encouraging them to push deeper into themselves to make art that reflects the moment. Such was the case in late 60s jazz, an era that David Ambrosio’s new quintet looks to on their new release Civil Disobedience. Think about it like this: it features a blue-chip lineup (McCaslin, Jensen, Barth, and Lewis) playing Blue Note material. But what could have been just another standards album has slightly adventurous programming: Bobby Hutcherson’s “For Duke P,” Harold Land’s “Poor People’s March,” and Joe Chambers’s “Ankara”. Both McCaslin and Jensen play well here: on “For Duke P,” Jensen’s solo has her darting around the melody and stretching out long lines with ease. Meanwhile McCaslin gets a rich, sweet tone out of his horn on “Irina” and plays some nice, almost circular figures where he goes up and down his horn’s register. And with a rhythm section that gives them plenty of space to work — Lewis’s deft touch on drums never overpowers the players and Barth’s piano keeps them from flying too far into space — it’s an engaging, occasionally exciting listen.

Roz Milner

Pefkin — Unfurling (Morc)

Gayle Brogan has been making albums as Pefkin for over 20 years now, and Unfurling displays an unhurried, patient calm that can come across as lovely or foreboding, sometimes very close together. The two extended tracks anchoring this 40-minute collection, the opening slow-building radiance of “Green Bound in Ice and Snow” and the penultimate, starkly crawling “My Breath the Sea,” show her work in its strongest form, but the more compact other four tracks expand on those strengths in varied ways (from the mournful strings of the Penda’s Fen-quoting “The Dissonance” to the relatively pastoral “Sun Flecks”). Just like her music, Brogan’s sung lines are also careful, enchantingly placed, giving Unfurling a subtly and pleasingly otherworldly feel.

Ian Mathers

Raw Distractions — S/T (La Vida Es un Mus)

Tokyo-based Raw Distractions play a variety of punk rawk that walks (or stumbles) a fine line between pastiche and appealing artlessness. Is the band’s combination of street-punk scruffiness, Dead Boys’ energy and Johnny Thunders-style guitar heroics a calculated simulation of 1978’s overripeness, or are Raw Distractions so out of step with the contemporary that they’re really playing the music that they have to play? The riffs are sweet and then slashing, compellingly melodic and tuff — like Mick Jones working out on an early Sun Records tune. Songs like “Raw Dis” and “Midnight” have a hip-shot snottiness that’s winningly stubborn in its adulation what was so exciting about late-70s punk. But do we really need music this out of time? Aren’t we all just about out of time, as the earthball cooks and platform capitalism gleefully empties everything of real value? Maybe a raw distraction — and guitars this gloriously beat to shit — is precisely made to order for 2026. Amazon can next-day the vinyl to you.

Jonathan Shaw

Seefeel — Sol.Hz (Warp)

Though they share a label with electronic legends Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Boards of Canada, Seefeel have flown relatively under the radar since they first started releasing music in the 1990s. Their latest album, Sol.Hz, conjures a gaseous, shadowy soundworld that draws influence from the more minimal, industrial side of their labelmates, especially early Aphex and the more accessible side of Autechre. However, the most resonant comparison is probably Slowdive’s Pygmalion, in the way the looped, disembodied elements — synths, beats, Sarah Peacock’s ghostly voice — seem to hover apart from each other rather than locking into a rhythmic grid. “Everydays” rolls past without the individual elements coalescing; “Ever No Way” starts off-kilter, but as more elements are introduced, locks satisfying into place, like Boards of Canada’s “Jacquard Causeway.” It’s a disorientating and deeply atmospheric listen that paints a vivid picture across its runtime without overstaying its welcome.

Tim Clarke

Charles Joseph Smith — Collected Works and War of the Martian Ghosts (Sooper)

The 88 Keys That Opened Doors: An Inspiring Memoir of an African-American Man Who Achieved the Impossible Even As He Faced The Challenges of Being on the Spectrum (self-published)

Dr. Charles Joseph Smith is a living legend of the Chicago underground scene who has self-released over sixty albums on tape and cd-r. In the early 2000s I was introduced to a cassette of Smith waxing poetic on the word “Linden” through mutual friends in the Midwest noise rock scene, and it was immediately apparent that I was experiencing the work of a visionary artist. Despite being an internationally-renowned classical pianist, Smith is often found banging his head at basement noise shows and dancing at under-the-radar house music parties. This long-overdue four-sided adventure from Sooper Records compiles selections from the artist’s vast catalog created over the past thirty years, including both midi and piano realizations of Smith’s sci-fi opera War of the Martian Ghosts. It’s highly recommended that readers also pick up Smith’s autobiography, The 88 Keys That Opened Doors, to more fully understand the remarkable life of this composer. After having spent several years mute as a child, Smith astonished his family by playing perfect classical licks on the piano without previously having played a single note. While navigating the tremendous challenges presented by autism, Smith not only earned a doctorate in musical arts and traveled the world performing, but he also crafted a unique personal world through the power of music and became a beloved member of the underground community. Hopefully this beautiful collection of music becomes just one part of a multi-volume series of releases in the future.

Justin Rhody

Various Artists — Red Xerox: Chicago Youth Beat 2020-2025 (Desert Island)

Chicago’s Hallogallo scene flourished in the early 2020s, an interconnected community that played each other’s shows and sat in on each other’s bands and sometimes shared familial and romantic ties. Horsegirl, the buzzy, drone-y, all-female trio, made the first mark outside the neighborhood, but post-punk noisemakers in Lifeguard weren’t far behind (or too much ahead of poppier outfits like Sharp Pins and Friko). Yet the scene was more diverse that outsiders, perhaps, have given it credit for. This compilation yields the expected amount of fuzz and chime and agit-punk, but also a helping of confessional singer-songwriter music (Amaya Penya’s “Song for Avi,” and Free Range’s “Lost and Found”), dub (Current Union TM’s “Dukkha Coca”) and Tobin Sprout-ish lo-fi (Dwaal Troupe’ “En Utero”). The comp covers a lot of ground, but it’s carefully sequenced, It flows like a mixtape despite the diversity of ideas. And that’s maybe what makes it so special: Red Xerox tracks a scene that was exacting but inclusive, a little nerdy but full of enthusiasm. DIY, it seems, is in good hands for at least one more generation.

Jennifer Kelly

Geiger Von Müller — Neocubist Blues (Self-Release)

Guitar blues can be a traditionalist’s straight jacket, but it doesn’t have to be. In Neocubist Blues, London-based experimental guitarist Geiger Von Müller offers 14 mostly brief interludes that filter the drone and haunt and sting of blues guitar through a modernist lens. Here the slippery tones of bottleneck slide careen slightly off center, the steady thump of the Delta turns abstract and mathematical. “Toys in the Attic (Parts 10-12)” slashes and careens through heavy rhythmic territory, its percussive attack violent, almost punk. The slide gets viewed from three temporal angles: “Before the Slide,” “The Slide” and “After the Slide.” Each demonstrating considerable knowledge and skill in the blues form without pledging fidelity. Lots of guitarists follow Fahey, but few show affinity for BOTH his blues and his sonic experiments. Geiger Von Müller does, and that makes his Neocubist Blues worth exploring.

Anenon — Dream Temperature (Tonal Union)

Brian Allen Simon’s Anenon explores the boundaries of consciousness in a sax-and-electronics ambient set of compositions. He means to evoke the borderlands between sleep and waking. And indeed, there’s a muzzy indefinition to the electronic sounds that haunt the interstices of this fourth full-length, which only serve to emphasize the clarity of organic instruments: saxophone, piano and others. “When the Light Appears, Boy” pulses with echoing, interstellar synth tones — a similar sound, believe it or not, to the opening of “Baba Yaga” — but an ancient sounding melodica winds in and around this gleaming edifice. Space and magic, starlight and gloomy drone, it’s all there in the Dreamworld.

Jennifer Kelly

Rhys Chatham & Nico Guerrero — Athanor (Erototox Decodings)

Post-minimalist pioneer and guitar army composer, Rhys Chatham, works in collaboration with French musician Nico Guerrero to construct these two side-long compositions for guitars tuned in Pythagorean intonation, alto and bass flutes, and effects. Shifting overtones, harmonic clusters, and tottering frequencies create hypnotic and ethereal macrocosmos of sound that mirror the alchemist’s self-feeding furnace referenced in the album title. Operating parallel yet distinctly unattached to Chatham’s rock-influenced works for multiple guitars (which sometimes involve hundreds of guitars), these drone-based pieces focus on textural intricacies through extended playing techniques to sculpt a euphonious air of alien origin. An elegant work of subtlety and riveting liminal vibrations from a psyche that worked with La Monte Young and Tony Conrad, helped establish the No Wave sound, and has never ceased to push itself further into new terrain.

Justin Rhody

Cronies — Demo (Ragdoll)

The internets are not forthcoming with much info about Cronies, the band that has gifted us with this glittering demo recording, tucked into a recognizable 1990s musical pocket: punk-adjacent power pop of unusual quality, previously generated by outfits like the Clean and Tuscadero. Listen closely and you’ll also catch a vibe or two from the underappreciated Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Those are fairly heavy names to be invoking alongside this slim 11-minute tape, but its four songs open the way to a variety of power-pop heaven, sweet and spiked and on repeat so long you fear you’ll squeeze all the joy out of the music too quickly. “Rose” and “MSG Cocktail” are the tape’s unassuming one-two punch, the off-the-cuff feel of which may have you flashing on early Replacements. But these Cronies sound a little less drunk and aggro, a little more sad and twee (but just a little). Apparently, the band has broken up four times, and this may be all we get. It’s not close to enough.

Jonathan Shaw

Nathaniel Dorsky & Mark Birnbaum — The Green and the Grey (Fenrick Books)

Experimental film heads will surely need no introduction to Dorsky, who (alongside his partner and fellow filmmaker Jerome Hiller) has exercised a polyvalent montage method of editing to create some of the most affecting non-narrative films of the last sixty years. However, those same heads will probably be surprised to see Dorsky’s name on a musical release, given that almost all of the filmmaker’s work has been silent. Recorded in one take in late 1978, this cassette plays out like the stylings of a locomotive calmly propelling forward in a meditative furor through an improvised, long-form composition for toy organ and bucket-bongo percussion. Sounding slightly reminiscent of Indian classical music, the notes of the chord organ reach upward in sustain while stretching across a vast expanse colored by the glorious low-fidelity of the recording method. With this cassette edition having sold out almost instantly, rumor has it that there will soon be a re-issue made available on compact disc.

Justin Rhody

Nick Fraser — Areas (Elastic Recording)

One problem with having heavy hitters is that you might not be able to get them together very often. But the advantage of a widely spaced performance schedule is that things stay fresh. Areas is the third album by Nick Fraser’s trio with pianist Kris Davis and soprano/tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby since 2015. Each has its own character, and two elements defining Areas are the contributions of electronic musician John Kameel Farah and Fraser’s own writing. Farah used some drum-sax duets as raw material for short pieces that begin, bisect, and end the record, and that give it a sonic fluidity. Fraser’s writing, on the other hand, uses Davis’s sonic expansiveness and organizational instincts to set up pieces in which one player pulls things together while the others seem to be pushing against that structural imperative. The result is music that feels both thoughtful and unstable.

Bill Meyer

Godless — Adversus Parousia (Nuclear Winter)

Death metal being what death metal is, it should surprise no one that there are or have been at least seven bands calling themselves Godless, from locations as various as Romania, Thessaloniki, Bavaria, Quebec and Hyderabad (and if you include black metal, you get outfits from Puerto Rico and Java, as well). Adversus Parousia has been released by the most venerable act claiming the name, the Godless dudes from Talca, Chile. They have been making a god-awful noise since 1997, and this record is characteristic of their unhinged noise. On Adversus Parousia there’s a blackened tinge to the sonic nihilism, and the pace frequently flirts with grind’s intensities, but the sound is death metal at its core: chunky, suppurating and generally vomitous — like a blowfly expelling formic acid in order to suck up the resulting liquefied yuck. Mmm, more please.

Jonathan Shaw

Huggy Bear — Basic Strategies for Going Out: Peel Sessions (JABS)

By the time I was old enough to become aware of Huggy Bear through their split LP with Bikini Kill, they had already met their self-prescribed expiration date of three years and broken up. But this short-lived British punk band and their fetching blend of “boy-girl revolutionary” enlightened agitation left a wide field of inspiration in their dust. And these unreleased Peel Sessions, recorded over thirty years ago for the BBC, find the band in top form — featuring classics like “Hopscorch,” an early version of “Her Jazz,” and two previously unreleased songs. It’s a shame that the Bikini Kill split LP was later re-issued without the Huggy Bear tracks, and that none of their other albums have been re-pressed (yet). They’ve always struck me as forward-thinking artists though, so perhaps it’s all by design? In any case, this is the only Huggy Bear release currently available commercially— so ya oughta bring it into your life while you can.

Justin Rhody

Illusion of Safety — The Schmetterling Variations (Klanggallerie)

Daniel Burke, the sole constant member of Illusion Of Safety, is a restless sort, and that is reflected across a discography that spans over forty years and encompasses industrial, ambient and less definable stuff. The glue binding the two very different performances on this CD is temporal and geographical; they were recorded on two contiguous nights in Vienna, Austria. The first track is IOS in solo electronic mode, recorded on the occasion of Burke’s first gig in that town in many years. Over the course of half an hour it proceeds from pure, high pitches to a collage of environments and electrical emissions. It feels associative and invites the listener to drift with it, alert and uncertain, as the surroundings change. The second track presents Burke on piano, one of his favorite instruments in recent years, improvising with guitarist Eric Arn, saxophonist Michael Masen and drummer Michi Prehofer. It follows an arc that will be familiar to improv show-goers from exploratory gestures to scrabbling climax, back down and then back up again. The closer it gets to rip-snorting free jazz, the less characterful it becomes, but in the quieter passages there’s some intriguing negotiation going on.

Bill Meyer

Steve Jansen — Primitive Techno 1 + Primitive Techno 2 (That’s Cool)

In 1985 Christian Marclay released Record Without a Cover, a concept LP of sorts sold without packaging in order to designate damages accrued during the object’s life as intentional (and unique) elements of the record’s sound. Four decades later Steve Jansen’s Primitive Techno takes the next step and composes works solely from damaged 45s using a broken turntable. Prepared cassette loops and multiple delay pedals push these difficult rhythms over the cliff, where they pile up in the bloody canyon of dance music that you can’t dance to. With a rich history ranging from the relatively unknown DJ Sonyplaystation to the highly celebrated Maria Chavez, Jansen’s contributions are another notch in the belt of the widely despised field of avant-turntablism. While the rest of the world’s so-called musicians desperately post online about which streaming service subscription is most ethical, we’re passing through the peak era of possibility to be digging late-90s breakbeat records out of the trash. To the ears of a true believer, Primitive Techno is a reminder that there’s still something to believe in.

April 17

Mylingar — Út (Amor Fati)

Mylingar refuses to circulate any public info about band members or their locales, claiming that its version of black/death is a variety of highly occulted abstraction. This reviewer can’t speak for the music’s ability to transcend the material plane (indeed, it sounds more interested in reducing all matter to a smoking, stinking heap), but new LP Út will emerge as a material phenomenon on April 17th on Irish label Amor Fati.

JS

April 24

Lighting Bolt/OOIOO—The Horizon Spirals / The Horizon Viral (Thrill Jockey) 

Audio here.

Fans of chaotic, ecstatic, exuberant percussion will want to check out this titanic collaboration.  Yoshimio from the Boredoms hammers and croons through two cuts, spinning technological reveries in percussion, voice and synth-y keyboards, while Lightning Bolt’s Brians—Chippendale and Gibson—refract noise, punk and rock through squalling onslaughts of entropy.  Can you say “made for each other?”  Sure you can.   

JK

April 24

Tacoma Park — Baltimore (Centripetal Force)

North Carolina duo Tacoma Park have already released some conceptually and sonically interesting records (several covered on Dusted!), and here John Harrison and Ben Felton continue to blend Americana and the slightly less domestic atmospheres of the kosmiche into a brew all their own. The background on their album page suggests that this is their most focused, pared down statement yet, but sample song “Untied” confirms that this isn’t coming at the cost of the shaggy beauty of their past work.

IM

May 1

Black Cilice — Votive Fire (Iron Bonehead)

Iron Bonehead is an aptly named label, given its ongoing, boneheaded game of peekaboo with National Socialist black metal bands and listenerships. In spite of that cynical bullshit, the Germany-based label puts out some good music, and the new LP from Portuguese project Black Cilice will be bumming us out as Spring attempts to conjure life and warmth. Look for Votive Fire on May Day.

JS

Excepter — Displacer (Excepter Records)

Longtime NY noise ritualists Excepter have taken a bit of a break from the whole “studio LP” thing (the last one, Familiar, is now over a decade old!), but they’re back and time hasn’t faded their charms one bit. Just like 2019’s The Debussy EP, here they’re stripped down to just the duo of Lala Harrison Ryan and John Fell Ryan, but you’d never guess from the thick, blurry layers of sound here. Even the opening Bob Marley cover winds up sounding like nothing but Excepter.

IM

Glissandro 70 — G70 2: Bones of Dundasa (Constellation)

These tracks that Toronto daredevils Sandro Perri and Craig Dunsmuir thought were lost have finally resurfaced and are ready for exploration, 20 years after the duo dropped the original G70 record.  Prepare for off-kilter grooves and a global reflection on dance from a pair of duellists that leave no rhythm untrodden.  

BH

May 8

Sleeves — S-T (12XU) 

Audio here.

Jack Davis brought in guitarist Tara Cunningham for the last Modern Nature album, spinning out intricate dual guitar extrapolations from pulsing, droning grooves.  Sleeves is the duo project from the pair, as delicate as spider web, with whispered verses and quiet tangles of guitar sound.  

JK

Lupo Citta — Inverno (12XU) 

Chris Brokaw’s trash punk collaboration with two Minnesota lifers— Sarah Black and Jen Gori—was a 2024 favorite and this second go is even better.  Peer through the feedback and scree of “Can’t See” or pitch and roll with the dreamy corrosions of “Wandering Eyes.”  Brokaw’s never been in a bad band, and he’s not starting now.  

JK

Croz Boyce — S-T (Domino) 

Half of Animal Collective — that’s Avey Tare and Geologist — join forces in a lysergic blend of organic and electric sounds.  It’s more contemplative than recent AC releases (which at this point are not especially recent) but has a buoyant euphoria just right for the first warm days of spring.  

JK

May 15

Kelley Stoltz — If You Don’t Know Me Buy Now (Dandy Boy)

West coast garage pop’s best, most underrated songwriter is back with another set of songs, including “Competitive Bastard” with its bounding bassline and swelling choral choruses.  Stoltz will follow quickly with Fleur in June, so buckle up.  

JK

May 22

Marisa Anderson–The Anthology of Unamerican Folk Music (Thrill Jockey)  

Audio here.

Guitarist Marisa Anderson goes deep on her upcoming LP, The Anthology of Unamerican Folk Music (Thrill Jockey). After learning that Harry Smith’s final record collection was rich in music from around the world, she spent a year researching and learning the nine tunes on this LP. 

BM

June 5

Tara Clerkin Trio — Somewhere Good (World of Echo)

Sui generis Bristol act returns with only their second full-length LP (the first being their self-titled one in 2020), having kept busy with a couple of EPs. 2023’s On the Turning Ground was stellar, a ramshackle and delightfully idiosyncratic collection bringing in any number of influences, such that one could describe them in outlandish terms like “late-era Talk Talk meets baggy.” They’re also stellar live, and the title track of this one shows that they’re still relentlessly their own thing.

IM 

June 12

BIG|BRAVE — In Grief or in Hope (Thrill Jockey)

Montreal’s BIG|BRAVE are still a trio on their upcoming tenth album, but the composition of the group has shifted a bit; longtime touring bassist Liam Andrews joins them in the studio, but drummer Tasy Hudson isn’t in the credits (and nobody else is playing percussion, either). Meanwhile, Andrews, singer/guitarist Robin Wattie, and guitarist Mat Ball are all also credited with “amplifiers,” and based on early track “the ineptitude for mutual discernment” all of this adds up to the kind of beatless, heavily atmospheric waves of feedback you might expect. Staying consistent, though, is Wattie’s voice and songwriting, suggesting an intriguing new shift in their sound.

IM

June 19

Styrofoam Winos — Any River (Dear Life)

Nashville favorites Lou Turner, Trevor Nikrant, and Joe Kenkel are real good pals, and their music shows off this camaraderie.  Solid touring time in various bands and combos has solidified their sound, and these new songs demonstrate the trio’s heightened craft.  The music is robust and tight-knit, even more than on past outings.  These winos forego intoxication: they’re a get-along gang pumped full of musicianship.