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My deterrents did not seem to work, since more plants have been killed today. Iâm not sure anymore if itâs cutworms. Iâm very sad and not sure what to do
A presentation illuminating how many lepidopterans disguise their eggs as bundt pans. Â Really, one could spend a life time ogling eggs of insects. Â In fact, open up a tab and type "macro insect eggs" and you will see for yourself. Â This makes your FabergĂŠ egg collection look pretty contrived, does it not? Â I am struck, though, (Quick Aside: Â I am ambivalent about bracketing the "though" preceding (proceeding?) the first paren with commas, but sometime in my 40's I realized that grammatical rules were not a set of covenants that only I did not understand but simply a gambit by the teaching industry to stay in power and really one can pretty much put a comma anywhere and its is ok) that the great manufacturing industry of vase making (i.e. vasetting) has yet to discover. Â Thus there is now an opportunity here for one of the readers for I daresay that no vasetters read these posts. Â Oh, yes, this is again our maligned friend the Black Cutworm... who would have thought that those scary caterpillars would emerge out of something so very dainty (there must be a fairy tale about this somewhere, in some culture).
Came out at night to see whoâs been eating my Scotch Bonnet plants and caught a couple of cutworms. Theyâve not only been chewing holes in the leaves, but have snipped through entire side shoots (thatâll cost me fruit!) and it looks like theyâve been working on the main stem just above ground level too.Â
Funny they only seem interested in the Scotch Bonnets in this bed and are leaving the other peppers of different varieties alone. Maybe they like the broad leaves.
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The Dusted Mid-Year Exchange: 2018 Edition, Part 1
In our fifth annual switcheroo, Dusted writers review each otherâs favorite records, venturing out of the genres where they feel most comfortable to wrestle with excellence outside their frame of reference. Â As always, assignments were made at random with the only rules being: a) you canât review your own pick and b) you canât review something youâve already written about for Dusted. Â
Unlike in past years, there was no clear favorite in 2018, although artists including Marisa Anderson, Olden Yolk, DJ Koze and Kacey Musgraves made multiple lists. Â And perhaps most heartening, a number of writers amended their mid-year favorites after listening to other writersâ picks. Â We hope youâll also be able to find some new favorites among the artists we highlight.
Today, weâll run the first half of the mid-year blurbs (alphabetically) from Marisa Anderson to Joelle Leandre & Elisabeth Harnik. Â Weâll cover the second half of the alphabet tomorrow, then close our feature with individual writersâ best of lists through the first half.
Marisa Anderson â Cloud Corner (Thrill Jockey)
Cloud Corner by Marisa Anderson
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Who recommended it? Eric McDowell
Did we review it? Not yet, but itâs assigned. Â
Ben Donnellyâs take:
"Slow Ascent" is one of the titles in Anderson's latest batch of profound electric guitar explorations. It's a good phrase to summarize her career and style, hiking higher with each release, wandering further from the trails. For the second time, she's tracking a few extra instruments into her miniatures without disrupting the solitude, keyboards and acoustic strings mostly matching the cracks and chime of her main axe. Her fingerpicking has a fractal aspect, where intricate and rapid patterns can create a cycle that's relaxed and gradual, as on the title track and other lilting numbers. "Lament," a slide blues with a dissipating tempo and skeletal keyboard notes is forceful in its minimalism. She's becoming a master of small contrasts. Nowhere better than the closer "Lift,â where folks sounds step aside for a plucky scale that spirals up, offset by sweeps that sound like brushing the harp of an open-lidded grand piano, but take focus as a harmonized electric. Her brilliance is ever more in focus.
 The Armed â Only Love (Throatruiner)
ONLY LOVE by The Armed
Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw
Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan Shaw said, âThe Armed will likely be delighted by the divisive responses Only Love generates.â
Ian Mathersâ take:
You almost wish for anyone whoâs potentially up for the Armedâs pummelling, exuberant, often frantic, tremendously maximalist take on hardcore and assorted associated genres to come to the record totally blind, and not just because âWitnessâ comes leaping out of the gates so forcefully. It can be fun to start digging around and register all the distancing tactics, purposeful obfuscation, sense of play, and weird links (to everything from Converge to, err, Rubicam and Young), but the visceral impact of Only Love is powerful enough that all that context should be saved for later. Itâs one thing to start filling in context, itâs another thing to hear something as ferocious and compelling as âRole Modelsâ (âNO INS! NO OUTS!â yell-chanted in a way Iâm pretty sure even little kids would find appealing, if you could sneak this synth-spiked bomb past their parents) in the context of trying to figure out the game, if there is indeed a game here. After the roiling chaos of the first few listens subsides the sheer number of hooks packed inside these songs really settle in your mind, anchored by Ben Kollerâs incredible drumming (possibly commissioned on false pretences) and just as adept at etching out a multi-part climax like the seething âOn Jupiterâ as just full-on sprinting on the likes of âHeavily Lined.â And then thereâs âFortuneâs Daughter,â maybe the strongest earworm Iâve encountered yet in 2018. Who are the Armed and what are they up to? Itâs not that Iâm not interested in the answer to that kind of question, itâs more that as long as they keep making records as good as Only Love Iâm happy to believe whatever they tell us (or donât).
 Bardo Pond â Volume 8 (Fire)
Volume 8 by Bardo Pond
Who recommended it? Jennifer Kelly
Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer said, âThe sound, vast and muscularly monolithic as ever, seems more like a demon summoned periodically from a ring of fire than the product of any sort of linear development.â
Isaac Cooperâs take:
Like fellow travelers Yo La Tengoâs Thereâs A Riot Going On, Bardo Pondâs Volume 8 is stitched together from jam excerpts and spare parts, but unlike Riot, Volume 8 is remarkably cohesive and propulsive. Even at its droniest and spaciest, there is no shortage of momentum or sense that Volume 8 is a collection of barrel scrapings to tide over the diehards; it stands with any of Bardo Pondâs releases. The guitars on âKailashâ and âFlayed Wishâ howl and wail like Lear on the heath, while the rhythm section pushes on, determined as Sisyphus. Two shorter pieces, âPower Childrenâ and the gorgeous solo guitar piece âCud,â act as a brief respite before the entropic and monstrously heavy closer, âAnd I Willâ. Musical improvisation is one of the best means we have of tapping into the murky world of the unconscious, and Volume 8 demonstrates that while thereâs plenty of chaos and darkness down there, itâs also the source of inspiration and transcendence.
 Cut Worms â Hollow Ground (Jagjaguwar)
Hollow Ground by Cut Worms
Who recommended it? Ben Donnelly
Did we review it? Not yet...
Patrick Mastersonâs take:
âAmid all the noise nowadays, thereâs precious little that still makes me feel the way those peoplesâ songs do, and aspiring to reach that level is a big part of what makes me do this to begin with.â This is Cut Wormsâ Max Clarke in a charmingly earnest Medium interview last fall on some of his biggest influences â John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed. Maybe youâve heard of them; maybe youâve heard of the level of cultural influence they have exerted on us all. And if youâve heard the Alien Sunset EP that was released just after the interview ran, youâll easily be able to see where Clarke was coming from in the time that he spent putting the homespun eight-track wonder together, splitting halves between Chicago and his current Brooklyn home. Itâs a beautiful record that doesnât overplay its hand, choosing instead to let the simplicity of his natural ear for a melody do the talking despite the humble recording quality. He was never going to reach the mythical heights of his influences plying away at that trade forever, of course, but his art was all the better for sounding so self-assured in its limitations.
Hollow Ground, however, is a Trojan Horse of the most exhausting variety. Those same reference points â the Beatles, Dylan, solo Reed â still apply, only here they spring forth in an aggressively augmented form with a backing band and a more fleshed-out sound thatâs like saying, âAlexa, give me every pop music trend of the 60s at onceâ or, more accurately, like listening to someone too young to have experienced the decade but old enough to be familiar with its most basic cultural signifiers play an albumâs worth of icons. How do we know? Check the new versions of Alien Sunsetâs âDonât Want to Say Good-Byeâ and âLike Going Down Sidewaysâ; theyâre wholly different, coldly unlovable remakes of the intimate originals. Even his lyrics feel unconvincing; Clarke uses the pet name âbabyâ on 60% of the songs here, which, look: I donât need to stare into a wordless void with Bill Basinski to feel something and thereâs an evident surplus of genuinely touching heartache present, but thatâs an affectation of the most irritatingly trite variety.
For a certain kind of person, Max Clarke is the perfect person; for that person, Hollow Ground will resonate simply, perfectly. I am not that person. I will never listen to this again â likely not individual songs, certainly not in full. Does that seem unduly harsh? Does it feel too personal? Does the cut worm forgive the plow? Guess weâll see. Ask again when thereâs a follow-up.
  Sarah Davachiâ Let Night Come on Bells End the Day (Recital)
Who recommended it? Bryan Daly
Did we review it? No
Bill Meyerâs take:
Sarah Davachi puts out albums often enough that itâs hard to catch up, so please cut Dusted some slack for not getting to Let Night Come on Bells End the Day until now. The Canadian composer and multi-instrumentalist has followed All My Circles Run, an all-acoustic minimalist chamber piece, with an overdubbed solo recording for electric organ, acoustic piano, Mellotron and synthesizers. Like some ecclesiastic initiate, she has followed a solitary path to arrive at a place that is one with the cosmos. Her slow-morphing tones, incremental melodies, and exquisitely voiced harmonies donât just sound like they should be played in a chapel; they erect a virtual space around the listener that only lets the ineffable through. Â If Andrei Tarkovsky was still around, he might be writing a movie to wrap around these sounds.
  DJ Koze â Knock Knock (Pampa Records)
Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson
Did we review it? Yes. Jennifer Kelly said it âhas a humid, organic air, even its most rigorously electronic tracks seething with jungle-y vitality and caressing warmth.â Â
Ian Mathersâ take:
Like a lot of his peers, DJ Koze has been active and prolific for years without ever putting out that much in the way of âproperâ albums, which probably goes some way towards explaining why Knock Knock, only his third, sounds so relaxed, confident and casually accomplished. With stellar vocal turns by everyone from Lambchopâs Kurt Wagner to folkie JosĂŠ GonzĂĄlez to RĂłisĂn Murphy (whoâs rarely put her imperious purr to better effect than on the two perfectly-matched tracks sheâs on here), 16 tracks in total and a lengthy running time, Knock Knock feels like a bit of a Statement from the producer. Which makes it maybe even more impressive that some of the best stuff here (like the sad jam âPick Upâ with its perfectly deployed vocal sample, or the almost-Avalanches style âBaby (How Much I LFO You)â) is just Koze without a high-profile guest vocalist. The whole thing has a friendly warmth and subtle propulsiveness that makes for compulsive listening; if this isnât Koze at the peak of his powers, it sure feels like it could be.
 Tashi Dorji and Tyler Damon â Leave No Trace: Live in St. Louis (Family Vineyard)
Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis by Tashi Dorji & Tyler Damon
Who recommended it? Isaac Olson
Did we review it? Yes, Isaac said, "While these performances are undoubtedly chaotic, they never feel purposeless.â
Justin Cober-Lake's take:
That guitarist Tashi Dorji and percussionist Tyler Damon have a limitless supply of ideas isn't surprising, but it's remarkable how well they've organized them into sensible packages on Leave No Trace: Live in St. Louis. Neither of the quarter-hour tracks here are exactly linear, but they do progress both coherently and unhaltingly. âLeave No Traceâ offers the most noise, with the first half of the piece continuously crescendoing. The disappearance of one artist or the other simply means the soloist has more volume to cover. The pair spend the last two minutes together, Damon crashing away while Dorji sounds like two guitarists fitting blips together.
âCalm the Shadowsâ works differently. While not a suite, the song comes in sections, with Dorji and Damon filling in an outline as they go. The pair respond to each other, and work mutually on an unpredictable but discernable path. The slow build to the noisy section lets the chaos function as a thesis statement with the back half of the track the understanding of what to do with it. Dorji's pointed playing through that section answers the early rumble without making anything easier. Damon's sounds complete the thought. When âLeave No Traceâ works so hard to slowly heap sounds before smashing through it all, the effect is amplified but the control of its predecessor. Dorji and Damon are a few albums in now and, while there wasn't much doubt from the start, they seem to be working in a rare place right now.
 Holland/Parker/Taborn/SmithâUncharted Territories (Dare2 Records)Â
Who recommended it? Derek Taylor
Did we review it? Not yet.
Jennifer Kellyâs take:
It feels like a math puzzle. How many distinct ensembles including duos, trios and quartets can be formed out of four musicians? Â But hearing it in practice as master bassist Dave Holland, free jazz titan Evan Parker, pianist Craig Taborn and drummer-vibe-ist Ches Smith assemble and disassemble into improvisatory groups is quite another thing. âTrio No Tenorâ on disc one takes a luminous shimmer from jangling metallic percussion, abstract interpolations of piano and the shape-shifting tone of plucked, hanging bass tones. âDuo Bass Tenorâ on disc two is far more fluid and contemplative, as long bowed bass notes underline the fluttering explorations of sax; its two old friends finding space in each otherâs musings, darting in to challenge and interject and locating points of agreement even in occasional dissonance. The quartets, though, are the most astonishing, (I like #5 from Disc 2), as extraordinary, unruly energies careen off one another, extemporizing, reacting, reaching over and in between each other in a dense mesh of sound that seems, nonetheless, uncrowded and precisely choreographed. Only three cuts were composed ahead, the rest worked out in two days of live improvisation. Uncharted indeed.
 Quin Kirchner â The Other Side of Time (Astral Spirits)
The Other Side of Time by Quin Kirchner
Who recommended it? Bill Meyer
Did we review it? Yes, Eric McDowell said: â Kirchner sidesteps novelty and navel-gazing by putting pyrotechnics second to, well, music.â Â
Jennifer Kellyâs take:
Kirchner leads from behind on this sprawling two LP solo debut, his drumming feverishly hot but held in check so that others â saxophonist Nate Lepine, bass clarinet player Jason Stein, trombonist Nick Broste and Matt Ulery â can take the spotlight. Interplay between the two reed players is intricately, acrobatically fine. In opener âRitual,â Lepine jets off with Stein in hot, asynchronous pursuit, Kirchner executing a furiously syncopated undertow, part samba shuffle, part continually exploding roll. âBrainville,â the Sun Ra cover, swings and swaggers, bass and drums in arch, stylized conversation. Kirchner is, maybe a drummerâs drummer, but this is not a drummerâs record, except on two lovely, timbrally varied âDrums & Tinesâ tracks, where layers of kit rhythms and kalimba intersect in fascinating geometric patterns. Kirchner clearly reveres another band leader whose instrument didnât always occupy the top of the mix; Mingusâ âSelf-Portrait Three Colorsâ cuts the drums to brush-on-snares, while giving Broste a chance to wail, the two reedists to evoke lush dance-hall sensualism, the bassist to pluck out dark blots of body-moving tone. Kirchner is not the façade, but the architect and also the guy who holds up the building.
 Joelle Leandre & Elisabeth Harnik â Tender Music (Trost Records)
Tender Music by Joelle Leandre / Elisabeth Harnik
Who recommended it? Eric McDowell
Did we review it? Â No
Isaac Olsonâs take:
The best part of listening to improvised music is hearing the moment when the musicians lock in and the music takes on a life of its own, when the thrill of discovery dissolves the boundaries between performer and audience. There are many such moments on Tender Music, an improvised set from bassist Joelle Leandre and pianist Elisabeth Harnik. A few examples: the swelling tension that emerges at the one and a half minute mark of âEar Area I,â the rising anxiety and tentative conclusion of âEar Area IVââs final minute, and the march that closes out âEar Area VIâ. Between these peaks, Leandre and Harnik evoke Cecil Taylor, Morton Feldman, blues, bop, classical and more, sometimes all within the space of two or three minutes. Fortunately, Leandre and Harnik are attentive enough players that their restlessness never comes at the cost of coherence. Leandre and Harnik are formidable soloists whose use of extended techniques coax ear-tickling, unexpected timbres from their instruments, but it is when theyâre playing together, and more or less ânormally,â that Tender Music is at its best, that the melodic and rhythmic invention of both players shines brightest, and that theyâre able to speak to each other, and to us, most clearly.