#deadform

Alma Laprida — Pitch Dark and Trembling (Outside Time)

Alma Laprida is an experimental artist and musician from Argentina, here playing a medieval stringed instrument—the tromba marina—through a 21st century array of effects pedals and an 18-inch subwoofer. The instrument, with its yards-long strings and vibrating bridge, is, by itself, capable of unusual sounds. Its natural timbre hovers between a cello and a trumpet. But fed through Laprida’s electronic rig, the sound turns harsh and ominous, blistering and dissolving into tones so low you feel rather than hear them. This album comes from a live performance at Bard College in 2023, taking as its subject Laprida’s experiences during an earthquake in Bolivia. In the long, “Trembling,” low, sustained vibrations make the air tremble, while trebly, metallic sounds skitter and rattle, like pots and pans clattering in the shock. A clock ticks in the foreground, steady on top of roiling, shifting undercurrents. “Vibra,” the other lengthy track, looses then subdues the tromba’s brassy sound, letting the echoes linger for long, not-quite-empty minutes. A corrosive blare interrupts, a foghorn in a world of mists and uncertainty, then clear string tones and its scratching echoes. Pitch Dark and Trembling distills an ambient unease into sound.

Jennifer Kelly

Artificial Go — Hopscotch Fever (Feel It / Future Shock)

This Cincinnati quartet produce a short, sharp brand of post-punk that induces spontaneous pogoing. Hopscotch Fever is Artificial Go’s debut, but it could easily be mistaken for an unearthed gem from late-1970s England with its snappy rhythms and chiming, angular guitars. Vocalist Angie Wilcutt (Corker) adopts an English accent as she sings charmingly, her lyrics unfolding in an energy-filled stream of consciousness that keeps pace with the bouncy backbeat of songs like “Payphone,” “Aphrodisiac,” and the band’s calling card “Artificial Go.” Cole Gilfilen (Corker, The Drin), Micah Wu, and Claudio Thornburgh round out the band’s lineup. Like a game of hopscotch, their churning jangle is a lot of fun but comes to a halt far too quickly. Hopscotch Fever is full of earworms. Its effervescent spirit lingers in our brains long after the music stops.  

Bryon Hayes

Black Toska—The Orphan (Self-Release)

The Madrileño goth punks in Black Toska return with six more haunted, synth-swathed, night visions, revisiting a sound Dusted described in early 2023 as “like John Spencer without all the arch theatricality or Rocket 808 in less of a growl and more of a croon.” If anything The Orphan is even more ominous than Dandelion was, with corrosive guitar sound tripping a hole in “Little Dead Bird” and a fever-dream unease percolating through “The Only Thing We Need.” The best cut is the title track, intimating baroque dangers its flowers-of-evil flare of wah wah and mannered vocal melody. “Who can steal a baby?” asks Victor Garcia, his elegant, jaded voice hemmed in by wild surges of electrified dissonance, as you’re left to consider that bad things—and compelling music—flourish in the shadows.

Jennifer Kelly

Paul Bryan — Western Electric (Paul Bryan Music)

The title might cue you to ponder your power situation, but the intent is more oblique. Bassist-programmer-producer Paul Bryan took Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West, an exercise in restriction that happened to open doors of conceptual opportunity for everyone who was feeling confined by the piano’s roll as the chord cop of bebop. But Bryan, whose cv. includes production and arrangement work with Jeff Parker, Josh Johnson, and Aimee Mann, is a plugged-in kind of guy, so his restriction involved writing the material on a little Yamaha keyboard and recording it with a trio comprising Jay Belleroe on drums and Josh Johnson on alto sax. Since you can’t completely separate a studio dude from his gear, there’s some processing and programmed drum, which results in the album having a soft jazz-funk feel that is uncluttered, but hardly minimal. Western Electric is the answer to a question that few might ask; what if you subtracted the guitar and the layered production from Jeff Parker’s New Breed?

Bill Meyer

CPC Gangbangs — Roadhouse (Slovenly)

CPC Gangbangs is back after a long hiatus and not a bit tamed. The Montreal garage punks with ties to Les Sexareenos and Spaceshit flared out in 2007 and reappeared (some of them) as Red Mass. But 17 years later and without explanation, they bash and slam and clatter again, serving up two covers and one original, all flayed and confrontational like it’s the rock-is-back aughts all over again. CPC Gangbangs jack up Louisiana swamp rock “Going Back to Philly” on agitated city-boy jitters. They blast through “Rock ‘n Roll Enemy #1” from the SF proto-punks Crime with furious intent. They haunt Bo Diddley’s grave site with a rackety beat in “Roadhouse.” It’s referential but never reverent, well-informed but never studious, good stuff.

Jennifer Kelly

Deadform — Entrenched in Hell (Tankcrimes)

Sort of stupid to reference the notion of “supergroup” in relation to a subgenre as witheringly anti-commercial as crust, but Deadform hits all the right notes, as it were: three dudes who have Oakland’s concrete ground into their bodies, and who have played crucial roles in bands as storied as Dystopia, Stormcrow and Laudanum. Dino Sommese (of Dystopia, and also Noothgrush and Ghoul) has the most recognizable name, for listeners beyond the Bay Area and outside of crust’s stinky, dirty milieu, and he pounds the skins and hollers with energy belying his 50-some-odd years. But all the players (including Brian Clouse and Judd Hawk) are all in. Entrenched in Hell doesn’t move beyond crust’s characteristic properties: lotsa nasty metal-tinged guitar parts, some sludgy yuck clotting up the bloodstream, the smell of filthy dreadlocks, and so on. It’s a heavy record, the second half of which hits especially hard. Check out “Peacekeeper” and especially “Fetid Breath.” Then pick yourself up off the dank floor of whatever squat you passed out in and play the tunes again.

Jonathan Shaw

Efterklang — Things We Have in Common (City Slang)

Danish post-rock band Efterklang has been releasing recordings for 20 years, as well as producing an opera in 2015 and making music through core members’ side projects. Things We Have in Common is the culmination of a trio of albums, beginning with Altid Sammen (2017) and continuing with Windflowers (2021). This time out, the group doesn’t eschew its characteristic experimentation, but several of the songs evince a gentle, art pop vibe, particularly “Plant” on which singer/cellist Mabe Fratti guests, “Getting Reminders,” with Beirut and “Animated Heart,” featuring the choir Sønderjysk Pigekor. Efterklang on its own is persuasive too. “Shelf Break” has an artful use of vocoder against oscillating synths and abundantly syncopated percussion. “Leave It All Behind” combines whispered vocals, keyboard arpeggiations, sustained sine tones and a drum thwack on alternating beats. Taken as part of the trio of recordings, Things We Have in Common is its hopeful conclusion.

Christian Carey

The Ex — Great! / The Evidence (Ex Records)

In 2024, the Ex are celebrating their 45th year by putting out their first new music in six years. It’s just two songs on a 45-rpm record (although they’re also throwing a celebratory shindig in Amsterdam and Mechelen late in November). Not many bands last 45 years, and of those that do, it’s pretty rare for them to put out work you’d want to hear as much as the songs that first drew you into their camp. The Ex are not a common band. The quartet of Terrie Hessels, Andy Moor, Arnold de Boer, and Katherina Bornefeld are still engaged with the moment; the words to these two song address current realities with a combination of elliptical expression and blunt veracity. They’re still engaged with each other, locking into these tough, intricate, but fat-free tunes with combustible chemistry intact. And they’re still tuned into the joy and outrage that’s infused their work across four and a half decades. That’s pretty rare.

Bill Meyer

Jill Fraser— Earthly Pleasures (Drag City)

Electronic composer Jill Fraser has been making music for commercials and films, as well as performing New Age pieces live, since the 1970s. Earthly Pleasures is her first album release in a while. It demonstrates her versatility with vintage gear such as the 1978 Serge Modular synth and newer resources such as Ableton Push 3. “When We Get to Heaven” is a ten-minute long track that uses these resources to make a diaphanously appealing arrangement. “Amen 1” and “Amen 2” are more aphoristic, the first with clouds of harmony and a sci-fi sounding ascent, the second with sparking bell timbres, oscillating percussion, sampled voices, and a fluid keyboard part. Earthly Pleasures closes with “I Stand Amazed,” with trebly, widely spaced synths. Fraser has suggested that the theme of this album is, “What happens to our music when we die?” History suggests that mileage varies, but while she is earthbound, one hopes Fraser has more recordings to share.

Christian Carey

Häxenzijrkell — Portal (Amor Fati)

German maestros of bummer black metal Häxenzijrkell are back with another slab of downtempo musical maelstroms, engineered to drag you into a terrible, soul crushing void. That description and the band’s sonic profile sound a lot like blackened doom, but somehow the music on Portal scans as straight-up black metal — at least to this reviewer’s ears. The best tracks are at the end of the record: “Assiah” and “Aeon” drone, churn and distend like the effects of some of that legendary brown acid, which we aren’t supposed to eat. There’s nothing especially lysergic (to invoke that too-trivially used term) about the textures or production of Portal. It’s more the nightmarishness of the tunes, the mechanical edges on the band’s sound, the taste of something metallic at the back of the tongue — all that stuff accumulates, alongside the deliberate, glacial progress of the songs. Soon that glistening, awful wall of ice looms over you. You can see your face on its glassy surface. You know it’s a bad idea to stare, but you can’t help yourself. It’s excruciating. It’s entrancing. You are through the Portal.

Jonathan Shaw

Boldy James & Harry Fraud — The Bricktionary (Boldy James / SRFSCHL)

The Bricktionary is the fourth Boldy James’ tape this year and apparently not the final one. The producer Harry Fraud has also been too busy lately, spreading himself too thin. The good news is that Boldy is good even on generic beats (probably half of his output has been on some unknown guys’ production). It’s the kind of street music which never forgets that it’s an art and not a report card. The best track here is “Shadowboxing.”

Ray Garraty

Danny Kamins — Retainer (Sound Holes)

“Solo Horn,” declares the J-card art, and it does not lie. This tape presents Texan Danny Kamins playing sopranino and baritone saxophones at home, alone. It would appear that he spent his lockdown time developing his circular breathing. On the small horn, his examinations of patterns that subtly vary and throw off flurries of orbiting overtones feels like an homage to Evan Parker’ solo soprano work. Parker got there first with such authority that he has made it hard for other people to do it and not simply sound like him. Kamins sounds great but doesn’t quite overcome the challenge of differentiation. The baritone is another matter. Kamins sculpts massive ribbons of tunneling, rippling sound to consistently compelling effect.

Bill Meyer

Seiji Murayama / Jean-Luc Guionnet — Balcony Inside (Ftarri)

Multi-instrumentalist, graphic artist, composer, improviser, film-maker, etc.; Jean-Luc Guionnet is a confirmed polymath. On Balcony Inside he and frequent collaborator Suijiro Murayama perform a duet for church organ (Guionnet) and snare drum, cymbal and voice (Muriyama). But it might be more accurate to say that they play with space. There’s the apparently capacious interior of the Taborkirche, which Guionnet represents with massive chords that beat against the walls. And there’s the space inside your head, which is likely to be rearranged by Muriyama’s horror-movie-victim cries and emphatic, elastically rhythmic beats. A seasonal suggestion: pipe this music loudly out of your house on Halloween, and keep a tally of how many are drawn by these massive sounds and how many avoid your house.

Bill Meyer

The Necks — Bleed (Northern Spy)

It’s impossible to guess where The Necks might head next, whether live or on record. Their new album, Bleed,is a single 42-minute track that unfolds patiently in an episodic fashion. There are no conventional rhythms from Tony Buck; instead, he punctuates the space with chimes, bowed cymbals and snare and tom rolls that suggest something ominous is about to happen. Sparse, sustained piano notes from Chris Abrahams are left to hang in the air — listen carefully and you can hear breathing in the room — or Abrahams switches to organ and projects pulsing clusters of notes into stereo space. In an unexpected turn, an electric guitar appears, with accompanying tube amp hum. Lloyd Swanton’s bass is largely absent, save for occasional isolated octave plucks, or some ominous bowing. When the piece coalesces in its final stretch with two piano chords, bass and guitar, the music is begging to continue in this vein for at least twice as long as it does but is cruelly cut short. That’s The Necks for you: always expansive, always surprising, always tapping into music’s eternal potential.

Tim Clarke

Rich the Factor — The North Face Whale, Vol. 3 (WE MFR)

We mostly listen to Rich the Facc’s music because of his gruff voice. The North Face Whale, Vol. 3 is another sample of his voice. The big mistake would be to try to pay attention to what he’s saying on these songs. It is some usual nonsense about how he’s “on money mission, not on dummy mission.” Even after dozens of replays no song off this tape stays in memory. But it’s fine. You have only one question: how is The North Face Whale, Vol. 3 any different from Vol. 1 and Vol. 2?

Ray Garraty

Colin Andrew Sheffield — Moments Lost (Sublime Retreat)

Sound source resonates with subject on this brief minimax (a 3” CD embedded in a 5” plastic disc) CD made by Colin Andrew Sheffield, an electronic musician who resides in Austin TX. Sheffield’s preferred method is plunderphonics; he mines his own media collection for sounds to be procured and (most of the time) processed into music of his own. Moments Lost is a soundtrack made from soundtracks. Sheffield has marshalled a mass of samples from movies, mostly string passages that imply moments of pause, reflection, transition and loss, and layered and sequenced them into a 20.33” sequence of sounds daub association and reverie like a painter might daub paint. Played at low volume, it could be your next go-to ambient recording. But if you spend time listening closely, perhaps while peering at the sleeve’s stills from a film that Sheffield played along with the music when he first presented it at the Molten Plains Festival in Denton in 2023, you might find your physique and consciousness sinking deep while you hit the play button over and over.

Bill Meyer

Chelsea Wolfe — She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She (Loma Vista)

Considering Chelsea Wolfe hasn’t put out a solo LP since 2019’s Birth of Violence, and that was basically a folk record, casual fans may well wonder what kind of upheavals led to this very different seventh album. On a personal level there have been plenty (sobriety, relationships changing, learning to live alone, etc) and that combined with additional pandemic time spent working on the demos led to Wolfe going in a more electronic direction and deliberately seeking an outside producer (Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, many others) to transform the songs. The result is further in a darkwave/trip-hop direction than the already protean Wolfe has previously gone, and also one of her most consistently engaging records. Whether on the noisier, spikier bursts of “Whispers in the Echochamber” and “Eyes Light Nightshade” or the more delicate likes of “The Liminal” and “Place in the Sun,” there’s a beautifully sung and relentless Gothic vibe to the whole thing that’s extremely satisfying. Wolfe may well choose to move on again after this, but it’ll be a bit of a shame if she does.