#hkmori

Aerial M — The Peel Sessions (Drag City)

This three-song EP collects the output from Aerial M’s only Peel Session, recorded on March 3, 1998 (it was broadcast about a month later). Here in the interim between Slint and Papa M, David Pajo lays down an extended version of “Skrag Theme,” an alternate version of the single “Vivea,” and “Safeless” from the 1998 Vivea EP (which, very curiously, did not include a version of “Vivea”). Although Aerial M is largely considered a solo effort, Pajo was accompanied on this occasion by a crack Louisville post-hardcore ensemble: Tony Bailey, a veteran of more than 40 Kentucky underground bands, on drums; Cassie Marrett, who would later be known as Cassie Berman and a member of Silver Jews; and Tim Furnish of Parlour, Crain and the For Carnation. That band knocked Pajo’s Aerial M songs for a loop, pushing the woozy guitar tones of “Vivea” with a gut-checking drum beat and shading it subtly with either a keyboard or a melodica. Still moody, still layered with guitars, but subtly more physical, the track is the stand-out of the three. Likewise “Skrag Theme” fills out with a live band, its cerebral guitar lick anchored by the weight of drums and bass. “Safeless” spins out lyrically, meditatively, from a guitar line too chilled and thoughtful for rock, but not exactly jazz either. It’s all enough to make you wonder how things would have turned out if this band had kept at it, pushing at the boundaries of rock and noise and psych together.

Jennifer Kelly

Franco Ambrosetti — Sweet Caress (Enja)

Flugelhorn player Franco Ambrosetti brought together an all-star cast to record at Skywalker for his latest Enja release, Sweet Caress: pianist Alan Broadbent, guitarist John Scofield, bassist Scott Colley, and drummer Peter Erskine, with a generous string section alongside. Broadbent is also arranger and conductor. They dig into an estimable list of standards such as “Soul Eyes,” “Old Friends,” and Charlie Haden’s “Nightfall,” the latter of which sent me right to the piano to learn it. Ambrosetti has a rounded tone and enjoys adding fleet runs to his solos. His colleagues are equally fluent, and a solo violin introduction on the title tune underscores the album as a whole’s suavity.

Christian Carey

BassDrumBone — Afternoon (Auricle)

If you don’t know anything about BassDrumBone, after one look at the cover of Afternoon, with its image a many-ringed tree stump,you’ll have a pretty good idea of what they play, as well as the band’s collective sense of aging. And you’d be right, twice over. Mark Helias plays bass, Gerry Hemingway drums, and Ray Anderson is on trombone, and they recorded this album 46 years after they first got together. What you won’t know until you play it is how comfortable they are with each other, not as in “let’s kick and blow some old tunes,” but in the “I’ve got your back and I know you have mine, so let’s see what happens” sense. They alternate between written tunes that exploit the line-up’s potential for turning tight angles and improvisations that journey from eerie chamber abstraction to robust swing on a path pocked with aside-inducing holes in the road.

Bill Meyer

Black Mold — In the Dirt of Oblivion (Hellprod)

Grim, grotty blackened punk from somewhere in Portugal, released for your unpleasure on a shitty-sounding cassette. That sort of willfully outmoded packaging is the sort of thing that the hipster kids in the various undergrounds love to pieces — but the technical atavisms are unironically earned here. How else should we listen to a song called “Faint in Obscurity”? Turn that tune up loud and you’ll hear all the tasty, weirdo guitar tracks churning and distending under the mix’s buzzy, brittle surface. Is it frustrating that Black Mold seems to care about how their music strikes your battered, beleaguered earholes, and the indifference to anything resembling recording fidelity turns that care in on itself? Is that punk perversity? Kvlty authenticity? When the music is this raw and exciting, does it matter? In any case, the tape closes with a song called “Futile Purpose,” so fuck it, and fuck us all for giving a shit in the first place. Black Mold doesn’t.

Jonathan Shaw

Broadcast — Distant Call: Collected Demos 2000-2006 (Warp)

Following May’s 36-track Spell Blanket, a sprawling, varied and intermittently brilliant collection of Broadcast demos dating from 2006 to 2009, Distant Call is now the final release from Broadcast. It’s a much more succinct and consistent collection of songs, most of which are spare voice-and-guitar renditions of tracks that made their way onto Haha Sound, Tender Buttons and The Future Crayon, including essentials such as “Tears in the Typing Pool,” “Where Tears and Laughter Go” and “Pendulum.”To anyone familiar with the band, it’s not only striking to find that much of the character of these songs resides in Trish Keenan’s unique songwriting style and vocals, but also how much the full album arrangements and production contribute to their vivid realization. I can’t imagine wanting to hear any of these versions in preference to their album incarnations, but there are a couple of previously unreleased songs to sweeten the deal: “Come Back to Me” and “Please Call to Book.” The former’s sing-song melody over ripples of fingerpicked guitar is archetypal Broadcast, eerie and mesmerizing. The latter closes out the collection in a hushed, hesitant manner, with lovely harmonized vocals and a bright swell to the chorus: “When the sun shines inside the sun shines outside.” It’s a bittersweet send-off to one of the most beloved and influential bands of recent decades.

Tim Clarke

The Gabys — Self-Titled 7-inch (Fruits and Flowers)

The Gabys are from the U.K. but are sonically aligned with San Francisco’s bedroom pop scene. Stalwart Bay Area scenester Glenn Donaldson is a fan. His band The Reds, Pinks & Purples has covered “Molly” from the duo’s debut cassette, and he’s released two of their EPs on the Fruits & Flowers label he co-runs with Chris Berry. The Gabys’ music also runs parallel to the general sonic milieu of Paisley Shirt Records, another SF-based champion of fuzzy DIY sunshine. The duo pair the romantic and jangly edges of The Velvet Underground’s oeuvre with vocals eerily reminiscent of Young Marble Giants’ Alison Statton. Their home recording ethos lends their sound a hazy quality. On past releases, Matt and Natasha (the pair behind The Gabys name) have wrapped their harmony-filled song nuggets in clouds of lo-fi murk, but this latest EP polishes off their sound and reveals a quartet of brief and beautiful tunes. This additional clarity makes reveling in The Gabys’ jangly sound world even more rewarding, so hopefully the pair unveil more music soon.

Bryon Hayes

Christoph Gallio Roger Turner — You Can Blackmail Me Later (Ezz-thetics)

While the album name and certain of the track titles imply belligerence, this music steers clear of hostility. However, it’s perpetually tense and mercurial, with pungent horn phrases sharing space with featuring swift changes of attack. Swiss saxophonist (soprano, alto, c-melody) Christoph Gallio sounds exceptionally distilled, doling out pungent tones that gradually build in length and mobility. Englishman Roger Turner’s drumming is a master class in making each strike count and using shifts in volume to shape the music. The duo struck up an ultimately robust partnership when Gallio moved to London for a six-month sabbatical with the express intention of studying London’s improvised music scene. A single gig launched a sequence of private, recurring encounters, during which they hashed out the shared language heard here.

Bill Meyer

Gleaming Shard — Mirrors in Light Diamonds (Balance Point Acoustics)

Gleaming Shard is an improvising duo based in Chicago. Both of its members, prepared guitar player Da Wei Wang and percussionist Jerome Bryerton, have shared stages with musicians you might follow if you’re into that scene, but on Mirrors in Light Diamonds they clear a zone of their own. The instrumentation — mainly a couple guitars on a table and an array of gongs — has some precedent, and so does their sound. But connecting tools to output is a bit harder to do. The album’s six pieces sound like field recordings made at noon in a town comprising nothing but churches. Tom Verlaine once sang about walking around in the ring of a bell, but these guys have set up shop and spent so much time there that their postures have been molded to fit the furniture. It’s a marvelously engulfing racket.

Bill Meyer

hkmori — in search of a life worth living (self released)

How you feel about the work of enigmatic producer hkmori can probably be summed up by how you feel about the genre name “depressive breakcore.” Incomprehension and/or revulsion? Well, there’s plenty of music out there to check out instead. But if instead you’re intrigued by the idea of melding one type of sonic extremity to a different type of emotional extremity (kind of similar in spirit if not at all in sound to depressive black metal, actually), c’mon in. The four EPs hkmori has posted on Bandcamp in 2022 and 2023 are all strong examples of the form, and now their first 2024 release feels like it widens the scope just a little bit. Yes, you’ve still got songs like “tearsoaked pillows” hitting that sweet’n’sour spot, but on “What even is b@#$%core?” and “unrequited meaning” you start getting some new tones and timbres introduced (emotionally and sonically). Still not for everyone, but if you’re on this wavelength it’s another solid transmission.

Ian Mathers

Hubbub — abb abb abb (Relative Pitch)

abb abb abb, the fifth album by Hubbub, was recorded in 2019. This makes it an unofficial 20th anniversary observation by the French electro-acoustic improv unit, which comprises Fréderic Blondy, Bertrand Denzler, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Jean-Sébastien Mariage and Edward Perraud, released just in time for its 25th. Sometimes good things take time, and while the ensemble’s music is created in the instant of performance, it’s informed by a lot of history and takes its time manifesting. While its line-up (reeds, electric guitar, piano, percussion) and component personalities differ, there are aspects of 1990s AMM in the tension that Hubbub obtains from the tectonic friction of sonic layers. However, the music’s silence to event ratio is never so large, and the saxophonists stand ready to switch into close, prickly interaction, which combine to give the music an austere muscularity.

Bill Meyer

Hybrid — Movable Objects (Self-released)

Hybrid is New York tenor saxophonist Adam Larson’s trio with Chicago bassist Clark Sommers and Kansas City drummer John Kizilarmut. On Movable Objects they take a low key but sophisticated run through a 40-minute set of original material. As soloists they favor oblique melodic and rhythmic approaches to passionate intensity and technical fireworks and their interplay has a complexity and depth that reveals itself beneath placid surfaces. On “November to March” provides the template as the trio move from a simple opening motif into deft improvisation with deceptive ease. Sommers’ solo seems to slip sideways before you realize it, darting like a hummingbird from idea to idea. Kizilarmut makes fine use of his rims playing with a relaxed feel that seems to shrug at his inventiveness. Larson is likewise an agile presence, his tone sharp and he invests his runs with both emotional depth and satisfyingly unpredictable turns.

Andrew Forell

Isik Kural — Moon in Gemini (RVNG Intl.)

Isik Kural presents a different kind of expression than that of previous recordings on Moon in Gemini. Gentle lullabies and dulcet vocals provide a mood that transcends mere ambience into back to the womb sound bathing. “Almost a Ghost” is affecting, with hummed backing vocals, plucked acoustic guitar, synth harp, and field recording snippets supporting a laconic lead vocal. “Behind the Flowerpots” has dulcet upper register singing accompanied by scalar pitched percussion and a repeated chord progression in synth strings. The final track, “Most Beautiful Imaginary Dialogues,” quotes a Silvina Ocampo poem, convincingly summing up a warm outing that is compelling rather than cloying.

Christian Carey

LDL — In the Endless Wind (Wide Ear)

in the endless wind by LDL (Leimgruber - Demierre - Lehn)

LDL is soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber, (mostly prepared) pianist Jacques Demierre and analogue synthesizer player Thomas Lehn. Originally Barre Phillips held Demierre’s space, and for a time they were a quartet. Years of improvising together have resulted in a shared language that is simultaneously distinctly tripartite and irretrievably blurred; Lehn and Demierre can each run the other’s signals through their respective instruments, and Leimgruber’s high, lacerating shards of pitch come startlingly close to those of Lehn’s synth. Thus, the action often comes from sounds pixilating, flickering at the edge of silence, combining into dense blocks that are decayed around the edges, or snapping back into conventional voices. Their interactions mutate and reconfigure, inviting the listener to follow them on a trip that’s unfailingly alien but never gratuitously weird.

Bill Meyer

loscil // Lawrence English — Chroma (self released)

Colours of Air, last year’s debut full-length collaboration between loscil (Scott Morgan) and Lawrence English, did so much with its pipe organ source material that it’s not shocking that Morgan and English might take another kick at the can. If anything, the surprising part is that while Chroma is identifiably part of the same overall project, it does have a distinct identity, one even gentler and quieter than its predecessor. It also, in the form of “Vermillion,” has an example of how the duo’s live shows went, presenting a gorgeous excerpt from their set at the Vox Organi festival in Vancouver. Fittingly enough, “Vermillion” is the track across both LPs that most clearly sounds like a pipe organ (which was played live by both human and computer). The result is not quite as striking as its predecessor, but it’s hard to be upset with 32 more minutes of this particular good thing.

Ian Mathers

Love Child — Peel Session (12XU)

Peel Session by Love Child

Love Child’s Never Meant to Be is one of 2024’s best reissues, compiling both full-lengths, singles and radio appearances for these NYC-based purveyors of lo-fi post-punk. It’s a comprehensive survey of the band’s 1988-1993 run, but not exhaustive. This four-song EP adds two never-released songs to the catalog and reprises two from the main retrospective. All four come from a December 1992 Peel session that, sadly, never aired. They catch the band at a loosely slung, wildly energetic peak, months before they broke up for good.

The band, if you’re just checking in, featured Alan Licht on guitar, Rebecca Odes on bass and, by that point, Brendan O’Malley, who had replaced founder Will Baum on drums. Their version here of “Asking for It” is careening punk rock, with Rebecca Odes spattering the walls with indignant verses and Licht executing tight repeated squalls on guitar. If you think you’ve heard it before, you have. It was the lead-off track to Never Meant to Be. You might also be familiar with closer “Greedy,” with its seething guitar and candy-coated vocal (Odes again), and for the same reason. But two of these tracks are new to almost everyone, and they capture the band moving in a welcome but unfamiliar direction of droning psychedelia. “All Is Loneliness,” for instance, has approximately 0% of Love Child’s early brat-punk vibe, instead it flickers and builds and howls like an outtake from Bailter Space or, possibly, Bardo Pond. “Slow Me Down,” lurches forward on blasts of heavy metal guitar, tamping the riff down just enough to reveal the song’s indie post-rock heart. A guitar lick that reminds me, no kidding, of the Wrens, coincides with brutalist assault, and it might have been interesting to hear more of that if the band had stayed together a little longer. Oh well.

Jennifer Kelly

Mahti — Konsertti I (VHF)

Konsertti 1 by Mahti

Mahti is a Finnish instrumental quartet with ties to their compatriots Circle, but you wouldn’t know that by listening to them. There’s no heaviness and virtually no rock in their music. Electronic percussion percolates more than it propels, trading off the lead position with a clean-toned electric guitar like a couple of geese swapping a flock’s point position, and synths move volumes of sound like lassoed clouds. A fourth member plays kantele, a Finnish folk zither, but it tends to blend with the other instrumental voices rather than assert one of its own. The music was recorded live, but audience noise and room town are so absent that you might never know. To perky to be ambient, soothing but busy, this music feels familiarly krauty without ever adopting anyone else’s guise.

Bill Meyer

Mutated Void — Listen to the Struggle (Unlawful Assembly)

Listen To The Struggle by Mutated Void

Depending on your tolerance for feral, freaked-out skate punk, you might wish to paraphrase the title of this new tape from Mutated Void: Listening is the struggle. Others among us will be as happy with Listen to the Struggle as we have been with the Nova Scotia band’s previous output. Ugly, stoopid riffage; indifferently bashed percussive elements; harsh, hoarse croaks that have a vaguely humanoid quality — good times, galore. It’s the sound of several layers of skin being peeled off by sunbaked concrete; or maybe, given the Nova Scotia provenance of these noises, a rain-slicked quarter-pipe slowly falling to pieces. In any event, these tunes will scar you, or at least leave you with some nasty splinters. Cassette-closer “Zombie (Mecht Mensch)” is the main attraction. Like a moldy hunk of ambulatory undead flesh, the song really stinks, and it’s just wonderful.

Jonathan Shaw

Meshell Ndegeocello — No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin (Blue Note)

After records celebrating Nina Simone and Sun Ra, vocalist, bassist and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello commemorates the centenary of author James Baldwin on No More Water. Staceyann Chin’s passionate readings and synthetically treated spoken word treated synthetically are interwoven with song structures. Vocalist Justin Hicks provides an often angst-laden delivery, and Josh Johnson adds saxophone and synths to the mix. Ndegeocello’s adroit bass-playing and low voice anchor the other disparate elements. The mood vacillates too, with elemental fury succeeded by exceeding tenderness. The album doesn’t reflect the music of Baldwin’s time, instead mixing R&B, funk, and electronica. This makes it no less potent an homage.

Christian Carey

Nidia & Valentina — Estradas (Latency)

Italian percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Valentina Magaletti and Afro-Portuguese beat-maker Nidia Borges combine forces to produce a set of rhythmic improvisations on their debut collaboration Estradas. Magaletti is best known as a member of London based dub trio Holy Tongue and here uses marimbas and found objects and synthesizers to complement Borges’ Angolan kuduro beats. Their music has the spatial feel of dub but concentrates on African polyrhythms and melodies. With elements of high life and gnawa thrown in, the duo concentrates on making you move as they explore their intersecting influences. The music itself is hugely enjoyable although at times find yourself wishing the songs were harder, faster, less polite. Minor quibbles about a collaboration that feels it has more to offer in the future.

Andrew Forell

Oliwood — Anatomy of Anarchy (Jazzwerkstatt)

Anatomy of Anarchy by Oliwood feat. Evans, Mahall, Landfermann

German drummer and composer Oliver Steidle is constantly searching for new means of musical expression. Each of his projects showcases a fierce resistance to standing still. Genres bleed together in joyous cacophony and each release boasts its own lineup of collaborators. Anatomy of Anarchy is tame in comparison to some of his other work, being firmly rooted in the jazz idiom. Yet it certainly moves quickly, drawing energy from a cadre of high-octane collaborators. Steidle works alongside experienced players from both sides of the Atlantic: trumpeter Peter Evans, clarinetist Rudi Mahall, and bassist Robert Ladfermann spar with him across this lengthy song cycle. Tracks such as “Freaks” and “Bling Bling Frogs” swing with a sense of unison among the team, while much of the other material strays far outside, exploring group improvisation territory. This crew are not afraid to wander, and Anatomy of Anarchy benefits from this adventurous approach.

Bryon Hayes

Ivo Perelman / Chad Fowler / Reggie Workman / Andrew Cyrille — Embracing the Unknown (Mahakala)

Embracing the Unknown by Ivo Perelman

There are plenty of prolific improvisers, but Brazil-born, NY-based tenor saxophonist has earned the right to have his face in the dictionary next to the word’s definition. Embracing the Unknown is one of eight albums released in 2024, each made with a different line-up. The quartet that made Embracing the Unknown is the largest, and it includes some heavy company — Mahakala proprietor Chad Fowler on stritch and saxello (a straight alto and curved soprano saxophone, respectively), and octogenarians Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille on bass and drums. Each has a hand in forming the music’s character. Fowler brings a bag of blues everywhere he goes, and while Perelman favors more abstract pathos, the music’s sentiments are darkly shaded; Workman contributes both propulsion and harmonic dimension; Cyrille’s short bursts of sound give the music a floating quality, articulating its progress without tethering to metrical time.

Bill Meyer

Laurence Pike — The Undreamt-of Centre (The Leaf Label)

Drummer Laurence Pike has been a name to watch for nearly two decades now, first in experimental jazz group Triosk, then in explosive synth-rock band PVT with his brother Richard, and more recently backing Angus Andrew in the latest iteration of Liars and as one-third of the drums, synth and sax trio Szun Waves. The Undreamt-of Centre is Pike’s fourth solo album, which arrives with an intriguing premise: what would a requiem sound like constructed out of drums, electronics, and choral voices? The results are often deeply arresting and affecting, especially the opening two pieces, “Introit” and “Orpheus in the Underworld,” in which the wordless vocal tones and swells of rhythm seem to carry an easily digestible internal narrative. The balance between the voices and drums seems to be key to the varying success of the pieces. The cantering beats of “Mountains of the Heart” don’t leave much space for the voices to steer the music, and the queasy ululations of “Universal Forces” are crying out to be ushered into form by the sparse, pattering drums. Thankfully the album’s longest piece, “Requiem Aeternam,” brings a sense of resolution with its sustained ambient tones, driving synth arpeggios, and washes of cymbals and toms.

Tim Clarke

Saccata Quartet — Septendecim (We Jazz)

Septendecim by Saccata Quartet

There’s an observable phenomenon in which the outernaut members of revered legacy rock acts will let their freak flag fly and get substantial audiences of folks wanting the parent band to show up and play a secret gig. Saccata Quartet (Nels Cline, guitar; Darin Gray, double bass; Chris Corsano and Glenn Kotche, drums) is just the sort of ensemble that could lure a Wilco fan out and then drive them back to the bar, grumbling and disappointed; Septendecim was even recorded at The Loft. Improv heads might come with their own set of expectations; this writer has distant memories of a multi-drummer concert at Chicago’s Hideout that involved Corsano trying to curl up inside a bass drum, and Gray and Corsano have played plenty of volcanic free jazz in the company of Mars Williams and Akira Sakata. But if you put aside expectations and put up your active-listening antennae, something else takes form here that is very good on its own terms. The quartet eschews rock gestures and gonzo energy that diffuses individual identities in favor of a more texturally derived intensity that is generally pretty quiet... until it’s not.

Bill Meyer

Shredded Sun — Wilding (Self-Released)

Wilding by Shredded Sun

Shredded Sun has been at it for a while now, first in the jangle-punk Fake Fictions and now four albums into their current iteration. A lifer vibe of the best sort, then, hovers over these punchy, vulnerable, pop-punk songs. They sound like reticent, literate Yo La Tengo crashing into the Pixies at a four-way stop. When bass player Sarah Ammerman sings, as on caroming “Shake the Clouds,” a warbly, Muffs-style enthusiasm bubbles over. When Nick Ammerman, the guitarist, takes over, a tremulous Feelies-into-Jonathan-Richman aura creeps in. The music pummels and jangles and struts no matter who’s in front, with excellent, energetic drumming from third member Ben Bilow. It’s excellent stuff, creative but crafted with care, occasionally humorous (see final track, “Another Song Called Mirror Ball,” but never silly. It’s what might happen if you just keep doing what you do regardless of whether anyone’s paying attention — you keep getting better and more yourself.

Jennifer Kelly

Luís Vicente Trio — Come Down Here (Clean Feed)

Come Down Here by Luís Vicente Trio

Back at its dawn, free jazz was supposed to change the world. The first changes were mainly technical — can we please untie this chordal straitjacket? — but it was soon aligned in the minds of both audience and practitioner with a broader array of personal and societal liberties. Half a century on, the music endures because in part because it gives musicians the freedom to interact in ways that are uniquely joyous and thrilling. Luís Vicente Trio taps into such opportunities. The themes that trumpeter Vicente brings are skeletal, but just enough to invite a collective act creation that pulses with momentum, expands and contracts like living architecture, and sings with palpable toughness and vulnerability. Sure, you can connect some of this music back to the music of Don Cherry and the Art Ensemble of Chicago on account of its expressive qualities. But within that formal framework, deeply personal shapes and interactions bloom like desert flowers, as vivid as they are time limited.

Bill Meyer

Woody Yang — apple red/dots (Mt. Hazey Records)

apple red//dots by woody yang

Woody Yang delivers a short but solid set of acoustic guitar originals in the Takoma school tradition. Switching between 12- and six-string, he doesn’t break any new ground, but there’s no reason he has to, and his take on the tradition is compelling. Yang certainly knows how to build these kinds of compositions. One of the tracks features his reedy vocals, and another features bongo accompaniment by the audio engineer, but the focus is on Yang’s deft fingerpicking. An auspicious debut.