#jaye bartell

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm (Kranky)

Aix Em Klemm by Aix Em Klemm

If there’s one word that probably applies to most fans of Stars of the Lid and its many peers and offshoots, it might just be “patient.” Which means the fact that Aix Em Klemm, the so-far one-off duo between SotL’s Adam Wiltzie and Labradford/Anjou’s Robert Donne, put out this stunning record just under 20 years ago and haven’t followed it up yet is probably regarded more as unfortunate than maddening. With Kranky issuing Aix Em Klemm on vinyl for the first time, though, and even saying of the duo “they still collaborate musically so new Aix Em Klemm recordings remain a possibility,” it’s a perfect time to both appreciate what they did actually give us and maybe just gently lament that there hasn’t been any follow up (yet?). From the reserved vocals that introduce “The Girl With the Flesh Colored Crayon” before it ebbs into beautifully reassuring drones, to the closing, improv-ed highlight “Sparkwood and Twentyone” (written and recorded on the day, after a year or more of trading tapes and mulling a collaboration), Aix Em Klemm stakes out its own unique place in the oeuvres of its creators and its transporting enough that a little over 40 minutes never feels like enough. Still, we can wait for more.

Ian Mathers

 Lina Allemano’s Ohrenschmaus — Rats and Mice (Lumo)

Rats and Mice by Lina Allemano's Ohrenschmaus

Pop the word Ohrenschmaus into a translator program and you’ll find that it’s German for “ear candy.” The choice of language makes sense, since the name applies to Canadian trumpeter Lina Allemano’s Berlin-based trio. But the imagery breaks down, since the music that she, electric bassist Dan Peter Sundland and drummer Michael Griener play isn’t sweet and easy. Allemano’s compositions are concentrated, full of events that are involving to follow and demanding to negotiate. One might expect the group’s configuration to leave plenty of room, but between the contrasting written events and the enthusiastic elaborations that the players work upon them, this music does not feel spacious at all. Griener shifts between skin and metal surfaces, and Sundland detonates flurries of activity, but the busyness of their activity never seems gratuitous. No, it’s just the thing to amplify the eventfulness of their leader’s fluent and wide-ranging playing.

Bill Meyer

 Jaye Bartell — Kokomo (Radiator Music)

Kokomo by Jaye Bartell

2016 Light Enough introduced me to Jaye Bartell’s pleasingly deep and measured vocal delivery and his elegant way with a tune, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen or M. Ward. There and on this new album, his words have the precision and droll humor of a writer sharply aware of the impact of a well-turned phrase. Kokomo takes its title from the faintly ridiculous and pathologically catchy Beach Boys song featured in the soundtrack to Cocktail. Bartell posits here that too often we live trying to bridge the gulf between our dreams and reality — and how tragi-comic this can be. Tellingly, Bartell’s music is sober and deftly played, but with a lightness to its step and a glint in its eye. (Look no further than the lovely, lilting “Sky Diver,” with its brushed drums and harpsichord.) He’s a smart, reassuring companion, someone who has gone the extra mile for his craft and doesn’t see the need to jump through hoops to catch your attention.

Tim Clarke

 Kath Bloom—Bye Bye These Are the Days (Dear Life Records)

Bye Bye These Are The Days by Kath Bloom

You might know Kath Bloom from her 1980s work with Loren Mazzacane Connors or from her spectral “Come Here” featured prominently in the 1995 film “Before Sunrise.” Her high flickering soprano, fluted with vibrato, is instantly recognizable, grounded in down-to-earth folk music, but tinged with otherworldly spiritual resonance. And oddly, her voice hasn’t changed much over the years. Up to last year (before the world fell apart), she was still performing periodically in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and now we have a new record from her, some 40 years past her Daggett Records debut. Here, her songs are gently shaped around her distinctive voice and twining dual guitars (she plays with fellow Connecticut musician Dave Shapiro of Alexander), yet not soft. They have a wiry idiosyncracy and a resistance to cliché, and the way the guitars work together is rather lovely. I like “When Your House Is Burning,” a song where the central metaphor—a burning house—is so precisely described that it may not be a metaphor at all, not a stand-in for musings on the value of connection, the fleetingness of stuff, but the thing itself. Bloom adds harmonica for the pensive “How Do You Survive,” a song about aging with grace and humor, and in her worn-in voices, the melody stretches out like spider web, transparent but nonetheless very strong.

Jennifer Kelly

 Catholic Guilt — This Is What Honesty Sounds Like (Wiretap)

Catholic Guilt really want us to get their honesty (there's no irony in the new EP's title This Is What Honesty Sounds Like). Authenticity has long been a vaunted (or derided) element of pop music, but the Melbourne-based quintet aren't posturing. They deliver straightforward rock with straightforward thinking, but that doesn't mean the music's easy. The group looks at the world with a mix of dismay and hope, as if they recognize that life is difficult but we don't have to let it kill us. The new EP leans into pop-punk, letting the upbeat approach direct the energy of the two standout tracks. “A Boutique Affair” looks at the challenges of increasing isolation as we age: “It's hard to make friends in your 20s / It's even harder to make 'em in your 30s / At this point I'm really dreading / The thought of making it to my 40s.” Vocalist Brenton Harris might wonder why we should bother growing, but he's determined to age loudly. Single “The Awful Truth” turns its pop guitars into rage as it looks at the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church. By the time Harris says, “I can't wait to watch you burn,” it's clear that the truth may be awful, but at least it's honest.

Justin Cober-Lake  

 Cutout — Cutout (Driff)

Cutout by Jorrit Dijkstra, Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Nate McBride, Luther Gray

The name Cutout implies removal, but that won’t get you very far in understanding this Boston-based jazz quintet’s music. Quite the contrary, Cutout’s performance dynamic involves judicious addition by a group of musicians who have made a long-term commitment to playing together. Alto and soprano saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra and pianist Pandelis Karayorgis have been business and creative partners for years. They are the co-operators of Driff Records, all of whose releases feature one or both musicians, and they have shared several ensembles, including the large band Bathysphere, the Steve Lacy-themed Whammies, and Cutout. Trombonist Jeb Bishop, bassist Nate McBride, and Luther Gray often show up in these groups, and their smooth execution of sharp corners and sudden turnarounds reflects their shared understanding. What distinguishes Cutout from their other bands is the way they bring material by all five members into the set. Some of this album’s six tracks are single compositions, but others are sequential suites joined by improvisations. There’s plenty of dynamite soloing at work here, but the most intriguing turns come when one of the players elegantly links a couple of his bandmates’ compositions.

Bill Meyer

 Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark — Consequent Duos: series 2a (Audiographic)

Consequent Duos: series 2a by Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark

Ken Vandermark is a notoriously busy guy; in any ordinary year, the multi-reedist logs an extraordinary number of miles traveled, gigs played, records released and musical partners engaged. This 75-minute long recording braids together three threads of inquiry. It inaugurates the second volume of Consequent Duos, a shelf-full of improvised duos played in North America, mostly with Americans. And as with the other volumes of series 2a, it is a download-only release, part of a sequence of album-length recordings that may not be deemed to be major efforts, but that nonetheless don’t deserve to be filed away forever on some hard drive. Finally, it shares one night in Vandermark’s two decades and counting relationship with drummer Tim Daisy. It takes about ten seconds of any random selection from this concert recording, which preserves what went down one Sunday night in August 2011, to hear why these guys keep working together. The trust and empathy forged by playing literally hundreds of concerts together manifests in music that feels effortless, no matter how technically demanding it actually is. Whether it is the sound of drums being played at a galloping pace with the lightness of knitting needles while the baritone sax pops and roars eruptive masses of sound, or the bass clarinet leaping and trilling with joyous abandon while the percussion swings with dance beats that could get you arrested in certain countries, these guys know just how to make each other sound really good.

Bill Meyer

 The Dillards — Old Road New Again (Pinecastle)

The Dillards' influence on popular music outstrips their own fame (they might even be as well remembered for appearing on The Andy Griffith Show as they are for their proper recordings). The group became an important part of the development of country-rock, especially as they expanded the possible sounds of bluegrass. Nearly 60 years after their first release, they return with Old Road New Again. Only Rodney Dillard (sounding younger than his age) remains from the initial lineup, but he brings along a number of guests to fill out his act. Don Henley appears, and if “My Last Sunset” drifts into Eagles territory, that's no surprise, but Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and others prove the act has plenty of flexibility left in it, whether cutting an original or reworking a classic like “Save the Last Dance.” The album winds down with “This Old Road” and a recounting of some musical history through playful allusion. Even as Dillard looks back, though, he thinks about new ways to push forward. Although the record could work just as reminiscence, the artists show more interest in what comes next.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Fire! Orchestra / Krzysztof Penderecki — Actions (Rune Grammofon)

Rune Grammofon · Fire! Orchestra - Actions (excerpt)

The Fire! Orchestra is not so much Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson’s big band as his big house, the place where he can bring his myriad interests together and invite them to interact. They have already taken on free jazz, krautrock and abstracted songcraft, so why not one of the earliest documents of post-third stream classical-jazz interaction? Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki originally composed Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra after hearing the Globe Unity Orchestra and handed it off to trumpeter Don Cherry to realize its first performance in 1971. Cherry’s imprint upon Gustafsson is deep; where do you think his long-running trio, The Thing, got its name? But this is no mere recreation. Some of Fire! Orchestra’s members weren’t even alive when the first version was performed, so the task is to find a way of playing the piece that makes sense now. So, they stretch things out, letting passages evolve organically. Special credit is due to the three-piece, whose contributions melt and glow.

Bill Meyer

 Ganser — Just Look At That Sky (felte)

Chicago quartet Ganser explores the bewilderment, claustrophobia and anxiety induced paranoia of the times on their latest album Just Look At That Sky. Brian Cundiff’s lockstep drumming anchors the record as Charlie Landsman whips out driving chords and intricate riffs that summon touchstones like Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore and Rowland S Howard and push the songs to the edge of control. Spiky, equally detached and declamatory, Alicia Gaines (bass) and Nadia Garofalo (keyboards) share vocal duties working inside the kinetic rhythms to explore an interior world reactive to circumstance but seeking paths forward.  

Centerpiece “Emergency Equipment and Exits” demonstrates what the band can do when they stretch out and build layers of dread; Cundiff and Gaines drop into a propulsive groove as Gaines sings of parties past and now lost to the new reality: “Swallowing negative space/Like DB Cooper falling/Until I too am nothing/And it all seemed so big.” The tempo drops, a lonely keyboard riff, the song builds as Gaines intones “It’s a long way down” and Landsman’s guitar howls into the ether. The combination of exhilaration and enervation encapsulates the power that makes Ganser stand out amongst their peers working at similar intersections of post punk and art noise.

Andrew Forell  

 Godcaster — Long Haired Locusts (Ramp Local)

Long Haired Locusts by Godcaster

Possibly it’s the pandemic, though the trend seems to predate early 2020, but we have not heard a lot of over-stuffed, over-instrumented, over-the-top art-prog ensemblery lately. Godcaster, from Philly, busts the one-guitarist-on-the-couch paradigm wide open in this manic, Zappa-esque adventure. First of all, there are half a dozen musicians, augmenting the usual bass/drums/guitar with outre axes like flute, trombone and a variety of synthesized keyboards. All six of them lock into wiggy, hyper funky overdrive in opening salvo “Even Your Blood is Electric.” It’s a righteous groove, a tight and feisty disco extravanganza that mutated in the lab, but that sells it short and blurs the complications. Other cuts take the temperature down, but not the oddity. “Apparition of Mother Mary in My Neighborhood” feels like an almost pop song, though conceptualized by a 12-tone composer and interpreted in odd-numbered time signatures. Long Haired Locusts is too precise and earnest to be a gag, but an anarchist sense of humor pops up, as in the single “Don’t Make Stevie Wonder Wonder,” a Curlew-ish irregular jam punctuated with jump-rope chants. All these cuts have a lot of moving parts, a sense of play and a manic attention to detail, and if you’re sick of sad folksinger live streams, Godcaster could be just what you’re looking for.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Haptic — Uncollected Works (2005-2010) (Haptic)

Uncollected Works (2005-2010) by Haptic

Haptic is best characterized as a Chicago combo. Even though one or another of its members has lived out of town for roughly a third of their existence, the influence that such a situation has on their work’s pace only confirms that they are a band that needs to share space to get much done. The recordings on this DL-only collection of compilation contributions and curios dates from the first third of their existence, when Steven Hess, Joseph Clayton Mills, and Adam Sonderberg got together on a weekly basis. Heard end to end, these tracks don’t sound much alike. But whether the project at hand is framing a few piano noises with collected sounds, stretching out a bell’s toll, or patiently exploring the potential of signal corps training jazz, it sounds like the work of a common understanding about how sound can be molded and reframed.

Bill Meyer

 Boldy James — The Versace Tape (Griselda Records)

On his third album this year, Boldy James pairs up with Jay Versace, but despite a change in producers, there is little to distinguish the three tapes. After a long hiatus Boldy churns out music to flood the market, and every new tape causes head-scratching. Was it necessary to release this? As a stone cold pro, Boldy never repeats himself. He also never says anything new. His blueprint is all business talk with designer names splashed here and there: “First come, first serve, first through the third, no dealings \ Mama, I apologize, ain't mean to hurt your feelings.” When he steers towards Mafia references in his songs he sounds a bit archaic (but he already sounded retro when he first started in early 2010s). On The Versace Tape, as always, he raps like he’s not giving us the whole picture. He’s holding back, but maybe what’s left unsaid is the best part.

Ray Garraty  

 Madeline Kenney — Sucker’s Lunch (Carpark)

How big can a pop song go? This Oakland songwriter’s third full-length is boundlessly expansive without being particularly loud, the choruses swelling effortlessly, like a soap bubble blown to the size of your head. Kenney worked with Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack to produce Sucker’s Lunch and taps Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, Boy Scout’s Taylor Vick and film composer Stephen Steinbrink for vocals. “Tell You Everything” is translucently gorgeous, layers of guitars, drum, percussion and saxophone shifting in iridescent patterns that never overwhelm its sleepy vocals. “Jenny” increases the friction, with a hard beat, surging synths and shoe-gazey gloss on the guitars, but sweetness in the vocals. Kenney’s subject matter is love and its complications, but she ends the disc in “Sweet Coffee” with a lucid purity. “I’m making coffee,” she croons in a breathy voice out of dreams, “Won’t you sit with me?” Sure, let me pull up a chair.

Jennifer Kelly

 Josh Kimbrough — Slither, Soar and Disappear (Tompkins Square)

Slither, Soar & Disappear by Josh Kimbrough

Writing an album in the spaces around an infant’s schedule is a delicate business, but Josh Kimbrough managed it quite well on this lovely album. His finger-picked rambles unfold like the slip-sliding time in a baby’s first year, a tumble of frantic activity interspersed with quiet, contemplative intervals. Kimbrough, a veteran of the North Carolina-based Trekky Collective, plays softly but with precision on acoustic solo pieces like “Sunbathing Water Snake” and “Giant Leopard Moth,” but his work really takes on warmth and resonance when he invites collaborators into his quiet, sunlit world. Blues-flecked “Two-thirds of a Snowman” gains an eerie glow from Andrew Marlin’s mandolin, which echoes Kimbrough’s licks in an upper register like the light hitting a shadowy corner. A sustained synth note in “Glowing Treetops” glitters like the surface of a pond—that’s Jeff Crawford of the Dead Tongues, who also play some bass—while gentle bent guitar notes zing like mosquitoes off its clear, cool liquid surface. Bobby Britt loops lush fiddle flourishes around this and other Kimbrough melodies; a rich, subtle blend of string timbres enlivens many of these tracks. The natural world also makes its appearance as well, most prominently in weather-haunted “The Shape of the Wind Is a Tree,” though the album’s light, clean tone throughout is like an open window. And yet despite multiple intermeshing elements, the album works very gently, light and soft enough not to wake a sleeping little one. “Simon’s Lullaby,” near the end, is beautifully communal, supporting Kimbrough’s clear, pensive guitar with the reassuring throb of cello, the bright promise of flute. Much of child raising is a solitary process, but Kimbrough’s meditation on it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis— Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin And George Lewis (Ezz-thetics)

Violinist Harald Kimmig, cellist Alfed Zimmerlin and double bassist Daniel Studer have been mapping out the possibilities of extra-idiomatic improvisation since 2009. They favor juxtapositions of raw and refined timbre, and in their roiling web of activity, the quicker a gesture passes, the more impact it seems to have. The Middle European trio matches up well with American trombonist/electronicist George Lewis, who is likewise devoted to making music spontaneously and unbounded by genre prescriptions or proscriptions. There are passages where it sounds like the four musicians have transcribed muttering and stifled laughter into musical activity. This incomprehensible vocal quality proves magnetic, drawing the listener ever deeper into the fray. While some might object to “chatty” improvisation, in this company, it’s a virtue.

Bill Meyer

Matmos — The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form (Thrill Jockey)

The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form by Matmos

Given the vigor with which Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt approach all of their work, it’s surprising to find Matmos’s new album, The Consuming Flame, to be somewhat lacking in cohesion. Like many of their previous releases there is a unifying concept — in this case, they corralled musical contributions recorded at 99bpm from 99 contributors — but it feels like the creative limitations they imposed on this project weren’t quite stringent enough. Inevitably, given the wide range of contributors (including Oneohtrix Point Never, Yo La Tengo and Mouse On Mars) and Matmos’s formidable technical virtuosity, there are plenty of satisfying passages that feature inventive vocal cut-ups, ear-catching beats and playful juxtapositions, but the presentation of these ideas within three continuous hour-long collages makes it hard to sift the gold as the music flows past. Bizarrely, the album’s presentation on Spotify is more listener-friendly, with each of the three discs broken down into digestible tracks that can be easily trimmed from the bigger picture to assemble your own collage of favorites.

Tim Clarke  

 Meridian Brothers — Cumbia Siglo XXI (Bongo Joe)

Cumbia Siglo XXI by Meridian Brothers

Eblis Alvarez, the sole musician behind the long-running Colombian space roots experiment known as Meridian Brothers, takes inspiration from like-minded predecessors in Cumbia Siglo XX for this electro-shocked take on coastal cumbia. Eerie blasts of jet-set synthesizer, buzzing funk bass and video game bleeps and bloops haunt the clip-clopping rhythms of these mad ditties. It’s like a Star Wars space port built on the verge of primitive villages, donkey tails swatting flies while lazer beams zip by. “Cumbia de la fuente” gene-splices syncopated hand-drum beats and traditional-sounding choruses with the splintered buzz of synth bass and glittery spurts of MIDI-generated arpeggios. It’s a hot tropical celebration lit by UFO glow. “Puya del Empresario” nudges a hip swaying cumbia rhythm to the foreground, but blares a rough-edged synth riff over it. “Cumbia del Pichaman” transforms Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacherman” into a surreal technological marvel, buzzes and squeaks punctuating the offbeats like a DIY version of Zaxxon gone soft in the equatorial heat.

Jennifer Kelly

 Nas — King’s Disease (Mass Appeal)

Like all of Nas’s output in this century, King’s Disease, his 13th album, is pretty much unlistenable. King from the title here has two meanings. Every black man is a king (every woman is a queen) or should be. And second, it reminds that Nas is a king of rap, even though his royal days are long over. But even kings had to live on crumbs of their fame. With regard to the current moment in history, the album compels the listeners to unite and wear their blackness proud. Nas’ idea for achieving that? Just listen to his truisms and patronizing rants. On “Ultra Black” it’s “We goin' ultra black, I gotta toast to that”. On ‘Til the War is Won”, dedicated to women, it’s “May God gives strength to women who lost their sons \ I give all I have 'til the war is won.” All Nas gives to a black community is his bad music and maybe some charity. Every track here is to some degree about empowering black people, yet the only person Nas ends up empowering is himself. Every line on King’s Disease is disguised as virtue signaling, and the last thing we all need now is patronizing advices from rap millionaires.

Ray Garraty

The New Bomb Turks — Nightmare Scenario: Diamond Edition (Self-released)

Nightmare Scenario - Diamond Edition by New Bomb Turks

It would be understandable if, upon hearing the New Bomb Turks 1993 debut full-length, Destroy-Oh-Boy!, you thought to yourself, "They'll never top this." You wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but you'd be neglecting a much larger story and a key release in their catalog, 2000's Nightmare Scenario. With their debut, the Ohio quartet built a distinct machine out of familiar parts: cheap-lager-fueled thrash, butterflyin'-around rock 'n' roll swagger and barstool-philosopher lyrics. And with the possible exception of fellow buckeyes Gaunt, no other band at the time combined those attributes in quite the same way. It was as if America finally had its own Saints. The Turks would go on to make five more LPs over the next decade. Though lost in the shuffle a bit after jumping to Epitaph in 1996, the band were never going to become darlings of that label's skater boi base anyway. You certainly can't blame them for trying to reach a new audience nor should you overlook the output from that era. 2000's Nightmare Scenario, their third for Epitaph, is gritty, witty, and so full of Midwest blastitude you'd think it was year zero at Datapanik (or at least 1991). Yet to hear the album in its original mixes by Detroit studio guru Jim Diamond, newly issued for the 20th anniversary of its release, is all the more gratifying. It's stripped of that extra coat of paint found on the original, and it reveals what a decade's-worth of relentlessly plying one's trade in the punk rock free market will get you. The Turks were an absolute musical force by this point: they could still hit warp speed but could also swing with the best of them. And frontman Eric Davidson is in full possession of his vocal gifts (always a key aspect of the band's sound), nestling into the groove like a Funhouse-era Iggy or leading the charge as needed. The 20th anniversary Diamond Edition of the album is a nice reminder of just how consistently good the New Bomb Turks were and a nice splash of Pabst in the face for anyone who slept on that reality the first time around.

NOTE: Never above a little frat boy humor, the Turks were always much more about mocking those particular attitudes than ever truly embracing them. With that in mind 100 percent of the digital will be donated to Black Queer & Intersectional Collective bqic.net and Columbus Freedom Fund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund www.instagram.com/columbusfreedomfund.

Nate Knaebel

 Siege Column — Darkside Legions (Nuclear War Now!)

Darkside Legions by Siege Column

Some thoughts that occurred on first listening to Darkside Legions, the new LP from Siege Column: Track one, “Devil’s Knights of Hell”: “Whoa, this is pretty nuts. Exciting — raw and barely coherent, but exciting.” Track three, “Snakeskin Mask”: “Okay, I get it. All this stupidity is just too frigging stupid. Enough, already…” Track five, “Funeral Fiend”: “Holy shit! I think this may be genius-level stupid!” And so on. The record keeps on doing that, and the listener (this one, anyways) keeps on generating phrases like “genius-level stupid” in an attempt to cope with the experience. Siege Column is constituted of two shadowy figures from somewhere deep in the chemically treated wilds of New Jersey, and for sure, this is music that could only come from New Jersey. I still can’t figure out if Darkside Legions is too moronic for words, or if that projection beyond words is the mark of some sort of greatness. Meanwhile, the next song is peeling out like a 1969 Chevelle that needs some serious muffler work, trailing empty cans of cheap domestic, wads of bloody paper towel and the smell of burnt hair. Yikes. Feel like I better catch up…

Jonathan Shaw  

 Smokescreens — “Fork in the Road” (Slumberland)

A Strange Dream by Smokescreens

A new single from LA’s Smokescreens is notably partly because David Kilgour took a hand in it, distilling the band’s jangly sweet sound in a Clean-like way, where the guitar comes coated in liquid clarity and everything else is drenched in beautiful fuzz. Even if you’ve been liking Smokescreens for a while, “Fork in the Road,” is something special, the thump of bass glowing quietly, the guitars cavorting, a synthesizer building dense shimmery textures, the chorus softly harmonized around a koan-ish verse. (How do you go straight at the fork in the road? ) The guitar solo two minutes in is worth the trip all by itself. If the upcoming album is anything like this tune, I’m in.

Jennifer Kelly

Matt Sowell — Organize Or Die (Feeding Tube)

Organize Or Die by Matt Sowell

Too often, the words “sounds like John Fahey” denote either laziness or a sparse descriptive vocabulary on the part of the people who utter them. But it cannot be denied, Matt Sowell sounds like he’s closely studied Fahey’s records, especially the less experimental ones of his Takoma/Vanguard period. There’s a similar melding of bluesy styling, compositional elegance, and emotional evocation. But Sowell’s motives are different. Where Fahey’s music looked at the snarl of personal memory and the blacker, deeper pit of his tangled subconscious, Sowell’s looks outward. Fahey tried to subdue demons within; Sowell calls out the devils of capitalism, and honors the purity of respect untainted by dollars or oil. Of course, since his music is purely instrumental, you can project whatever you want onto it. But in times like these, we need all the resistance and resonance we can get.

Bill Meyer

  Treasury of Puppies — S/t (Förlag För Fri Musik)

Treasury of Puppies by Treasury of Puppies

The Gothenburg duo of Charlott Malmenholt and Joakim Karlsson’s debut release as the Treasury of Puppies is lo-fi depressive but charming pop, recorded at the beginning of 2020. A Fairly short release, barely pushing past an EP length, it's in the vein of other Swedish underground releases of the past few years. The two trade chilly, spoken-sung vocals over a set of eight tracks, either buoyed by repeating, fuzzy guitars alongside field recordings, sauntering looped drums and hand-tampered tape sounds, or a layer of delayed static and fuzz churning under over drifting bells and slowly rotating keys.

Ian Forsythe

Trio No Mas — A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation (Mars Williams) 

A Tragedy Of Fermented Undulation by TRIO NO MAS

Chicago has saxophonic tradition, and part of that convention is the expectation that the city’s saxophonists work hard. However you look at it, Mars Williams holds up his end. He’s busy on both local and world stages. In recent years you can hear him melding Albert Ayler and Xmas carols on a couple of continents, freely improvising with the Extraordinary Popular Delusions and playing not-just-old-memories rock and roll with the Psychedelic Furs. But it would seem that he has room for another band, if the situation is right, and that’s the genesis of this trio. Williams sat in with brothers Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez when the Texan rhythm section came through Chicago and then made a couple quick passes through their neck of the woods. This live recording, which is being sold as a download as Williams figures how to make up for not going on the road with the Furs this year, brings us to the other way that Chicago saxophonists work hard. Switching between several horns, he plays them all with a mix of vein-popping force and pyrotechnic fluency. The freres Gonzalez toggle between heavy lurching and molten streaming, pulling back every now and then to create quiet spaces in which Williams can tap into yet another Chicago tradition — the evocative chatter of little toy instruments. If you can handle the unbearable lightness of the no-physical format, this music brings plenty of satisfying heaviness to the sonic realm.  

Bill Meyer

 Various Artists — Total 20 (Kompakt)

Total 20 by Various Artists

Since 1999, each summer Cologne’s Kompakt label has compiled recent and new tracks from their roster. For fans of the label’s distinctive musical aesthetic — a shuffling, playful, pop-facing, experimental minimalist form of techno — the Total series seems a must-have, but the series has also served as an entrée into Kompakt’s world for curious newcomers, casual listeners and cash-strapped collectors. Total 20 maintains the high standards of its predecessors. Coming in at two plus hours and 22 tracks from stalwarts Michael Mayer, Voigt und Voigt and Jörg Burger share space with newcomers like Kiwi and David Douglas. This edition works as a soundtrack for in home dance sessions, concentrated listening and background for escaping the mope and drag of enforced isolation. The music itself is uniformly of high quality, but the sequencing is key here. Moments of elegantly constructed ambient minimalism (Soela’s “White Becomes Black”), euphoric vocal house (Kiwi’s “Hello Echo”) and high concept psy-trance (ANNA & KITTEN’s “Forever Ravers”) are interwoven with the familiar midtempo Kompakt sound. While it’s a lot to digest at first and may to some ears merge into an amorphous mass, Total 20 will lift your mood, shift your body and shake off your funk. Have a taste, you may find yourself grazing if not gorging.

Andrew Forell 

 Verikyyneleet — Ilman Kuolemaa (I, Voidhanger)

Ilman Kuolemaa by VERIKYYNELEET

 This new LP from Finland’s Verikyyneleet hits a bunch of the essential marks for hyper-obscure, one-man black metal: Difficult to pronounce and vaguely creepy name? Yep (translated from Finnish, Verikyyneleet means something like “tears of blood). Primitivist, kvlt-ish album art with lots of spindly, symmetrical, necromantical forms? Yep (pretty cool, too). Ghastly, croaked, semi-strangulated vocals and sweeping, epical song structures that likely attempt to represent the frozen forests of the Laplander landscape? Yep (see especially “Yhta Luonnon Kansaa,” which empties into another song called “The Great Scream in Nature”). But in spite of the degrees of familiarity struck by those various notes, there’s a compelling idiosyncrasy to Ilman Kuolemaa. And although Finnish weirdo Isla Valve — sole creator of the sounds — has been releasing music under the Verikyyneleet name since 2006, he hasn’t exactly been prolific: two demos in 2006, an EP last year, and now this LP. It’s all rather mysterious. But whatever the back story, the songs are really good. There’s a slightly smeared, off-kilter sound that adds to the strangeness. Is it 4 am and suddenly really, really quiet, wherever you are? Here’s your soundtrack. Light up some candles, turn it up loud and freak out the neighbors.  

Jonathan Shaw

 Young Dolph — Rich Slave (Paper Route Empire)

It’s not a little ironic that Adolph Thornton, Jr., 35 years old and some seven records into his career (not counting the endless mixtapes floating around), has peaked both in hard numbers — Rich Slave hit #4 on the Billboard 200 — and stylistically with an album that arrives after the Memphis rapper was supposed to retire from the game. When GQ interviewed him in May, Dolph was locked in and hanging out with his kids, marinating on his next move; with Rich Slave, he’s unlocked a socially conscious side of himself that, admittedly, was always bubbling below the usual braggadocio. Alongside guest spots from Megan Thee Stallion, established sidekick Key Glock and Chicago staple G Herbo, Dolph tweaks his usual template to speak to the moment in what is his most effective full-length deployment yet. There are a trillion rappers who work this hustle, but no one’s done it better this year.