#mark birnbaum

Anenon — Dream Temperature (Tonal Union)

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

Jennifer Kelly

Rhys Chatham & Nico Guerrero — Athanor (Erototox Decodings)

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

Justin Rhody

Cronies — Demo (Ragdoll)

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

Jonathan Shaw

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

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

Justin Rhody

Nick Fraser — Areas (Elastic Recording)

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

Bill Meyer

Godless — Adversus Parousia (Nuclear Winter)

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

Jonathan Shaw

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

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

Justin Rhody

Illusion of Safety — The Schmetterling Variations (Klanggallerie)

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

Bill Meyer

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

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