#system maintains

Blink — Blink (Driff)

This Boston-based quintet is an outgrowth of the freely improvising Porch Trio, which comprises drummer Eric Rosenthal, bassist Nate McBride, and reeds/electronics player Jorrit Dijkstra. The trio has previously adventured into augmentation and composition as PorchBone, which added a three-piece trombone section and an Ellingtonian orchestral concept to the mix. Blink swaps the horns for electric guitars and refocuses the compositional thrust to engage with the natural world, bandleader Dijkstra’s listening habits and his academic activities at the Berklee School of Music and the New England Conservatory. He had the flocking of birds, the swarming of insects, the bright patterns of gamelan and the chiming propulsion of highlife music and the intentional use of alternate tunings in mind when he put this band together. But the decision to focus exclusively on alto saxophone (in other settings, Dijkstra also plays soprano sax, lyricon, and modular synthesizer) brings another comparison to the fore. The combination of Dijkstra’s pungent, singsong melodies, the glint and graininess of two amplified guitars, and a rhythm section equally comfortable with rumbling, scattering, and grooving ensures that this music sounds more like Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time than anything else has since Ornette pulled that band’s plug. May their own fuses never blow.

Bill Meyer

Greet Death — Die in Love (Deathwish Inc.)

The last time Flint, Michigan’s Greet Death put out a proper LP (2019’s superbly bleak New Hell) they were a trio, but that they’re now five strong on Die in Love isn’t the biggest change in their music (although the band, long punching above their ostensible weight, certainly adds new muscle to the heavy bits and grace to the quieter ones). Sure, “die” is right in the title, but we’re in love instead of hell now, even if Greet Death is never afraid to plumb the depths of life and feeling. Both lead vocalists bring their A-game here, whether it’s Logan Gaval sighing and snarling through “Same But Different Now” and “Motherfucker” or Harper Boyhtari’s soaring “Country Girl” and elegiac “Love Me When You Leave.” Past any potential genre divisions, this LP is Greet Death making a claim on best rock band currently working, period.

Ian Mathers

João Hã? — Cintura Interna (Sucata Tapes)

Portuguese artist João Artur is one half of the multimedia duo Calhau. That project exists in a singular, post-industrial haze of voice and synth that creeps with a sinister cadence. This cassette finds him flying solo, emitting a primitive and exploratory racket reminiscent of the LAFMS or the Chocolate Monk cabal. Noisy synth squeals, skeletal drum machine rhythms, and more traditional sounds writhe together in a decidedly non-traditional manner. There are vocals that eerily evoke those of his Calhau bandmate Marta Ângela, but these are sparse in comparison to the sonic experiments that Artur broadcasts with a cheeky grin. Bonus points are awarded for the bonkers reading of “Louie Louie” that sits amid the chaos: you haven’t heard anything like it. Fans of the global sub-underground noise scene, take note. Cintura Interna is worth wrapping your ears around.

Bryon Hayes

Mike Khoury / Sharif Sehnaoui / Raed Yassin — TAQATO3 (2182)

This trio convened when its members came to Beirut in 2018 to participate in the Iritijal Festival. Each performed there with another ensemble, but before they scattered (violinist Mike Khoury lives near Detroit, double bassist Raed Yassin in Berlin, and acoustic guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui resides in Beirut) they grabbed a chance to improvise this set. Sharp-eyed improv nerds who recognize Sehnaoui and Yassin as members of the long-lived, extended technique-enamored A Trio might wonder how they’d sound after swapping the uncompromisingly unconventional trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj for Khoury, who is a fair bit more comfortable working within the known vocabulary of his instrument. Turns out, they’re all pretty flexible. The violinist mixes hints of the blues, Levantine roots references and rosin-powdering shivers; the bassist seems to savor the chance to play stark pizzicato melodies as well as bottom-scraping rumbles. Sehnaoui takes the longest time to come out of his slithery pure sound bag, but when his bowing gives way to a feverish slide foray, the mirage-like shimmer is sublime.

Bill Meyer

Camila Nebbia Ft. Marilyn Crispell & Lesley Mok — A Reflection Distorts Over Water (Relative Pitch)

Camila Nebbia may have convened this session, but it’s a collective accomplishment. The Berlin-based Argentine tenor saxophonist invited drummer Lesley Mok and pianist Marilyn Crispell to meet her in Woodstock, NY, where they recorded with a minimum of netting. Mok brought one tune and Nebbia some open scores, but for the most part, what one hears is generous real-time negotiation. Nebbia favors twisting sequences of short, distinct notes, Crispell contributes dynamic streams of sound and Mok drops staccato bursts and sparser tumbling accents; no one’s a minimalist, but neither does anyone clog up the pipes with surplus matter. Instead, they fit their offerings into each other’s ideas, leaving just enough space for the others to propose some more good ideas.

Bill Meyer

Perfume Genius — Glory (Matador)

Way back in 2010, Learning (Mike Hadreas’ debut as Perfume Genius) seemed almost impossibly fragile. Just shy of half an hour of delicately wrought damage and survival. Hard to predict from that beginning that he’d ever go as bombastic as 2014’s “Queen,” let alone last year release what might be his best record in a string of very good ones. Quieter tracks like “Me & Angel,” “Dion” and the title track can still wrench the heart, but so can more full-bodied one likes “It’s a Mirror,” “In a Row” and the wrenching “Hanging Out.” His voice is still a thing of fluttering beauty (especially on the lovely and bruising “Left for Tomorrow”), but his songwriting and the music (courtesy of him and longtime partner Alan Wyffels, plus Blake Mills on both production and performance and guests like Meg Duffy, Aldous Harding, and Jim Keltner) just keep moving from strength to strength.

Ian Mathers

Jon Porras — Achlys (Shelter Press)

On his latest outing, guitarist Jon Porras stitches together bits of melody and texture that he’s marinated in a colloid of modular signal processing equipment. These are rich and complex ambient compositions with many frayed threads to grasp at, evoking the drone feasts of Tim Hecker and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. The titular mythological figure hovers over Achlys, as melancholic harmonies and misty blankets of tone coalesce with an autonomous force, like droplets of mercury merging into a single quicksilver pool. Overall, the mood is wistful and not depressing, as Porras imbues his guitar tone with a subtle warmth, and the drones wrap us with a fuzzy sense of comfort. This poignancy is loosely tethered, the emotional core obfuscated. Porras wants the sensation to arise from the music itself, and the minor key melodies are in service to his goal: his guitar strings and our heart strings are interlaced.

Bryon Hayes

Pullman — III (Western Vinyl)

It’s been 25 years since Tim Barnes, Chris Brokaw, Ken Brown, Curtis Harvey, and Doug McCombs have released any new music as Pullman. Their 1998 debut, Turnstyles & Junkpiles, was an elegantly rendered interweave of acoustic instruments, patiently laid out in mesmerizing patterns. Viewfinder, released in 2001, introduced drummer Tim Barnes and electric instruments into the fold. And now, III takes the quintet in a new direction, the music surging forward in waves of electric color, reminiscent of the promising but short-lived instrumental group The World on Higher Downs. Short opening salvo “Bray” feels like the sun coming up, its strident melody plucked out on woolly fuzz bass. “Weightless” is all tension and intrigue, a dappled web of tremolo textures, slide guitar, and hissing hi-hats. “Thirteen” harks back to the Pullman of old, but rendered through the filter of new technology. The gorgeous 13-minute centerpiece “October” stretches out languidly, but its closing minutes are prematurely parched into near silence, leaving the listener wondering if there’s an error in the sound file. The 46-second interlude “Valence” brings what sounds like the chatter of live performance into the mix before “Kabul” draws the album to a close with banjo and melodica. These six tracks point to exciting potential pathways; let’s hope the next chapter of new Pullman music appears sooner rather than later.

Tim Clarke

Setting — At Public Records (Setting Sounds)

The name of this digital-only live recording clearly communicates where the sounds went down, but it doesn’t really tell you what they’re about. This fusion of unspooling tone and waxing/waning rhythm is a pure expression of ego death, which is particularly remarkable because two of Setting’s three members — multi-instrumentalist Nathan Bowles and harmonium/synthesizer player Jaime Fennelly — have made music that is instantly identifiable as something that only they could do. This dilution of individuality is probably not up to third member Joe Westerlund (drums), but to the hive mind conjured by their collective jamming. This is real deal white line hypnosis material.

Bill Meyer

System Maintains — 3 Song Demo (Sex Fiend Abomination)

This reviewer despises a cliché, especially the rapidly exhausted but long-lived terms that can proliferate among music writers pressed for time (and in some cases imagination.) Unfortunately, the overused phrase “blown out” (which last had real critical bite in relation to the lo-fi moment of 1994 or so) seems to apply to this tape from System Maintains. This is music deep in the red, seemingly channeled through battered, second-hand speakers that your weirdo uncle was really proud of back in the late 1970s. 3 Song Demo blasts past in fewer than six minutes of atavistic thrashing and stomping. Did someone say “late 1970s”? Sorry, better make that mid-1980s, when Hellhammer, SOD and Corrosion of Conformity were writing and recording in advance of heavy music’s subgenre logics. System Maintains has listened and makes songs that are fast, nasty and loud in ways that more produced and profesh bands can no longer conceive, let alone execute — whether they would want to is a matter best not speculated upon. But some things are less mysterious: according to the tape’s second track, “Life Is Pain.” So is listening to 3 Song Demo. It’s pretty great.

Jonathan Shaw

TEIP Trio & Lene Grenager — Improvisasjon av 13. Januar 2023 (Sonic Transmissions)

The Norwegian TEIP Trio comprises guitarist Arne Bredesen, clarinetist Jens-Jonas Francis Roberts, and baritone guitarist Nicolas Leirtrø. An analytical ear might detect elements of heavy rock, pre-electricity folk, and post-industrial sludge on their LPs, but this download captures them, metaphorically speaking, on their shared home turf — free improvisation. If you want to be more geographically correct, the trio recorded this encounter with cellist Lene Grenager at MUNCH, Oslo’s high-rise museum devoted to all things directly or tangentially related to Edvard Munch. Tones seethe and bubble, cooking genre references down into a viscous swirl of sound that’ll make your stirring spoon stand up straight.

Bill Meyer

Kalia Vandever — Another View (Northern Spy)

Trombonist Kalia Vandever has a cv well stocked with names from jazz (Joel Ross, Mary Halvorson, Fay Victor) and pop (Harry Styles, Japanese Breakfast, Demi Lovato), and it’s not hard to see why. They have a full, rounded instrumental sound and a deep respect for melody, which has also made been evident on their solo recordings. Vandever’s approach is hardly radical, but on Another View, it gets the fundamentals right. As a lead voice, they flow easily over the rhythm section’s crisp cadences, soloing with linear logic and a clear idea of where the music needs to go. They also have good judgment (and luck) in their choice of a foil; Halvorson’s accompaniment inserts a subtle uncertainty that keeps things interesting, and she solos with a playfulness that she rarely indulges in her own bands.

Bill Meyer

Voidhämmer — Noxious Emissions (Caligari)

Stubbornly retrograde and appealingly stupid, Noxious Emissions is a new demo of crusty Metal ov Death from Voidhämmer. You get all the necessities here: chugging, chunky riffage; antic divebombs; unpleasant gurgles and growls. The additional charm is the apparent degree of conviction with which these LA dudes play. Their attitude endows maneuvers that may be a little overfamiliar with considerable sonic momentum: you may be able to predict the rhythmic changes in “Cadaveric Bloat” with some precision, but the song still moves along with truculent energy. This reviewer especially digs “Coffin Leakage,” which achieves a pile-driving intensity in its last third — it won’t take care of the stench, but it will clear the ground in front of you.

Jonathan Shaw

Per Zanussi 3 — A Keen Beast (Sauajazz)

Sauajazz is a new Norwegian imprint that debuted in 2025, and it seems to be off to a promising start with a line-up that mixes strong newer faces and steady long-term contributors. Bassist Per Zanussi falls into the latter category; he’s been leading projects for most of the century and lending his bass to strong efforts by Trespass Trio and Frode Gjerstad, among many others. This trio session with tenor saxophonist Kristoffer Alberts and drummer Per Oddvar Johansen apparently sat on a shelf since 2019, but that’s no indicator of its quality. Alberts takes the same combination of energy and invention that he’s exercised to great effect in Cortex and stretches it out, turning Zanussi’s reflective themes into foundations for clear-eyed but impassioned exploration. Johansen is brisk but never overwhelming, and while a setting this sparse ensures that everyone gets heard, Zaunussi often casts himself in the role of bedrock more than ornamentation.