Dust Volume 11, Number 10
The Cords
Another month, another Dust. Not sure thereâs anything especially autumnal about it, no pumpkin spice, no skeleton displays, no scent of rotting apples in the lanes. Itâs just more music, lots of it, all kinds of it, and, as usual, some quite good. Ecstatic black metal? Free jazz skronk? C86-style girl-dominated pop? Farm emo? Sure, why not? You may not like all of it, but letâs hope you can find something to enjoy.Â
Contributors this time included Jonathan Shaw, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Alex Johnson, Bryon Hayes, Andrew Forell and Ian Mathers.Â
Akolyth â Ecstatic Kingdom (Amor Fati)
Ecstatic black metal? Not so much. Akolyth creates a cavernous, aggressively lo-fi variety of black metal that sucks you in toward the void. There are long compositions, riff-driven structures, occasional departures into guitar soloing, but the emphasis on the filthy, submerged sonic quality effectively cancels any impulse toward showmanship or refined technique. The sound of Ecstatic Kingdom may not be quite as degraded as what youâll hear on recent records by Black Cilice (see Esoteric Atavism) â but only ânot quite.â And the textures are grainier, somehow more material in nature. Itâs underground metal: you can just about feel the dirt and decaying matter of its unearthing. Very kvlt, and the facts of the musicâs production (who is involved? where are they from?) are as obscure as the sounds. But there is significant venom distilled into the songs. They are bad for you. More, please.
Jonathan Shaw
Zoh Amba â Sun (Smalltown Supersound)
The two cuts that open free jazz saxophonist Zoh Ambaâs latest recording could not be more different. Brief, lyrical âGatheringâ hazards a long, breathy low note, some smacks on cymbals and as shaking sound as it gets going. A bit of melancholy âTapâ comes through in the melody, carried by sax. The song is a convocation or, if you like, a âGatheringâ for four fractious players who seldom inhabit such serenity. âInterbeingâ is frenetic by contrast, a spatter-painted rampage over piano and drums, stand-up bass thumping in quick time to give the tumult shape. Ambaâs playing is full of grunts and blats and high screaming whistles, a fast-moving vortex of abrasive sounds. However different they are, both cuts showcase an intuitive synchrony between four able musiciansâAmba herself, the revelatory pianist Lex Korton, wildly creative percussionist Miguel Marcel Russell and bassist Caroline Morton. Amba recorded these tracks solo before working them out with her ensemble and you can hear echoes of that lucid, solitary process in the just-under-two-minutes âMa.â But the fun comes when they four of them kick into high gear together, hurtling headlong through chaos to find an active clarity.
Jennifer Kelly
Chris Brown / Ben Davis â Jongleurs (Artifact)
One way of looking at improvisational music practice is as an exploration of the relationship between fixed and unfixed elements. This Californian duo starts with certain knowns. Ben Davis is an adroit cellist with a command of jazz and classical vernaculars; Chris Brown straddles the electro-acoustic divide by playing acoustic piano as well as purchased and home-made and coded electronics. Turn âem loose in a nice studio, and what do you get? A dynamic flux of genre-specific and non-idiomatic gestures, all deployed with a concern that they complement one another from moment to moment. So, it matters less that classical-sounding forms coexist with digital sounds that flicker like the northern lights, but that they vibrate together in a complex but sensually pleasing field.
Bill Meyer
Comet Gain â Letters to Ordinary Outsiders (Tapete)
Letters to Ordinary Outsiders is wordy, riled up and engrossing. The music is powerful and emotive, ranging from the hearty jangle of âThe Ballad of the Lives We Ledâ to an actual ballad, âDanbury Road,â and âBeat of the Veinsâs roaring glam rock. Seven of the 12 songs begin with wry, nostalgic conversations that guide us through the album. Thereâs nothing mawkish, the nostalgia is tender and often invigorating. Take âthe beat of the veinsâŠthatâs what keeps you aliveâ from âBeatâŠâ or âthe fifth rule [of rock and roll] is never stopâ from âAshtray Cult.â Letters To Ordinary Outsiders is an ode, most of all, to carrying on. Often carrying on despite. Over the up tempo strum of âMaybe One Day Itâll Really Happenâ the lyrics draw on the past to bemoan the present, âitâs so different these daysâŠtheyâre putting people in prison just for reading poems.â Still, this is a defiant collection, from scene-stealer Rachel Evansâ spoken piece on âThe Ballad ofâŠâ â âDonât call me Rach, itâs not my name/plant your flag and fuck off back homeâ â to the possibly satirical, certainly incensed rant from âAshtray Cult,â âgive me back my culture/that you stole from me.â But this record never wallows and the band seems at an uneasy peace with an uncertain future, even excited about the possibilities: âWeâve had our sayâŠI know [new artists are] out there, breaking out of their cocoons.â After all, per âDanbury Road,â ânobody stays in the same place forever.â Even as David Christian and company look back, they look forward.
Alex Johnson
The Cords â The Cords (Slumberland)
From headlong opener âFabulist,â The Cords jump straight to the point and rarely come off it. The point for Eva and Grace Tedeschi being tight melodies, clean, vigorously strummed electric guitar and barreling, no-frills-some-fills drumming. The formula is as old and irrepressible as rock and roll. To be more precise (and not quite as old as rock and roll), The Shop Assistants come immediately to mind, as do The Vaselines, fellow Scots with whom The Cords have shared a stage. The recording fidelity is more Sex with an X than âDying for It,â but the half-heartbroken, half-grinning attitude isnât far off the Kelly/McKee charm circa 1988. You can keep this record between the jangle pop beacons and get your Dolly Mixture kicks in the wistful, punchy âVeraâ or dance in the splash and dazzle of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart on âFabulist.â But songs like âYes, Itâs Trueâ push the sonic boundaries further. There, sheets of distorted guitar catch something of Dinosaur Jrâs psychedelic wave machine â think a soupçon of âLittle Fury Thingsâ â or My Bloody Valentineâs roseate nightmares, if not at the same volume or intensity. In another direction (specifically to Sweden by way of the American south), "Weird Feeling" finds the Tedeschis swooping through high lonesome country harmonies akin to fellow sister act First Aid Kit. The trick is there is no trick. The Cords is bright, springy and capacious, a self-assured, mature performance that starts fresh and stays that way. Youâre thrilled to hear it again.
Alex Johnson
Tim Daisy & Ken Vandermark â Fourth Atlas (Not Two)
Drummer Tim Daisy and saxophonist/clarinetist Ken Vandermark have been recurring partners for about a quarter century in a myriad of settings, including big bands, repertory projects, touring combos and as a freely improvising duo. Fourth Atlas represents the first time that theyâve written for each other. In January 2023, the two musicians reconvened for the first time since before COVID to lay some tunes on each other, take them on a brief Midwestern tour and make a record. The salient qualities of their partnership recur. Daisyâs great at creating rhythmic fields that support Vandermarkâs forays into pensive melodicism and stormy expressionism, which means that their duos already hold together without compositional guidance. Fourth Atlas has all the sonic and emotional qualities that have made their work together so satisfying through the years. But the choice to write music for each other introduces a different logic, in which formal devices occur and recur, which means that the twists and turnarounds are as compelling as the vectors and vibes.
Bill Meyer
Flux Brothers â FLX (Self-Release)
Skanky no-wave blues vamps snake through nocturnal alleys and byways in a sound akin to Marc Ribotâs Ceramic Animal or a cybernetic Tom Waits. The two principalsâJohn Maxwell Hobbs and David Azarch â met at the Limelight in NYC, presumably in the 1980s, and their grit-flecked, diesel stained reveries bear the unmistakable mark of that bygone era. âTombstone Bluesâ is both primitive and extremely literate, a blistered riff purloined from Muddy Waters pulsing under dystopian poetry. Â âLamentâ is eerier, haunted with echo and jangling percussive sounds; you could play it on a singing saw, though it doesnât seem they did. âKokmo Joeâs Criminal Balletâ bangs and pounds and strikes lurid poses, the verses sketching an anti-hero at least, and maybe a villain, shaking tambourines, yelping hallelujah, wrestling with god. Full disclosure requires that I mention I went to high school with Hobbes, but heâs a long fucking way from Fort Wayne South Side, and more power to him.
Jennifer Kelly
Benjamin Fullwood â The Stars Are Very Far from All of This (Room40)
Benjamin Fullwood is a reedist and experimental musician who roughed out the basics of this five-track EP on a long, solitary night in Tokyo, then reworked the material with electronics some time later. His saxophone and clarinet take precedence in the opener, âSpeedboat,â letting plangent, oscillating tones overlap and converse before blasting it all to smithereens with roiling, tumultuous drums from Serbian composer and percussionist Lav Kovacs. But elsewhere, as in the long, shimmering âBlack Willow,â the sax comes through only in sporadic bleats against an undulating wash of indefinite sound. Textures fluctuate and bend, so that you glimpse things that might be strings or natural world sounds. But whether natural or electronic instruments prevail, the mix is luminous, nocturnal and mysterious.
Jennifer Kelly
S*Glass â Benign Neglect (Public Eyesore)
Seymour Glass usually works alongside collaborators in outfits such as Bren't Lewiis Ensemble and Glands of External Secretion, but on Benign Neglect the San Francisco sound artist is operating solo. Both alone and with friends, he weaves bizarre and entertaining collages constructed from tapes, electronics and miscellaneous objects. Here, he offers a trio of lengthy missives that unfold like the sound component of a surrealist synaesthetic happening. âAbandoned Information Kioskâ embodies a riot or the mass movement of citizenry, overseen by a barking dictator. Noise and static usher in âI Have a Prepared Statement,â with soloists and choruses blending in and out, presenting how it might sound if Kevin Drumm visited an opera while its vocalists were tuning up. On âThe Exact Opposite of Surveillance,â malfunctioning electronic alarms force a continuously tumbling pile of damaged appliances to recite a monologue. Glass has been crafting acousmatic soundscapes for so long that heâs an expert at sussing out the narrative threads inherent in raw sound. The absurdist yarns he spins are incredibly compelling and loaded with his singularly bizarre sense of humor.
Bryon Hayes
Keefe Jackson / Jakob Heinemann / Adam Shead â Stinger (Irritable Mystic)
This mostly Chicagoan trio (tenor sax and bass clarinet player Keefe Jackson and drummer Adam Shead live there, bassist Jakob Heinmann used to before he went to school out west) takes its cues from the time when free jazzâs lessons were folded back into the music. One tune by Bobby Bradford and another by John Tchicai affirm their commitment to a loosely exploratory but unfailingly swinging cohesion, and originals by Heinemann and Jackson show how fertile that ground remains. The title tune, whose textures are dictated by the composerâs muscular tenor, continually morphs, growing more unbound as it evolves. But Jacksonâs bass clarinet is the anchor on Heinemannâs â12345,â allowing the rhythms to rumble and pause. The exquisitely nimble realization of Bradfordâs âSheâ likewise transforms from free flight to somber blues, unfolding with unforced but emotionally compelling logic.
Bill Meyer
Jinzo â Hereâs The Meat EP (Sad Cactus)
Jinzoâs Hereâs The Meat is an agitated mash of disaffected post-punk, nervy jazz and bar band bravado. Opener âSharktankâ sets a skronk-y tone with vocalist Jordan Germ spitting out scenes and sensations, deadpan but rushed. The frantic repetition of âbugs in the kitchen sink/bugs in the kitchen sink/bugs in the kitchen sinkâ is reflected by the scurrying percussion and noodle-y Minutemen funk. Funnily, a track later, â8 Big Ugly Legs,â actually told from a spiderâs perspective, features a slinking, almost lounge-act groove. Suave and otherwise, this is physical, immediate music that keeps your ears perked. Even on the slower and starker âTake an Inch,â whose echoing advance sounds like a small-scale version of Lifter Pullerâs âNassau Coliseum," you can feel the agonizing claw forward, increment by eponymous increment. While thereâs a complementary strain to the vocals here, thereâs also something tempering and wistful like (stay with me) Zooey Deschanel a capella in Elf. Not so on the longest and final track, âFactory Smell.â Careful, circular guitar and drums step deliberately alongside the mumbled, noirish narrative. Itâs sinister and enveloping, part Slint, part Lou Reedâs âThe Gun,â until the instruments break stride, rev up loud and ragged, and roil the record to a characteristically lurching close.
Alex Johnson
Egil Kalman & Hans HulbĂŠkmo â Unit of Time (Motvind)
When you hear the words âdrumsâ and âbass,â what comes to mind? Machinery emitting three-figure bpms? William Parker and Hamid Drake making hollow wooden instruments fill the surrounding space with spirit-summoning rhythm? Itâs fair to surmise that Egil Kalman and Hans HulbĂŠkmo know a bit about both, and have taken that knowledge with them as they chart a third course. The duo are the rhythm section that propels Marthe Leaâs excellent folk-jazz ensemble, and their separate adventures have taken in modular synthesis, alternate tunings and choosily omnivorous jazz. Their aim in this pairing is to explore the ways that subdividing time neutralizes its passage. Kalman plays double bass and synth, HulbĂŠkmo kit and hand drums and they both bust out a jaw harp. Their rhythms throb and scatter, summoning meditational vibration from the elasticity of their chosen sounds.
Bill Meyer
Living Hour â Internal Drone Infinity (Beloved)
In my Dusted review of Living Hourâs last album I wrote, âDespite its uneven presentation, Someday Is Today is a beautiful, evocative record, whose charms invite and reward repeat listens. Itâll be interesting to hear where Living Hour head next.â On the evidence of Internal Drone Infinity, the answer is that the band is venturing into fuzzier, more pop-leaning realms, with increasingly emotional vocals from Sam Sarty. Someday Is Todayâs finest song, âFeelings Meeting,â was produced by Jay Som, who takes up the production mantle for the whole of this new release. While previous reference points included Beach House, here there are just as many moments that recall the gnarly, countrified grunge of Dinosaur Jr, or early Smashing Pumpkins. Guitarist Adam Soloway gets a vocal turn on the mid-album highlight, âFiretrap,â and the album is peppered with chaotic elements, such as the screwball electro introduction to opening song, âStainless Steel Dream.â It feels like Living Hour are stepping into their own, perhaps a little unsure on their feet, but with plenty of energy and personality.
Tim Clarke
Lugubrious Garment â Demo MMXXV (Nuclear Winter)
Even in a space thatâs notable for nutso band names, Lugubrious Garment is a singularly nutso name. Thatâs not exactly uncharted territory for Italian musician Gabriele Gramaglia, who has also blessed us with projects named Vertebra Atlantis, Turris Eburnea and Cosmic Putrefaction. That last band has issued some truly, nastily psychedelic death metal, and Lugubrious Garment does the project one better by doubling down on the nasty. The churn and swirl are all here, but the textures and truculence feel more like black/death. The relatively more direct attack is very effective; check out âEternal Scars and Imperative Backfires,â which hurls itself spiraling through various layers of drywall and brick, simultaneously managing to shove a bootheel into your lower abdomen. Pretty good trick, but nothing lugubrious about it that this reviewer can detect.
Jonathan Shaw
Natural Information Society â Perseverance Flow (Eremite)
Listening to the single piece of music that comprises Natural Information Societyâs Perseverance Flow is like taking a brisk, 37-minute walk through terrain that gradually becomes more dense and challenging. Mikel Patrick Averyâs varied percussive palette sets the pace, over which Joshua Abramsâs guimbri (essentially a resonant three-string bass), Lisa Alvaradoâs harmonium and Jason Steinâs bass clarinet doggedly maintain simple, loping, repetitive figures, which evolve in stages. Avery periodically interjects triplet fills, as though the rhythm is briefly stumbling over itself, then just as quickly recovers. Abramsâs basslines hold the center, but there are occasional metallic-sounding overdubs, where a couple of notes will jump out of the mix like an angry frog. Alvaradoâs harmonium melody unfolds progressively, becoming longer and more sinuous as it goes. Steinâs clarinet calls out high, ghostly, keening notes over the top. During the first 20 minutes the four players introduce enough variation and subtle shifts in emphasis to keep things moving fluidly, then during the final 15 minutes or so Avery skillfully works in a pulsing double-time cymbal and kick-drum pattern that amps up the urgency. In the closing minutes the layers simplify and coalesce, bringing the piece to a satisfying and well-earned conclusion.
Tim Clarke
Pulse Emitter â Tide Pools (Hausu Mountain)
Darryl Groetschâs latest album as Pulse Emitter seems forever on the verge of becoming. Lost in imaginary stylistic time travel, the surface of Tide Pools slowly reveals microscopic life forms hidden in subaquatic crags and fissures. There assemble the photons, bugs and critters of the track titles busy in their unselfconscious rituals. Groetsch produces a hybrid of Bach and synthesizer music full of baroque flourishes, shifting time signatures and ambient wash which ironically seems totally in tune with the rhythms of the natural world his work describes. The creatures of the pool creating underwater eddies which mirror the birds and scattered clouds which deepen shadows as they pass. With an elegance of form and function and emphasis on movement above destination Pulse Emitterâs Tide Pools is well worth exploring.
Andrew Forell
Nastia Reigel â Identity (Infrastructure)
Identity by Nastia Reigel
Berlin producer Nastia Reigel starts hard and fast on her debut Identity. After the thumping rush of âDo It Nowâ, she barely lets up. A pedal to metal storm of percussion and disjointed vocal snippets, thankfully unadorned with synth pads, arpeggiated keyboards or any other woo-woo flourishes, Riegel concerns herself only with bruising gut punch rhythm and bass sounds. Reigelâs drums are dry but deep, the kicks and toms influenced by industrial rhythms, stripped to their relentless essence, the hi-hats crisp and tempo efficient to the point of exhaustion. Extremely effective when excessively loud, Reigel also zones in on the sort of anxious alienation that haunted much of the cold war post-punk of the Neue Deutsche Welle. When she chants âIdentityâ over the pummeling title track it sounds more like a plea than a declaration. Cathartic stuff.
Andrew Forell
Repetition Repetitionâ Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984-1987 (Freedom to Spend)
Fit for Consequences: Original Recordings, 1984â1987 by Repetition Repetition
With the Freedom to Spend imprint, Pete Swanson and Jed Bindeman mine the buried gems of yesteryear with their Freedom to Spend imprint. Theyâve struck gold with Fit for Consequences, which pulls from the corpus of LA duo Ruben Garcia and Steve Caton. This is a suite of minimalist soundscapes that the pair self-released in the mid-1980s under the name Repetition Repetition. Garcia was a follower of the Steve Reich and Philip Glass school, which favored long repetitive passages sewn from short phrases. These tracks hew to that trajectory: brief shimmering keyboard lines become hypnotic mantras, emboldened by subtle percussion and simultaneously resting on soft pillows of drone. Caton was a rocker, collaborating with Tori Amos, and he lends his rockânâroll attitude to the songs. He unfurls 1980s electric guitar flourishes that lend the music a movie soundtrack vibe. Fit for Consequences shows off the pairâs ability to conjure sounds that fascinate and enchant but also surprise and delight. There are times where the guitar strays a bit too far into 1980s glitz (see âThe Men are Fightingâ), but for the most part Garcia and Caton keep the atmosphere calm and copacetic. Â
Bryon Hayes
Soga â CorrosiĂłn (Iron Lung)
CorrosiĂłn (LUNGS-303) by SOGA
A fearless, ferocious punk band from Mexico City, Soga addresses femicide, cartel violence, government cynicism and all manner of other discontents. This is a sharper, harder record than the demo Soga released back in 2019. The sound summons the Avengers at their most desperate, or Crucifix at their most deranged, or the textures of first-wave hardcore you can hear at various points on Not So Quiet on the Western Front (1982) â check out the tunes by Social Unrest, MAD, Los Olvidados, heck, just listen to the whole thing. Then put CorrosiĂłn back on the turntable. Punk lives, and these Mexican women invest it with the all the energy and fury generated by the current conjuncture. âEl Himno Desentonado de Una NaciĂłn Moribundaâ pretty much says it all, but your reviewer really likes âFuego, Ataque.â Itâs pissed and relentless.
Jonathan Shaw
Status: Expunged â Skull Crusher (Self released)
Skull Crusher by Status: Expunged
Breakcore, as a genre, is not so much polarizing as it is defiantly, happily, and probably permanently unpalatable to most people. As with every other form where âeverything sounds the same,â though, if you dig into it a little there are nuances. Yes, even in breakcore, where half the fun is feeling like youâre being energetically clubbed over the head. A really excellent recent example comes from Red Deer, Albertaâs Status: Expunged, whose Skull Crusher does indeed do what it says on the tin. And yet over these 31 minutes things never get tiresome or repetitive, never wears out its welcome and stays consistently involving. Give or take a Venetian Snares album or two that have broken genre containment, the result is both an excellent example of the form and one that the curious would be well served to use as an introduction.
Ian Mathers
Three-Layer Cake â Sounds the Color of Grounds (Otherly Love)
Sounds The Color Of Grounds by Three-Layer Cake
Mike Watt may have compared himself to a tugboat, but his bass is more like an icebreaker; it can plow through obstacles that would sink or stop most other vessels. In Three-Layer Cake, his postal collaboration with drummer Mike Pride and guitarist Brandon Seabrook, that quality gives the other players license to splash all manner of commotion at his grooves. Bursts of stun guitar, bowed banjo textures, speed-demon note flurries, sideways drum perambulations and triple-speed, forward-backward beat assaults â none of itâs going to sink the good ship Watt. However, Wattâs got a curve of his own to throw. His spiels this time were rendered in sonnet form, although you might find it hard to tell, since Wattâs voice is as unflappably consistent as his bass.
Bill Meyer
Tiberius â Troubadour (Audio Antihero)
Troubadour by Tiberius
Brendan Wright calls Tiberius âfarm emo,â a raucous mixture of hearts-on-sleeves feeling, churning guitars and pounding rhythms. âSag,â an early single, warbles with sincerity, but roars with sudden, hurricane-like gales of guitar sound, a singer-songwriter confessional radicalized by amplification. âMoabâ twitches and sprawls and moans, its palm-muted punk tensions soothed by pedal steel. Consider what might happen if Centro-Matic and Built to Spill had a red-haired bastard child, running twangy self-revelation through a triumphant wall of sound.
Jennifer Kelly















