Ulaan Khol - "I"

Ulaan Khol - Untitled [2] (Soft Abuse 2008)

Ulaan Khol - I / Soft Abuse

Since it seemed such a remarkable coincidence, I tried to find a creative way to connect Steven R. Smith's latest outing under the Ulaan Khol moniker in I with a book I've recently finished reading, Stephen Dixon's I.. Listening to this record over and over, nothing of its shimmering strums and well-deep reverb remind you of Dixon's self-reflective, straightforward prose. They could hardly be more different.

Reading an acquaintance's blog recently, the first artist that struck me instead was Belgian Francis Alÿs. A former architect who, according to The Brooklyn Rail, "became an artist out of curiosity, boredom, vanity, and a surplus of indefinitely extended vacations," Alÿs is very much into "the poetic act," an act that functions as a metaphor in place of an actual condition. Through this act, Alÿs creates a "sudden loss of self" where the viewer can reflect on the condition from a new perspective as a "pause in the social apparatus."

The example that Brantley describes is "The Re-enactment" from 2000, wherein Alÿs purchased a handgun and walked around downtown Mexico City "waiting for something to happen." More than any other piece, "The Re-enactment" is a perfect parallel for Ulaan Khol. I is an album that purchases a fully loaded shoegazing Glock and walks into a crowd of unsuspecting fried-out psych-rockers waiting for something to happen.

It starts with the torn guitar distortion of "Untitled [1]," a reverb-filled affair that sets the exact tone of the album. They all sound like this. The strings are left spectacularly unfettered and the playing sounds sloppy, which is especially effective in this context. The muted drums at the end fade into the second track which we've provided here. As far as highlights go, in an otherwise murky and formless record, this would have to be it. Nothing is so exact as the clattered percussion of this song. It is a surge of noise, but you can just barely make out the drums dug down so deep in the mix.

It would be appropriate to drop any one of Smith's other names and projects - Thuja or Hala Strana or Mirza - but ultimately these sounds return to the bigger names you're familiar with: Belong most closely, My Bloody Valentine, Flying Saucer Attack, even a more terse Boris. Like Belong, Ulaan Khol takes time to appreciate and is often more interesting because of its subtle shifts and manipulations and swirling sounds than because of its melodies or its payoffs.

SAB026 is a fearsome album, but not because it's intrinsically fierce. This, then, is how Ulaan Khol and Belong tie in to Alÿs: Other than "Untitled [2]," I is content to simply walk into the market square armed appearing ready to fire. The 'Valentines and Ride and The Psychic Paramount all let their ammunition spill on their respective LPs. That never really happens here. The droning organ on "Untitled [7]" catches a roaring feedback fest and loops it before fading to an anticlimax. Maybe the soaring solo on "Untitled [3]" counts, but there is too much drone working against a satisfying explosion. Nobody gets killed in the crossfire, but everyone is excited, panicking, reacting. The pause in our particular social apparatus is that, wait a minute, crashing drums or soaring Mammatus-like vocals don't appear when we most expect them to? Why not? The album leaves no time for answers. In 36 short minutes, the authorities of the status quo have already arrested Smith and taken Ulaan Khol in for questioning. The first third of "Ceremony" is complete while Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural continues to run free in the merciless, unjust streets.

We don't yet know what "Ceremony" will bring us (The second installment is due this coming fall). We have no storyline to go on and virtually no visual hints beyond Smith looking away amidst a dark cluster of skulls on the inside fold. The swampy guitar drones give only a cursory indication of what any of it means. But perhaps Smith is more like Stephen Dixon than I might've led myself to believe. Maybe "Ceremony" is merely the afterthought to the bits and pieces, the hazy remembrances of each "Untitled" track, hopelessly lost in the beauty of this nine-song quagmire. You - I., that is - can remember the titanic percussion swells and the wobbling solo breaks, but where were they? The second "Untitled" or the seventh? The nature of memory and of remembered details, truths - maybe this is what "Ceremony" is about. For now, all we have is what Alÿs has taught us about seeing outside ourselves. We're pausing to see if Smith really does have a gun, even if we won't remember later that it was a Beretta.

Singleversity #51

Audiversity’s weekly column on music we stumble across during our sonic adventures. No random numbers, just straight audio goodness.

MA:



J Dilla + Minnie Ripperton = soul-hop perfection. Tacked on to the long-delayed release of Slum Village’s debut/demo album Fan-Tas-Tic Vol. 1 (recorded 96-97, released 2005), "Look of Love (Remix)" comprises all of the best elements of the Detroit rap trio: Dilla’s sweet-grooved boom-bap, the off-the-cuff ruminations of Baatin and T3, the humbled basement-studio production quality and of course, the surprisingly terse and biting lyrical content despite a vibe that’s more Tribe than Snoop. Look no further for the seeds of the contemporary Detroit rap sound, not to mention the beginning of Dilla’s heralded career.

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I have the apartment to myself this weekend, but instead of partying it up with Hercules and Love Affair (which apparently tops Audiversity's hypothetical "Loved and Hated" list that Cokemachineglow recently ditched) or self-destructively drinking myself into a corner, I've been quietly relaxing for the most part to Florida-born, Philly-bred, Goddard College acting alum Archie Shepp and his 1977 release On Green Dolphin Street. The tenor sax maestro got his career going with Cecil Taylor in the early 60s and through "New Thing" collaborations with both Taylor and John Coltrane, Shepp made a name for himself that allowed him to explore more possibilities in the 1970s with everyone from Max Roach to his own Attica Blues Big Band. For a long time, the fastest way to Shepp was through the University of Massachusetts-Amherst's courses in "Revolutionary Concepts in African-American Music" and "Black Musician in the Theater," but he's retired since. With one of the lowest album ratings in Shepp's AllMusic guide, On Green Dolphin Street doesn't match his more forward-thinking release from '77 in Goin' Home. Doesn't matter to me. Sometimes it's nice to hear the title-track and understand why Shepp is so great without all the frilly ambition and prefix-addled self-importance of his groundbreaking works.

Hercules & the Love Affair - "Hercules & the Love Affair" Counterpoint!

it gave me a headache. i don't like it. the end. love michael.

Make Believe - "Going to the Bone Church"

Make Believe - "Wearin' Torn" (Flameshovel 2008)

Make Believe – Going to the Bone Church / Flameshovel

In 1965, when Mick Jagger declared "I can't get no satisfaction / 'cause I try and I try and I try and I try", it encompassed the voice of a generation. As the years tolled on, and the Stones' tours (and ages) have reached the triple digits, the once inspiring song has evolved into a staple of the dive bar where the satisfaction not being reached is more sexual frustration than anything. But I think Jagger envisioned more with his statement. His snarling delivery resides somewhere between commentary and biting sarcasm; it encompasses the insatiable appetites (for wealth, notoriety, sex, etc) of modern life, and perhaps – as the length of the Stones' discography might imply – his creative endeavors. When Make Believe frontman Tim Kinsella aches "I can't understand satisfaction" in the waning moments of Going to the Bone Church, I hear the same frustration. We're now living a post-modern life though, and Kinsella rightfully re-evaluates even the notion of satisfaction. It's a telling thought from one of Chicago's most idiosyncratic and prolific songwriters, and the reason why this album was not supposed to exist.

On July 1st, 2007, Make Believe opened for Tortoise at the Metro; it was supposed to be their final show. According to Flameshovel, Kinsella was frustrated and unsatisfied with his position in the group as solely the lyricist/singer, though there is no room for any more musical additions to Make Believe’s sound without completely re-establishing themselves in a new guise. This is understandable, because while Kinsella personifies the group to an extent with his abstract commentaries, unmistakable raspy yelp and confrontational stage presence, the real distinction between Make Believe and hundreds of other contemporary underground rock bands is their rhythm section. Drummer/keyboardist Nate Kinsella and bassist Bobby Burg piece together rather catchy grooves, but then proceed to drop every third or fourth bar. So instead of grooving straight ahead, songs awkwardly shift and stutter creating even more intriguing rhythms for Sam Zurick’s already abstract approach to crunchy guitar melodies and Tim’s obtuse phrasing.

After courting a number of suitors for the frontman position, Tim rejoined the group with a less-is-more attitude; perhaps not as much trying to force satisfaction, but taking a step back to attempt to understand just what it means to be satisfied. The refreshed line-up spent six days recording at Chicago’s Electrical Audio studio and is set to release Going to the Bone Church – their third full-length – at the end of April, but only available in vinyl format.

This new record is a continuation of the band’s increasingly mellowed sound. The elements and instrumentation remain the same, but with a calmed clarity in both production and performance. Nate’s drum and Wurlitzer rhythms are not as much a tool of urgency as a grounding force to Zurick’s short elliptical guitar phrases. There are still tracks of disjointed paranoia – like that of opener “Ooo-Yum” with multi-tracked yelps and calls between jerky post-punk outbursts – but mid-tempo jaunts like “Sam Rollerskating Backwards” and the rather melodic “Wearin’ Torn” are much more prevalent and in that manner, affecting.

Make Believe was originally intended as the more aggressive outlet for the Joan of Arc touring members. They achieved this with their excellent self-titled debut EP and their first full-length, Shock of Being. Going to the Bone Church is created with the exact same tools (guitar, bass, drums, wurlitzer, vocals) and approach to songwriting (you could almost call it post-post-punk), but resounds of maturity because of its patience and lack of purely punk-derived chaos. These are finely pieced together songs – however jagged the final product may be – with a number of rather affectionate moments. For example, the band reveals their playfulness for the first time as Tim concludes a spoken-word rant at the end of the title track. Instead of masking it in serious artfulness, they leave the tape rolling as he breaks out into a silly sing-song which causes the entire band to erupt in laughter. Because what’s more satisfying than having fun at what you enjoy to do?

Records being spun by yours truly Tuesday evening (3/25) from 10p-2a at the Burlington in Chicago. Come out and say hello.

Singleversity #50

Audiversity’s weekly column on music we stumble across during our sonic adventures. No random numbers, just straight audio goodness.

MA:



I typically read books on jazz to try and comprehend the revolutionary cats of the 60s avant-garde era, but as with trying to understand anything, you have to know the roots before you can get the stems. Not too long ago, I worked my way through Gary Giddins’ excellent Visions of Jazz: The First Century, and despite being quite taken by the chapters on the Modern Jazz Quartet, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus and Muhal Richard Abrams, I was most fascinated by Artie Shaw; a far cry from the free jazz experimenters. The clarinetist could have achieved the legendary status of Benny Goodman, but walked away from his musical career a total of five times until finally leaving the industry in 1954 for good (he didn’t pass away until 2004). The bridge between swing and bop, Shaw was appalled by the idea that his music was transforming him from, in Giddins’ words, “an introspective, adventurous, irreverent musician into a celebrity on autopilot – little better, in his unforgiving view, than a trained seal.” His goal was to become the best clarinetist he believed possible, and when he achieved that he walked away for good. His last recording, "Yesterdays" (found on Artie Shaw: The Last Recordings, Rare & Unreleased), is a haunting ballad of tonal perfection with delicate melodic passages provided by pianist Hank Jones and guitarist Joe Puma. A sobering late night (and career) come down if there ever was one.

PM:

I know this was Singleversity #50, and it was supposed to be something special, and I was going to have something for you, but I think Snöleoparden did it to me. I've lost it.



(Patrick has gone insane, but he will return next week. Probably. -Ed.)

Collections of Colonies of Bees - "Birds"

Collections of Colonies of Bees - "Flocks IV" (Radium 2008)

Collections of Colonies of Bees – Birds / Radium

Establishing an identity in the faceless world of post-rock has always been the genre’s Achilles’ heel. Now on the downside of its popularity arc, any ambitious instrumental band purveying the experimental rock sub-style typically gets grouped in behind one of the genre’s poster children (Slint, Tortoise, Talk Talk, Gastr del Sol, Godspeed!, Labradford, etc) and is more or less left for irrelevant. Much like being pegged with the indie rock tag these days, one assumes the basic scope of the sound, writes it off as derivative, and moves on to a new, more exciting buzzword. But in doing so, you can overlook intriguing evolutions, which with a stylistic description as vague as post-rock is very easy to do. There are musicians like Chris Rosenau and Jon Mueller who have been a part of the scene for fifteen-odd years, and simply enjoy experimenting with guitars, drums and electronics. Those pieces keep them under the post-rock guise, but the music shifts continuously keeping the sound of each concurrent album a guessing game. And that’s all I ask as an obsessed listener regardless of genre.

Guitarist Rosenau and percussionist Mueller started Collections of Colonies of Bees in 1998 in a flurry of band forming in the Milwaukee rock scene (Pele, Vermont, Telecognac, and Raccoons all stem from a very close family of players including Rosenau and Mueller). Like the ethos of their label that was started the very same year – Crouton Music – CoCoB is an idea and any resulting sound is “only part of the picture”. The idea: what would traditional folk and bluegrass instrumentation sound like if brought up to date and utilized with modern experimental recording techniques and technology? The result: 1998’s Collections of Colonies of Bees and 2000’s Rance; both dreamy, drunk and heavily textured experimental folk albums that bridged Directions in Music, John Fahey, Gastr del Sol, Pullman, Sandy Bull and Cul de Sac.

The latter half of CoCoB’s existence has seen the band expand with each album and slowly but surely leave the backwoods instrumentation and folksy influences behind. By 2004’s Customer – released by Pele’s label-home Polyvinyl – the band was piecing together arrangements one digitally segmented second at a time. The tinkered stuttering sound makes for excellent headphone music and is a prime example of a well-balanced approach of melodicism and experimentation. This is where we find CoCoB in 2008, releasing Birds on Radium – a subsidiary of the excellent experimental label Table of Elements – and interestingly enough moving back to the core of post-rock: melodic electric guitar wizardry, technically proficient and rather anthemic kit work, and of course, a little studio gimmickry and electronic augmentation.

For their first time in CoCoB’s existence, Birds sounds like a record created with the live show in mind. Mueller’s recorded drums are left wholly in tact – a far cry from the previous few efforts – and while he occasionally works the odder intricacies of his kit, for the most part the rhythmic backbone is rather bombastic and triumphant. Rosenau, joined by baritone guitarist Dan Spack, keeps with the uplifting cadences by not so much riff-based workouts but tight, elliptical patterns that weave in and out of each other. Maybe a rather odd comparison, but it reminds me a lot of Sam Zurick’s approach to the guitar while providing obtuse leads to Make Believe and previously Owls. But those instances are of course well balanced with the subtle, free-form picking of the quieter moments from the record. Also now traveling members of the band, Thomas Wincek and former Pele member Jim Schoenecker augment the hearty rock sound with warm touches of Fender Rhodes, analog synthesizers and the occasional electronic buzzing.

Four tracks in nearly forty minutes, Birds doesn’t as much transcend the boundaries of post-rock as enliven the genre’s best attributes. “Flocks II” and “Flocks III”, though sprinkled with curious minimalist edits and electronic twinkles, adhere to the cymbal-driven climax and comedown approach with militaristic cadences counteracting the warmly chiming guitars. “Flocks I” is a bit more untamed structure-wise, and in fact sounds like an unedited outtake from the Customer sessions. And finally, “Flocks IV” delivers the inviting melodicism the band has been perfecting the last ten years as rhythmic patterns are layered and tenderly interlocked as established by the Reichian School of Arranging.

Birds is not particularly the indefinable album I had hoped from Collections of Colonies of Bees, but it is an excellent reminder of how much I enjoy post-rock when it is performed with a sunny disposition. However easily categorized it is though, Rosenau and Mueller are talented musicians, and Birds is crafted with a crisp idea in mind and impeccable production. They now just exist outside of those stuffy headphones. And besides, it’s about time post-rock fans started getting out of the house more anyways.

Nalle - "The Siren's Wave"

Nalle - "Alice's Ladder" (Locust 2008)

Nalle – The Siren’s Wave / Locust

Last night, with a head thoroughly blotted with congestion and cold medicine, I drifted mercifully to sleep watching The Sword of Doom in an unfamiliar apartment. I lost consciousness at Ryunosuke's height of confidence as a ronin, emotionlessly carrying out assassinations and ignoring his mistress and their baby son. When I came to sometime later, the samurai was frantically fighting off shadows, his formerly commanding poise slashed by his own evil sword/soul. It was a surreal moment thanks to my clouded consciousness and only exemplified by listening to The Siren's Wave on the trip home. The Glasgowian trio Nalle crafts a sound that is not solely inspired by their Scottish surroundings nor many of their contemporaries. While traditional European folk and the buzzing drone of the Great Highland bagpipe are certainly prominent influences, Eastern modal elements are just as prevalent. The music is both unsettling with its odd tunings and harsh pitches and hypnotic with its fluid drone; much like Okamoto's samurai film with its visceral and almost absurdly violent imagery paired with the mesmeric cinematography and pace. The contrast makes for a much more interesting experience.

Nalle is three multi-instrumentalists: visual artist Hanna Tuulikki, The Family Elan’s Chris Hladowski and Aby Vulliamy. For their second full-length as a band – and their first for Locust Music – the trio entered the studio with John Cavanagh, whose collection of analog electronics and recording devices have helped further develop their avant-folk sound. The added instrumentation provides more of a definable structure for the lyrical voices (flutes, violin, bouzouki, Tuulikki’s captivating vocals) to experiment overtop. The austerity of their prior release is replaced with a large palette of autumnal colors, and the recording is more intriguing for it.

Now I use “definable structure” loosely, as each of the six tracks has little to do with traditional song arrangements. A continuously swelling and patient drone is used as the foundation of each song creating a sensation not unlike being on a small drifting sea vessel. Tuulikki’s pitch-gliding voice rocks back in forth between gentle waves of accordion, cello, harmonium, oud, clarinet, valve oscillators and whatever else they can muster up with a somber tone or a buzzing output. This meditative drone created with mostly acoustic instrumentation is what immediately sends the mind to Eastern Asian associations. And when Tuulikki’s voice is matched with a recorder, flute, violin or other instrumentation of similarly high pitch, the influence of Japanese Gagaku becomes most apparent. It’s a simultaneously odd and elegant sound that will more or less dissuade most Western listeners on first listen, but given time, the harmonic interplay becomes very inviting.

“Young Light” is the best example of this Japanese-tinged experimentation. Hladowski improvises patiently with his bouzouki as Tuulikki jaggedly strums the metallic strings of a kantele. Interjection of cello further deepens the loose string arrangement as the song morphs from a Lichens-like meditation to an almost agitated display of exotic free jazz, but always grounded in Eastern tones. “Secret of the Seven Sirens” though couldn’t sound further away geographically. Between the group vocal sing-alongs, violin and flute interplay, loosely strummed acoustic strings, and eventual handclap enhanced pace, it sounds decisively European. The most accessible of the tracks, “Alice’s Ladder” also exists in this vein, just in more of a compact and focused presentation. Names like Joanna Newsom and Fursaxa come to mind, but neither really captures Nalle’s implacable exoticness.

When I first listened to The Siren’s Wave, I wasn’t particularly impressed. Locust is renown for their keen avant-folk ear, and Nalle’s sound just wasn’t that unexpected. But really, it just took the right circumstances for the nuances and idiosyncrasies of the album to make sense. They are weaving such distant cultures and so many different exotic instruments together that a cursory listen will only leave a confused stare on your face. Consider it a lesson in patience, though our contemporary listening habits will make Nalle’s work an uphill battle. And if you still can’t quite get a grasp on the record, let me suggest cold medicine and samurai movies, it worked for me.

Radio Show Playlist: 3/19/08

6a:
1. Magnetic Fields - I Don't - 69 Love Songs, Part 1 (Merge 1999)
2. Beach House - Gila - Devotion (Carpark 2008)
3. Via Tania - True - True EP (Chocolate Industries 2004)
4. Arthur Russell - Hiding Your Present from You - Springfield (Audika 2006, recorded 1985)
5. Atlas Sound - Quarantined - Let the Blind Lead Those Who See but Cannot Feel (Kranky 2008)
6. Excepter - The Last Dance - Debt Dept. (Paw Tracks 2008)
7. Drekka - There is a Mountain - Extractioning (Blue Sanct 2005, recorded 1998)
8. Nalle - Alice's Ladder - The Siren's Wave (Locust 2008)
9. Scott Tuma - Fishen - Not for Nobody (Digitalis 2008)
10. Collections of Colonies of Bees - Flock I - Birds (Radium 2008)
11. Earth - Engine of Ruin - The Bee Made Honey in the Lion's Skull (Southern Lord 2008)

7a:
1. Ulaan Khol - Untitled #3 - I (Soft Abuse 2008)
2. Zelienople - Parts are Lost - His/Hers (Type 2007)
3. Sun Ra - Search Light Blues - Bad and Beautiful (Saturn 1961)
4. Alice Coltrane - A Love Supreme - World Galaxy (Impulse! 1971)
5. Bobby Hutcherson - Bouquet - Happenings (Blue Note 1966)
6. Colorlist - Lluvia - Lists (Off 2008)
7. Moondog - Symphonique #6 (Good for Goodie) - Moondog (Columbia 1969)

8a:
1. Boards of Canada - 1969 - Geogaddi (WARP 2002)
2. Nobody - Wake Up and Smell the Millennium - And Everything Else... (Plug Research 2005)
3. Deceptikon - The Last Four Things - Lost Subject (Merck 2004)
4. Low - Belarus - Drums and Guns (Sub Pop 2007)
5. Thom Yorke - Atoms for Peace - The Eraser (XL 2006)
6. Broadcast - Subject to the Ladder - Tender Buttons (WARP 2005)
7. Stereolab - Brakhage - Dots & Loops (Elektra 1997)
8. Subtle - F.K.O. (Console Remix) - Wishingbone (Lex 2006)
9. Karl Blau - Spring Morning - AM (Whistler 2008)
10. Destroyer - Dark Leaves from a Thread - Trouble in Dreams (Merge 2008)
11. Akron/Family - Running, Returning - Akron/Family (Young God 2005)
12. Thee Oh Sees - Grease 2 - The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In (Tomlab 2008)
13. The Big Sleep - Tigers in Our Hearts - Sleep Forever (Frenchkiss 2008)

Snöleoparden - "Snöleoparden"

Snöleoparden - Lille Cykel (Rump 2008)

Snöleoparden - Snöleoparden / Rump

For the longest time I was trying to figure out why Mofus and Badun member Jonas Stampe's latest musical excursion under the Snöleoparden alias sounded so familiar. It was not that I had heard Snöleoparden before; quite the contrary, in fact. The Danish resident, complete with a politically charged Pakistani background, had made his way onto my radar via Sonic Frontiers, who have recently been making their way onto my radar for more off-the-radar things recently. It was the sounds, the playful nature of this release, reminded me of something I had heard before. I could not put my finger on it.

So I listened and read and discovered. Rump is inclined to provide glitchy releases from people like Karsten Plfum and Icarus, but Snöleoparden is more of an organic experience that you discover right away when the first sounds of his self-titled debut are that of a xylophone. Gradually, "Nr. 1." turns into a happy accident that would fit right in with Black Dice's brighter moments in its wordless warping of the initial melody. It's hard to escape the xylophones. They are the dominant instrument on this album.

"Hodja Fra Pjort" features children singing along to a strummed guitar and, once again, the xylophones. As a rendition of a kid's pop song, Stampe injects a starry-eyed innocence that puts the listener at ease. This whole record is innocence. I don't know why I'm saying the same things over and over, except to say that I have been reduced to a child merely by listening to the Pakistani folk song "Dreng." I feel like I'm 11 years old listening to Afrobeat or something. It's hard to believe it took a Dane to bring me there. Then she told me.

"This sounds like a Wes Anderson soundtrack."

Of course it does. This perspective - that every sound has the capability to make us wonder and awe and think about what we're hearing - has been the common thread in each of Anderson's movies. It's been a recurring criticism that he has never been able to escape that perspective, and perhaps that's where Rumpe finds himself here. But this is only his first album. This isn't a rut he's dug himself into. This is not yet his voice, because we don't know what his voice is. What we do know is that childhood is less removed from his memory than it may be ours, because Rumpe remembers. He remembers the sights, the sounds, the feelings, the mentality.

To this end, there are the obvious mini-triumphs in the smiling xylophones of the first three tracks. But there is also "Grieg," which appears on the CD version as the finale but not the LP version for some reason. This has been identified by some reviewers as the saving grace of an album that they largely feel they "get" but do not really relate to. "Grieg" represents something close to what they're familiar with: adult anxieties. But I see "Grieg" as an extension of the childhood that Rumpe lives for the first eight songs. Switching from reel-to-reel recorders to live sets to homemade excerpts preserves a youthful inability to want to know everything all the time. It can't focus because we couldn't, either.

Ultimately, Snöleoparden is a meditation (or maybe just a rumination) on what it means to be a kid discovering new noise. At times slow to evolve and at others too quick to keep up with, the album is as artfully skilled in jumping from style to style as the snow leopard is in jumping from cliff to cliff. I don't know what else to say. My kindergarten self has emerged and is taking over my brain. This is the new beat. That's all I can say in big, goofy letters on paper with the trace down the middle so you can loop your lowercase Bs to meet the line, dot your I above it, red ink at the base, blue to stop the stick, what is going on here, there are only six fonts available? Macintosh? One-button mouse. Square screens. A new decade. Welcome.

The Rational Academy - "A Heart Against Your Own"

The Rational Academy - Jojoplanteen (Someone Good 2008)

The Rational Academy - A Heart Against Your Own / Someone Good

A Heart Against Your Own is an excellent soundtrack to the let-down that the actual St. Patrick's Day holiday presented in the wake of the weekend, which claimed its fair share of victims and killed the spirit of even the most hearty drinkers as Monday rolled around. Instead of a review for the latest from Triclops!, it thus comes as no surprise that The Rational Academy captures this post-inebriated haze perfectly instead.

Such a pleasant and quietly content record should not be as interesting as this one is, but the 'Academy's songwriting duo in Meredith McHugh and Benjamin Thompson laid the groundwork for Room40 mastermind Lawrence English and Icelandic dronesmith Ben Frost (whom we love here at Audiversity but somehow never covered for last year's Theory of Machines) to come in and add that extra twist which now separates this Brisbane quartet from so many other indie-rock bands in pursuit of the dream of recreating 1997. The delicate art of putting the vocals just a pinch higher in the mix than they should be, coupled with tasteful effects and a noteworthy cut in the Jets to Brazil (Or Mineral? Or any genuinely good indie-rock band?) anthem you never thought you'd hear in "Two Books," means that A Heart Against Your Own is the real deal, no fanfare need apply.

It's not all rose-tinted retro revivalism from the starry-eyed 90s, though. After releasing two 7" singles and appearing on a number of compilations, they've clearly learned that what works for them isn't always the most straightforward sound. Thankfully, there is also a futurism suggested in the quiet drum machine loop hiding in the shadows of "Jojoplanteen," and in the misty air surrounding "Squid & Whale" as the ambient textures take precedent and a quiet holding pattern sustains itself longer than you'd expect, before the crunchy guitars reminiscent of Desert Hearts swoop in and then swoop you out with them as an F5 tornado takes you away to a place where acoustic strumming and McHugh's lilting lullabies carry the last minute or so. It's the epic stroke you never knew you were waiting for, but this band is all about eschewing the conventions of being a regular old indie band. In fact, the best way to describe The Rational Academy is by saying that this is a bedroom romantic's My Bloody Valentine. Bedroomantica, that's what The Rational Academy is. They know what they're doing.

That may seem like a beaten horse at this point, but it's what makes The Rational Academy so interesting. It's what drew disparate acts like Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, Spoon, and Scout Niblet to call them up for an opening slot down under. It's what led Rave Magazine to describe this as "an essential Brisbane release." Hell, it's what drew me to this record just when I thought I didn't want to hear it. Forget Out of Africa for the time being. A Heart Against Your Own, in its own cutely confident way, is exactly the kind of album you thought you'd stopped listening to because you were sure you'd outgrown this stuff. The Rational Academy are a smarter band, and they know what you're thinking. For once, not being jaded about a record that sounds like this will be well worth your while. You will hardly believe you've had it on repeat for three hours, and that you're having to use the excuse of second-person point of view to hide your subjectivity. Get a grip, man. You're not that big of a deal.

Singleversity #49

Audiversity’s weekly column on music we stumble across during our sonic adventures. No random numbers, just straight audio goodness.

MA:



Revisiting one of the earlier releases from a label we gushed about repeatedly last year – the UK’s Type Records – TYEP002, the six-song EP Six Preludes from compositional wunderkind Ryan Teague, has creeped its way back into my heavy rotation. Balancing equal parts chamber music, avant-electronica, sample-based composing and modern classical, Teague melts the opposing styles of Arvo Pärt into Delarosa & Asora or Steve Reich into Biosphere. Minimal electronic manipulations and chirping melodic samples twinkle in a clear autumnal night sky of warm string vibrato and clarinet swells. On "Prelude I", he even weaves in ghostly choral chants evoking a sense of religious influence into the oscillating tone of the music. Enchanting and melancholy, Six Preludes – like all Type releases – is a repeatedly interesting study as well as a soothing late night listen if your mind isn’t in the mood for moving.
ps. Label-head Xela playing Chicago tomorrow (3/17) at Danny's

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While everybody was out getting loaded on the weekend before St. Patrick's Day, I was looking at how much greener Mayor Daly could possibly make the Chicago River and spending some time with the Smalltown Supersound crew. Not that I've given up my Irish roots, but I'll save the revels (and these sayings) for when they're really needed: the weekday. In the meantime, here's a little ditty from 1978 featuring Motown Sounds, a presumably Detroit-based group (They were on Motown, after all) helmed by one Michael Lovesmith who helped produce this LP and then disappeared into the obscurity of a solo career. Resurrected by Strut in the name of Larry Levan back in 2000 and again on a 45 by the sans-Smalltown Supersound label in 2006, "Bad Mouthin'" is a high-caliber disco classic provided by a group that had one amazing album cover and no follow-up or background information. Níl aon suáilce gan a duáilce féin, am I right?

Ladyhawk - "Shots"

Ladyhawk - Ghost Blues (Jagjaguwar 2008)

Ladyhawk - Shots / Jagjaguwar

With a recent string of successes in Bon Iver, Black Mountain and Richard Youngs, Jagjaguwar has been on form lately. Their dusty take on Americana continues with Ladyhawk and their second long-player in Shots. This record has been out since March 4th, and for a very brief while it felt like they were everywhere promoting it, but just as quickly as it appeared as a whiskey-stained sidekick to In the Future, it has all but disappeared. And it is generally agreed in these parts that Black Mountain are very good and that British Columbia is blossoming right now with all sorts of throwback bands, but what is it about Ladyhawk that has let people slip past them?

Maybe it's just the everyman attitude that this record shouts out with on crowd bait like "You Ran." 20 Jagjaguwar records ago on Ladyhawk's self-titled debut, JAG097 fell over, got right back up, cried on shoulders and folded the day in halves, watching the sun come up over the dashboard. JAG117 feels different. They may still be falling over and getting right back up, but rather than crying on shoulders, Shots is the sound of a shaken fist through bitter tears at the ones you used to love (and maybe still do). Or maybe, as they put it, it's simply the band howling at the moon.

The anger, then, is less nuanced and textured. It is now more straightforward, delivered straight to the mouth with the distortion and feedback of a less circumspect Lucero. The album is 39 minutes, punctual, succinct, full of bile n' bitter. But that doesn't mean they've sold everything subtle away for anthemic apes of The Hold Steady. Having listened to this album for a few weeks now, even this album's better moments in "S.T.H.D." or "Faces of Death," already a step well above the average bar-band standard, provide the filling for a sandwich whose bread is the best part.

That's an awkward analogy, but even if you've already heard the barnburning broken synth-assisted "I Don't Always Know What You're Thinking," give the closer "Ghost Blues" another go. To me, "Ghost Blues" is where Shots comes together at the last gasp, maybe even just the dying minute of its ten-minute run-time. It's where Ladyhawk's push-pull argument between foot-stomping y'allternative and considered country sludge meets the dusty trail to close with as emphatic an ending as the band could possibly have hoped to come up with. It's the summation in one song of what Ladyhawk does for an entire record. Maybe it isn't a critic's darling like In the Future, but I would argue that Shots might in fact be the better, more consistent album (even though they're different bands going in different directions). I've grown to like it a lot in these past few weeks, and if you ignored it for whatever reason, I urge you to return and see what you might've missed the first time around.

Excepter - "Debt Dept."

Excepter - Greenhouse/Stretch (Paw Tracks 2008)

Excepter - Debt Dept. / Paw Tracks

The pursuit of new sonic terrain under the auspices of the irritating "Brooklyn band" tag continue for Excepter, the magnificently polarizing sextet whose exploits continue to be both passionately loved and vehemently loathed, often for the same reasons. Excepter acts as the masculine median between their closest relatives: While Animal Collective act as the accessible optimists and Black Dice as the stubbornly obtuse weirdo outsiders, Gang Gang Dance and Excepter tread the narrow space between them as just concrete to be captured and just elusive enough to never be pegged down.

It is dangerous territory, but the sextet have hovered away from the nihilistic post-noise brainkraut (my definition in 2006) of Alternation and found something that the people who loved "Burgers" have already discovered: songs. This is a record with songs on it. While KA and Sunbomber were dominated by aural experimentation, and Alternation had highlights with "The Rock Stepper" and "Op Pop," here on Debt Dept. there is no question that you will find yourself remembering more than merely isolated moments.

In addition to "Burgers" on the bonus track here which you might've seen the video for, Excepter have made guitars a thing of the present and nowhere is this clearer than on the "sequence" the group used when they first opened up for Animal Collective. "Entrance 08" runs on a steady guitar loop as the usual sounds manipulate and flagellate and commiserate to form the alienating sound that has made them such targets for stereotyping. It's possible that their wardrobe might also have something to do with this, but that would be missing the point entirely. This group is totally devoid of image, of pigeonhole, of anything other than that most general of tags. Seriously, "Brooklyn band"? Do you think of Excepter when you hear Blood on the Wall?

"Shots Ring" is played inside a hollow jail while inmates keep the beat on the bars and discomfiting keys crowd the cells. What John Fell Ryan is saying often has little or no consequence to the listener, but here the words are billed as a meditation on the Virginia Tech killings and some of it can be heard clearly. It makes for a chilling vibe and certainly the most sinister song on the record. "Kill People," the following track that basically builds its rhythm around members reiterating the title, is too cheesy to be convincing and probably one of the weakest (if most accessible) on the album. Further proof of its insincerity: They were originally going to call it "Guns and Roses."

"Any and Every," the closing island jam fucking around with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on "Sunrise," and the split beatwork of "Greenhouse/Stretch" suggest that the group has potential to generate some wicked hip-hop beats; to hear the Clipse or Lil Wayne over one of these on a mixtape is a promising idea waiting to happen. Inevitable? One can only hope... For now, we are stuck with the outer-limit noise-pop transmitted via weak satellite and pumped through your speakers, blown mind in tow. What does Debt Dept. mean for Excepter in the long run? It seems like everybody has been willing these guys (and girls) on to produce something that has actual resonance, something that will stick with you. All of the potential is there, they seem to be saying, but you just have to coordinate and trim the fat. Boil Excepter down to its essence and you have the makings of a great group.

But Excepter are not interested in greatness or conventions, are not interested in taking the easy path, are not interested in following through. Two years ago, I thought Alternation was as accessible as they'd ever get. I acknowledge that I was wrong. But if the past is anything to go by, don't count on a hit machine anytime soon. This is the art of Brooklyn at its core, the tightrope they insist on walking for both their own good and the good of music. It's what makes Excepter's career of making sounds miraging as songs endlessly frustrating... But it's also what makes them endlessly fascinating.

Take - "The Dirty Decibels of Thomas 2000" EP

Take - Fall in Love Again (Eat Concrete 2008)

Take - "The Dirty Decibels of Thomas 2000" EP / Eat Concrete

After featuring Inner Current early on last year, we went mum on support for the label and their artists for the most part. With such a great compilation showcasing the roster, I'm at a loss for words as to why I didn't try harder to see what they had on tap. My loss. Thomas Wilson, one of the Brooklyn label's farther-flung artists (He resides on the other side of the country in LA), had an excellent release as Take with the sorely unheralded Earthtones & Concretes late last year and it stands as Inner Current's most recent release. Thankfully, they have not closed shop, and '08 promises to be another step forward for a burgeoning label.

For his part, Wilson has been keeping busy cutting jigs and looking beyond both Inner Current's domestic dealings and his own stylistic persona. This is how the Dirty Decibels of Thomas 2000 EP came to be: Wilson wanted to relax his style and try a 20 song-strong vinyl that went back to the basics by sticking to the beats that made men of stature like two of Wilson's guiding lights, Dilla and Madlib. Unfortunately for him, the self-proclaimed perfectionist couldn't leave well enough alone. Fortunately for us, the nine songs that form both sides (and fill up the free ZIP file directly available from Eat Concrete) turned out as strongly as any recent Ninja Tune or Mo' Wax release.

Descending horns christen the intro as a voice stops the listener in their tracks. "Wait a minute. Out of the darkness, a tall figure appears. Who is he? It's Thomas." Stretched and slowed, the name sticks with you as the low-pitched siren that dominates the beat of "Make Believe" makes its acquaintance. Featuring a distant female vocal and handclaps that anybody currently currying Dublab's favor would be proud of, "Make Believe" is both more fun and just that little bit more frightening than the usual Take fare.

This stylistic shift makes sense given that Wilson is a certified labrat for the LA braintrust himself. It's easy to view Dublab as some kind of musical utopia inhabited by people who regularly rummage on crate digs deeper than a Mariana's Trench expedition to avoid the smog, and it's even easier to see how their astonishing knowledge and love for music can rub off on someone. Sure, these songs sound similar to a lot of stuff Dublab tends to like - the most recent example is 1000 Names from last Wednesday - but it's really nice to hear Take doing his own thing, finding his own road in the same general direction. It's part of what makes music so exciting and endlessly fascinating.

The opener for the b-side, "Fall in Love Again," reminds me of Phat Kat's "I Am There" from last year's Carte Blanche. Its rich orchestral sample is as inviting as anything on either side of the release. "With truth in the music / who could refuse it?" runs the line that opens the song, and in these songs I see a truth that maybe wasn't there before. Wilson has always had a quieter (He prefers "melancholy") approach to beatmaking, but now that we've seen what he's capable of here on what is supposed to be his alter-ego taking over the boards to liven things up, it's tough to distinguish which is better.

This is fortunate, because Thomas Wilson has now merged the more refined moments of his debut album and follow-up EP Plus Ultra with a lighter, less overtly cerebral sound. The product is a smart slab of vinyl that might ironically hold some of his finest work. What was supposed to be a tossed-off plate for the devotees has turned into an all-out redefinition of what Take is all about. Though it's unfortunate that Inner Current won't be carrying this release, the Dutch-based Eat Concrete is ensuring all of Europe gets the point. For the rest of us, there's always that free ZIP and the opportunity to remember again why Take is a gifted artist whose prolific nature should be encouraged, nurtured, rewarded. Why worry about quality control when Wilson's inner perfectionist does all the hard work for us? Your loss if you aren't paying attention from here on out. Now we're even.

for real chicago

Radio Show Playlist: 3/12/08

6a:
1. Yo La Tengo - Barnaby Hardly Working - Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo (Matador 1996, originally 1989)
2. Sam Prekop - Faces and People - Sam Prekop (Thrill Jockey 1999)
3. Califone - Spiders House - Roots & Crowns (Thrill Jockey 2006)
4. DeVotchKa - Transliterator - A Mad and Faithful Telling (Anti- 2008)
5. Pullman - In a Box, Under the Bed - Turnstyles and Junkpiles (Thrill Jockey 1998)
6. Collections of Colonies of Bees - Flock IV - Birds (Radium 2008)
7. Colorlist - Carbon Monoxide - Lists (Off 2008)
8. Delarosa & Asora - Two Hum - Agony, Pt. 1 (Schematic 2001)
9. Ryuichi Sakamoto - War & Peace - Chasm (WEA Japan 2004)

7a:
1. Bird Show - Always/Never Sleep Part #1 - Green Inferno (Kranky 2005)
2. Static North - More Life - Static North (self-released 2007)
3. Ryan Teague - Prelude I - Six Preludes (Type 2005)
4. Rob Mazurek - Flamingos Dancing on Luminescent Moonbeams - Playground (Delmark 1998)
5. Andrew Hill - Le Serpent Qui Dance - Andrew!!! (Blue Note 1964)
6. Steve Reid Ensemble - Jiggy Jiggy - Daxaar (Domino 2008)
7. Toumani Diabate - Kaounding Cissoko - The Mande Variations (Nonesuch 2008)
8. Birigwa - Okusosola Mukuleke - Birigwa (Porter 2007, originally 1972)

8a:
1. Wilson Simonal - Destino e Destino De Severino Nono Na Cidade de Sao Sebastia Do Rio de Janeiro (Oh Yeah!) - Simona (Odeon 1970)
2. Jorge Ben - Bichio Do Mato - Ben e Samba Bom (Samba & Soul 1964)
3. Lashio Thein Aung - Don't Say Goodbye - Guitars of the Golden Triangle: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) Vol. 2 (Sublime Frequencies 2005)
4. Valet - Fire - Naked Acid (Kranky 2008)
5. Nalle - Alice's Ladder - The Siren's Wave (Locust 2008)
6. Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull (Southern Lord 2008)
7. Times New Viking - End of All Things - Rip It Off (Matador 2008)
8. Yikes - Make a House - Whoa Comas/Blood Bomb (Kill Shaman 2007)
9. The Mae Shi - Young Marks - HLLLYH (Team Shi 2007)
10. Sons & Daughters - House in My Head - The Gift (Domino 2008)
11. The Dirtbombs - Ever Lovin Man - We Have You Surrounded (In the Red 2008)
12. Sonic Youth - Pattern Recognition - Sonic Nurse (Geffen 2004)

Static North - "Static North"

Static North - "More Life" (2007)

Static North – Static North / self-released

Know that feeling when you come home after a show, de-clothe your sweaty garments and hit your pillow with a wash of swimming drunken exhaustion? That odd moment of sheer placidity after finally laying down when the chaos of the night finally comes to a screeching halt. All of the evening’s festivities begin to play over in your head: the excited anticipation while prepping yourself with hipness before leaving the house; the ride to the venue with energized music probably turned up a bit too loud; the awkwardness of entering the show space with two main priorities: 1. find someone you know 2. get alcohol; finding your social groove as the alcohol begins to dismantle your guard; watching the bands perform as the over-modulated sound frequencies do permanent damage to your poor ears; the ridiculous and embarrassing conversation you have post-performance with the alcohol now holding your better judgment hostage; the inevitable ride home with music once again turned up too loud despite a more somber mood; and the final triumph of closing your abode’s door and turning the lock, another night enjoyed and conquered. Then, as you hit your bed in the momentary silence of the night, the pounding ring in your ears takes complete control of your immediate consciousness. No specific melody or harmony can be discerned, just washing staticy noise with a faint rhythmic echo that does battle with the throbbing of your head. It’s a feeling of slight regret and fatigue, which only exemplifies your confused drunken emotions and leaves just the desire to finally lose consciousness and sleep. Static North’s opening track – “Westbound” – on his self-titled, self-released debut sounds a lot like that.

Holed up in an undisclosed studio space in Toronto, Canada, Dave Gareth Lewis crafts the type of music that bridges sobering placid ambience with noisy drunken feedback. It exists somewhere between the carefully controlled harmonic feedback of My Bloody Valentine, the ambient exploiting sound collages of Tim Hecker, the precise rhythmic loop manipulations of Jan Jelinek, the slowly budding drone of Lichens and the introspective visually-enhanced post-rock of Godspeed You Black Emperor! For a debut, it is surprisingly realized; a motif is established and manipulated creating an overarching vibe without giving in to redundancy. Despite utilizing mostly feedback and other non-melodic sound sources, the albums remains musical and pleasant. And like all good records in this vein, listening to the non-narrative songs causes you to search within yourself for emotional associations. Lewis keeps it captivating without over-indulgence, a tough beam to balance.

As I mentioned earlier, the opening track “Westbound” is mostly cascading waves of feedback and the accidental harmonic responses to such, but Lewis also introduces his basic songwriting structure. Typically building vertically, each song begins with a loop, whether it’s the pleasant, westward gazing synthesizer chord progression of “Stubborn Tiny Lights” or the crunchy, Fennesz-approved minimalist throb of “Ours, That Night Got Away from Us”. He doesn’t waste much time layering as slight rhythmic devices – usually consisting of a buried kick drum or a simple bass line progression – ambient synthesizer swells and tenderly controlled guitar feedback swirl each track into a shimmering, pulsing orb of surprisingly melodic noise. As each song develops, the individual sound sources melt into each other creating accidental harmonies that Lewis cleverly expounds upon. Everything climaxes in a symphonic mess of layered frequency byproducts and unforeseen rhythmic throbs, and finally winded down as each filter is concurrently closed and all that’s left is the initial loop.

Static North may not be reinventing the wheel with his psychedelic shoegazing ambience, but having the hindsight of purveyors past, he knows just which characteristics to utilize. Melodrama is kept succinct by not letting the melodies outwork the static and feedback, and keeping each track under the seven-minute gate of over-indulgence. Guitars, bass, synthesizer and drum machine are obviously his tools of choice, but Lewis is studio-savvy enough to manipulate them into new, more curious sounds where exacting each particular source is near impossible. And most importantly, it has a large enough sonic ceiling not to sound like a bedroom-created record. In fact, he gives enough space for the harmonies to develop that it almost sounds live. Keep an eye to our northern Canadian neighbor because Static North is most likely a name we’ll be gushing about again in the near future.

Diskjokke - "Staying In"

Diskjokke - Interpolation (Smalltown Supersound 2008)

Diskjokke - Staying In / Smalltown Supersound

This past weekend was disconcerting. I woke up on Friday morning thinking it was Saturday for some reason. I woke up on Sunday morning and realized that I had lost an hour of sleep and all of my clocks had jumped ahead an hour without reminding me why. I woke up on Saturday morning thinking it was last week all set to see The Black Lips play a live in-store performance for Reckless Records, only to find out that it was, in fact, March 8th and not March 1st. "Free pizza and beer!" Michael gushed via text. "The band was okay too." At least, that's what I think it was. He wrote it like a 13-year-old girl and I'm getting too old for modern shorthand.

All of which went to serve my urgency for purchasing two tickets to see Kim Hiorthøy and Bjorn Torske at The Empty Bottle this coming Saturday. I have marked my calendar, but it's not necessarily for the two reasons I've just suggested. At the bottom of the showcase night in small letters and opening for the two Smalltown Supersound heavyweight lies one more reason you need to get on top of things and get out a little. This is Diskjokke.

The Bible, Audiversity Version
A reading from the Norwegian book of Genesis:
1.1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and in a bit of cosmic coincidence, both were named Oslo.
1.2 And the earth was without inorganic form, and void of comparison at the time, and its leader became Prins Thomas; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and its leader emerged as Lindstrøm. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters to form the Further Into the Future EP.
1.3 And God said, Let this not be a strictly Feedelity affair; that's where Kim Hiorthøy came in.
1.4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness, which also wasn't bad since they were both adept at what they did.
1.5 And God called Oslo together and said, Let's try something that incorporates the best elements of you all. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
1.6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And for whatever that's worth, there was Diskjokke. It was good.

And on and on it goes, I could give you the unabridged version but you'd be up all night and anyway I don't think your mom will let you stay up past your bedtime will she? But there I just pulled one of those 20JFG run-on sentences to illustrate the point that you have to hurry all the descriptions in that you can because if you're not paying attention and waste all your time dropping commas, Staying In will leap out and pass you right by. It's a sneaky record, an extension of the man behind it.

"Other / Freestyle / Hawaiian"? Watch out, casually passing MySpacers, because Joachim Dyrdahl isn't just tearing up the same spaceways that his Norwegian compatriots run saturn strobes around critics with all day. Check out "I Was to Go to Marrocco [sic] and I Don't See You," which in addition to having a thumping bass and fuzzed synth melody, also seems to hide island steel drums and gigantic gourd drums. Much, much larger than Hawaiians intended. Even with the rollicking piano sample from Coati Mundi's "Que Pasa/Me No Pop I" that starts the record off on "Folk I Farta," this still sounds like a tropical record. The tropics in space. Fiji on Venus. Micronesia on Mars.

A classically trained mathematician by trade, Dyrdahl's work on analysis and differential equations thankfully do not make an obvious imprint on the music in a way that, say, it would be the painful centerpiece for Æo³ & ³hæ. This is music ready to be understood and absorbed by more than the mere cognoscenti. Bring it to the masses! Diskjokke deserves as much, and not everyone can afford Sunkissed every weekend.

Dance music has been at the center of a lot of what I've been listening to in the past week - and I admit, my moods ebb and flow pretty freely - but for reasons not yet fully understood, I have latched onto this record and clung to it in a way that eliminates the guilt and the self-consciousness of listening to music so ready to make people dance to. In a perfect world, "Some Signs Are Good" would be on every laptop DJ's iPod playlist, banged at maximum clarity through amazing speakers to an audience receptive to the idea of not hearing Kanye West every week. Maybe that's just daydreaming, but even if it's not possible here, the sine waves are always traveling, and who knows what otherworldly antennae they may be reaching? If Hercules and Love Affair is Ancient Greece uniting us under the earthly empire of disco, Diskjokke is Voyager I on a much bigger mission: converting those whom we have not yet come into contact with yet. It is hard to think of a better interstellar ambassador than, what else, Staying In. See you at The 'Bottle, Joachim.

Singleversity #48

Audiversity’s weekly column, even more modified, on music we stumble across during our sonic adventures. No random numbers, just straight audio goodness.

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When digging around Blue Note’s catalogue, it’s hard to go wrong in 1964. The phenomenal session players spending evening after evening in Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio all seem to be coming into their own simultaneously as post-bop bent into the avant-garde and free jazz. So you occasionally get these unreal line-ups like that of Andrew Hill’s Andrew!!! which features Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Richard Davis on bass, Joe Chambers on drums and Sun Ra’s saxophonist John Gilmore on tenor. Sometimes overlooked by the pianist’s other two releases in 1964, Point of Departure and Judgement!, Andrew!!! – despite it’s Sam Cooke-like cover art – is as stimulating and curious as any Hill record in the 60s. I especially enjoy "Le Serpent Qui Danse" because it bridges the outgoing and incoming fads in jazz at the time. Hill’s post-bop leaning cascades of piano harmony and Chambers’ steady rhythm eventually dissolve into freer modes as Gilmore’s fractured tenor lines counterbalance the warm pings of Hutcherson’s vibes. It’s a surprisingly prolific line-up with unsurprisingly excellent results.

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If you're like me and you've had the pressing need for a Roaring Twenties period-soundtrack set to your daily happenings to make life more bearable, this one's for you. Check out the bluesy southern stomps of piano juggernaut Jimmy Blythe: Born in Lexington, Kentucky around 1901, young Jimmy took off to Chicago for a new life on the performing front in the booming business of the bootlegged Windy City. After honing his craft under Clarence M. Jones, the 1920s were good to him and he cut a number of piano rolls with noted greats such as Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds and Ma Rainey (as w