Hey howdy hello,
Welcome to issue #11 of Crow’s Next. Thank you for reading and opening as usual.
Life’s been fairly easy and boring for me as of late and I don’t have a big essay in me. Recently I’ve been purging some stuff from my living spaces both electronic and irl—I got rid of the majority of my unopened emails that for months I’d been telling myself I’d get to, along with some papers and other small miscellany that have piled up in my apartment as of late. (Several hundred browser tabs on my laptop are next, having crashed my draft of this early on.) It feels nice to accept that there are some things you won’t get to, and let go of them. Hopefully that mentality can stick around, though spring cleaning is an annual event for a reason.
The web editor is telling me this newsletter is too long for email even before I add in the ending bit, so read this in web if you don’t see everything inside.
This has been on heavy repeat for me for the last 2 weeks so naturally it gets top billing here. Weaver has had a lengthy career with her electronics-heavy take on old school psychedelia and pop. There are several points where a barrage of flutes flattens me while giving it a spin, and the questioning lyrical hooks have also burrowed themselves into my mind. I can tell this will remain a highlight for me for quite some time.
Local label Hausu Mountain released the first of an expected four 2-hour long releases this year from the duo of Bonnie Baxter and Machine Girl (who is also doing soundtrack work for forthcoming Switch/PC game Neon White). These releases are to coincide with the changes in seasons, starting with the vernal equinox last week. If you missed that for this, sorry. The experimental not-quite-dance electronics hold up outside of March 20th, to be clear, and feel appropriate given the group’s name. Several people recommend listening to this while wriggling around in a muddy forest; I can’t say I’ve done that myself though that’s certainly one way to get the most out of this.
Floating Points (producer Sam Shepherd) and jazz legend Pharaoh Sanders released their collaborative album Promises this week. Many publications have been praising it to high heavens, for very good reasons. The blend of Sanders’s horn and vocals, Shepherd’s electronics and the London Symphony Orchestra’s contributions is an utterly spellbinding masterwork for all three that will certainly last the test of time. Give this a spin in a quieter moment if you’ve not already.
The title of this album, a collaboration between electronic-drone choir NYX and Gazelle Twin, is completely on the nose and supremely accurate. I’m restraining myself from making some type of “going medieval” pun here but this is truly a deep excavation of the roots of English society in the pagan and folk traditions you hear in some persons like Richard Dawson and XTC, beyond some more surface level settings. Pastoralism, the English notion of amateurism, nativism and the oppression inherent in inward-turning conservatism of late come to mind when listening, and you’ll be hard pressed to find some choral work on the level of the one-two punch of Fire Level and Better In My Day. It may seem historic—and I’d guess it will be—but it is also unsettlingly contemporary.
I read Chris Frantz’s memoir Remain In Love over the past week. It’s a necessary corrective to the outsized role David Byrne is credited for in Talking Heads, though quite a hollow read. If you like celebrity anecdotes and unlikely encounters it’s good, though the rest of the book itself is not that good. Once the irl situation improves more ask me about this after a few drinks for more.
There have been a few Baffler pieces I enjoyed recently:
-Rich Woodall on Hignosis and other investment firms buying up song catalogs is an essential read if you have a passing interest in the contemporary music landscape (which I assume you do if you’re here). The sizable impact this is gearing up to have on music, particularly with respect to nostalgia-driven listening I’ve sure you’ve experienced or at least encountered in the past year, is quite disturbing to anyone concerned with the contemporary state of music or the world, as the article extrapolates on.
-Michael King on the structural issues that resulted in the major Texas blackout accompanying the winter storm last month is a good look at the situation and things may be poised to change in the state
-Jasper Craven also has a good look at the complex nature of Madison Cawthorn’s presumptions of valor and America’s relationship with its veterans
The latest New Yorker issues have had a number of good articles:
-Andrew Solomon on contemporary polyamory and polygamy is a highly thought-provoking piece on a controversial issue in a way I wasn’t expecting
-Louis Menand on the New Left is a good primer on a historical moment I’ve only glanced over in some of my history classes
-Ian Parker on HGTV is a good look on the past, present and future of the channel as the streaming colossus gets even bigger for the small screen
Finally in terms of reading, after several weeks or months of attempts I finally got through László Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below. It’s a very dense work of existentialism contemplating sacred beauty and the quest for perfection in capital-a Art across time and space in the non-indigenous world, and how some struggle with that. It didn’t do a whole lot for me since I don’t have a strong connection to the Art world, nor do I feel it reflected in my experience or self-importance and that. I’m glad I read it but the level of disconnect between myself and it was too much to bridge fully.
The last chapter of Seiobo There Below concerns the anguish, screams of death and weight of history associated with some of early China’s burial tombs. It’d be way too presumptuous to assume that was on the mind of the teenagers about to enter high school in Linyi who created this record, but I can’t shake that feeling when their cacophony and coughing reaches delirious levels, especially after the past year. It’s a tired joke to claim it’s impossible to tell whether jazz/experimental/contemporary classical music is “good” or not, or how such a conclusion can even be made, in many cases, and that comes to mind here. The guitar and string heavy improvisations suggest a strong level of natural talent, even when a song is obviously an unstructured jam. Whether the work is “good” or not seems besides the point here. The press release notes all 4 members are now at different high schools; I certainly hope the friendship embodied in this release stays strong and they continue to refine their craft when they can.
I’m not a deep literary critic so I’m probably missing a fair amount to this, but there is something deep to this collaboration. The work of Jenny Hval and Håvard Volden, who is a regular in Hval’s band, the title translates to “the human collective” and isn’t a million miles form what you might expect. Everything about this work is quite liminal, from the vocals to the track lengths to the underlying beats and instrumentation. I can’t tell if my lack of desire to sit down and “think” about this work hampers my understanding of it, or if it is perhaps meta-textual commentary on the contemporary condition vis a vis podcasts, lengthy criticism of art that seems disconnected from day-to-day life, etc. It’s a pleasant listen at minimum.
Kenyan producer Slikback found himself the toast of underground dance music after some breakout early work with Uganda’s Nyege Nyege. This self-released EP does not strongly touch the trap sounds he’s leaned toward since then, but still sounds distinctly Slikback. While he has another EP out in June via the ByrdOut label, he’s announced he will be turning inward to focus on creating new sounds, self-releasing his music and refraining from interviews, so if you haven’t already be sure to follow him at the usual spots, you won’t regret it.
Given its historical significance to jazz and other genres, it strikes me as odd to consider that New Orleans is not considered a contemporary heavyweight in music. Things seems to be changing as a crop of mostly queer groups and collectives emerge to wider attention, such as Special Interest and JOY. Take DJ collective TRAX ONLY, who released a 3-part compilation series and zine highlighting producers from the city. My memory of the later volumes is quite foggy since I was spinning them while doing some work-related testing at 1 AM last Wednesday, but this is well worth your attention. A particular highlight for me so far is smartbar resident Shaun J. Wright’s kickoff track. Keep your eyes on this scene.
Free jazz was a major influence on Krautrock during the late 60s and 70s, and like the developing contemporary New Orleans scene I’m actually a bit surprised it’s taken as long for krautrock to feed back into jazz than one might expect. This compilation came to my attention over Twitter solely based on that genre name fusion. The names are new to me but the attitude and contemporary instrumentation isn’t; it seems London is not the only European city with a jazz scene worth talking about.
Berlin-based producer perila is well-acclaimed, with a strong series of ambient and ambient-adjacent releases, including numerous collaborations within that scene. This EP was released a few weeks ago. Opener “can we just be real” is the highlight for me, with some hazy keys and lyrics in the vein of CURL’s quieter moments, alongside a pleasant breakbeat. For quieter moments.
Here’s a slab of “INDIGENOUS BASS FOR YOUR MUTHA@#$%&* FACE” out of Auckland, Aotearoa. Stylistically it’s more like Drexciya’s electro than what I would consider bass music, but then again I’m not a huge genre purist and probably mangle describing multiple releases with each issue so I have no standing on that. The Taonga pūoro (traditional Māori instruments for the pākehā readers like me) on the first track are a nice touch.
The label Promesses is based in Paris but its heart feels farther afield, in Lisbon or elsewhere within the African diaspora. This is the label’s first compilation, and with 30 tracks it’s certainly a lot to take in. There are some familiar faces—DJ Lycox, Kelman Duran—but the highlights during my first listen were unknown to me—Loto Retina, Apulait Bien, Antoine 80. If this is a sampler of what’s to come for the label, I’m excited by that even if it’s not all to my liking.
The latest release from London’s All Centre label is this EP from producer Endless Mow. Both tracks are percussion-heavy club numbers that I’ve found myself replaying a number of times over the past couple of days.
I’ve been on a bit of a Talking Heads kick as of late and not solely due to reading Remain In Love this past week. Fear of Music has been the big one recently. In my mind the motifs are beginning to meld together outside the big ones for the album, though each time I listen I’m surprised that the beat drop in Animals is not a bigger topic of idle conversation about the group given how hard it goes.
Alright, that’s enough for this issue. If you’ve gotten here, thank you for reading and subscribing; I hope something inside has ticked your fancy. Here’s a picture of a duck doing yoga I caught on a walk yesterday.