Good morning (or close enough),
Welcome to Issue #15 of Crow’s Nest. Per usual, thank you for reading and opening this.
I don’t have a whole lot to write about here. The weather has turned warm and predictions of a hot summer of some kind appear true. I have had Plans recently—impromptu get-togethers and similar, remember those?—which is why this issue is arriving a little early, actually. It’s been kind of meh in my day-to-day but, as my credit card can attest, lots of stuff on the horizon. I have a trip to Miami to plan! And otherwise I am ‘doing the work’ I need to in multiple areas. I hope you are doing similarly or, if the outlook isn’t so rosy, that you’re treading water well, which is always enough.
Tweets and readings will not be in this issue, my apologies. Also if you’re not really into guitar music that sounds good when high you can skip the whole issue I guess. Or start from the second to the bottom, perhaps. It’s a full issue despite a light selection background since not that much has stuck with me recently. At the same time I’ve been drowning in announcements and releases despite the lack of a Bandcamp Friday this month, and also trying to give things multiple spins. And also that Dry Cleaning album remains in heavy rotation, they are 1 of many tickets I’ve bought recently.
This is a reissue dating back to Christchurch, 1980/1. Damn. This is not the Dunedin Sound of jangle-rock, this is something deeper and heavier. These tracks sprawl out, riding a type of undead momentum I tend to associate with no wave. The band released another album in ’84, called it quits, but effectively reformed as Bailter Space 4 years later after that band (initially a bit of a The Clean side project) turned into this same lineup. Others have described this as somewhere between Sonic Youth, Big Black and The Dead C fronted by a Mark E./Robert Smith hybrid. If I’ve not convinced you to press play at this point, I don’t know what more I could say.
Everything from Gothenburg’s Höga Nord Records is worth a spin, in my estimation. Some only one. Many more, a few. This one, many. I don’t have a whole lot of info to go off of for this group, and my recollection is a bit clouded by the edibles kicking in when I tend to listen to this, but it’s a very contemporary update on krautrock with strong dub influences, for sure. There are some longform instrumental freakouts, snappy shorter tracks, left-wing political commentary and more. Wicked song titles too. Somehow it all fits on 1 slab of wax.
In February 2020 right before everything kinda hit the fan experimental rock musicians Greg Fox, Sasha Frere-Jones, Melvin Gibbs and Greg McMurray recorded an album as Body Meπa across 2 sessions. They self-released it last December, and it didn’t do much for me then, but now that local label (and Crow’s Nest fav) Hausu Mountain have reissued it, on CD and tape too, I have come around to it. (I probably needed to give it a little more space and time more than the label’s prompting.) As the album title suggests, these are slow-building tracks aiming towards transcendence, psychedelic haze and all. Heady stuff for the heads, I suppose. Here’s hoping for more where this came from—at its own pace, that is.
While I am now actively gearing up for the return of live music in its full glory, some of the shows I had tickets before things went to hell which held on through constant postponement are just now officially cancelling. One of those was for Tropical Fuck Storm, the Aussie art-punk/pysch-blues group I don’t need to tell you is one of my favorites and my biggest lockdown listening mainstay. While a new TFS album is on the way, frontman Gareth Liddiard has stayed busy on top of that, playing shows with Dirty Three/Xylouris White/even more drummer Jim White in their fairly open home country.
Since then, Liddiard and White have recruited The Necks pianist Chris Abrahams and formed a trio called Springtime. Their first release is this live recording of Havilah deep cut Penumbra, from Liddiard’s other project The Drones. In the ~12 days between that show and release, the 3 have made “two full length records of new stuff and some weird versions of old stuff and lots of crazy stuff stuff stuff”. It’s been another ~12 days since then, to which I say: I donate blood semi-regularly with my left arm. I can use the right one for posting. Hook me up.
Instrumental grime producer Iglew released their debut EP in 2015 right as grime was beginning to crest again, and shutdown had a different implication. I can’t say I missed them in the interim, but now they’re back on Wisdom Teeth with another EP. Leadoff track ‘Caffeine Dream’ is the early highlight though I imagine this will get many more spins before I make some final determinations on that.
Jazz and more label BBE has released this compilation of music from Strata Records, curated by DJ Amir. At over 2.5 hours, there’s a lot in there and surely something for everyone even if you’re not much of a jazz listener. (I appear to be becoming one.) Personal highlights include Kenny Cox’s appearances, Scorpio’s Child by Bert Myrick, and, yes, the Mingus ones towards the end.
Back a few weeks ago when I wasn’t as deluged with new material, I found myself (finally) listening through some of the albums/artists I wanted to check out further from the Soul Jazz compilation Two Synths, A Guitar (And) A Drum Machine - Post Punk Dance. The highlight of those I didn’t already know about is UK group MADMADMAD. I’m not quite sure what subgenre of post-punk you’d file this under—probably some stupid Spotify classification like ‘Minimal Wave Revival’ or ‘EBM Funk’ or ‘Stark Black Background Cover Art’—but I’m glad to have come across it. It’s easy to imagine some lad(s) having fun making this while not taking it too seriously despite the sharp programming, considering the title sounds like some mocking banter.
Another thing I managed to dig into before my inbox got the best of me is this, via Tone Glow’s Winter 2021 Listening Corner issue. Paul Lansky is one of electronic music’s major innovators—a sample from his 1972/3 piece Mild und leise became very iconic in 2000, you know the one—and this album from the mid-90s is further proof of that. The more rhythmic tracks from this album sound quite like something Holly Herndon would have released in the mid-2010s. Maybe I need a refresher on what works in the club, but this also sounds like something you might hear slotted in an AD 93-affiliated NTS show.
Speaking of AD 93, their most recent announcement is for a new collaboration between production duo Raime and percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Both have been on my periphery for a while—esp. the former as I get Boomkat’s emails—though neither has quite captured my attention. This team-up seems like it will do the trick though, if the rest of the album is as strong as these first singles. If you know my taste you’re aware this is pretty damn close to a bulls-eye for me. Excellent cover art too.
Footwork? Really like it. Experimental footwork? Now we’re talking. On Planet Mµ? Are we making a Vince McMahon meme here? Jokes aside, the lead single from this album lives up to its title. It’s billed not as a footwork album, but rather an experimental document of Rush’s growth while struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. The lead single lives up to its name even when the lounge piano appears. DJ Paypal features twice too. You’ve got 2 months to prepare for the whole thing.
One of many bands poised to have a breakthrough 2020 before, well, the pandemic scuttled those plans, local group Cafe Racer put out a solid record on Born Yesterday. As the world continues to shake off the impact of the pandemic in fits and starts, and major show promoters act like the past year and half was mostly a period of suspended animation, the Bottle has booked them for one of the 3-night residencies of local acts they are staging before they return to full-capacity shows in August. I’m still deciding on which night to go see them and catch a glimpse, in a sense, of what could have been with them.
And with that my Plans beckon so I’m calling it here. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you, as always, for reading. I hope you found something worth listening to within. Here’s a pic of some goslings growing up: