Hi, welcome to issue #21 of Crow’s Nest. If these issues were birthdays this newsletter would now be legally able to drink in the United States. Thankfully that’s not the case but it’s still impressive we’re now in the newsletter’s early 20s.
Thank you as always for opening and reading this, I hope you find something within you enjoy. Four weeks between issues is a bit long for me, but considering the music festivals I’ve attended in between issues (reviewed below) and the newsletter’s low price of “free”, I hope you’re understanding of that. I’ve also been quite stressed out by my job recently so new releases and that have piled up as of late, though there should be a good selection of things below. The editor is telling me the photos below make this too long for email, so open it in the browser if you must.
Pitchfork Music Festival, the first music festival I ever went to, holds a special place in my heart, and a decade later was the first festival I attended since the pandemic kicked off. ‘Dusty’ was among my first impressions of Union Park, not for the dominant hip-hop style or rustiness of the festival staff in making it all work, but it a literal sense. Clouds of (mostly) dust kicked up all weekend, especially on the smaller Blue stage, working into a thick layer beneath my fingernails and getting into my sinuses each day. Even if you weren’t too concerned about spreading or contracting COVID-19 by attending, you had a compelling argument for wearing a mask on festival grounds. Admittedly, this being the 3rd major fest to occur in Union Park in the previous month, the grounds were in great shape. It was also an unexpected reminder of the physicality of live music that many have not experienced in over a year and a half, beyond the volume of the speakers and anticipated sore feet and fatigue after 3 days of mostly standing around outside.
Indeed, it was the physical return of music and the live music experience that was my favorite part of the festival, beyond any of the individual acts. I wouldn’t describe the weekend as ‘sensual’ or however many have described the return of physical connection as it becomes more common again, but it was a pleasure to casually run into friends I’ve not seen in years, or meet in-person for the first time, exchange a little small talk, and hang around with for .5-3 sets during the day. Discussing plans to catch certain artists, especially when they don’t align with your expected tastes for them, or gestures like getting a drink for someone when you went for one yourself are nice reminders of the complexities of life which don’t necessarily translate in online intermediaries.
Non-music onsite activity was a bit lacking compared to previous years, understandably so, and the curatorial challenge of booking a lineup balancing Pitchfork’s own tastes and range provided some uneven moments. There were schedule conflicts even with only 2 stages playing music at once (sorry, Kelly Lee Owens and Yaeji). There were plenty of great acts from a combination of of-the-moment artists (Yves Tumor, The Weather Station, Big Thief), up-and-coming acts (Special Interest, Horsegirl, Dogleg), and—dare I say it—legacy Pitchfork acts (Animal Collective, Ty Segall) throughout the weekend. But on the whole the lineup leaned towards the mellower side, and while there’s nothing wrong with acts like Phoebe Bridgers and Andy Shauf, one would expect a bit more excitement on stage after the sun set each day.
The festival may no longer be the hipster pilgrimage it once was (there’s no way to ironically drink a White Claw, sorry) and there are some signs of strain in trying to both curate against an over-homogenized musical soundscape and also sell tickets to more casual fans who don’t obsess over what gets Best New Music and what doesn’t. But any festival whose most talked-about acts take the stage at 5 PM, and whose attendees might be more upset about missing a 2 PM set than seeing the end of the headliner’s act remains worth cherishing.
Perhaps my favorite moment of the whole festival came on Saturday afternoon, during RP Boo’s last-minute appearance to replace last-minute dropout Jay Electronica. I’m not quite sure what it was, watching the legendary footwork producer, supported by a father-daughter pair of dancers, play cuts from his new album Established! alongside more playful selections (including a Funkytown remix). It might’ve been in part his naturally sunny disposition, but despite everything that’s transpired in the past nearly 2 years, there he was—there we were—still in Chicago, playing his music—listening to our music—to a crowd 5 to 10 times larger than you might normally expect. That itself seems worth celebrating.
A week after Pitchfork instead of the usual 2-month gap, Riot Fest informally closed out Chicago’s summer season in Douglass Park on the west side. Despite numerous high-profile cancellations from concerned headliners in light of the Delta variant, the festival managed to re-book comparable acts on short notice. It’s unfortunate then, as the A.V. Club noted, that the fest “[didn’t] appear to be taking the whole COVID thing seriously”. While it never felt particularly unsafe or unsanitary on the festival grounds, partially due to its large size never feeling overly crowded or packed (good luck having a fulfilling fest day and keeping your step count below 10,000), mask-wearing among event staff and vendors was noticeably lower than at Pitchfork, and I never found the hand-washing stations (only hand sanitizer dispensers) noted on the fest’s web site.
Admittedly, the fest, which targets a more punk-leaning crowd not as inclined to dance to their guitar music, isn’t as much my thing as Pitchfork. In many past years I usually did not go due to not being in the area and/or unable to justify the cost of going, the latter extending to this year. I only went Saturday after trading some free Friday tickets for that with a friend, and had I realized the size of the hole Nine Inch Nails and Pixies’ cancellation would leave in my schedule on Sunday, I would’ve tried selling or refunding that ticket and going off the free pair I wound up receiving. A Thursday pre-party booked as a sort of consolation for Sunday did nothing for me, not wanting to trek halfway across the city on a school night for … Morrissey in 2021. (I feel that ‘says a lot’ about the fest’s attitude, and its attendees too.) The acts I did intend to catch—including DEVO, Run The Jewels, Bleached and Les Savy Fav—were pretty good, but the crowd seemed to lean more towards a somewhat older millennial cohort who’ve had enough time to recover from the Great Recession to get nostalgic about their MySpace glory days.
The fest bills itself as a carnival in addition to a music festival, and when it’s in town the extractive logic of the circus is hard to shake. It was about 10 times easier to buy a $10 beer on the festival grounds than any food, with plentiful bar staff surprised at their short lines. If you think that’s an exaggeration, when you factor in walking distance and waiting upwards of an hour for your grub, you’re right, I’m probably underestimating the ease of buying food. The festival’s self-aware, internet-friendly branding, which ate its own tail a few years ago when it named its fest-exclusive beer the “Riot Fest Sucks IPA”, has curdled into something resembling two-faced Promethean stasis. Riot Fest sells negative merch about itself directly next to the standard stuff and makes no strong effort to wink at or acknowledge the difference, except for maybe an exculpatory, ex post facto ‘it’s satire/sarcasm’ comment. I don’t fully begrudge a large independent music organization for being overly capitalist, and most of it was sold out by the end of Sunday if not sooner, but there is something deeply cynical and off-putting about a festival charging you $30 extra for the privilege of telling you to go fuck yourself for actually being here. Or whatever an official “Riot Fest Sucks” shirt is meant to convey.
Again, the festival isn’t fully for me, and much of my enthusiasm was drained by circumstances outside of my control. I certainly don’t wish ill on the 32 couples who got legally married at the Thursday pre-party, nor can I fault everyone wearing their favorite band’s merch (or Riot Fest gear purchased earlier) to the gig even if I find the gesture a bit tacky. But is it too much to ask that a festival be more concerned about providing a better experience to its GA crowd than trying to get them to take out their wallets for another sizable expense on top of the already pricey tickets?
One thing was certain at both Pitchfork and Riot Fest: music festivals cannot wait to sell their own marijuana on festival grounds. Both fests featured a prominent cannabis sponsor, and if Illinois’s sales figures of recreational weed during the pandemic and Lollapalooza’s sizable out-of-town contingent are any indication, these festivals are salivating at the opportunity to sell $40 preroll joints on their grounds. As the interregnum period for live music enforced by the pandemic comes to a close, the proposed reimagining of the industry is here, and it wants even more from your wallet.
Anyway, I have written enough to not want to dig up tweets or recent readings I’ve really enjoyed, so we’ve only got the music from here. Enjoy!
When Duluth band Low announced their followup album to 2018’s Double Negative, I was less concerned with if the album would be good than with how good it would be. Now just the husband-wife duo of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, their latest collaboration with producer BJ Burton finds them plunging deeper into the vocal harmony and distortion scaffolding, practically abandoning conventional instrumentation in the process. It’s an utterly bewitching and spellbinding sound once you get past the intro to ‘White Horses’, a strong contender for song of the year. If you’ve managed to avoid putting this on in the 2 weeks since its release despite its near-universal praise, it’s right below, correct that immediately.
JD Twitch’s Optimo label, well into its 2nd decade of activity after years of parties in Scotland, continues digging up under-the-radar gems at a strong pace. One of the latest is this double album of kosmiche meets acid house, remastered for this reissue. I hate to throw around the word ‘transcendent’ casually but this is definitely that, especially on the LP-side long later tracks. It never sounds overbearing or too intense despite the level of precision involved; the press release’s description of drum machines absorbing Jaki Liebezeit’s groove seems apt. Brooklyn, 1993. Aphex who?
A few issues back, I noted the debut release of Springtime, an Aussie supergroup consisting of Tropical Fuck Storm’s Gareth Liddiard, drummer Jim White and The Necks’ Chris Abrahams, and that I was hotly awaiting more music. This week they announced their self-titled debut album, and it is everything I felt it would be, easily one of the best debuts I’ve heard in a while. Their avant-garde, jazz-rock leaning sound isn’t a million miles away from OK Computer-era Radiohead, to my ears, and is anchored in Abrahams’s piano with White and Liddiard adding their own signature-y parts to create an intoxicating mix. There’s a Will Oldham cover and 2 are musical adaptations of poetry from Ian Duhig, Liddiard’s uncle. The full album is out November 5th.
At this point I’d also like to note that Tropical Fuck Storm, one of my favorite bands of the past few years, also released their latest album Deep States about a month ago. It’s good and has some great songs, but it’s not good enough to spotlight in Crow’s Nest. Not the only muddled 3rd album from an Antipodean favorite from mid-August, for me, in this issue.
Bristol bass label Livity Sound released this 10th-anniversary compilation of cuts from the back catalog this week. Bringing a bit of a brighter flavor to the dance floor, it’s a good starting point to jump in to their sound. While much of this would be even more familiar to me if I spent more time with dance EPs, the Bruce track is my highlight upon first listen.
Lorde’s third album Solar Power has been an intriguing mystery since its release about a month ago; it’s rare to see something land to the confusion of all parties who don’t know what to make of it and its quality, with even the most devoted stans unable to full-throatedly defend it. While it’s poised to be a grower if not a future classic, Lorde has since followed it up with a companion EP of several album tracks sung in the indigenous te reo Māori of her home country. As a non-Kiwi Pākehā with some significant exposure to Māori culture, it’s still a bit challenging (and also not my place) to know what to make of the gesture; I’ll consider the muted followup and lack of controversy about it as an indicator of its acceptability.
On a musical level, this EP is much better than the English-language album. Lorde’s singing takes on an operatic quality that smooths out her vocal tics, making this a much more bearable listen than Solar Power. It helps that the worst offenders from SP of clunky phrasing, shoehorned-in cultural references, and meaningless drug use her younger self memorably sneered at are absent here. It’s still not phenomenal—the vocal harmonies and instrumentation do too little to make things more interesting, even at their most exciting—but this EP is the one I find myself listening to. Here’s hoping some of these takes make it into her upcoming live shows (alongside plenty of older songs). No embed as I couldn’t find an appropriate non-streaming one.
This EP came out of nowhere for me, and based on the number of purchasers I’d be surprised if you knew about this one yourself. Recorded in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, a new techno outpost for me, these are some noisy sci-fi tracks of a shockingly high caliber. I’m reminded of the experimental/deconstructed techno on iDEAL, expeditious footwork odysseys, or something close to what Slikback has been releasing recently. This is one to keep in reserve for a while.
Noisy indie group Ovlov announced their latest record Buds will be out in November on Brooklyn institution Exploding In Sound. The label also released another pressing of their 2013 album Am. Listening to that full album, I loved the sprawl of its songs, how they seemed to go on for too long, riding the wave of the jams that they are. The new single certainly sounds cleaner than that older work, though it won’t be too long before I make a more solid determination on that.
When I was in college in Oklahoma I never got too deep into the local music scenes, lacking a car and the ambition to embed myself too deeply in the environs. I do recall catching and enjoying a few PVLMS sets, them being one of the few (if only) dance music groups not in thrall to EDM at the time there. It was a nice surprise to see this pop up in my inbox through Melbournian label clipp.art. They’ve since relocated to LA and this lo-fi house number is a nice laid-back piece from them and some collaborators.
It’s not clear when, if ever, we may run out of unknown first-wave post-punk acts to re-discover, though reserves appear to still remain healthy, somehow. This expanded release of the sole EP from the Tampa, Florida act The Stick Figures (1979-1981) is a nice surprise. There’s surf rock inflections, some early Talking Hands-like sounds, springy hooks and a made-this-year dub that make for a pleasant, surprising listen from a band finding their footing. Despite fracturing after moving to New York, they’ve had a quietly influential afterlife; in 1986 guitarist Bill Casey lent a $125 Fender Jazzmaster picked up in a Tampa trailer park to this guy Kevin Shields in a band called My Bloody Valentine—perhaps you’ve heard the results of that? An unreleased album from them is slated for next spring.
I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one other than it’s a good EP from a Berlin techno institution.
I’m not big on pairing up unrelated releases with one another, but there have been a pair of krautrock b-sides my ears have enjoyed recently:
This from Brooklyn producer Time Wharp, with a more modular synth and sax heavy sound on the A-side:
And this one from Bristol’s Beak>. Drummer Geoff Barrow (who you probably know more from his role in Portishead) sounds especially CAN-like on the B-side.
I’ve run out of steam at this point so I’m calling it an issue here. As always, if you’ve gotten to this point in it, thank you for reading Crow’s Nest; I hope you found something enjoyable within. @embirdened on Twitter or through any of the links within if you’d like to reach out and discuss anything within, I always appreciate that. Until next time, take care.