Crow’s Nest 27: 012322
All we had to do was stay home and get high for a bit and we can’t/couldn’t smfh
As one of my project managers likes to say, Greetings, and welcome to the latest issue of Crow’s Nest. As always, if you are perceiving this text in some manner at some time, thank you for doing so, I hope you find something within you enjoy. After a week delay because, eh, at that time I found my recent listening to be a little weak, I’m back and in full force for this, including the return of readings. This issue is enough of an essay already and hit the ‘too long for email’ notice while dropping in the tweets so nothing big in the opening, let’s get to it.
I’d not heard of the Soundcarriers before Wilds was announced, but from the first listen of the titular opening track I knew I would love this. The Nottingham quartet last released an album in 2014 and it was well worth the wait for this followup. Psych-pop throwing influences from French music, tropicália, the Beach Boys and other huge swaths of the 60s and more into a blender, this is a dense, heady but not heavy listen. Think Stereolab without the synths if Joe Dilworth were more of a jazzy showoff behind the kit and high in the mix, with flutes, organs and effects pedals supplying the trippiness. The sort of record to pull out a few years down the line and make your friends go ‘Oh my god what is that!’ while it spins. Undeniably my album of the year so far and it may be a while before that changes.
Assembling links for the last Crow’s Nest, I came across a tranche of The Dead C albums I hadn’t listened to yet. This led to discovery that (since their last Crow’s Nest feature?) the Port Chalmers noise rock deconstructionists put their self-released Language Recordings records up on Bandcamp. I suppose The White House, their ‘“big” on Spotify’ record, will be the highlight for most but 2 others caught my ear more: New Electric Music, particularly the half-hour Forever live recording, featuring a deliciously splodgy noise kick like a photo negative of the Promises motif; and We Don’t Know Anymore, an hour+ 2018 live recording of them in full-on drone rock mode—emphasis on ‘drone’ there. Wonderful listens for those with open ears.
Experimental Japanese not quite metal but nothing comes as close to describing them as metal group Boris released their latest album W on Sacred Bones this week. While I’m not terribly familiar with their back catalog, this record finds them in a crystalline ambient mode that feels perfectly timed for the winter weather we’ve been experiencing here in Chicago. There’s some sonic trickery afoot—sudden stops and switch-ups, unconventional mixing—but that just adds to the charm and encourages active listening.
When I first heard about the anonymous writer Evan Dara, a description of their debut novel The Lost Scrapbook as a postmodern tour de force more underground (and better) than David Foster Wallace certainly appealed to my undergraduate (and tbh present) pretensions. Finally reading it a couple years later, the 1996 systems novel’s whispery and unsteady narration, inventive vocabulary, and literary games-playing documenting the collapse of a downwardly mobile lower Midwest town to predatory neoliberal corporatism managed to live up to that description while, tragically, remains relevant to the present day. (P.S.: Cam if you’re reading this I’d like my copy back when you’re in town for Pavement. No rush though.)
I’ve read of bit of their other work since but it wasn’t as good. Their most recent novel, Permanent Earthquake, simplifies the narrative structure but retains the mysticism and mental provocativeness. It’s a existential work following the main character living through the post-apocalyptic titular phenomena, ravaging what seems like a fictionalized Haiti as the society rebuilds for its upper classes while the underclasses struggle to survive against the unrelenting shaking. The metaphors and bigger picture are unclear though come into focus as the main character, working as a day laborer hauling rocks for the rebuilding to earn money for food and basic protective gear, traverses in search of respite from it all.
Dara, whoever they are, retains an incredible command of verbal inventiveness to describe what’s going on without relying on hypermasculine survivalist cliches. Outside of a physical therapist’s office or yoga instructor training, you’ll probably never encounter such a vivid physical bodily awareness as you do reading one of the myriads of descriptors of a body when taking even 1 step forward presents a major hazard. It’s another one-of-a-kind work from the elusive author.
The opening excerpt of Permanent Earthquake can be read at n+1.
Here are some other articles I’ve enjoyed recently:
Music writer and Silicon Valley finance type Ted Gioia, as he’s admitted online and in followups, has hit a nerve with his recent article ‘Is Old Music Killing New Music?’ Looking at macro-level consumption trends in the music industry, he identifies a pattern that old music—18+ months since release but especially classics from the 60s through the 80s—is becoming more dominant as major labels invest more in acquiring legacy back catalogs than developing new artists. It’s a provocative argument especially among those like me (and presumably you) who are likely to get defensive about this and profess support for new music. And yet, like The Economist’s “Music festivals: does it matter who’s playing?” from a few years ago, I find it hard to fully disagree when I try setting aside my personal bias and looking at the bigger picture. I’m still going to do what I do to promote new stuff and try not to fall for the algorithmic le wrong generationism though.
This blog post on the story behind an 18-year old’s 1977 best dub reggae albums list is a charming look back into the genre and related community’s past. I’ve probably not listened to anything on it and yet I’ll file it away to dig into at some future point.
I’m not going to listen to the linked podcast episode, but I did like Alex Pareene trying to find the guy who’s policing our pandemic behavior and preventing use from getting back to normal.
If you found the recent brouhaha about the character redesigns of the M&Ms characters used to sell the candy on the boob tube to be absurdly stupid, you might get a chuckle out of Indignity’s riff on it.
Also from Indignity, it’s behind their paywall but their explanation on what NYC’s new mayor Eric Adams’s whole deal is was illuminating to me the way David Roth was on Trump. I can forward it to you if you’d like but the main thesis is that Adams is first and foremost a cop, and accordingly behaves and acts like one.
I was never a fan of Meat Loaf but in light of his passing, this article from old Deadspin on him coaching a high school girls’ softball team was quite charming.
More recently, the blogging idiots at Deadspin successor publication Defector have been looking into what the deal is with Color Plus, a Chinese construction materials corporation turned master class cum metaverse/NFT platform who landed a primo 76ers sponsorship deal. The deal has since been terminated, likely as a result of Defector’s in-depth examination of Color Plus’s sucky weirdness, and the mysterious company leaders are threatening to sue the bloggers as a result of that. You’ll want to grab some popcorn for this one.
From The New Yorker:
-Joshua Yaffa on the Siberian permafrost and the implications of its melting both locally and globally
-Patrick Radden Keefe on Jordan Thomas, the complicated lawyer who works with whistleblowers to expose (and reward for exposing) financial and biomedical malpractice
-Eren Orbey examines (in more ways than one) “A Daughter’s Quest to Free Her Father’s Killer”
Despite this EP being out on SVBKVLT, listening to it blindly you wouldn’t expect Rilla to be a Seoul-based producer from Fukuoka. It sounds more like something on Nyege Nyege or perhaps another collaboration between the Chinese and East African undergrounds than a standalone SVBKVLT release. This is psychedelic, hypersonic tribal dance music to my ears—hypertribal music? Is that a thing? [glances furtively] can we make that a thing?
As someone who listens to a fair number of electronic music compilations, I find many underwhelm with overly-long, indistinct stylings that leave little in the way of impressions. This one, from Elena Columbi’s Osàre! Editions label, definitely isn’t that. Inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés's 1992 text of the same name, this compilation feels cohesive, like the recordings from a future primitive matriarchal society. (Not being familiar with the text I can only assume that’s intentional, and a successful interpretation at that.) If I had to geographically locate this somewhere I’d place it in Latin America, though the backgrounds of contributors including Maral, Bergsonist and Deradoorian complicate that. Of particular note for me are Chicago/Amsterdam producer Fetter’s tracks, with her staccato arpeggiations and drone work turning blissful.
The line running from krautrock to modern dance music is near-straight—what would happen to the latter without Neu! and Kraftwerk, let alone other synth experimentalism—yet sonically the former’s influence can frequently feel imperceptible. That becomes clear when listening to the first track off this EP from TV Victor, when you realize the drums sound distinctly like what Jaki Liebezeit was doing in CAN. Thankfully this EP does more than try to square motorik for the modern dance floor, and moves in a more ominously droning direction. Drone dance, anyone?
Speaking of CAN I’ve given another listen to the second in their series of officially released live recordings, this one from Brighton in 1975, and it stands up as a solid addition to their catalog. It starts off a bit conventional for them—though Michael Karoli doing a lead vocal at one point definitely isn’t—but by the end, as Jaki rains down hellfire over a jam that started from that keyboard riff from Vitamin C, you’re in the zone and find yourself in awe at the power of the main quartet just like an extended jam blowing your mind on one of their studio recordings.
I’ve gotten back on a kick of the BBE J Jazz recordings recently, prompted by an email that Vol. 2 of their compilation series has been repressed. A couple days ago they reissued At The Room 427 by Koichi Matsukaze Trio Featuring Ryojiro Furusawa. 20-minute opener Acoustic Chicken was featured on Vol. 3 and sees the trio in a post-modal power bop/free jazz mode (the press’s words, not mine). If I’m bad at writing about music in general I will admit to knowing nothing about classifying jazz or writing about it, I’ll just say this sounds wonderful. Recorded in the titular classroom in 1976. Wow. Had I been exposed to stuff like this during school perhaps I would’ve stuck with it. Maybe.
Lisbon’s Violet-helmed label naivety put out this short EP from Príncipe associate PT Musik a few days ago. As you can imagine these are raw, kuduro and batida-inflected bangers from one of my favorite dance music scenes around. The highlight for me has to be final track ‘Other’ with its wonderfully attention grabbing syncopated line that comes in partway through.
This self-titled debut EP from the anonymous London producer signals a promising future for whoever they are. It’s a fresh take on IDM, deconstructed club, the PC Music sound and more, moving in weird directions.
The anonymous Seoul musician behind the chunky sheogaze/emo project Parannoul released this album under a new alias to mark the new year. It’s ambient in a warm vein; as the cover art and Bandcamp page background imply this is very much alive-feeling music like a long walk through nature when the plan life is in full bloom. I’m not the biggest ambient music person (despite what this issue’s content may suggest) yet find this a great listen; whoever is behind this project is clearly not a one-trick pony and I can only hope their recent hot streak continues.
Darkside, the duo of Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington, came back from hiatus mid-pandemic with their second album Spiral. That did little for me, unlike debut Psychic, though this week they released this one-off single from the Spiral sessions. Why this didn’t make the cut is a mystery to me, it sounds a hell of a lot better/more memorable than the rest of that album. (Perhaps their orb-pondering advised against its inclusion there.) I didn’t catch them live during their initial run and, assuming they tour again, hopefully they bring this song’s psychedelic, psychically damaged noise-motorik stylings out and slay crowds with it.
DC label U-Uidos associate Geo Rip put out this self-titled EP on The Trilogy Tapes a few weeks ago. It’s a charming, active home listening record I hope you enjoy.
And I’m calling it on this issue. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for doing so, I appreciate it and hope you found something within you enjoy, even if it’s only my words. Not that I’d bet on it but it appears the Omicron wave is easing up here in Chicago at least; hopefully this year is nothing like the past 2 when it comes to the pandemic. Until next time, take care.